The fashion of play-making I can properly compare to nothing so naturally as the alteration in apparel: for in the time of the great crop-doublet, your huge bombasted plays, quilted with mighty words to lean purposes, was only then in fashion. And as the doublet fell, neater inventions began to set up. Now in the time of spruceness, our plays follow the niceness of our garments: single plots, quaint conceits, lecherous jests, dressed up in hanging sleeves, and those are fit for the times and the termers. Such a kind of light-colour summer stuff, mingled with diverse colours, you shall find this published comedy, good to keep you in an afternoon from dice, at home in your chambers; and for venery you shall find enough for sixpence, but well couched and you mark it, for Venus being a woman passes through the play in doublet in breeches, a brave disguise and a safe one if the statute untie not her codpiece point. The book I make no question but is fit for many of your companies, as well as the person itself, and may be allowed both galley room at the playhouse, and chamber room at your lodging. Worse things I must needs confess the world has taxed her for than has been written of her; but 'tis the excellency of a writer to leave things better than he finds 'em; though some obscene fellow (that cares not what he writes against others, yet keeps a mystical bawdy-house himself, and entertains drunkards to make use of their pockets and vent his private bottle-ale at midnight), though such a one would have ripped up the most nasty vice that ever hell belched forth and presented it to a modest assembly, yet we rather wish in such discoveries, where reputation lies bleeding, a slackness of truth than a fullness of slander.
NEATFOOT
The young gentleman our young master, Sir Alexander's son, is
it into his ears, sweet damsel emblem of fragility, you desire
to have a message transported, or to be transcendent?
MARY
A private word or two, sir, nothing else.
NEATFOOT
You shall fructify in that which you come for: your pleasure shall
be satisfied to your full contentation. I will, fairest tree
of generation, watch when our young master is erected, that is
to say, up, and deliver him to this your most white hand.
MARY
Thanks, sir.
NEATFOOT
And withal certify him that I have culled out for him, now his
belly is replenished, a daintier bit or modicum than any lay upon
his trencher at dinner. Hath he notion of your name, I beseech
your chastity?
MARY
One, sir, of whom he bespake falling bands.
NEATFOOT
Falling bands: it shall so be given him. If you please to venture
your modesty in the hall amongst a curl-pated company of rude
serving-men, and take such as they can set before you, you shall
be most seriously and ingeniously welcome.
MARY
I have [dined] indeed already, sir.
NEATFOOT
Or will you vouchsafe to kiss the lip of a cup of rich Orleans
in the buttery amongst our waiting-women?
MARY
Not now in truth, sir.
NEATFOOT
Our young master shall then have a feeling of your being here;
presently it shall so be given him.
MARY
I humbly thank you, sir.
Exit Neatfoot.
But that my bosom
Is full of bitter sorrows, I could smile
To see this formal ape play antic tricks:
But in my breast a poisoned arrow sticks,
And smiles cannot become me. Love woven slightly,
Such as thy false heart makes, wears out as lightly,
But love being truly bred i' th' the soul like mine
Bleeds even to death at the least wound it takes:
The more we quench this [fire], the less it slakes.
Oh, me!
Enter Sebastian Wengrave with Neatfoot.
SEBASTIAN
A sempster speak with me, sayst thou?
NEATFOOT
Yes, sir, she's there, viva voce, to deliver her auricular
confession.
SEBASTIAN
With me, sweet heart? What is't?
MARY
I have brought home your bands, sir.
SEBASTIAN
Bands? Neatfoot.
NEATFOOT
Sir.
SEBASTIAN
Prithee look in, for all the gentlemen are upon rising.
NEATFOOT
Yes, sir, a most methodical attendance shall be given.
SEBASTIAN
And dost hear? If my father call for me, say I am busy with a
sempster.
NEATFOOT
Yes, sir, he shall know it that you are busied with a needlewoman.
SEBASTIAN
In's ear, good Neatfoot.
NEATFOOT
It shall be so given him.
Exit Neatfoot.
SEBASTIAN
Bands? Y'are mistaken, sweet heart, I bespake none. When, where?
I prithee, what bands? Let me see them.
MARY
Yes, sir, a bond fast sealed with solemn oaths,
Subscribed unto as I thought with your soul,
Delivered as your deed in sight of heaven.
Is this bond cancell'd? Have you forgot me?
[She removes her disguise.]
SEBASTIAN
Ha! Life of my life: Sir Guy Fitzallard's daughter!
What has transform'd my love to this strange shape?
Stay, make all sure. So, now speak and be brief,
Because the wolf's at door that lies in wait
To prey upon us both. Albeit mine eyes
Are bless'd by thine, yet this so strange disguise
Holds me with fear and wonder.
MARY
Mine's a loathed sight.
Why from it are you banish'd else so long?
SEBASTIAN
I must cut short my speech. In broken language,
Thus much: sweet Moll, I must thy company shun;
I court another Moll. My thoughts must run
As a horse runs that's blind round in a mill,
Out every step yet keeping one path still.
MARY
Umh! Must you shun my company? In one knot
Have both our hands by th' hands of heaven been tied,
Now to be broke? I thought me once your bride:
Our fathers did agree on the time when,
And must another bedfellow fill my room?
SEBASTIAN
Sweet maid, let's lose no time. 'Tis in heaven's book
Set down that I must have thee. An oath we took
To keep our vows, but when the knight your father
Was from mine parted, storms began to sit
Upon my covetous father's brow, which fell
From them on me. He reckon'd up what gold
This marriage would draw from him, at which he swore
To lose so much blood could not grieve him more.
He then dissuades me from thee, call'd thee not fair,
And ask'd what is she but a beggar's heir?
He scorn'd thy dowry of five thousand marks.
If such a sum of money could be found,
And I would match with that, he'd not undo it,
Provided his bags might add nothing to it,
But vow'd, if I took thee, nay, more, did swear it,
Save birth from him I nothing should inherit.
MARY
What follows then, my shipwreck?
SEBASTIAN
Dear'st, no:
Tho' wildly in a labyrinth I go,
My end is to meet thee; with a side wind
Must I now sail, else I no haven can find
But both must sink forever. There's a wench
Call'd Moll, mad Moll or merry Moll, a creature
So strange in quality a whole city takes
Note of her name and person. All that affection
I owe to thee on her in counterfeit passion
I spend to mad my father: he believes
I dote upon this roaring girl, and grieves
As it becomes a father for a son
That could be so bewitch'd. Yet I'll go on
This crooked way, sigh still for her, feign dreams
In which I'll talk only of her: these streams
Shall, I hope, force my father to consent
That here I anchor rather than be rent
Upon a rock so dangerous. Art thou pleas'd,
Because thou seest we are waylaid, that I take
A path that's safe, tho' it be far about?
MARY
My prayers with heaven guide thee.
SEBASTIAN
Then I will on.
My father is at hand: kiss and be gone.
Hours shall be watch'd for meetings; I must now,
As men for fear, to a strange idol bow.
MARY
Farewell.
SEBASTIAN
I'll guide thee forth; when next we meet
A story of Moll shall make our mirth more sweet.
Exeunt.
OMNES
Thanks, good Sir Alexander, for our bounteous cheer.
SIR ALEXANDER
Fie, fie, in giving thanks you pay too dear.
SIR DAVY
When bounty spreads the table, faith, 'twere sin,
At going off, if thanks should not step in.
SIR ALEXANDER
No more of thanks, no more. Ay, marry, sir,
Th' inner room was too close. How do you like
This parlour, gentlemen?
OMNES
Oh, passing well!
SIR ADAM
What a sweet breath the air casts here, so cool!
GOSHAWK
I like the prospect best.
LAXTON
See how 'tis furnish'd.
SIR DAVY
A very fair, sweet room.
SIR ALEXANDER
Sir Davy Dapper,
The furniture that doth adorn this room
Cost many a fair grey groat ere it came here,
But good things are most cheap when th' are most dear.
Nay, when you look into my galleries,
How bravely they are trimm'd up, you all shall swear
Y'are highly pleas'd to see what's set down there:
Stories of men and women mix'd together,
Fair ones with foul, like sunshine in wet weather;
Within one square a thousand heads are laid
So close that all of heads the room seems made.
As many faces there fill'd with blithe looks
Show like the promising titles of new books
Writ merrily, the readers being their own eyes,
Which seem to move and to give plaudities.
And here and there, whilst with obsequious ears
Throng'd heaps do listen, a cutpurse thrusts and leers
With hawk's eyes for his prey; I need not show him:
By a hanging villainous look yourselves may know him,
The face is drawn so rarely. Then, sir, below,
The very flower as 'twere waves to and fro,
And like a floating island seems to move
Upon a sea bound in with shores above.
Enter Sebastian and M[aster] Greenwit.
OMNES
These sights are excellent.
SIR ALEXANDER
I'll show you all.
Since we are met, make our parting comical.
SEBASTIAN
This gentleman, my friend, will take his leave, sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
Ha, take his leave, Sebastian? Who?
SEBASTIAN
This gentleman.
SIR ALEXANDER
Your love, sir, has already given me some time,
And if you please to trust my age with more,
It shall pay double interest. Good sir, stay.
GREENWIT
I have been too bold.
SIR ALEXANDER
Not so, sir. A merry day
'Mongst friends being spent is better than gold sav'd.
Some wine, some wine. Where be these knaves I keep?
Enter three or four serving-men, and Neatfoot.
NEATFOOT
At your worshipful elbow, sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
You are kissing my maids, drinking, or fast asleep.
NEATFOOT
Your worship has given it us right.
SIR ALEXANDER
You varlets, stir:
Chairs, stools and cushions! Prithee, Sir Davy Dapper,
Make that chair thine.
SIR DAVY
'Tis but an easy gift,
And yet I thank you for it, sir; I'll take it.
SIR ALEXANDER
A chair for old Sir Adam Appleton.
NEATFOOT
A back friend to your worship.
SIR ADAM
Marry, good Neatfoot,
I thank thee for it: back friends sometimes are good.
SIR ALEXANDER
Pray make that stool your perch, good M[aster] Goshawk.
GOSHAWK
I stoop to your lure, sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
Son Sebastian,
Take Master Greenwit to you.
SEBASTIAN
Sit, dear friend.
SIR ALEXANDER
Nay, Master Laxton. Furnish Master Laxton
With what he wants, a stone: a stool I would say,
A stool.
LAXTON
I had rather stand, sir.
Exeunt servants.
SIR ALEXANDER
I know you had, good Master Laxton. So, so.
Now here's a mess of friends, and, gentlemen,
Because time's glass shall not be running long,
I'll quicken it with a pretty tale.
SIR DAVY
Good tales do well
In these bad days, where vice does so excel.
SIR ADAM
Begin, Sir Alexander.
SIR ALEXANDER
Last day I met
An aged man upon whose head was scor'd
A debt of just so many years as these
Which I owe to my grave: the man you all know.
OMNES
His name I pray you, sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
Nay, you shall pardon me;
But when he saw me, with a sigh that brake,
Or seem'd to break, his heartstrings, thus he spake:
"Oh, my good knight," says he, and then his eyes
Were richer even by that which made them poor,
They had spent so many tears they had no more.
"Oh, sir," says he, "you know it, for you ha' seen
Blessings to rain upon mine house and me:
Fortune, who slaves men, was my slave; her wheel
Hath spun me golden threads, for, I thank heaven,
I ne'er had but one cause to curse my stars."
I ask'd him then what that one cause might be.
OMNES
So, sir?
SIR ALEXANDER
He paus'd, and as we often see
A sea so much becalm'd there can be found
No wrinkle on his brow, his waves being drown'd
In their own rage, but when th' imperious wind[s]
Use strange invisible tyranny to shake
Both heaven's and earth's foundation at their noise,
The seas, swelling with wrath to part that fray,
Rise up and are more wild, more mad, than they:
Even so this good old man was by my question
Stirr'd up to roughness, you might see his gall
Flow even in's eyes. Then grew he fantastical.
SIR DAVY
Fantastical? Ha, ha!
SIR ALEXANDER
Yes, and talk['d] oddly.
SIR ADAM
Pray, sir, proceed:
How did this old man end?
SIR ALEXANDER
Marry, sir, thus:
He left his wild fit to read o'er his cards,
Yet then, though age cast snow on all his hairs,
He joy'd because, says he, "The god of gold
Has been to me no niggard: that disease
Of which all old men sicken, avarice,
Never infected me."
LAXTON
[Aside] He means not himself, I'm sure.
SIR ALEXANDER
"For, like a lamp
Fed with continual oil, I spend and throw
My light to all that need it, yet have still
Enough to serve myself. Oh, but," quoth he,
"Tho' heaven's dew fall thus on this aged tree,
I have a son that like a wedge doth cleave
My very heart-root."
SIR DAVY
Had he such a son?
SEBASTIAN
[Aside] Now I do smell a fox strongly.
SIR ALEXANDER
Let's see: no, Master Greenwit is not yet
So mellow in years as he; but as like Sebastian,
Just like my son Sebastian, such another.
SEBASTIAN
[Aside] How finely like a fencer my father fetches his
by-blows to hit me, but if I beat you not at your own weapon of
subtlety--
SIR ALEXANDER
"This son," saith he, "that should be
The column and main arch unto my house,
The crutch unto my age, becomes a whirlwind
Shaking the firm foundation."
SIR ADAM
'Tis some prodigal.
SEBASTIAN
[Aside] Well shot, old Adam Bell!
SIR ALEXANDER
"No city monster neither, no prodigal,
But sparing, wary, civil, and, tho' wifeless,
An excellent husband, and such a traveller,
He has more tongues in his head than some have teeth."
SIR DAVY
I have but two in mine.
GOSHAWK
So sparing and so wary?
What then could vex his father so?
SIR ALEXANDER
Oh, a woman!
SEBASTIAN
A flesh-fly, that can vex any man.
SIR ALEXANDER
A scurvy woman,
On whom the passionate old man swore he doted;
A creature, saith he, nature hath brought forth
To mock the sex of woman. It is a thing
One knows not how to name; her birth began
Ere she was all made. 'Tis woman more than man,
Man more than woman, and, which to none can hap,
The sun gives her two shadows to one shape;
Nay, more, let this strange thing walk, stand or sit,
No blazing star draws more eyes after it.
SIR DAVY
A monster, 'tis some monster.
SIR ALEXANDER
She's a varlet.
SEBASTIAN
[Aside] Now is my cue to bristle.
SIR ALEXANDER
A naughty pack.
SEBASTIAN
'Tis false.
SIR ALEXANDER
Ha, boy?
SEBASTIAN
'Tis false.
SIR ALEXANDER
What's false? I say she's naught.
SEBASTIAN
I say that tongue
That dares speak so but yours sticks in the throat
Of a rank villain; set yourself aside--
SIR ALEXANDER
So, sir, what then?
SEBASTIAN
Any here else had lied.
(Aside) I think I shall fit you!
SIR ALEXANDER
Lie?
SEBASTIAN
Yes.
SIR DAVY
Doth this concern him?
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] Ah, sirrah boy!
Is your blood heated? Boils it? Are you stung?
I'll pierce you deeper yet.--Oh, my dear friends,
I am that wretched father, this that son
That sees his ruin yet headlong on doth run!
SIR ADAM
Will you love such a poison?
SIR DAVY
Fie, fie!
SEBASTIAN
Y'are all mad!
SIR ALEXANDER
Th' art sick at heart, yet feel'st it not. Of all these,
What gentleman but thou, knowing his disease
Mortal, would shun the cure? Oh, Master Greenwit,
Would you to such an idol bow?
GREENWIT
Not I, sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
Here's Master Laxton: has he mind to a woman
As thou hast?
LAXTON
No, not I, sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
Sir, I know it.
LAXTON
Their good parts are so rare, their bad so common,
I will have nought to do with any woman.
SIR DAVY
'Tis well done, Master Laxton.
SIR ALEXANDER
Oh, thou cruel boy,
Thou wouldst with lust an old man's life destroy;
Because thou seest I'm half-way in my grave,
Thou shovel'st dust upon me: would thou mightest have
Thy wish, most wicked, most unnatural!
SIR DAVY
Why, sir, 'tis thought Sir Guy Fitzallard's daughter
Shall wed your son Sebastian.
