If the Seven Deadly Sins were the warning signs for avoiding damnation, the Virtues were waymarkers to salvation.

The Seven Cardinal Virtues

1. 1. Temperance(abstinence, moderation)

2. 2. Prudence(providence, foresight, circumspection, consideration, wise conduct)

3. 3. Justice(justice, equity, fair judgement)

4. 4. Fortitude(strength under pressure)

5. 5. Faith(piety,duty to and belief in God)

6. 6. Hope(hope of salvation)

7. 7. Charity(love of, benevolence to, others)

A godly life won a heavenly crown. If life was a journey and each person a pilgrim on the highway, conduct determined destination. Virtue's path was hard – steep, thorny, stony, winding, tiring. The way for the carnal man of weak character, Mr Worldly Wiseman, was easy, a ‘primrose path’, as Macbeth puts it, but leading to an ‘everlasting bonfire’ and ‘sulphurous pit’. Virtue requires steadfastness of belief. Stephen Bateman's engraving Of Faith depicts a knight, fully armoured in the Elizabethan style. He is a warrior for Christ, bears a shield with the cross of St George on it and has a lance and a sword. He stands on the body of the Devil sprawled on his back and looks out across a bay where a ship is sailing and over which the clouds have opened to reveal, in Hebrew, the words of God. The accompanying signification reads, ‘The man in armour signifieth all stedfast beleuers [believers] of the veritie being armed with constant zeale of Christianitie, and weaponed with the shielde of liuely faith, the spere of continuance and the sworde of the word of God: the Deuil vnder him is temptation being ouercome by faith in Christ Iesus’. In Of Justice, Justice carries the scales of equity, a sword to ‘cut off all rebellious persons and offenders’ and has one eye in the middle of her forehead representing ‘vpright iudgement’.

Volpone follows a course much like a tragedy. The ‘hero’, that is, the central character, has a fatal flaw, is presented at the height of his power and skill as a deceiver, makes a misjudgement that almost leads to disaster, is given a chance to recognize his fault, fails to reform, eventually falls, is judged and punished. As the play is not designed as a tragedy, the trajectory of the plot does not lead to his death and the destruction of those about him, but to public exposure and punishment.