“A Turk’s mustachio”: Anglo-Islamic Traffic and Exotic London in Ben Jonson’s Every Man out of His Humour and Entertainment at Britain’s Burse

Abstract

In Ben Jonson’s Every Man out of His Humour (1599), the vainglorious knight Puntarvolo, an energetic self-fashioner “wholly consecrated to singularity,” dictates the contract that will govern his upcoming adventure to “the Turk’s court in Constantinople” and his relationship with his business partners (4.3.10–11).1 He outlines the means of transportation he may use, provisions to guard against him or his companion turning Turk, the feeding of his dog and cat, and a promise to bring back “testimony of the performance” by bringing “thence a Turk’s mustachio, my dog a Grecian hare’s lip, and my cat the train or tail of a Thracian rat” (4.3.36–7). He also describes an elaborate set of provisions designed to maintain the delicate balance between social openness and guardedness necessary for such an adventure: That, after the receipt of his money, [the partner] shall neither in his own person, nor any other, by direct or indirect means, as magic, witchcraft, or other such exotic arts, attempt, practise, or complot anything to the prejudice of me, my dog or my cat: neither shall I use the help of any such sorceries or enchantments, as unctions to make our skins impenetrable, or to travel invisible by virtue of a powder or a ring, or to hang any three-forked charm about my dog’s neck, secretly conveyed into his collar: (understand you?) but that all will be performed secretly, without fraud or imposture. (4.3.24–33)