SIR ALEXANDER
Sir Davy Dapper,
I have upon my knees woo'd this fond boy
To take that virtuous maiden.
SEBASTIAN
Hark you, a word, sir.
You on your knees have curs'd that virtuous maiden
And me for loving her, yet do you now
Thus baffle me to my face? [Wear] not your knees
In such entreats; give me Fitzallard's daughter.
SIR ALEXANDER
I'll give thee rats-bane rather!
SEBASTIAN
Well, then you know
What dish I mean to feed upon.
SIR ALEXANDER
Hark, gentlemen, he swears
To have this cutpurse drab to spite my gall.
OMNES
Master Sebastian!
SEBASTIAN
I am deaf to you all.
I'm so bewitch'd, so bound to my desires,
Tears, prayers, threats, nothing can quench out those fires
That burn within me.
Exit Sebastian.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] Her blood shall quench it then.--
Lose him not, oh, dissuade him, gentlemen!
SIR DAVY
He shall be wean'd, I warrant you.
SIR ALEXANDER
Before his eyes
Lay down his shame, my grief, his miseries.
OMNES
No more, no more, away!
Exeunt all but Sir Alexander.
SIR ALEXANDER
I wash a negro,
Losing both pains and cost; but take thy flight:
I'll be most near thee when I'm least in sight.
Wild buck, I'll hunt thee breathless; thou shalt run on,
But I will turn thee when I'm not thought upon.
Enter Ralph Trapdoor.
Now, sirrah, what are you? Leave your ape's tricks and speak!
TRAPDOOR
A letter from my captain to your worship.
SIR ALEXANDER
Oh, oh, now I remember: 'tis to prefer thee into my service.
TRAPDOOR
To be a shifter under your worship's nose of a clean trencher
when there's a good bit upon't.
SIR ALEXANDER
Troth, honest fellow. [Aside] Humh, ha, let me see.
This knave shall be the axe to hew that down
At which I stumble; h'as a face that promiseth
Much of a villain. I will grind his wit,
And if the edge prove fine make use of it.--
Come hither, sirrah. Canst thou be secret, ha?
TRAPDOOR
As two crafty attorneys plotting the undoing of their clients.
SIR ALEXANDER
Didst never, as thou hast walk'd about this town,
Hear of a wench call'd Moll, mad, merry Moll?
TRAPDOOR
Moll Cutpurse, sir?
SIR ALEXANDER
The same. Dost thou know her then?
TRAPDOOR
As well as I know 'twill rain upon Simon and Jude's day next.
I will sift all the taverns i' th' city and drink half-pots with
all the watermen a' th' Bankside, but if you will, sir, I'll find
her out.
SIR ALEXANDER
That task is easy; do 't then. Hold thy hand up.
What's this? Is't burnt?
TRAPDOOR
No, sir, no, a little sing'd with making fireworks.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Giving him money] There's money, spend it; that being
spent, fetch more.
TRAPDOOR
Oh, sir, that all the poor soldiers in England had such a leader!
For fetching, no water-spaniel is like me.
SIR ALEXANDER
This wench we speak of strays so from her kind
Nature repents she made her. 'Tis a mermaid
Has toll'd my son to shipwreck.
TRAPDOOR
I'll cut her comb for you.
SIR ALEXANDER
I'll tell out gold for thee then; hunt her forth,
Cast out a line hung full of silver hooks
To catch her to thy company: deep spendings
May draw her that's most chaste to a man's bosom.
TRAPDOOR
The jingling of golden bells and a good fool with a hobbyhorse
will draw all the whores i' th' town to dance in a morris.
SIR ALEXANDER
Or rather--for that's best, they say sometimes
She goes in breeches--follow her as her man.
TRAPDOOR
And when her breeches are off, she shall follow me.
SIR ALEXANDER
Beat all thy brains to serve her.
TRAPDOOR
Zounds, sir, as country wenches beat cream till butter comes.
SIR ALEXANDER
Play thou the subtle spider, weave fine nets
To ensnare her very life.
TRAPDOOR
Her life?
SIR ALEXANDER
Yes, suck
Her heart-blood if thou canst; twist thou but cords
To catch her, I'll find law to hang her up.
TRAPDOOR
Spoke like a worshipful bencher.
SIR ALEXANDER
Trace all her steps; at this she-fox's den
Watch what lambs enter: let me play the shepherd
To save their throats from bleeding and cut hers.
TRAPDOOR
This is the goll shall do't.
SIR ALEXANDER
Be firm and gain me
Ever thine own. This done, I entertain thee:
How is thy name?
TRAPDOOR
My name sir is Ralph Trapdoor, honest Ralph.
SIR ALEXANDER
Trapdoor, be like thy name, a dangerous step
For her to venture on, but unto me--
TRAPDOOR
As fast as your sole to your boot or shoe, sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
Hence then, be little seen here as thou canst.
I'll still be at thine elbow.
TRAPDOOR
The trapdoor's set.
Moll, if you budge y'are gone; this me shall crown:
A roaring boy the Roaring Girl puts down.
SIR ALEXANDER
God-a-mercy, lose no time.
Exeunt.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Gentlemen, what is't you lack? What is't you buy? See fine bands
and ruffs, fine lawns, fine cambrics! What is't you lack, gentlemen,
what is't you buy?
LAXTON
Yonder's the shop.
GOSHAWK
Is that she?
LAXTON
Peace.
GREENWIT
She that minces tobacco.
LAXTON
Ay, she's a gentlewoman born, I can tell you, tho' it be her hard
fortune now to shred Indian pot-herbs.
GOSHAWK
Oh, sir, 'tis many a good woman's fortune, when her husband turns
bankrout, to begin with pipes and set up again.
LAXTON
And indeed the raising of the woman is the lifting up of the man's
head at all times: if one flourish, t'other will bud as fast,
I warrant ye.
GOSHAWK
Come, th' art familiarly acquainted there, I grope that.
LAXTON
And you grope no better i' th' dark, you may chance lie i' th'
ditch when y'are drunk.
GOSHAWK
Go, th' art a mystical lecher.
LAXTON
I will not deny but my credit may take up an ounce of pure smoke.
GOSHAWK
May take up an ell of pure smock. Away, go! [Aside] 'Tis
the closest striker. Life, I think he commits venery foot deep;
no man's aware on't. I like a palpable smockster go to work so
openly with the tricks of art that I'm as apparently seen as a
naked boy in a vial, and were it not for a gift of treachery that
I have in me to betray my friend when he puts most trust in me--mass,
yonder he is too--and by his injury to make good my access to
her, I should appear as defective in courting as a farmer's son
the first day of his feather that doth nothing at court but woo
the hangings and glass windows for a month together, and some
broken waiting-woman forever after. I find those imperfections
in my venery that were 't not for flattery and falsehood, I should
want discourse and impudence, and he that wants impudence among
women is worthy to be kick'd out at beds' feet. He shall not
see me yet.
GREENWIT
Troth, this is finely shred.
LAXTON
Oh, women are the best mincers.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
'T had been a good phrase for a cook's wife, sir.
LAXTON
But 'twill serve generally, like the front of a new almanac, as
thus: calculated for the meridian of cooks' wives, but generally
for all Englishwomen.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Nay, you shall ha't, sir, I have fill'd it for you.
She puts it to the fire.
LAXTON
The pipe's in a good hand, and I wish mine always so.
GREENWIT
LAXTON
But not to be us'd a' that fashion.
Oh, pardon me, sir, I understand no French.
[Greenwit doffs his hat and bows.]
I pray be cover'd. [Handing Goshawk a pipe] Jack, a pipe of rich smoke.
GOSHAWK
Rich smoke? That's sixpence a pipe, is't?
GREENWIT
To me, sweet lady.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
[Aside to Laxton] Be not forgetful: respect my credit,
seem strange. Art and wit makes a fool of suspicion; pray be
wary.
LAXTON
[Aside to Mistress Gallipot] Push, I warrant you!--Come,
how is't, gallants?
GREENWIT
Pure and excellent.
LAXTON
I thought 'twas good, you were grown so silent; you are like those
that love not to talk at victuals, tho' they make a worse noise
i' the nose than a common fiddler's prentice and discourse a whole
supper with snuffling. [Aside to Mistress Gallipot] I
must speak a word with you anon.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
[Aside to Laxton] Make your way wisely then.
GOSHAWK
Oh, what else, sir? He's perfection itself, full of manners,
but not an acre of ground belonging to ['im].
GREENWIT
Ay, and full of form: h'as ne'er a good stool in's chamber.
GOSHAWK
But above all religious: he preyeth daily upon elder brothers.
GREENWIT
And valiant above measure; h'as run three streets from a sergeant.
LAXTON
Puh, puh!
He blows tobacco in their faces.
GREENWIT, GOSHAWK
Oh, puh, ho, ho!
[They move away.]
LAXTON
So, so.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
What's the matter now, sir?
LAXTON
I protest I'm in extreme want of money: if you can supply me now
with any means, you do me the greatest pleasure, next to the bounty
of your love, as ever poor gentleman tasted.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
What's the sum would pleasure ye, sir? Tho' you deserve nothing
less at my hands.
LAXTON
Why, 'tis but for want of opportunity, thou know'st. [Aside]
I put her off with opportunity still. By this light, I hate her
but for means to keep me in fashion with gallants, for what I
take from her I spend upon other wenches. Bear her in hand still;
she has wit enough to rob her husband, and I ways enough to consume
the money.--[Approaching Goshawk from behind and slapping him
on the back] Why, how now? What, the chincough?
GOSHAWK
Thou hast the cowardliest trick to come before a man's face and
strangle him ere he be aware! I could find in my heart to make
a quarrel in earnest.
LAXTON
Pox and thou dost--thou know'st I never use to fight with my friends--thou'll
but lose thy labour in't.
Enter J[ack] Dapper and his man Gull.
Jack Dapper!
GREENWIT
Monsieur Dapper, I dive down to your ankles.
JACK
Save ye gentlemen, all three in a peculiar salute.
GOSHAWK
[Aside to Laxton] He were ill to make a lawyer: he dispatches
three at once.
LAXTON
So, well said.
[Mistress Gallipot secretly gives him money.]
But is this of the same tobacco, Mistress Gallipot?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
The same you had at first, sir.
LAXTON
I wish it no better: this will serve to drink at my chamber.
GOSHAWK
Shall we taste a pipe on't?
LAXTON
Not of this, by my troth, gentlemen; I have sworn before you.
GOSHAWK
What, not Jack Dapper?
LAXTON
Pardon me, sweet Jack, I'm sorry I made such a rash oath, but
foolish oaths must stand. Where art going, Jack?
JACK
Faith, to buy one feather.
LAXTON
[Aside] One feather? The fool's peculiar still.
JACK
Gull.
GULL
Master.
JACK
Here's three halfpence for your ordinary, boy; meet me an hour
hence in Paul's.
GULL
How! Three single halfpence! Life, this will scarce serve a
man in sauce, a hal'p'orth of mustard, a hal'p'orth of oil, and
a hal'p'orth of vinegar. What's left then for the pickle herring?
This shows like small beer i' th' morning after a great surfeit
of wine o'ernight. He could spend his three pound last night
in a supper amongst girls and brave bawdy-house boys; I thought
his pockets cackl'd not for nothing. These are the eggs of three
pound; I'll go sup 'em up presently.
Exit Gull.
LAXTON
[Aside, counting his money] Eight, nine, ten angels. Good
wench, i'faith, and one that loves darkness well: she puts out
a candle with the best tricks of any drugster's wife in England;
but that which mads her, I rail upon opportunity still and take
no notice on't. The other night she would needs lead me into
a room with a candle in her hand to show me a naked picture, where
no sooner entered but the candle was sent of an arrant; now I
not intending to understand her, but, like a puny at the inns
of venery, call'd for another light innocently: thus reward I
all her cunning with simple mistaking. I know she cozens her
husband to keep me, and I'll keep her honest as long as I can
to make the poor man some part of amends: an honest mind of a
whoremaster!--How think you amongst you? What, a fresh pipe?
Draw in a third man.
GOSHAWK
No, you're a hoarder; you engross by th' ounces.
At the feather shop now
JACK
Puh, I like it not.
[MISTRESS] TILTYARD
What feather is't you'ld have, sir?
These are most worn and most in fashion
Amongst the beaver gallants, the stone riders,
The private stage's audience, the twelvepenny-stool gentlemen:
I can inform you 'tis the general feather.
JACK
And therefore I mislike it; tell me of general!
Now a continual Simon and Jude's rain
Beat all your feathers as flat down as pancakes.
Show me a spangled feather.
MISTRESS TILTYARD
Oh, to go
A-feasting with? You'd have it for a [hench]-boy;
You shall.
At the sempster's shop now
OPENWORK
Mass, I had quite forgot
His honour's footman was here last night, wife.
Ha' you done with my lord's shirt?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
What's that to you, sir?
I was this morning at his honour's lodging
Ere such a [snail] as you crept out of your shell.
OPENWORK
Oh, 'twas well done, good wife!
MISTRESS OPENWORK
I hold it better, sir, than if you had done 't yourself.
OPENWORK
Nay, so say I. But is the countess's smock almost done, mouse?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Here, yes, the cambric, sir, but wants, I fear me.
OPENWORK
I'll resolve you of that presently.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
[Hoyda]! Oh, audacious groom,
Dare you presume to noblewomen's linen?
Keep you your yard to measure shepherd's holland!
I must confine you, I see that.
At the tobacco shop now.
GOSHAWK
What say you to this gear?
LAXTON
I dare the arrant's[t] critic in tobacco
To lay one fault upon't.
Enter Moll in a frieze jerkin and a black safeguard.
GOSHAWK
Life, yonder's Moll!
LAXTON
Moll? Which Moll?
GOSHAWK
Honest Moll.
LAXTON
Prithee, let's call her. Moll!
[GOSHAWK, GREENWIT]
Moll, Moll, pist, Moll!
MOLL
How now, what's the matter?
GOSHAWK
A pipe of good tobacco, Moll?
MOLL
I cannot stay.
GOSHAWK
Nay, Moll, puh! Prithee hark, but one word, i'faith.
MOLL
Well, what is't?
GREENWIT
Prithee come hither, sirrah.
LAXTON
[Aside] Heart, I would give but too much money to be nibbling
with that wench! Life, sh'as the spirit of four great parishes,
and a voice that will drown all the city; methinks a brave captain
might get all his soldiers upon her and ne'er be beholding to
a company of Mile End milksops, if he could come on and come off
quick enough. Such a Moll were a marrow-bone before an Italian;
he would cry bona roba till his ribs were nothing but bone. I'll
lay hard siege to her; money is that aqua fortis that eats
into many a maidenhead: where the walls are flesh and blood, I'll
ever pierce through with a golden auger.
GOSHAWK
Now thy judgment, Moll: is't not good?
MOLL
Yes, faith, 'tis very good tobacco. How do you sell an ounce?
Farewell. God b'i'you, Mistress Gallipot.
GOSHAWK
Why, Moll, Moll!
MOLL
I cannot stay now, i'faith. I am going to buy a shag ruff; the
shop will be shut in presently.
GOSHAWK
'Tis the maddest, fantastical'st girl: I never knew so much flesh
and so much nimbleness put together.
LAXTON
She slips from one company to another, like a fat eel between
a Dutchman's fingers. [Aside] I'll watch my time for her.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Some will not stick to say she's a man
And some both man and woman.
LAXTON
That were excellent: she might first cuckold the husband and then
make him do as much for the wife.
The feather shop again.
MOLL
Save you. How does Mistress Tiltyard?
JACK
Moll.
MOLL
Jack Dapper.
JACK
How dost, Moll?
MOLL
I'll tell thee by and by; I go but to th' next shop.
JACK
Thou shalt find me here this hour about a feather.
MOLL
Nay, and a feather hold you in play a whole hour, a goose will
last you all the days of your life.
The sempster shop
Let me see a good shag ruff.
OPENWORK
Mistress Mary, that shalt thou i'faith, and the best in the shop.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
How now! Greetings? Love-terms with a pox between you! Have
I found out one of your haunts? I send you for hollands, and
you're i' th' low countries with a mischief. I'm serv'd with
good ware by th' shift, that makes it lie dead so long upon my
hands: I were as good shut up shop, for when I open it I take
nothing.
