1st Avo: And these are all your judgments.
All.: Honoured fathers.
1st Avo: Which may not be revoked. Now you begin, When crimes are done and past, and to be punished, To think what your crimes are: away with them. Let all that see these vices thus rewarded Take heart, and love to study 'em. Mischiefs feed Like beasts. Till they be fat, and then they bleed.

These are the final lines in the play, spoken in Act V, scene xii. They neatly summarize the play's didactic purpose. Volpone, and the legacy hunters, have all been made examples of through their punishment at the hands of the Venetian court. The judge advises all those present at the hearing in the Scrutineo (including those in the audience) that they should take care to learn the lesson well, that vice is inevitably punished, no matter how much it may enjoy itself beforehand.