Mosca: I am so limber. Oh! Your parasite Is a most precious thing, dropped from above, Not bred 'mongst clods and clot-poles, here on earth. I muse, the mystery was not made a science, It is so liberally professed! Almost All the wise world is little else, in nature, But parasites, or sub-parasites.

Mosca speaks these lines in soliloquoy in Act III, scene i, lines 7–13. Mosca is Volpone's "parasite", a lackey or servant almost completely dependent on Volpone for his livelihood. But in these lines, he professes that what defines him as a parasite-the fact that he must live off the wealth of another, instead of working hard to produce his own-is in fact characteristic of most "wise" (or intelligent) people in the world. The play will prove him right in claiming that parasitism is widespread, at least in Venetian society; Volpone, Voltore, Corbaccio, Corvino all are "parasites" to some extent. But the play's moral satire will attempt to refute his claim that this parasitism is, in fact, wise.