OPENWORK
Nay, and you fall a-ringing once the devil cannot stop you. I'll
out of the belfry as fast as I can. Moll.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Get you from my shop.
MOLL
I come to buy.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
I'll sell ye nothing; I warn ye my house and shop.
MOLL
You goody Openwork, you that prick out a poor living
And sews many a bawdy skin-coat together,
Thou private pandress between shirt and smock,
I wish thee for a minute but a man:
Thou shouldst never use more shapes. But as th' art
I pity my revenge: now my spleen's up,
I would not mock it willingly.
Enter a Fellow with a long rapier by his side.
Ha! Be thankful.
Now I forgive thee.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Marry, hang thee;
I never ask'd forgiveness in my life.
MOLL
You, goodman swine's-face!
FELLOW
What, will you murder me?
MOLL
You remember, slave, how you abus'd me t'other night in a tavern?
FELLOW
Not I, by this light.
MOLL
No, but by candlelight you did. You have tricks to save your
oaths, reservations have you, and I have reserved somewhat for
you. [Strikes him.] As you like that, call for more; you
know the sign again.
FELLOW
Pox on't, had I brought any company along with me to have borne
witness on't; 'twould ne'er have griev'd me; but to be struck
and nobody by, 'tis my ill fortune still. Why, tread upon a worm,
they say 'twill turn tail, but indeed a gentleman should have
more manners.
Exit Fellow.
LAXTON
Gallantly performed, i'faith, Moll, and manfully! I love thee
forever for't! Base rogue! Had he offer'd but the least counterbuff,
by this hand I was prepared for him.
MOLL
You prepared for him! Why should you be prepared for him? Was
he any more than a man?
LAXTON
No, nor so much by a yard and a handful London measure.
MOLL
Why do you speak this then? Do you think I cannot ride a stone
horse unless one lead him by th' snaffle?
LAXTON
Yes, and sit him bravely; I know thou canst, Moll. 'Twas but
an honest mistake through love, and I'll make amends for't any
way. Prithee, sweet, plump Moll, when shall thou and I go out
a' town together?
MOLL
Whither? To Tyburn prithee?
LAXTON
Mass, that's out a' town indeed; thou hang'st so many jests upon
thy friends still. I mean honestly to Brainford, Staines or Ware.
MOLL
What to do there?
LAXTON
Nothing but be merry and lie together; I'll hire a coach with
four horses.
MOLL
I thought 'twould be a beastly journey. You may leave out one
well: three horses will serve if I play the jade myself.
LAXTON
Nay, push, th' art such another kicking wench! Prithee be kind
and let's meet.
MOLL
'Tis hard but we shall meet, sir.
LAXTON
Nay, but appoint the place then. [Giving her money] There's
ten angels in fair gold, Moll; you see I do not trifle with you.
Do but say thou wilt meet me, and I'll have a coach ready for
thee.
MOLL
Why, here's my hand I'll meet you, sir.
LAXTON
[Aside] Oh, good gold!--The place, sweet Moll?
MOLL
It shall be your appointment.
LAXTON
Somewhat near Holborn, Moll.
MOLL
In Gray's Inn Fields then.
LAXTON
A match.
MOLL
I'll meet you there.
LAXTON
The hour?
MOLL
Three.
LAXTON
That will be time enough to sup at Brainford.
Fall from them to the other.
OPENWORK
I am of such a nature, sir, I cannot endure the house when she
scolds. Sh' has a tongue will be [heard] further in a still morning
than Saint Antling's bell. She rails upon me for foreign wenching,
that I being a freeman must needs keep a whore i' th' suburbs,
and seek to impoverish the liberties. When we fall out, I trouble
you still to make all whole with my wife.
GOSHAWK
No trouble at all; 'tis a pleasure to me to join things together.
OPENWORK
Go thy ways. [Aside] I do this but to try thy honesty,
Goshawk.
The feather shop
JACK
How lik'st thou this, Moll?
MOLL
Oh, singularly! You're fitted now for a bunch. [Aside]
He looks for all the world with those spangled feathers like a
nobleman's bedpost! The purity of your wench would I fain try;
she seems like Kent, unconquered, and I believe as many wiles
are in her. Oh, the gallants of these times are shallow lechers;
they put not their courtship home enough to a wench. 'Tis impossible
to know what woman is thoroughly honest, because she's ne'er thoroughly
tried; I am of that certain belief there are more queans in this
town of their own making than of any man's provoking. Where lies
the slackness then? Many a poor soul would down, and there's
nobody will push 'em:
Women are courted but ne'er soundly tried,
As many walk in spurs that never ride.
The sempster's shop.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Oh, abominable!
GOSHAWK
Nay, more: I tell you in private, he keeps a whore i' th' suburbs.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Oh, spital dealing! I came to him a gentlewoman born. I'll show
you mine arms when you please, sir.
GOSHAWK
[Aside] I had rather see your legs and begin that way.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
'Tis well known he took me from a lady's service, where I was
well beloved of the steward; I had my Latin tongue and a spice
of the French before I came to him, and now doth he keep a suburbian
whore under my nostrils.
GOSHAWK
There's ways enough to cry quit with him; hark in thine ear.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
There's a friend worth a million.
MOLL
[Aside] I'll try one spear against your chastity, Mistress
Tiltyard, though it prove too short by the [burr].
Enter Ralph Trapdoor.
TRAPDOOR
[Aside] Mass, here she is! I'm bound already to serve
her, tho' it be but a sluttish trick.--Bless my hopeful young
mistress with long life and great limbs! Send her the upper hand
of all bailiffs and their hungry adherents!
MOLL
How now! What art thou?
TRAPDOOR
A poor, ebbing gentleman that would gladly wait for the young
flood of your service.
MOLL
My service! What should move you to offer your service to me,
sir?
TRAPDOOR
The love I bear to your heroic spirit and masculine womanhood.
MOLL
So, sir, put case we should retain you to us, what parts are there
in you for a gentlewoman's service?
TRAPDOOR
Of two kinds, right worshipful, movable and immovable: movable
to run of arrants, and immovable to stand when you have occasion
to use me.
MOLL
What strength have you?
TRAPDOOR
Strength, Mistress Moll? I have gone up into a steeple and stayed
the great bell as 't has been ringing, stopp'd a windmill going.
MOLL
And never struck down yourself?
TRAPDOOR
Stood as upright as I do at this present.
Molls trips up his heels; he falls.
MOLL
Come, I pardon you for this; it shall be no disgrace to you: I
have struck up the heels of the high German's size ere now. What,
not stand?
TRAPDOOR
I am of that nature where I love, I'll be at my mistress' foot
to do her service.
MOLL
Why, well said. But say your mistress should receive injury:
have you the spirit of fighting in you? Durst you second her?
TRAPDOOR
Life, I have kept a bridge myself and drove seven at a time before
me.
MOLL
Ay?
TRAPDOOR aside
But they were all Lincolnshire bullocks, by my troth.
MOLL
Well, meet me in Gray's Inn Fields between three and four this
afternoon, and upon better consideration we'll retain you.
TRAPDOOR
I humbly thank your good mistress-ship.
[Aside] I'll crack your neck for this kindness.
Exit Trapdoor. Moll meets Laxton.
LAXTON
Remember: three.
MOLL
Nay, if I fail you, hang me.
LAXTON
Good wench, i'faith.
Then Openwork
MOLL
Who's this?
OPENWORK
'Tis I, Moll.
MOLL
Prithee tend thy shop and prevent bastards.
OPENWORK
We'll have a pint of the same wine, i'faith, Moll.
[Exeunt Moll and Openwork.] The bell rings.
GOSHAWK
Hark the bell rings; come, gentlemen.
Jack Dapper, where shall's all munch?
JACK
I am for Parker's ordinary.
LAXTON
He's a good guest to 'm; he deserves his board:
He draws all the gentlemen in a term-time thither.
We'll be your followers, Jack, lead the way.
Look you, by my faith, the fool has feather'd his nest well.
Exeunt gallants [Laxton, Goshawk, Greenwit, Jack Dapper]. Enter Master Gallipot, Master Tiltyard, and servants with water-spaniels and a duck.
TILTYARD
Come, shut up your shops. Where's Master Openwork?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Nay, ask not me, Master Tiltyard.
TILTYARD
Where's his water-dog? Puh-pist-her-her-pist!
GALLIPOT
Come, wenches, come, we're going all to Hogsden.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
To Hogsden, husband?
GALLIPOT
Ay, to Hogsden, pigsney.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
I'm not ready, husband.
GALLIPOT
Faith, that's well. Hum-pist-pist!
Come, Mistress Openwork, you are so long.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
I have no joy of my life, Master Gallipot.
GALLIPOT
Push, let your boy lead his water-spaniel along and we'll show
you the bravest sport at Parlous Pond. Hey Trug, hey Trug, hey
Trug! Here's the best duck in England, except my wife.
Hey, hey, hey, fetch, fetch, fetch, come let's away;
Of all the year this is the sportfull'st day.
SEBASTIAN
If a man have a free will, where should the use
More perfect shine than in his will to love?
All creatures have their liberty in that,
Enter Sir Alexander and listens to him.
Tho' else kept under servile yoke and fear;
The very bondslave has his freedom there.
Amongst a world of creatures voic'd and silent
Must my desires wear fetters? [Aside] Yea, are you
So near? Then I must break with my heart's truth,
Meet grief at a back way; well.--Why, suppose
The two-leav'd tongues of slander or of truth
Pronounce Moll loathsome: if before my love
She appear fair, what injury have I?
I have the thing I like. In all things else
Mine own eye guides me, and I find 'em prosper.
Life, what should ail it now? I know that man
Ne'er truly loves, if he gainsay 't he lies,
That winks and marries with his father's eyes.
I'll keep mine own wide open.
Enter Moll and a Porter with a viol on his back.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] Here's brave willfulness,
A made match. Here she comes; they met a' purpose.
PORTER
Must I carry this great fiddle to your chamber, Mistress Mary?
MOLL
Fiddle, goodman hog-rubber? Some of these porters bear so much
for others they have no time to carry wit for themselves.
PORTER
To your own chamber, Mistress Mary?
MOLL
Who'll hear an ass speak? Whither else, goodman pageant-bearer?
They're people of the worst memories.
Exit Porter.
SEBASTIAN
Why, 'twere too great a burthen, love, to have them carry things
in their minds and a' their backs together.
MOLL
Pardon me, sir, I thought not you so near.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] So, so, so.
SEBASTIAN
I would be nearer to thee, and in that fashion
That makes the best part of all creatures honest.
No otherwise I wish it.
MOLL
Sir, I am so poor to requite you, you must look for nothing but
thanks of me. I have no humour to marry: I love to lie a' both
sides a' th' bed myself; and again a' th' other side, a wife,
you know, ought to be obedient, but I fear me I am too headstrong
to obey, therefore I'll ne'er go about it. I love you so well,
sir, for your good will I'd be loath you should repent your bargain
after, and therefore we'll ne'er come together at first. I have
the head now of myself and am man enough for a woman; marriage
is but a chopping and changing, where a maiden loses one head
and has a worse i' th' place.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] The most comfortablest answer from a roaring girl
That ever mine ears drunk in.
SEBASTIAN
This were enough
Now to affright a fool forever from thee,
When 'tis the music that I love thee for.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] There's a boy spoils all again.
MOLL
Believe it, sir, I am not of that disdainful temper, but I could
love you faithfully.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] A pox on you for that word! I like you not now:
Y'are a cunning roarer; I see that already.
MOLL
But sleep upon this once more, sir, you may chance shift a mind
tomorrow. Be not too hasty to wrong yourself; never while you
live, sir, take a wife running: many have run out at heels that
have done 't. You see, sir, I speak against myself, and if every
woman would deal with their suitor so honestly, poor younger brothers
would not be so often gull'd with old cozening widows that turn
o'er all their wealth in trust to some kinsman and make the poor
gentleman work hard for a pension. Fare you well, sir.
SEBASTIAN
Nay, prithee, one word more.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] How do I wrong this girl: she puts him off still!
MOLL
Think upon this in cold blood, sir: you make as much haste as
if you were a-going upon a sturgeon voyage. Take deliberation,
sir; never choose a wife as if you were going to Virginia.
SEBASTIAN
And so we parted, my too-cursed fate.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] She is but cunning, gives him longer time in't.
Enter a Tailor.
TAILOR
Mistress Moll, Mistress Moll: so ho ho so ho!
MOLL
There boy, there boy! What, dost thou go a-hawking after me
with a red clout on thy finger?
TAILOR
I forgot to take measure on you for your new breeches.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] Hoyda! Breeches! What, will he marry a monster
with two trinkets? What age is this? If the wife go in breeches,
the man must wear long coats like a fool.
MOLL
What fiddling's here? Would not the old pattern have serv'd your
turn?
TAILOR
You change the fashion; you say you'll have the great Dutch slop,
Mistress Mary.
MOLL
Why, sir, I say so still.
TAILOR
Your breeches then will take up a yard more.
MOLL
Well, pray look it be put in then.
TAILOR
It shall stand round and full, I warrant you,
MOLL
Pray make 'em easy enough.
TAILOR
I know my fault now: t'other was somewhat stiff between the legs;
I'll make these open enough, I warrant you.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] Here's good gear towards! I have brought up my
son to marry a Dutch slop and a French doublet, a codpiece-daughter!
TAILOR
So, I have gone as far as I can go.
MOLL
Why then, farewell.
TAILOR
If you go presently to your chamber, Mistress Mary, pray send
me the measure of your thigh by some honest body.
MOLL
Well, sir, I'll send it by a porter presently.
Exit Moll.
TAILOR
So you had need: it is a lusty one; both of them would make any
porter's back ache in England.
Exit Tailor.
SEBASTIAN
I have examined the best part of man,
Reason and judgment, and in love they tell me
They leave me uncontroll'd: he that is sway'd
By an unfeeling blood past heat of love,
His springtime must needs err; his watch ne'er goes right
That sets his dial by a rusty clock.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Coming forward] So, and which is that rusty clock, sir?
You?
SEBASTIAN
The clock at Ludgate, sir; it ne'er goes true.
SIR ALEXANDER
But thou goest falser: not thy father's cares
Can keep thee right. When that insensible work
Obeys the workman's art, lets off the hour
And stops again when time is satisfied;
But thou runn'st on, and judgment, thy main wheel,
Beats by all stops, as if the work would break
Begun with long pains for a minute's ruin,
Much like a suffering man brought up with care
At last bequeath'd to shame and a short prayer.
SEBASTIAN
I taste you bitterer than I can deserve, sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
Who has bewitch['d] thee, son? What devil or drug
Hath wrought upon the weakness of thy blood
And betray'd all her hopes to ruinous folly?
Oh, wake from drowsy and enchanted shame,
Wherein thy soul sits with a golden dream,
Flatter'd and poisoned! I am old, my son;
Oh, let me prevail quickly,
For I have weightier business of mine own
Than to chide thee: I must not to my grave
As a drunkard to his bed, whereon he lies
Only to sleep and never cares to rise.
Let me dispatch in time; come no more near her.
SEBASTIAN
Not honestly? Not in the way of marriage?
SIR ALEXANDER
What, sayst thou marriage? In what place, the sessions-house?
And who shall give the bride, prithee, an indictment?
SEBASTIAN
Sir, now ye take part with the world to wrong her.
SIR ALEXANDER
Why, wouldst thou fain marry to be pointed at?
Alas, the number's great; do not o'erburden 't.
Why, as good marry a beacon on a hill,
Which all the country fix their eyes upon
As her thy folly dotes on. If thou long'st
To have the story of thy infamous fortunes,
Serve for discourse in ordinaries and taverns,
Th' art in the way; or to confound thy name,
Keep on, thou canst not miss it; or to strike
Thy wretched father to untimely coldness,
Keep the left hand still, it will bring thee to't.
Yet if no tears wrung from thy father's eyes,
Nor sighs that fly in sparkles from his sorrows,
Had power to alter what is willful in thee,
Methinks her very name should fright thee from her
And never trouble me.
SEBASTIAN
Why is the name of Moll so fatal, sir?
