This is an easy-to-read retelling of Ben Jonson's comedy THE DEVIL IS AN ASS. People who read this version first will find the original play much easier to read and understand. THE DEVIL IS AN ASS because human beings are so much better than THE DEVIL at doing evil. Nevertheless, in this comic play virtue triumphs.- 1.1 -Satan and Pug, a minor devil, talked together in London. Pug had made a request to Satan that Satan was now laughing at. They were visiting earth, and Pug wanted to take possession of a body and stay there for a while."Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho," Satan laughed. "To earth? And why do thou want to go to earth, thou foolish spirit? What would thou do on earth?""I want to go to earth to do, great chief, that which time shall show you," Pug said. "I am asking only for my month on earth, which every petty, puny devil has. Within that length of time, the Court of Hell will hear something that may gain me a longer grant of time, perhaps, to spend on earth."Satan said, "For doing what?"Laming a poor cow or two? "Entering a sow to make her bear prematurely her farrow? "Or somewhere between this place and the village of Tottenham crossing the path of a market-woman's mare and diverting it from its destination?"The village of Tottenham was only a few miles from London.Satan continued, "These are your usual main achievements, Pug. "You must have some plot now concerning the storing of ale in casks: You want to make the yeast stale."Or you want to manage the churn so that the butter doesn't form, despite the housewife's cord, or her hot spit. You want to keep the housewife's cord or her hot spit from making butter." In this society, housewives believed that wrapping a cord around a churn or thrusting a hot spit into the cream would encourage the formation of butter.Satan continued, "Or some good ribibe - old hag - about Kentish Town or Hoxton, in the area of north London, you would hang now for a witch because she will not let you play round Robin?"Puck, in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, is also known as Robin Goodfellow. He goes around and plays tricks such as some of the ones Satan says that Pug likes to perform. Puck's tricks are annoying, but they are not life threatening.Satan continued, "And you'll go sour a citizen's cream in preparation for Sunday, so that she may be accused of it, and condemned by a Middlesex jury, to the satisfaction of their offended friends, the Londoners' wives, whose teeth were set on edge with it?"Middlesex juries had a well-deserved reputation for severity. Satan continued, "Foolish fiend, stay in your place, know your own strengths, and don't go beyond the sphere of your activity. You are too dull, stupid, and foolish a devil to be trusted out in those parts, Pug, upon any affair that may concern our name on earth. It is not everyone's work. The state of Hell must care whom it employs in point of reputation, here about London."You would make, I think, an agent to be sent to Lancashire properly enough, or some parts of Northumberland, as long as you would have good instructions, Pug."In other words, Pug could do good work in Lancashire or in Northumberland, but not in and around London, which is just too evil for an imp like Pug to deal with."Oh, chief!" Pug said. "You do not know, dear chief, what is in me. "Test me for just a fortnight, or for a week, and lend me only a Vice to carry with me and help me corrupt any playfellow, and you will see that there will come more out of it than you'll imagine, precious chief."A Vice was a companion of devils such as Satan. They had various names, which were the names of specific moral vices. "What Vice?" Satan asked. "What kind of Vice would thou have?""Why, any," Pug said. "Let the Vice be Fraud, or Covetousness, or Lady Vanity. "Or old Iniquity - I'll call him here."He called, "Iniquity!"