SIR ALEXANDER
[Marry], one, sir, where suspect is ent'red,
For seek all London from one end to t'other
More whores of that name than of any ten other.
SEBASTIAN
What's that to her? Let those blush for themselves.
Can any guilt in others condemn her?
I've vow'd to love her: let all storms oppose me
That ever beat against the breast of man,
Nothing but death's black tempest shall divide us.
SIR ALEXANDER
Oh, folly that can dote on nought but shame!
SEBASTIAN
Put case a wanton itch runs through one name
More than another: is that name the worse
Where honesty sits possess'd in't? It should rather
Appear more excellent and deserve more praise
When through foul mists a brightness it can raise.
Why, there are of the devil's honest gentlemen,
And well descended, keep an open house,
And some a' th' good man's that are arrant knaves.
He hates unworthily that by rote contemns,
For the name neither saves nor yet condemns.
And for her honesty, I have made such proof an't
In several forms, so nearly watch'd her ways,
I will maintain that strict against an army,
Excepting you my father. Here's her worst:
Sh' has a bold spirit that mingles with mankind,
But nothing else comes near it, and oftentimes
Through her apparel somewhat shames her birth,
But she is loose in nothing but in mirth.
Would all Molls were no worse.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] This way I toil in vain and give but aim
To infamy and ruin. He will fall;
My blessing cannot stay him: all my joys
Stand at the brink of a devouring flood
And will be willfully swallowed, willfully,
But why so vain? Let all these tears be lost:
I'll pursue her to shame, and so all's cross'd.
Exit Sir Alexander.
SEBASTIAN
He is gone with some strange purpose, whose effect
Will hurt me little if he shoot so wide,
To think I love so blindly. I but feed
His heart to this match to draw on th' other,
Wherein my joy sits with a full wish crown'd,
Only his mood excepted, which must change
By opposite policies, courses indirect:
Plain dealing in this world takes no effect.
This mad girl I'll acquaint with my intent,
Get her assistance, make my fortunes known:
'Twixt lovers' hearts, she's a fit instrument
And has the art to help them to their own
By her advice, for in that craft she's wise:
My love and I may meet, spite of all spies.
Exit Sebastian.
LAXTON
Coachman.
COACHMAN
Here sir.
LAXTON
[Giving him money] There's a tester more. Prithee drive
thy coach to the hither end of Marybone Park, a fit place for
Moll to get in.
COACHMAN
Marybone Park, sir?
LAXTON
Ay, it's in our way, thou know'st.
COACHMAN
It shall be done, sir.
LAXTON
Coachman.
COACHMAN
Anon, sir.
LAXTON
Are we fitted with good [frampold] jades?
COACHMAN
The best in Smithfield, I warrant you, sir.
LAXTON
May we safely take the upper hand of any [couch'd] velvet cap
or tufftaffety jacket? For they keep a vild swaggering in coaches
nowadays; the highways are stopp'd with them.
COACHMAN
My life for yours and baffle 'em too, sir. Why, they are the
same jades, believe it, sir, that have drawn all your famous whores
to Ware.
LAXTON
Nay then, they know their business; they need no more instructions.
COACHMAN
They're so us'd to such journeys, sir, I never use whip to 'em,
for if they catch but the scent of a wench once, they run like
devils.
Exit Coachman with his whip.
LAXTON
Fine Cerberus: that rogue will have the start of a thousand ones,
for whilst others trot afoot, he'll ride prancing to hell upon
a coach-horse. Stay, 'tis now about the hour of her appointment,
but yet I see her not.
The clock strikes three.
Hark, what's this? One, two, three, three by the clock at Savoy: this is the hour, and Gray's Inn Fields the place. She swore she'd meet me. Ha, yonder's two Inns a' Court men with one wench, but that's not she; they walk toward Islington out of my way. I see none yet dress'd like her: I must look for a shag ruff, a frieze jerkin, a short sword, and safeguard, or I get none. Why, Moll, prithee make haste or the coachman will curse us anon.
Enter Moll like a man.
MOLL
[Aside] Oh, here's my gentleman: if they would keep their
days as well with their mercers as their hours with their harlots,
no bankrout would give seven score pound for a sergeant's place,
for would you know a catchpole rightly deriv'd, the corruption
of a citizen is the generation of a sergeant! How his eye hawks
for venery!--Come, are you ready, sir?
LAXTON
Ready for what, sir?
MOLL
Do you ask that now, sir? Why was this meeting 'pointed?
LAXTON
I thought you mistook me, sir.
You seem to be some young barrister.
I have no suit in law; all my land's sold:
I praise heaven for't; 't has rid me of much trouble.
MOLL
Then I must wake you, sir. Where stands the coach?
LAXTON
Who's this? Moll? Honest Moll?
MOLL
So young and purblind? You're an old wanton in your eyes, I see
that.
LAXTON
Th' art admirably suited for the Three Pigeons at Brainford; I'll
swear I knew thee not.
MOLL
I'll swear you did not, but you shall know me now.
LAXTON
No, not here, we shall be spied, i'faith; the coach is better,
come.
MOLL
Stay.
LAXTON
What, wilt thou untruss a point, Moll?
She puts off her cloak and draws.
MOLL
Yes, here's the point that I untruss: 't has but one tag; 'twill
serve tho' to tie up a rogue's tongue.
LAXTON
How!
MOLL
There's the gold with which you hir'd your hackney.
[Attacking him] Here's her pace;
She racks hard, and perhaps your bones will feel it!
Ten angels of mine own I've put to thine;
Win 'em and wear 'em!
LAXTON
Hold, Moll, Mistress Mary!
MOLL
Draw or I'll serve an execution on thee
Shall lay thee up till doomsday!
LAXTON
Draw upon a woman? Why, what dost mean, Moll?
MOLL
To teach thy base thoughts manners: th' art one of those
That thinks each woman thy fond, flexible whore
If she but cast a liberal eye upon thee;
Turn back her head, she's thine, or amongst company,
By chance drink first to thee. Then she's quite gone;
There's no means to help her, nay, for a need,
Wilt swear unto thy credulous fellow lechers
That th' art more in favour with a lady
At first sight than her monkey all her lifetime.
How many of our sex by such as thou
Have their good thoughts paid with a blasted name
That never deserved loosely, or did trip
In path of whoredom beyond cup and lip?
But for the stain of conscience and of soul,
Better had women fall into the hands
Of an act silent than a bragging nothing.
There's no mercy in't. What durst move you, sir,
To think me whorish, a name which I'd tear out
From the high German's throat if it lay ledger there
To dispatch privy slanders against me?
In thee I defy all men, their worst hates
And their best flatteries, all their golden witchcrafts
With which they entangle the poor spirits of fools,
Distressed needlewomen, and trade-fall'n wives.
Fish that must needs bite or themselves be bitten,
Such hungry things as these may soon be took
With a worm fast'ned on a golden hook:
Those are the lecher's food, his prey; he watches
For quarrelling wedlocks, and poor shifting sisters:
'Tis the best fish he takes. But why, good fisherman,
Am I thought meat for you, that never yet
Had angling rod cast towards me? 'Cause, you'll say,
I'm given to sport, I'm often merry, jest.
Had mirth no kindred in the world but lust?
Oh, shame take all her friends then! But howe'er
Thou and the baser world censure my life,
I'll send 'em word by thee, and write so much
Upon thy breast, 'cause thou shalt bear 't in mind:
Tell them 'twere base to yield where I have conquer'd.
I scorn to prostitute myself to a man,
I that can prostitute a man to me:
And so I greet thee.
LAXTON
Hear me!
MOLL
Would the spirits
Of all my [slanderers] were clasp'd in thine
That I might vex an army at one time!
They fight.
LAXTON
I do repent me! Hold!
MOLL
You'll die the better Christian then.
LAXTON
I do confess I have wrong'd thee, Moll.
MOLL
Confession is but poor amends for wrong,
Unless a rope would follow.
LAXTON
I ask thee pardon.
MOLL
I'm your hir'd whore, sir.
LAXTON
I yield both purse and body!
MOLL
Both are mine and now at my disposing.
LAXTON
Spare my life!
MOLL
I scorn to strike thee basely.
LAXTON
Spoke like a noble girl, i'faith! [Aside] Heart, I think
I fight with a familiar or the ghost of a fencer! Sh' has wounded
me gallantly. Call you this a lecherous [voyage]? Here's blood
would have serv'd me this seven year in broken heads and cut fingers,
and it now runs all out together. Pox a' the Three Pigeons!
I would the coach were here now to carry me to the chirurgeon's.
Exit Laxton.
MOLL
If I could meet my enemies one by one thus,
I might make pretty shift with 'em in time
And make 'em know she that has wit and spirit
May scorn to live beholding to her body for meat
Or for apparel like your common dame
That makes shame get her clothes to cover shame.
Base is that mind that kneels unto her body,
As if a husband stood in awe on's wife:
My spirit shall be mistress of this house
As long as I have time in't.
Enter Trapdoor.
[Aside] Oh,
Here comes my man that would be: 'tis his hour.
Faith, a good well-set fellow, if his spirit
Be answerable to his umbles. He walks stiff,
But whether he will stand to't stiffly, there's the point;
H'as a good calf for't, and ye shall have many a woman
Choose him she means to [make] her head by his calf.
I do not know their tricks in't. Faith, he seems
A man without; I'll try what he is within.
TRAPDOOR
[Aside] She told me Gray's Inn Fields 'twixt three and
four.
I'll fit her mistress-ship with a piece of service!
I'm hir'd to rid the town of one mad girl.
She justles him.
What a pox ails you, sir?
MOLL
[Aside] He begins like a gentleman.
TRAPDOOR
Heart, is the field so narrow, or your eyesight?
She comes towards him.
Life, he comes back again!
MOLL
Was this spoke to me, sir?
TRAPDOOR
I cannot tell, sir.
MOLL
Go, y'are a coxcomb!
TRAPDOOR
Coxcomb?
MOLL
Y'are a slave!
TRAPDOOR
I hope there's law for you, sir.
MOLL
[Yea], do you see, sir?
Turn his hat.
TRAPDOOR
Heart, this is no good dealing!
Pray let me know what house you're of.
MOLL
One of the Temple, sir.
Fillips him.
TRAPDOOR
Mass, so methinks!
MOLL
And yet sometime I lie
About Chick Lane.
TRAPDOOR
I like you the worse
Because you shift your lodging so often.
I'll not meddle with you for that trick, sir.
MOLL
A good shift, but it shall not serve your turn.
TRAPDOOR
You'll give me leave to pass about my business, sir?
MOLL
Your business?
I'll make you wait on me before I ha' done,
And glad to serve me too.
TRAPDOOR
How, sir! Serve you?
Not if there were no more men in England!
MOLL
But if there were no more women in England,
I hope you'd wait upon your mistress then.
TRAPDOOR
Mistress!
MOLL
Oh, you're a tried spirit at a push, sir!
TRAPDOOR
What would your worship have me do?
MOLL
You a fighter?
TRAPDOOR
No, I praise heaven; I had better grace and more manners.
MOLL
As how I pray, sir?
TRAPDOOR
Life, 't had been a beastly part of me to have drawn my weapons
upon my mistress! All the world would 'a' cried shame of me for
that.
MOLL
Why, but you knew me not.
TRAPDOOR
Do not say so, mistress; I knew you by your wide straddle, as
well as if I had been in your belly.
MOLL
Well, we shall try you further; i' th' mean time we give you entertainment.
TRAPDOOR
Thank your good mistress-ship.
MOLL
How many suits have you?
TRAPDOOR
No more suits than backs, mistress.
MOLL
Well, if you deserve, I cast off this next week,
And you may creep into't.
TRAPDOOR
Thank your good worship.
MOLL
Come, follow me to St. Thomas Apostle's;
I'll put a livery cloak upon your back
The first thing I do.
TRAPDOOR
I follow, my dear mistress.
Exeunt omnes.
GALLIPOT
What, Pru! Nay, sweet Prudence!
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
What a pruing keep you; I think the baby would have a teat, it
kyes so. Pray be not so fond of me: leave your city humours;
I'm vex'd at you to see how like a calf you come bleating after
me.
GALLIPOT
Nay, honey Pru. How does your rising up before all the table
show? And flinging from my friends so uncivilly? Fie, Pru, fie,
come!
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Then up and ride, i'faith.
GALLIPOT
Up and ride? Nay, my pretty Pru, that's far from my thought,
duck. Why, mouse, thy mind is nibbling at something. What is't?
What lies upon thy stomach?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Such an ass as you. Hoyda, y'are best turn midwife or physician!
Y'are a pothecary already, but I'm none of your drugs.
GALLIPOT
Thou art a sweet drug, sweet'st Pru, and the more thou art pounded,
the more precious.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Must you be prying into a woman's secrets, say ye?
GALLIPOT
Woman's secrets?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
What, I cannot have a qualm come upon me but your teeth waters
till your nose hang over it.
GALLIPOT
It is my love, dear wife.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Your love? Your love is all words; give me deeds: I cannot abide
a man that's too fond over me, so cookish; thou dost not know
how to handle a woman in her kind.
GALLIPOT
No, Pru? Why, I hope I have handled--
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Handle a fool's head of your own, fie, fie!
GALLIPOT
Ha, ha, 'tis such a wasp! It does me good now to have her [sting]
me, little rogue.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Now fie, how you vex me! I cannot abide these [apron] husbands,
such cotqueans: you overdo your things; they become you scurvily.
GALLIPOT
[Aside] Upon my life, she breeds! Heaven knows how I have
strain'd myself to please her, night and day. I wonder why we
citizens should get children so fretful and untoward in the breeding,
their fathers being for the most part as gentle as milch-kine.--Shall
I leave thee, my Pru?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Fie, fie, fie.
GALLIPOT
Thou shalt not be vex'd no more, pretty kind rogue: take no cold,
sweet Pru.
Exit Gallipot.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
As your wit has done. [Taking out a letter] Now, Master
Laxton, show your head. What news from you? Would any husband
suspect that a woman crying, "Buy any scurvygrass" should
bring love letters amongst her herbs to his wife? Pretty trick,
fine conveyance! Had jealousy a thousand eyes, a silly woman
with scurvygrass blinds them all.
Laxton, with bays
Crown I thy wit for this: it deserves praise.
This makes me affect thee more; this proves thee wise.
'Lack what poor shift is love forc'd to devise?
To th' point:
She reads the letter.
"Oh, sweet creature,"--a sweet beginning--"pardon
my long absence, for thou shalt shortly be possessed with my presence.
Though Demophon was false to Phyllis, I will be to thee as Pan-da-rus
was to Cres-sida; tho' Aeneas made an ass of Dido, I will die
to thee ere I do so. Oh, sweet'st creature, make much of me,
for no man beneath the silver moon shall make more of a woman
than I do of thee. Furnish me therefore with thirty pounds; you
must do it of necessity for me: I languish till I see some comfort
come from thee, protesting not to die in thy debt, but rather
to live so, as hitherto I have and will.
Enter Master Gallipot hastily.
GALLIPOT
Nay, nay, wife, the women are all up! [Aside] Ha! How,
reading a' letters? I smell a goose, a couple of capons, and
a gammon of bacon from her mother out of the country, I hold my
life.--Steal, steal!
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh, beshrew your heart!
GALLIPOT
What letter's that?
I'll see't.
She tears the letter.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh, would thou hadst no eyes to see
The downfall of me and thyself: I'm forever,
Forever I'm undone!
GALLIPOT
What ails my Pru?
What paper's that thou tear'st?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Would I could tear
My very heart in pieces, for my soul
Lies on the rack of shame that tortures me
Beyond a woman's suffering.
GALLIPOT
What means this?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Had you no other vengeance to throw down
But even in height of all my joys--
GALLIPOT
Dear woman!
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
When the full sea of pleasure and content
Seem'd to flow over me--
GALLIPOT
As thou desirest to keep
Me out of bedlam, tell what troubles thee?
Is not thy child at nurse fall'n sick, or dead?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh, no!
GALLIPOT
Heavens bless me! Are my barns and houses
Yonder at Hockley Hole consum'd with fire?
I can build more, sweet Pru.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
'Tis worse, 'tis worse.
GALLIPOT
My factor broke, or is the Jonas sunk?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Would all we had were swallowed in the waves,
Rather than both should be the scorn of slaves.
GALLIPOT
I'm at my wits' end!
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh, my dear husband,
Where once I thought myself a fixed star
Plac'd only in the heaven of thine arms,
I fear now I shall prove a wanderer.
Oh, Laxton, Laxton, is it then my fate
To be by thee o'erthrown?
GALLIPOT
Defend me, wisdom,
From falling into frenzy! On my knees,
Sweet Pru, speak: what's that Laxton who so heavy
Lies on thy bosom?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
I shall sure run mad!
GALLIPOT
I shall run mad for company then. Speak to me:
I'm Gallipot thy husband. Pru, why, Pru!
Art sick in conscience for some villainous deed
Thou wert about to act? Didst mean to rob me?
Tush, I forgive thee! Hast thou on my bed
Thrust my soft pillow under another's head?
I'll wink at all faults, Pru; 'las, that's no more
Than what some neighbours near thee have done before.
Sweet honey Pru, what's that Laxton?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh!
GALLIPOT
Out with him!
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh, he's born to be my undoer!
This hand which thou call'st thine to him was given;
To him was I made sure i' th' sight of heaven.
GALLIPOT
I never heard this thunder.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Yes, yes, before
I was to thee contracted, to him I swore,
Since last I saw him twelve months three times told
The moon hath drawn through her light silver bow,
For o'er the seas he went, and it was said,
But rumour lies, that he in France was dead.
But he's alive, oh, he's alive! He sent
That letter to me, which in rage I rent,
Swearing with oaths most damnably to have me,
Or tear me from this bosom. Oh, heavens save me!
GALLIPOT
My heart will break! Sham'd and undone forever!
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
So black a day poor wretch went o'er thee never.
GALLIPOT
If thou shouldst wrastle with him at the law,
Th' art sure to fall: no odd sleight, no prevention.
I'll tell him th' art with child.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Umh.
GALLIPOT
Or give out
One of my men was ta'en a-bed with thee.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Umh, umh.
GALLIPOT
Before I lose thee, my dear Pru,
I'll drive it to that push.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Worse, and worse still:
You embrace a mischief to prevent an ill.
GALLIPOT
I'll buy thee of him, stop his mouth with gold.
Think'st thou twill do?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh me, heavens grant it would!
Yet now my senses are set more in tune,
He writ, as I remember in his letter,
That he in riding up and down had spent
Ere he could find me thirty pounds: send that;
Stand not on thirty with him.
GALLIPOT
Forty, Pru;
Say thou the word 'tis done. We venture lives
For wealth, but must do more to keep our wives.
Thirty or forty, Pru?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Thirty, good sweet;
Of an ill bargain let's save what we can.
I'll pay it him with my tears: he was a man
When first I knew him of a meek spirit;
All goodness is not yet dried up, I hope.
GALLIPOT
He shall have thirty pound; let that stop all:
Love's sweets taste best when we have drunk down gall.
Enter Master Tiltyard and his wife, Master Goshawk, and Mistress Openwork.
God-so, our friends! Come, come, smooth your cheek;
After a storm the face of heaven looks sleek.
TILTYARD
Did I not tell you these turtles were together?
MISTRESS TILTYARD
How dost thou, sirrah? Why, sister Gallipot!
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Lord, how she's chang'd!
GOSHAWK
Is your wife ill, sir?
GALLIPOT
Yes, indeed la, sir, very ill, very ill, never worse!
MISTRESS TILTYARD
How her head burns! Feel how her pulses work.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Sister, lie down a little; that always does me good.
MISTRESS TILTYARD
In good sadness, I find best ease in that too.
Has she laid some hot thing to her stomach?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
No, but I will lay something anon.
TILTYARD
Come, come, fools, you trouble her. Shall's go, Master Goshawk?
GOSHAWK
Yes, sweet Master Tiltyard. [Taking Mistress Openwork aside]
Sirrah Rosamond, I hold my life Gallipot hath vex'd his wife.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
She has a horrible high colour indeed.
GOSHAWK
We shall have your face painted with the same red soon at night
when your husband comes from his rubbers in a false alley; thou
wilt not believe me that his bowls run with a wrong bias.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
It cannot sink into me that he feeds upon stale mutton abroad,
having better and fresher at home.
GOSHAWK
What if I bring thee where thou shalt see him stand at rack and
manger?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
I'll saddle him in's kind and spur him till he kick again.
GOSHAWK
Shall thou and I ride our journey then?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Here's my hand.
GOSHAWK
No more.--Come, Master Tiltyard, shall we leap into the stirrups
with our women and amble home?
TILTYARD
Yes, yes; come, wife.
MISTRESS TILTYARD
In troth, sister, I hope you will do well for all this.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
I hope I shall. Farewell, good sister, sweet Master Goshawk.
GALLIPOT
Welcome, brother, most kindly welcome, sir.
OMNES
Thanks, sir, for our good cheer.
Exeunt all but Gallipot and his wife.
GALLIPOT
It shall be so, because a crafty knave
Shall not outreach me nor walk by my door
With my wife arm in arm, as 'twere his whore,
I'll give him a golden coxcomb, thirty pound.
Tush, Pru, what's thirty pound? Sweet duck, look cheerly.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Thou art worthy of my heart: thou buy'st it dearly.
Enter Laxton muffled.
LAXTON
'Ud's light, the tide's against me! A pox of your pothecaryship!
Oh, for some glister to set him going! 'Tis one of Hercules'
labours to tread one of these city hens because their cocks are
still crowing over them; there's no turning tail here, I must
on.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh, husband, see, he comes!
GALLIPOT
Let me deal with him.
LAXTON
Bless you, sir.
GALLIPOT
Be you bless'd too, sir, if you come in peace.
LAXTON
Have you any good pudding tobacco, sir?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh, pick no quarrels, gentle sir! My husband
Is not a man of weapon as you are;
He knows all: I have op'ned all before him
Concerning you.
LAXTON
Zounds, has she shown my letters!
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Suppose my case were yours, what would you do
At such a pinch, such batteries, such assaults
Of father, mother, kindred, to dissolve
The knot you tied, and to be bound to him?
How could you shift this storm off?
LAXTON
If I know, hang me.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Besides a story of your death was read
Each minute to me.
LAXTON
[Aside] What a pox means this riddling?
GALLIPOT
Be wise, sir; let not you and I be toss'd
On lawyers' pens: they have sharp nibs and draw
Men's very heart-blood from them. What need you, sir,
To beat the drum of my wife's infamy,
And call your friends together, sir, to prove
Your [precontract] when sh' has confess'd it?
LAXTON
Umh, sir,
Has she confess'd it?
GALLIPOT
Sh' has, faith, to me, sir,
Upon your letter sending.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
I have, I have.
LAXTON
[Aside] If I let this iron cool, call me slave.--
Do you hear, you dame Prudence? Think'st thou, vile woman,
I'll take these blows and wink?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Upon my knees--
LAXTON
Out, impudence!
GALLIPOT
Good sir--
LAXTON
You goatish slaves,
No wild fowl to cut up but mine?
GALLIPOT
Alas, sir,
You make her flesh to tremble; fright her not.
She shall do reason and what's fit.
LAXTON
I'll have thee,
Wert thou more common than an hospital
And more diseased.
GALLIPOT
But one word, good sir.
LAXTON
So, sir?
GALLIPOT
I married her, have [lain] with her, and got
Two children on her body; think but on that.
Have you so beggarly an appetite,
When I upon a dainty dish have fed,
To dine upon my scraps, my leavings? Ha, sir?
Do I come near you [now], sir?
LAXTON
Be-Lady, you touch me.
GALLIPOT
Would not you scorn to wear my clothes, sir?
LAXTON
Right, sir.
GALLIPOT
Then pray, sir, wear not her, for she's a garment
So fitting for my body, I'm loath
Another should put it on; you will undo both.
Your letter, as she said, complain'd you had spent
In quest of her some thirty pound: I'll pay it.
Shall that, sir, stop this gap up 'twixt you two?
LAXTON
Well, if I swallow this wrong, let her thank you;
The money being paid, sir, I am gone.
Farewell, oh women! Happy's he trusts none.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Dispatch him hence, sweet husband.
GALLIPOT
Yes, dear wife.
Pray, sir, come in. Ere Master Laxton part
Thou shalt in wine drink to him.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
With all my heart.
[Aside to Laxton] How dost thou like my wit?
LAXTON
[Aside to Mistress Gallipot] Rarely!
Exit Master Gallipot and his wife.
That wile
By which the serpent did the first woman beguile
Did ever since all women's bosoms fill;
Y'are apple-eaters all, deceivers still.
Exit Laxton.
SIR ALEXANDER
Out with your tale, Sir Davy, to Sir Adam;
A knave is in mine eye deep in my debt.
SIR DAVY
Nay, if he be a knave, sir, hold him fast.
[Sir Alexander takes Trapdoor aside.]
SIR ALEXANDER
Speak softly. What egg is there hatching now?
TRAPDOOR
A duck's egg, sir, a duck that has eaten a frog; I have crack'd
the shell and some villainy or other will peep out presently.
The duck that sits is the bouncing ramp, that roaring girl my
mistress, the drake that must tread is your son Sebastian.
SIR ALEXANDER
Be quick.
TRAPDOOR
As the tongue of an oyster-wench.
SIR ALEXANDER
And see thy news be true.
TRAPDOOR
As a barber's every Saturday night. Mad Moll--
SIR ALEXANDER
Ah.
TRAPDOOR
Must be let in without knocking at your back gate.
SIR ALEXANDER
So.
TRAPDOOR
Your chamber will be made bawdy.
SIR ALEXANDER
Good.
TRAPDOOR
She comes in a shirt of mail.
SIR ALEXANDER
How shirt of mail?
TRAPDOOR
Yes, sir, or a male shirt, that's to say in man's apparel.
SIR ALEXANDER
To my son?
TRAPDOOR
Close to your son: your son and her moon will be in conjunction,
if all almanacs lie not. Her black safeguard is turn'd into a
deep slop, the holes of her upper body to button holes, her waistcoat
to a doublet, her placket to the ancient seat of a codpiece, and
you shall take 'em both with standing collars.
SIR ALEXANDER
Art sure of this?
TRAPDOOR
As every throng is sure of a pickpocket, as sure as a whore is
of the clients all Michaelmas Term, and of the pox after the term.
SIR ALEXANDER
The time of their tilting?
TRAPDOOR
Three.
SIR ALEXANDER
The day?
TRAPDOOR
This.
SIR ALEXANDER
Away, ply it, watch her.
TRAPDOOR
As the devil doth for the death of a bawd, I'll watch her; do
you catch her.
SIR ALEXANDER
She's fast: here weave thou the nets. Hark--
TRAPDOOR
They are made.
SIR ALEXANDER
I told them thou didst owe me money; hold it up, maintain 't.
TRAPDOOR
Stiffly, as a puritan does contention. [Loudly] [Pox],
I owe thee not the value of a halfpenny halter!
SIR ALEXANDER
Thou shalt be hang'd in't ere thou scape so! Varlet, I'll make
thee look through a grate.
TRAPDOOR
I'll do't presently, through a tavern grate. Drawer! Pish!
Exit Trapdoor.
SIR ADAM
Has the knave vex'd you, sir?
SIR ALEXANDER
Ask'd him my money;
He swears my son receiv'd it. Oh, that boy
Will ne'er leave heaping sorrows on my heart
Till he has broke it quite.
SIR ADAM
Is he still wild?
SIR ALEXANDER
As is a Russian bear.
SIR ADAM
But he has left
His old haunt with that baggage?
SIR ALEXANDER
Worse still and worse:
He lays on me his shame, I on him my curse.
SIR DAVY
My son Jack Dapper then shall run with him,
All in one pasture.
SIR ADAM
Proves your son bad too, sir?
SIR DAVY
As villainy can make him. Your Sebastian
Dotes but on one drab, mine on a thousand,
A noise of fiddlers, tobacco, wine and a whore,
A mercer that will let him take up more,
Dice, and a water-spaniel with a duck: oh,
Bring him a-bed with these! When his purse jingles,
Roaring boys follow at's tale, fencers and ningles,
Beasts Adam ne'er gave name to: these horse-leeches suck
My son; he being drawn dry, they all live on smoke.
SIR ALEXANDER
Tobacco?
SIR DAVY
Right, but I have in my brain
A windmill going that shall grind to dust
The follies of my son, and make him wise
Or a stark fool; pray lend me your advise.
[SIR ALEXANDER, SIR ADAM]
That shall you, good Sir Davy.
SIR DAVY
Here's the springe
I ha' set to catch this woodcock in: an action
In a false name, unknown to him, is ent'red
I' th' counter to arrest Jack Dapper.
[SIR ALEXANDER, SIR ADAM]
Ha, ha, he!
SIR DAVY
Think you the counter cannot break him?
SIR ADAM
Break him?
Yes, and break's heart too if he lie there long.
SIR DAVY
I'll make him sing a countertenor sure.
SIR ADAM
No way to tame him like it; there he shall learn
What money is indeed, and how to spend it.
SIR DAVY
He's bridled there.
SIR ALEXANDER
Ay, yet knows not how to mend it.
Bedlam cures not more madmen in a year
Than one of the counters does; men pay more dear
There for their wit than anywhere; a counter:
Why, 'tis an university! Who not sees?
As scholars there, so here men take degrees
And follow the same studies all alike.
Scholars learn first logic and rhetoric.
So does a prisoner: with fine honey'd speech
At's first coming in he doth persuade, beseech,
He may be lodg'd with one that is not itchy,
To lie in a clean chamber, in sheets not lousy;
But when he has no money, then does he try
By subtle logic and quaint sophistry
To make the keepers trust him.
SIR ADAM
Say they do?
SIR ALEXANDER
Then he's a graduate.
SIR DAVY
Say they trust him not?
SIR ALEXANDER
Then is he held a freshman and a sot,
And never shall commence, but being still barr'd
Be expuls'd from the master's side to th' twopenny ward,
Or else i' th' hole be plac'd.
SIR ADAM
When then I pray
Proceeds a prisoner?
SIR ALEXANDER
When money being the aim
He can dispute with his hard creditors' hearts
And get out clear, he's then a Master of Arts.
Sir Davy, send your son to Wood Street College:
A gentleman can nowhere get more knowledge.
SIR DAVY
There gallants study hard.
SIR ALEXANDER
True, to get money.
SIR DAVY
Lies by th' heels, i'faith; thanks, thanks. I ha' sent
For a couple of bears shall paw him.
Enter Sergeant Curtilax and Yeoman Hanger.
SIR ADAM
Who comes yonder?
SIR DAVY
They look like puttocks; these should be they.
SIR ALEXANDER
I know 'em;
They are officers, sir. We'll leave you.
SIR DAVY
My good knights.
Leave me; you see I'm haunted now with spirits.
[SIR ALEXANDER, SIR ADAM]
Fare you well, sir.
Exeunt [Sir] Alexander and [Sir] Adam.
CURTILAX
[Aside to Hanger] This old muzzle-chops should be he by
the fellow's description.--Save you, sir.
SIR DAVY
Come hither, you mad varlets. Did not my man tell you I watch'd
here for you?
CURTILAX
One in a blue coat, sir, told us that in this place an old gentleman
would watch for us, a thing contrary to our oath, for we are to
watch for every wicked member in a city.
SIR DAVY
You'll watch then for ten thousand. What's thy name, honesty?
CURTILAX
Sergeant Curtilax I, sir.
SIR DAVY
An excellent name for a sergeant, Curtilax.
Sergeants indeed are weapons of the law
When prodigal ruffians far in debt are grown:
Should not you cut them, citizens were o'erthrown.
Thou dwell'st hereby in Holborn, Curtilax?
CURTILAX
That's my circuit, sir; I conjure most in that circle.
SIR DAVY
And what young toward whelp is this?
HANGER
Of the same litter: his yeoman, sir; my name's Hanger.
SIR DAVY
Yeoman Hanger.
One pair of shears sure cut out both your coats:
You have two names most dangerous to men's throats;
You two are villainous loads on gentlemen's backs.
Dear ware, this Hanger and this Curtilax.
CURTILAX
We are as other men are, sir. I cannot see but he who makes a
show of honesty and religion, if his claws can fasten to his liking,
he draws blood. All that live in the world are but great fish
and little fish, and feed upon one another: some eat up whole
men; a sergeant cares but for the shoulder of a man. They call
us knaves and curs, but many times he that sets us on worries
more lambs one year than we do in seven.
SIR DAVY
Spoke like a noble Cerberus. Is the action ent'red?
HANGER
His name is ent'red in the book of unbelievers.
SIR DAVY
What book's that?
CURTILAX
The book where all prisoners' names stand, and not one amongst
forty when he comes in believes to come out in haste.
SIR DAVY
Be as dogged to him as your office allows you to be.
[CURTILAX, HANGER]
Oh, sir!
SIR DAVY
You know the unthrift Jack Dapper?
CURTILAX
Ay, ay, sir. That gull? As well as I know my yeoman.
SIR DAVY
And you know his father too, Sir Davy Dapper?
CURTILAX
As damn'd a usurer as ever was among Jews; if he were sure his
father's skin would yield him any money, he would when he dies
[flay] it off, and sell it to cover drums for children at Bartholomew
Fair.
SIR DAVY
[Aside] What toads are these to spit poison on a man to
his face!--Do you see, my honest rascals? Yonder greyhound is
the dog he hunts with: out of that tavern Jack Dapper will sally.
Sa, sa; give the counter, on, set upon him.
[CURTILAX, HANGER]
We'll charge him upo' th' back, sir.
SIR DAVY
Take no bail, put mace enough into his caudle, double your files,
traverse your ground.
[CURTILAX, HANGER]
Brave, sir.
SIR DAVY
Cry arm, arm, arm.
[CURTILAX, HANGER]
Thus, sir.
SIR DAVY
There boy, there boy, away: look to your prey, my true English
wolves, and so I vanish.
Exit Sir Davy.
CURTILAX
Some warden of the sergeants begat this old fellow, upon my life!
Stand close.
HANGER
Shall the ambuscado lie in one place?
CURTILAX
No, [nook] thou yonder.
Enter Moll and Trapdoor.
MOLL
Ralph.
TRAPDOOR
What says my brave captain male and female?
MOLL
This Holborn is such a wrangling street.
TRAPDOOR
That's because lawyers walks to and fro in't.
MOLL
Here's such justling, as if everyone we met were drunk and reel'd.
TRAPDOOR
Stand, mistress: do you not smell carrion?
MOLL
Carrion? No, yet I spy ravens.
TRAPDOOR
Some poor wind-shaken gallant will anon fall into sore labour,
and these men-midwives must bring him to bed i' the counter: there
all those that are great with child with debts lie in.
MOLL
Stand up.
TRAPDOOR
Like your new maypole.
HANGER
Whist, whew.
CURTILAX
Hump, no.
MOLL
Peeping? It shall go hard, huntsmen, but I'll spoil your game.
They look for all the world like two infected maltmen coming
muffled up in their cloaks in a frosty morning to London.
TRAPDOOR
A course, captain; a bear comes to the stake.
Enter Jack Dapper and Gull.
MOLL
It should be so, for the dogs struggle to be let loose.
HANGER
Whew.
CURTILAX
Hemp.
MOLL
Hark, Trapdoor, follow your leader.
JACK
Gull.
GULL
Master.
JACK
Didst ever see such an ass as I am, boy?
GULL
No, by my troth, sir. To lose all your money, yet have false
dice of your own! Why, 'tis as I saw a great fellow used t'other
day: he had a fair sword and buckler, and yet a butcher dry-beat
him with a cudgel.
[MOLL]
[TRAPDOOR]
Honest sergeant--
Fly, fly, Master Dapper: you'll be arrested else!
JACK
Run, Gull, and draw!
GULL
Run, master, Gull follows you!
[Exeunt Jack] Dapper and Gull.
CURTILAX
I know you well enough: you're but a whore to hang upon any man.
MOLL
Whores then are like sergeants, so now hang you! [To Trapdoor]
Draw, rogue, but strike not: for a broken pate they'll keep their
beds and recover twenty marks damages.
CURTILAX
You shall pay for this rescue! [To Hanger] Run down Shoe Lane and meet him.
[Exeunt Curtilax and Hanger.]
TRAPDOOR
Shoo! Is this a rescue, gentlemen, or no?
MOLL
Rescue? A pox on 'em! Trapdoor, let's away;
I'm glad I have done perfect one good work today.
If any gentleman be in scriveners' bands,
Send but for Moll, she'll bail him by these hands.
Exeunt.
SIR ALEXANDER
Unhappy in the follies of a son,
Led against judgment, sense, obedience,
And all the powers of nobleness and wit:
Oh, wretched father!
Enter Trapdoor.
Now, Trapdoor, will she come?
TRAPDOOR
In man's apparel, sir; I am in her heart now
And share in all her secrets.
SIR ALEXANDER
Peace, peace, peace.
Here, take my German watch; hang 't up in sight
That I may see her hang in English for't.
TRAPDOOR
I warrant you for that now; next sessions rids her, sir: this
watch will bring her in better than a hundred constables.
SIR ALEXANDER
Good Trapdoor, sayst thou so? Thou cheer'st my heart
After a storm of sorrow. My gold chain too:
Here, take a hundred marks in yellow links.
TRAPDOOR
That will do well to bring the watch to light, sir,
And worth a thousand of your headboroughs' lanthorns.
SIR ALEXANDER
Place that a' the court cupboard, let it lie
Full in the view of her thief-whorish eye.
TRAPDOOR
She cannot miss it, sir; I see't so plain
That I could steal 't myself.
SIR ALEXANDER
Perhaps thou shalt too,
That or something as weighty; what she leaves,
Thou shalt come closely in and filch away,
And all the weight upon her back I'll lay.
TRAPDOOR
You cannot assure that, sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
No, what lets it?
TRAPDOOR
Being a stout girl, perhaps she'll desire pressing,
Then all the weight must lie upon her belly.
SIR ALEXANDER
Belly or back I care not so I've one.
TRAPDOOR
You're of my mind for that, sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
Hang up my ruff band with the diamond at it;
It may be she'll like that best.
TRAPDOOR
[Aside] It's well for her that she must have her choice; he thinks
nothing too good for her.--If you hold on this mind a little longer,
it shall be the first work I do to turn thief myself; would do
a man good to be hang'd when he is so well provided for.
SIR ALEXANDER
So, well said; all hangs well, would she hung so too:
The sight would please me more than all their [glisterings].
Oh, that my mysteries to such straits should run
That I must rob myself to bless my son!
Exeunt. Enter Sebastian, with Mary Fitzallard like a page, and Moll [in man's clothing].
SEBASTIAN
Thou hast done me a kind office, without touch
Either of sin or shame; our loves are honest.
MOLL
I'd scorn to make such shift to bring you together else.
SEBASTIAN
Now have I time and opportunity
Without all fear to bid thee welcome, love.
Kiss.
MARY
Never with more desire and harder venture.
MOLL
How strange this shows, one man to kiss another.
SEBASTIAN
I'd kiss such men to choose, Moll;
Methinks a woman's lip tastes well in a doublet.
MOLL
Many an old madam has the better fortune then,
Whose breaths grew stale before the fashion came;
If that will help 'em, as you think 'twill do,
They'll learn in time to pluck on the hose too.
SEBASTIAN
The older they wax, Moll--troth, I speak seriously--
As some have a conceit their drink tastes better
In an outlandish cup than in our own,
So methinks every kiss she gives me now
In this strange form is worth a pair of two.
Here we are safe and furthest from the eye
Of all suspicion: this is my [father's] chamber,
Upon which floor he never steps till night;
Here he mistrusts me not, nor I his coming.
At mine own chamber he still pries unto me;
My freedom is not there at mine own finding,
Still check'd and curb'd: here he shall miss his purpose.
MOLL
And what's your business now you have your mind, sir?
At your great suit I promis'd you to come;
I pitied her for name's sake, that a Moll
Should be so cross'd in love when there's so many
That owes nine lays apiece, and not so little.
My tailor fitted her. How like you his work?
SEBASTIAN
So well no art can mend it for this purpose,
But to thy wit and help we're chief in debt
And must live still beholding.
MOLL
Any honest pity
I'm willing to bestow upon poor ring-doves.
SEBASTIAN
I'll offer no worse play.
MOLL
Nay, and you should, sir;
I should draw first and prove the quicker man.
SEBASTIAN
Hold, there shall need no weapon at this meeting;
But 'cause thou shalt not loose thy fury idle,
Here take this viol, run upon the guts,
And end thy quarrel singing.
MOLL
Like a swan above bridge,
For look you here's the bridge, and here am I.
SEBASTIAN
Hold on, sweet Moll.
MARY
I've heard her much commended, sir, for one that was ne'er taught.
MOLL
I'm much beholding to 'em. Well, since you'll needs put us together,
sir, I'll play my part as well as I can; it shall ne'er be said
I came into a gentleman's chamber and let his instrument hang
by the walls.
SEBASTIAN
Why, well said, Moll! I'faith, it had been a shame for that gentleman
then that would have let it hung still and ne'er off'red thee
it.
MOLL
There it should have been still then for Moll, for though the
world judge impudently of me, I ne'er came into that chamber yet
where I took down the instrument myself.
SEBASTIAN
Pish, let 'em prate abroad; th' art here where thou art known
and lov'd. There be a thousand close dames that will call the
viol an unmannerly instrument for a woman and therefore talk broadly
of thee, when you shall have them sit wider to a worse quality.
MOLL
Push, I ever fall asleep and think not of 'em, sir, and thus I
dream.
SEBASTIAN
Prithee let's hear thy dream, Moll.
The song.
Enter Sir Alexander behind them.
SEBASTIAN
That's a free mistress, faith.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] Ay, ay, ay, like her that sings it, one of thine
own choosing.
MOLL
But shall I dream again?
SEBASTIAN
Marry, amen say I.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] So say I too.
MOLL
Hang up the viol now, sir: all this while I was in a dream; one
shall lie rudely then, but being awake, I keep my legs together.
A watch: what's a' clock here?
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] Now, now, she's trapp'd.
MOLL
Between one and two; nay, then I care not. A watch and a musician
are cousin-germans in one thing: they must both keep time well,
or there's no goodness in 'em; the one else deserves to be dash'd
against a wall, and t'other to have his brains knock'd out with
a fiddle case. What? A loose chain and a dangling diamond.
Here were a brave booty for an evening-thief now;
There's many a younger brother would be glad
To look twice in at a window for't,
And wriggle in and out, like an eel in a sandbag.
Oh, if men's secret youthful faults should judge 'em,
'Twould be the general'st execution
That e'er was seen in England;
There would be but few left to sing the ballets.
There would be so much work: most of our brokers
Would be chosen for hangmen, a good day for them;
They might renew their wardropes of free cost then.
SEBASTIAN
This is the roaring wench must do us good.
MARY
No poison, sir, but serves us for some use,
Which is confirm'd in her.
SEBASTIAN
Peace, peace!
Foot, I did hear him sure, where'er he be!
MOLL
Who did you hear?
SEBASTIAN
My father.
'Twas like a sight of his; I must be wary.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] No, wilt not be. Am I alone so wretched
That nothing takes? I'll put him to his plunge for't.
SEBASTIAN
Life, here he comes! [To Moll, giving her money] Sir,
I beseech you take it;
Your way of teaching does so much content me,
I'll make it four pound. Here's forty shillings, sir.
I think I name it right. [Aside to her] Help me, good
Moll.--
Forty in hand.
MOLL
Sir, you shall pardon me;
I have more of the mean'st scholar I can teach.
This pays me more than you have off'red yet.
SEBASTIAN
At the next quarter
When I receive the means my father 'lows me,
You shall have t'other forty.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] This were well now,
Were 't to a man whose sorrows had blind eyes,
But mine behold his follies and untruths
With two clear glasses.--How now?
SEBASTIAN
Sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
What's he there?
SEBASTIAN
You're come in good time, sir: I've a suit to you;
I'd crave your present kindness.
SIR ALEXANDER
What is he there?
SEBASTIAN
A gentleman, a musician, sir, one of excellent fing'ring.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] Ay, I think so; I wonder how they scap'd her.
SEBASTIAN
H'as the most delicate stroke, sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] A stroke indeed: I feel it at my heart.
SEBASTIAN
Puts down all your famous musicians.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] Ay, a whore may put down a hundred of 'em.
SEBASTIAN
Forty shillings is the agreement, sir, between us.
Now, sir, my present means mounts but to half on't.
SIR ALEXANDER
And he stands upon the whole.
SEBASTIAN
Ay, indeed does he, sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] And will do still; he'll ne'er be in other tale.
SEBASTIAN
Therefore I'd stop his mouth, sir, and I could.
SIR ALEXANDER
Hum, true, there is no other way indeed.
[Aside] His folly hardens; shame must needs succeed.--
Now, sir, I understand you profess music.
MOLL
I am a poor servant to that liberal science, sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
Where is it you teach?
MOLL
Right against Clifford's Inn.
SIR ALEXANDER
Hum, that's a fit place for it. You have many scholars?
MOLL
And some of worth whom I may call my masters.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] Ay, true, a company of whoremasters.--
You teach to sing too?
MOLL
Marry, do I, sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
I think you'll find an apt scholar of my son,
Especially for prick-song.
MOLL
I have much hope of him.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] I am sorry for't; I have the less for that.--
You can play any lesson?
MOLL
At first sight, sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
There's a thing called "The Witch." Can you play that?
MOLL
I would be sorry anyone should mend me in't.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] Ay, I believe thee: thou hast so bewitch'd my son,
No care will mend the work that thou hast done.
I have bethought myself, since my art fails,
I'll make her policy the art to trap her.
Here are four angels mark'd with holes in them,
Fit for his crack'd companions; gold he will give her:
These will I make induction to her ruin
And rid shame from my house, grief from my heart.--
Here, son, in what you take content and pleasure,
Want shall not curb you. [Giving him money] Pay the gentleman
His latter half in gold.
SEBASTIAN
I thank you, sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside] Oh, may the operation an't end three:
In her, life, shame in him, and grief in me.
Exit [Sir] Alexander.
SEBASTIAN
Faith, thou shalt have 'em: 'tis my father's gift.
Never was man beguil'd with better shift.
MOLL
He that can take me for a male musician,
I cannot choose but make him my instrument
And play upon him.
Exeunt omnes.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Is then that bird of yours, Master Goshawk, so wild?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
A goshawk, a puttock: all for prey; he angles for fish, but he
loves flesh better.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Is't possible his smooth face should have wrinkles in't and we
not see them?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Possible! Why, have not many handsome legs in silk stockings
villainous splay feet for all their great roses?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Troth, sirrah, thou sayst true.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Didst never see an archer as thou 'ast walk'd by Bunhill look
a-squint when he drew his bow?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Yes, when his arrows have fline toward Islington, his eyes have
shot clean contrary towards Pimlico.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
For all the world so does Master Goshawk double with me.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh, fie upon him! If he double once, he's not for me.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Because Goshawk goes in a shag-ruff band, with a face sticking
up in't which shows like an agate set in a cramp-ring, he thinks
I'm in love with him.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
'Las, I think he takes his mark amiss in thee.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
He has by often beating into me made me believe that my husband
kept a whore.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Very good.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Swore to me that my husband this very morning went in a boat with
a tilt over it to the Three Pigeons at Brainford, and his punk
with him under his tilt.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
That were wholesome.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
I believ'd it, fell a-swearing at him, cursing of harlots, made
me ready to hoise up sail, and be there as soon as he.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
So, so.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
And for that voyage Goshawk comes hither incontinently. But,
sirrah, this water-spaniel dives after no duck but me; his hope
is having me at Brainford to make me cry quack.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Art sure of it?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Sure of it! My poor innocent Openwork came in as I was poking
my ruff; presently hit I him i' the teeth with the Three Pigeons:
he forswore all, I up and opened all, and now stands he in a shop
hard by like a musket on a rest, to hit Goshawk i' the eye when
he comes to fetch me to the boat.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Such another lame gelding offered to carry me through thick and
thin--Laxton, sirrah--but I am rid of him now.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Happy is the woman can be rid of 'em all. 'Las, what are your
whisking gallants to our husbands, weigh 'em rightly man for man?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Troth, mere shallow things.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Idle simple things, running heads, and yet let 'em run over us
never so fast, we shopkeepers, when all's done, are sure to have
'em in our purse-nets at length, and when they are in, Lord, what
simple animals they are!
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Then they hang the head.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Then they droop.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Then they write letters.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Then they cog.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Then they deal underhand with us, and we must ingle with our husbands
a-bed, and we must swear they are our cousins, and able to do
us a pleasure at court.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
And yet when we have done our best, all's but put into a riven
dish: we are but frump'd at and libell'd upon.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Oh, if it were the good Lord's will, there were a law made no
citizen should trust any of 'em at all!
Enter Goshawk.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
[Aside to Mistress Openwork] Hush, sirrah, Goshawk flutters.
GOSHAWK
How now, are you ready?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Nay, are you ready? A little thing, you see, makes us ready.
GOSHAWK
Us? Why, must she make one i' the voyage?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Oh, by any means. Do I know how my husband will handle me?
GOSHAWK
[Aside] Foot, how shall I find water to keep these two
mills going?--Well, since you'll needs be clapp'd under hatches,
if I sail not with you both till all split, hang me up at the
mainyard and duck me. [Aside] It's but liquoring them
both soundly, and then you shall see their cork heels fly up high,
like two swans when their tails are above water and their long
necks under water, diving to catch gudgeons.--Come, come, oars
stand ready, the tide's with us: on with those false faces. Blow
winds and thou shalt take thy husband casting out his net to catch
fresh salmon at Brainford.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
I believe you'll eat of a cod's head of your own dressing before
you reach half way thither.
[The women don masks.]
GOSHAWK
So, so, follow close; pin as you go.
Enter Laxton muffled.
LAXTON
Do you hear?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Yes, I thank my ears.
LAXTON
I must have a bout with your pothecaryship.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
At what weapon?
LAXTON
I must speak with you.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
No.
LAXTON
No? You shall.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Shall? Away, sous'd sturgeon, half fish, half flesh!
LAXTON
Faith, gib, are you spitting? I'll cut your tail, pusscat, for
this.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
'Las, poor Laxton, I think thy tail's cut already. Your worst!
LAXTON
If I do not--
Exit Laxton.
GOSHAWK
Come, ha' you done?
Enter Master Openwork.
[Aside to her] 'Sfoot, Rosamond, your husband!
OPENWORK
How now? Sweet Master Goshawk, none more welcome;
I have wanted your embracements: when friends meet,
The music of the spheres sounds not more sweet
Than does their conference. Who is this? Rosamond?
Wife? How now, sister?
GOSHAWK
[Aside to Mistress Openwork] Silence if you love me.
OPENWORK
Why mask'd?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Does a mask grieve you, sir?
OPENWORK
It does.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Then y'are best get you a-mumming.
GOSHAWK
[Aside to her] 'Sfoot, you'll spoil all!
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
May not we cover our bare faces with masks
As well as you cover your bald heads with hats?
OPENWORK
No masks. Why, th' are thieves to beauty, that rob eyes
Of admiration in which true love lies.
Why are masks worn? Why good, or why desired,
Unless by their gay covers wits are fired
To read the vild'st looks? Many bad faces,
Because rich gems are treasured up in cases,
Pass by their privilege current, but as caves
Dam misers' gold, so masks are beauty's graves.
Men ne'er meet women with such muffled eyes
But they curse her that first did masks devise,
And swear it was some beldam. Come, off with 't.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
I will not.
OPENWORK
Good faces mask'd are jewels kept by [sprites].
Hide none but bad ones, for they poison men's sights:
Show [them] as shopkeepers do their broid'red stuff,
By owl-light; fine wares cannot be open enough.
Prithee, sweet Rose, come strike this sail.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Sail?
OPENWORK
Ha?
Yes, wife, strike sail, for storms are in thine eyes.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Th' are here, sir, in my brows if any rise.
OPENWORK
Ha, brows? What says she, friend? Pray tell me why
Your two flags were advanc'd. The comedy,
Come, what's the comedy?
MISTRESS [GALLIPOT]
Westward Ho!
OPENWORK
How?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
'Tis Westward Ho she says.
GOSHAWK
Are you both mad?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Is't market day at Brainford, and your ware
Not sent up yet?
OPENWORK
What market day? What ware?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
A pie with three pigeons in't; 'tis drawn and stays
Your cutting up.
GOSHAWK
[Aside to her] As you regard my credit--
OPENWORK
Art mad?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Yes, lecherous goat, baboon!
OPENWORK
Baboon? Then toss
Me in a blanket.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Do I it well?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Rarely.
GOSHAWK
Belike, sir, she's not well; best leave her.
OPENWORK
No,
I'll stand the storm now how fierce so e'er it blow.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Did I for this lose all my friends? Refuse
Rich hopes and golden fortunes to be made
A stale to a common whore?
OPENWORK
This does amaze me!
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Oh God, oh God, feed at reversion now?
A strumpet's leaving?
OPENWORK
Rosamond--
GOSHAWK
[Aside] I sweat!
Would I lay in Cold Harbour!
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Thou hast struck ten thousand daggers through my heart!
OPENWORK
Not I, by heaven, sweet wife.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Go, devil, go;
That which thou swear'st by damns thee.
GOSHAWK
[Aside to her] 'Sheart, will you undo me?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Why stay you here? The star by which you sail
Shines yonder above Chelsea; you lose your shore
If this moon light you: seek out your light whore.
OPENWORK
Ha?
MISTRESS [OPENWORK]
Push! Your western [pug]--
GOSHAWK
[Aside] Zounds, now hell roars!
MISTRESS OPENWORK
With whom you tilted in a pair of oars
This very morning.
OPENWORK
Oars?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
At Brainford, sir.
OPENWORK
Rack not my patience. Master Goshawk,
Some slave has buzzed this into her, has he not?
I run atilt in Brainford with a woman?
'Tis a lie!
What old bawd tells thee this? 'Sdeath, 'tis a lie!
MISTRESS OPENWORK
'Tis one to thy face shall justify all that I speak.
OPENWORK
'Ud's soul, do but name that rascal!
MISTRESS OPENWORK
No, sir, I will not.
GOSHAWK
[Aside] Keep thee there girl, then!
OPENWORK
Sister, know you this varlet?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Yes.
OPENWORK
Swear true:
Is there a rogue so low damn'd? A second Judas?
A common hangman? Cutting a man's throat?
Does it to his face? Bite me behind my back?
A cur dog? Swear if you know this hell-hound!
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
In truth I do.
OPENWORK
His name?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Not for the world,
To have you to stab him.
GOSHAWK
[Aside] Oh, brave girls: worth gold!
OPENWORK
A word, honest Master Goshawk.
Draw out his sword.
GOSHAWK
What do you mean, sir?
OPENWORK
Keep off, and if the devil can give a name
To this new fury, holla it through my ear,
Or wrap it up in some hid character.
I'll ride to Oxford and watch out mine eyes,
But I'll hear the brazen head speak; or else
Show me but one hair of his head or beard,
That I may sample it. If the fiend I meet
In mine own house, I'll kill him, [in] the street,
Or at the church door: there, 'cause he seeks to untie
The knot God fastens, he deserves to die.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
My husband titles him.
OPENWORK
Master Goshawk, pray, sir,
Swear to me that you know him or know him not.
Who makes me at Brainford to take up a petticoat
Beside my wife's?
GOSHAWK
By heaven that man I know not!
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Come, come, you lie.
GOSHAWK
[Aside to her] Will you not have all out?
By heaven I know no man beneath the moon
Should do you wrong, but if I had his name,
I'd print it in text letters.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Print thine own then:
Didst not thou swear to me he kept his whore?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
And that in sinful Brainford they would commit
That which our lips did water at, sir, ha?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Thou spider, that hast woven thy cunning web
In mine own house t' ensnare me! Hast not thou
Suck'd nourishment even underneath this roof
And turn'd it all to poison? Spitting it
On thy friend's face, my husband, he as 'twere sleeping?
Only to leave him ugly to mine eyes
That they might glance on thee?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Speak: are these lies?
GOSHAWK
Mine own shame me confounds.
OPENWORK
No more; he's stung.
Who'd think that in one body there could dwell
Deformity and beauty, heaven and hell?
Goodness I see is but outside: we all set
In rings of gold stones that be [counterfeit].
I thought you none.
GOSHAWK
Pardon me.
OPENWORK
Truth, I do.
This blemish grows in nature not in you,
For man's creation stick[s] even moles in scorn
On fairest cheeks. Wife, nothing is perfect born.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
I thought you had been born perfect.
OPENWORK
What's this whole world but a gilt, rotten pill?
For at the heart lies the old chore still.
I'll tell you, Master Goshawk, in your eye
I have seen wanton fire, and then to try
The soundness of my judgment, I told you
I kept a whore, made you believe 'twas true,
Only to feel how your pulse beat, but find
The world can hardly yield a perfect friend.
Come, come, a trick of youth, and 'tis forgiven;
This rub put by, our love shall run more even.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
You'll deal upon men's wives no more?
GOSHAWK
No, you teach me
A trick for that.
MISTRESS OPENWORK
Troth, do not, they'll o'erreach thee.
OPENWORK
Make my house yours, sir, still.
GOSHAWK
No.
OPENWORK
I say you shall:
Seeing thus besieg'd it holds out, 'twill never fall.
Enter Master Gallipot, and Greenwit like a sumner, Laxton muffled aloof off.
OMNES
How now?
GALLIPOT
With me, sir?
GREENWIT
You, sir. I have gone snaffling up and down by your door this
hour to watch for you.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
What's the matter, husband?
GREENWIT
I have caught a cold in my head, sir, by sitting up late in the
Rose Tavern, but I hope you understand my speech.
GALLIPOT
So, sir.
GREENWIT
I cite you by the name of Hippocrates Gallipot, and you by the
name of Prudence Gallipot, to appear upon Crastino, do
you see, Crastino sancti Dunstani this Easter Term in Bow
Church.
GALLIPOT
Where sir? What says he?
GREENWIT
Bow, Bow Church, to answer to a libel of precontract on the part
and behalf of the said Prudence and another. Y'are best, sir,
take a copy of the citation; 'tis but twelvepence.
OMNES
A citation?
GALLIPOT
You pocky-nosed rascal, what slave fees you to this?
LAXTON
Slave? I ha' nothing to do with you, do you hear, sir?
GOSHAWK
Laxton, is't not? What fagary is this?
GALLIPOT
Trust me, I thought, sir, this storm long ago
Had been full laid when, if you be rememb'red,
I paid you the last fifteen pound, besides
The thirty you had first, for then you swore.
LAXTON
Tush, tush, sir, oaths!
Truth, yet I'm loath to vex you, tell you what:
Make up the money I had an hundred pound
And take your belly full of her.
GALLIPOT
An hundred pound?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
What, a hundred pound? He gets none: what, a hundred pound!
GALLIPOT
Sweet Pru, be calm, the gentleman offers thus,
If I will make the moneys that are past
A hundred pound, he will discharge all courts
And give his bond never to vex us more.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
A hundred pound! 'Las! Take, sir, but threescore.
Do you seek my undoing?
LAXTON
I'll not bate one sixpence.
I'll maul you, puss, for spitting.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Do thy worst!
Will fourscore stop thy mouth?
LAXTON
No.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Y'are a slave!
Thou cheat, I'll now tear money from thy throat!
Husband, lay hold on yonder tawny-coat.
GREENWIT
Nay, gentlemen, seeing your women are so hot,
I must lose my hair in their company, I see.
[Removes his wig.]
MISTRESS OPENWORK
His hair sheds off, and yet he speaks not so much in the nose
as he did before.
GOSHAWK
He has had the better chirurgeon. Master Greenwit, is your wit
so raw as to play no better a part than a sumner's?
GALLIPOT
I pray who plays a knack to know an honest man in this company?
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Dear husband, pardon me, I did dissemble,
Told thee I was his precontracted wife,
When letters came from him for thirty pound;
I had no shift but that.
GALLIPOT
A very clean shift,
But able to make me lousy. On.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Husband, I pluck'd,
When he had tempted me to think well of him,
[Gelt] feathers from thy wings to make him fly
More lofty.
GALLIPOT
A' the top of you, wife. On.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT
He, having wasted them, comes now for more,
Using me as a ruffian doth his whore,
Whose sin keeps him in breath. By heaven I vow
Thy bed he never wrong'd, more than he does now.
GALLIPOT
My bed? Ha, ha, like enough: a shop-board will serve
To have a cuckold's coat cut out upon.
Of that we'll talk hereafter. Y'are a villain.
LAXTON
Hear me but speak, sir, you shall find me none.
OMNES
Pray, sir, be patient and hear him.
GALLIPOT
I am muzzled
For biting, sir; use me how you will.
LAXTON
The first hour that your wife was in my eye,
Myself with other gentlemen sitting by
In your shop tasting smoke, and speech being used,
That men who have fairest wives are most abused
And hardly scap'd the horn, your wife maintain'd
That only such spots in city dames were stain'd,
Justly, but by men's slanders: for her own part,
She vow'd that you had so much of her heart;
No man by all his wit, by any wile
Never so fine spun, should yourself beguile
Of what in her was yours.
GALLIPOT
Yet Pru, 'tis well.
Play out your game at Irish, sir. Who wins?
MISTRESS OPENWORK
The trial is when she comes to bearing.
LAXTON
I scorn'd one woman thus should brave all men
And, which more vex'd me, a she-citizen.
Therefore I laid siege to her; out she held,
Gave many a brave repulse, and me compell'd
With shame to sound retreat to my hot lust.
Then seeing all base desires rak'd up in dust,
And that to tempt her modest ears, I swore
Ne'er to presume again. She said her eye
Would ever give me welcome honestly,
And since I was a gentleman, if it run low,
She would my state relieve, not to o'erthrow
Your own and hers; did so. Then seeing I wrought
Upon her meekness, me she set at nought,
And yet to try if I could turn that tide,
You see what stream I strove with. But, sir, I swear
By heaven, and by those hopes men lay up there,
I neither have nor had a base intent
To wrong your bed; what's done is merriment.
Your gold I pay back with this interest:
When I had most power to do't, I wrong'd you least.
GALLIPOT
If this no gullery be, sir--
OMNES
No, no, on my life!
GALLIPOT
Then, sir, I am beholden not to you, wife,
But, Master Laxton, to your want of doing ill,
Which it seems you have not. Gentlemen,
Tarry and dine here all.
OPENWORK
Brother, we have a jest
As good as yours to furnish out a feast.
GALLIPOT
We'll crown our table with it. Wife, brag no more
Of holding out: who most brags is most whore.
Exeunt omnes.
Enter Jack Dapper, Moll, Sir Beauteous Ganymede, and Sir Thomas Long.
JACK
But prithee, Master Captain Jack, be plain and perspicuous with
me: was it your Meg of Westminster's courage that rescued me from
the Poultry puttocks indeed?
MOLL
The valour of my wit, I ensure you, sir, fetch'd you off bravely
when you were i' the forlorn hope among those desperates. Sir
Beauteous Ganymede here and Sir Thomas Long heard that cuckoo,
my man Trapdoor, sing the note of your ransom from captivity.
SIR BEAUTEOUS
'Uds so, Moll, where's that Trapdoor?
MOLL
Hang'd I think by this time: a justice in this town that speaks
nothing but "make a mittimus, away with him to Newgate"
used that rogue like a firework to run upon a line betwixt him
and me.
OMNES
How, how?
MOLL
Marry, to lay trains of villainy to blow up my life; I smelt the
powder, spied what linstock gave fire to shoot against the poor
captain of the galley-foist, and away slid I my man, like a shovel-board
shilling. He struts up and down the suburbs, I think, and eats
up whores, feeds upon a bawd's garbage.
SIR THOMAS
Sirrah Jack Dapper.
JACK
What sayst Tom Long?
SIR THOMAS
Thou hadst a sweet-fac'd boy, hail-fellow with thee to your little
Gull. How is he spent?
JACK
Troth, I whistled the poor little buzzard off a' my fist, because
when he waited upon me at the ordinaries, the gallants hit me
i' the teeth still, and said I look'd like a painted alderman's
tomb, and the boy at my elbow like a death's head. Sirrah Jack,
Moll.
MOLL
What says my little Dapper?
SIR BEAUTEOUS
Come, come, walk and talk, walk and talk.
JACK
Moll and I'll be i' the midst.
MOLL
These knights shall have squires' places, belike then. Well,
Dapper, what say you?
JACK
Sirrah Captain Mad Mary, the gull my own father, Dapper Sir Davy,
laid these London boot-halers, the catchpoles, in ambush to set
upon me.
OMNES
Your father? Away, Jack!
JACK
By the tassels of this handkercher, 'tis true. And what was his
warlike stratagem, think you? He thought because a wicker cage
tames a nightingale, a lousy prison could make an ass of me.
OMNES
A nasty plot.
JACK
Ay, as though a counter, which is a park in which all the wild
beasts of the city run head by head, could tame me.
Enter the Lord Noland.
MOLL
Yonder comes my Lord Noland.
OMNES
Save you, my lord.
LORD NOLAND
Well met gentlemen all, good Sir Beauteous Ganymede, Sir Thomas
Long. And how does Master Dapper?
JACK
Thanks, my lord.
MOLL
No tobacco, my lord?
LORD NOLAND
No, faith, Jack.
JACK
My Lord Noland, will you go to Pimlico with us? We are making
a boon voyage to that nappy land of spice-cakes.
LORD NOLAND
Here's such a merry ging, I could find in my heart to sail to
the world's end with such company. Come, gentlemen, let's on.
JACK
Here's most amorous weather, my lord.
OMNES
Amorous weather?
They walk.
JACK
Is not amorous a good word?
Enter Trapdoor like a poor soldier with a patch o'er one eye, and Tearcat with him, all tatters.
TRAPDOOR
Shall we set upon the infantry, these troops of foot? Zounds,
yonder comes Moll, my whorish master and mistress! Would I had
her kidneys between my teeth.
TEARCAT
I had rather have a cow-heel.
TRAPDOOR
Zounds, I am so patch'd up, she cannot discover me; we'll on.
TEARCAT
Alla corago then.
TRAPDOOR
Good your honours and worships, enlarge the ears of commiseration
and let the sound of a hoarse military organ-pipe, penetrate your
pitiful bowels to extract out of them so many small drops of silver,
as may give a hard straw-bed lodging to a couple of maim'd soldiers.
JACK
Where are you maim'd?
TEARCAT
In both our nether limbs.
MOLL
Come, come, Dapper, let's give 'em something. 'Las, poor men,
what money have you? By my troth, I love a soldier with my soul.
SIR BEAUTEOUS
Stay, stay, where have you serv'd?
SIR THOMAS
In any part of the Low Countries?
TRAPDOOR
Not in the Low Countries, if it please your manhood, but in Hungary
against the Turk at the siege of Belgrade.
LORD NOLAND
Who serv'd there with you, sirrah?
TRAPDOOR
Many Hungarians, Moldavians, Walachians, and Transylvanians, with
some Sclavonians, and retiring home, sir, the Venetian galleys
took us prisoners, yet freed us and suffered us to beg up and
down the country.
JACK
You have ambled all over Italy then?
MOLL
Mere rogues: put spurs to 'em once more.
JACK
Thou look'st like a strange creature, a fat butter-box, yet speak'st
English. What are thou?
TEARCAT
Ick, mine here? Ick bin den ruffling Tearcat, den brave soldado;
ick bin dorick all Dutchlant gueresen: der shellum das meere ine
beasa ine woert gaeb. Ick slaag um stroakes on tom cop: dastick
den hundred touzun divell halle frollick, mine here.
SIR BEAUTEOUS
Here, here, let's be rid of their jobbering.
MOLL
Not a cross, Sir Beauteous. You base rogues, I have taken measure
of you better than a tailor can, and I'll fit you as you, monster
with one eye, have fitted me.
TRAPDOOR
Your worship will not abuse a soldier?
MOLL
Soldier? Thou deserv'st to be hang'd up by that tongue which
dishonours so noble a profession. Soldier, you skeldering varlet?
Hold, stand, there should be a trapdoor hereabouts.
Pull off his patch.
TRAPDOOR
The balls of these glaziers of mine, mine eyes, shall be shot
up and down in any hot piece of service for my invincible mistress.
JACK
I did not think there had been such knavery in black patches,
as now I see.
MOLL
Oh, sir, he hath been brought up in the Isle of Dogs, and can
both fawn like a spaniel and bite like a mastiff as he finds occasion.
LORD NOLAND
What are you, sirrah? A bird of this feather too?
TEARCAT
A man beat'n from the wars, sir.
SIR THOMAS
I think so, for you never stood to fight.
DAPPER
What's thy name, fellow soldier?
TEARCAT
I am call'd by those that have seen my valour, Tearcat.
OMNES
Tearcat?
MOLL
A mere whip-jack, and that is, in the commonwealth of rogues,
a slave that can talk of sea-fight, name all your chief pirates,
discover more countries to you than either the Dutch, Spanish,
French, or English ever found out, yet indeed all his service
is by land, and that is to rob a fair or some such venturous exploit.
Tearcat! Foot, sirrah, I have your name now! I remember me
in my book of horners horns for the thumb, you know how.
TEARCAT
No indeed, Captain Moll, for I know you by sight: I am no such
nipping Christian, but a maunderer upon on the pad, I confess,
and meeting with honest Trapdoor here, whom you had cashier'd
from bearing arms, out at elbows under your colours, I instructed
him in the rudiments of roguery, and by my map made him sail over
any country you can name, so that now he can maunder better then
myself.
JACK
So then, Trapdoor, thou art turn'd soldier now.
TRAPDOOR
Alas, sir, now there's no wars, 'tis the safest course of life
I could take.
MOLL
I hope then you can cant, for by your cudgels, you, sirrah, are
an upright man.
TRAPDOOR
As any walks the highway, I assure you.
MOLL
And Tearcat, what are you? A wild rogue, an angler, or a ruffler?
TEARCAT
Brother to this upright man, flesh and blood, ruffling Tearcat
is my name, and a ruffler is my style, my title, my profession.
MOLL
Sirrah, where's your doxy? Halt not with me.
OMNES
Doxy, Moll? What's that?
MOLL
His wench.
TRAPDOOR
My doxy? I have, by the salomon, a doxy that carries a kinchin
mort in her slate at her back, besides my dell and my dainty wild
dell, with all whom I'll tumble this next darkmans in the strommel,
and drink ben [booze], and eat a fat gruntling cheat, a cackling
cheat, and a quacking cheat.
JACK
Here's old cheating.
TRAPDOOR
My doxy stays for me in a boozing ken, brave captain.
MOLL
He says his wench stays for him in an alehouse. You are no pure
rogues.
TEARCAT
Pure rogues? No, we scorn to be pure rogues, but if you come
to our lib ken, or our stalling ken, you shall find neither him
nor me a queer cuffin.
MOLL
So, sir, no churl of you.
TEARCAT
No, but a ben cove, a brave cove, a gentry cuffin.
LORD NOLAND
Call you this canting?
JACK
Zounds, I'll give a schoolmaster half a crown a week, and teach
me this pedlar's French.
TRAPDOOR
Do but stroll, sir, half a harvest with us, sir, and you shall
gabble your bellyful.
MOLL
Come, you rogue, cant with me.
SIR THOMAS
Well said, Moll. Cant with her, sirrah, and you shall have money,
else not a penny.
TRAPDOOR
I'll have a bout if she please.
MOLL
Come on, sirrah.
TRAPDOOR
Ben mort, shall you and I heave a booth, mill a ken, or nip a
bung? And then we'll couch a hogshead under the ruffmans, and
there you shall wap with me, and I'll niggle with you.
MOLL
[Slapping and kicking him] Out, you damn'd, impudent rascal!
TRAPDOOR
Cut benar whids, and hold your fambles and your stamps.
LORD NOLAND
Nay, nay, Moll, why art thou angry? What was his gibberish?
MOLL
Marry, this, my lord, says he: ben mort, good wench, shall you
and I heave a booth, mill a ken, or nip a bung? Shall you and
I rob a house or cut a purse?
OMNES
Very good.
MOLL
And then we'll couch a hogshead under the ruffmans: and then we'll
lie under a hedge.
TRAPDOOR
That was my desire, captain, as 'tis fit a soldier should lie.
MOLL
And there you shall wap with me and I'll niggle with you, and
that's all!
SIR BEAUTEOUS
Nay, nay, Moll, what's that wap?
JACK
Nay, teach me what niggling is; I'd fain be niggling.
MOLL
Wapping and niggling is all one, the rogue my man can tell you.
TRAPDOOR
'Tis fadoodling, if it please you.
SIR BEAUTEOUS
This is excellent. One fit more, good Moll.
MOLL
Come, you rogue, sing with me.
The song.
OMNES
Fine knaves, i'faith!
JACK
The grating of ten new cartwheels and the gruntling of five hundred
hogs coming from Romford market cannot make a worse noise than
this canting language does in my ears. Pray, my Lord Noland,
let's give these soldiers their pay.
SIR BEAUTEOUS
Agreed, and let them march.
LORD NOLAND
[Giving her money] Here, Moll.
MOLL
Now I see that you are stall'd to the rogue and are not ashamed
of your professions. [Giving Tearcat and Trapdoor the money]
Look you, my Lord Noland here and these gentlemen bestows upon
you two two boards and a half, that's two shillings sixpence.
TRAPDOOR
Thanks to your lordship.
TEARCAT
Thanks, heroical captain.
MOLL
Away.
TRAPDOOR
We shall cut ben whids of your masters and mistress-ship wheresoever
we come.
MOLL
You'll maintain, sirrah, the old justice's plot to his face?
TRAPDOOR
Else trine me on the cheats, hang me.
MOLL
Be sure you meet me there.
TRAPDOOR
Without any more maundering I'll do't. Follow, brave Tearcat.
TEARCAT
I prae, sequor, let us go mouse.
Exeunt they two, manet the rest.
LORD NOLAND
Moll, what was in that canting song?
MOLL
Troth, my lord, only a praise of good drink, the only milk which
these wild beasts love to suck, and thus it was:
A rich cup of wine,
Oh, it is juice divine,
More wholesome for the head
Than meat, drink, or bread
To fill my drunken pate!
With that, I'd sit up late;
By the heels would I lie,
Under a lousy hedge die.
Let a slave have a pull
At my whore, so I be full
Of that precious liquor--
And a parcel of such stuff, my lord, not worth the opening.
Enter a Cutpurse very gallant, with four or five men after him, one with a wand.
LORD NOLAND
What gallant comes yonder?
SIR THOMAS
Mass, I think I know him: 'tis one of Cumberland.
FIRST CUTPURSE
Shall we venture to shuffle in amongst yon heap of gallants and
strike?
SECOND CUTPURSE
'Tis a question whether there be any silver shells amongst them
for all their satin outsides.
OMNES [CUTPURSES]
Let's try.
MOLL
Pox on him! A gallant? Shadow me, I know him: 'tis one that
cumbers the land indeed; if he swim near to the shore of any of
your pockets, look to your purses.
OMNES [WITH MOLL]
Is't possible?
MOLL
This brave fellow is no better than a foist.
OMNES [WITH MOLL]
Foist? What's that?
MOLL
A diver with two fingers, a pickpocket: all his train study the
figging law, that's to say, cutting of purses and foisting. One
of them is a nip; I took him once i' the twopenny gallery at the
Fortune. Then there's a cloyer, or snap, that dogs any new brother
in that trade, and snaps will have half in any booty. He with
the wand is both a stale, whose office is to face a man i' the
streets whilst shells are drawn by another, and then with his
black conjuring rod in his hand, he, by the nimbleness of his
eye and juggling-stick, will in cheaping a piece of plate at a
goldsmith's stall, make four or five rings mount from the top
of his caduceus, and, as if it were at leap-frog, they skip into
his hand presently.
SECOND CUTPURSE
Zounds, we are smok'd!
OMNES [CUTPURSES]
Ha?
SECOND CUTPURSE
We are boil'd. Pox on her! See, Moll, the roaring drab.
FIRST CUTPURSE
All the diseases of sixteen hospitals boil her! Away!
MOLL
Bless you, sir.
FIRST CUTPURSE
And you, good sir.
MOLL
Dost not ken me, man?
FIRST CUTPURSE
No, [trust] me, sir.
MOLL
Heart, there's a knight to whom I'm bound for many favours lost
his purse at the last new play i' the Swan, seven angels in't.
Make it good; you're best. Do you see? No more.
FIRST CUTPURSE
A synagogue shall be call'd, Mistress Mary; disgrace me not.
Pacus palabros, I will conjure for you. Farewell.
[Exeunt Cutpurses.]
MOLL
Did not I tell you, my lord?
LORD NOLAND
I wonder how thou cam'st to the knowledge of these nasty villains.
SIR THOMAS
And why do the foul mouths of the world call thee Moll Cutpurse?
A name, methinks, damn'd and odious.
MOLL
Dare any step forth to my face and say,
"I have ta'en thee doing so, Moll," I must confess,
In younger days, when I was apt to stray,
I have sat amongst such adders, seen their stings
As any here might, and in full playhouses
Watch'd their quick-diving hands to bring to shame
Such rogues, and in that stream met an ill name.
When next, my lord, you spy any one of those,
So he be in his art a scholar, question him,
Tempt him with gold to open the large book
Of his close villainies, and you yourself shall cant
Better than poor Moll can, and know more laws
Of cheaters, lifters, nips, foists, puggards, curbers,
With all the devil's black guard, than it is fit
Should be discovered to a noble wit.
I know they have their orders, offices,
Circuits and circles unto which they are bound
To raise their own damnation in.
JACK
How dost thou know it?
MOLL
As you do: I show it you, they to me show it.
Suppose, my lord, you were in Venice.
LORD NOLAND
Well.
MOLL
If some Italian pander there would tell
All the close tricks of courtesans, would not you
Hearken to such a fellow?
LORD NOLAND
Yes.
MOLL
And here,
Being come from Venice, to a friend most dear
That were to travel thither, you would proclaim
Your knowledge in those villainies to save
Your friend from their quick danger. Must you have
A black, ill name because ill things you know?
Good troth, my lord, I am made Moll Cutpurse so.
How many are whores in small ruffs and still looks!
How many chaste whose names fill slander's books!
Were all men cuckolds, whom gallants in their scorns
Call so, we should not walk for goring horns.
Perhaps for my mad going some reprove me:
I please myself and care not else who loves me.
OMNES
A brave mind, Moll, i'faith.
SIR THOMAS
Come, my lord, shall's to the ordinary?
LORD NOLAND
Ay, 'tis noon sure.
MOLL
Good my lord, let not my name condemn me to you or to the world.
A fencer I hope may be call'd a coward: is he so for that? If
all that have ill names in London were to be whipp'd and to pay
but twelvepence apiece to the beadle, I would rather have his
office than a constable's.
JACK
So would I, Captain Moll: 'twere a sweet, tickling office, i'faith.
Exeunt.
SIR ALEXANDER
My son marry a thief, that impudent girl,
Whom all the world stick their worst eyes upon?
GREENWIT
How will your care prevent it?
GOSHAWK
'Tis impossible.
They marry close; they're gone, but none knows whither.
SIR ALEXANDER
Oh, gentlemen, when has a father's heart-strings
Held out so long from breaking?
Enter a Servant.
Now what news, sir?
SERVANT
They were met upo' th' water an hour since, sir,
Putting in towards the Sluice.
[Exit Servant.]
SIR ALEXANDER
The Sluice? Come, gentlemen,
'Tis Lambeth works against us.
GREENWIT
And that Lambeth
Joins more mad matches than your six wet towns
'Twixt that and Windsor Bridge, where fares lie soaking.
SIR ALEXANDER
Delay no time, sweet gentlemen: to Blackfriars!
We'll take a pair of oars and make after 'em.
Enter Trapdoor.
TRAPDOOR
Your son and that bold masculine ramp,
My mistress, are landed now at Tower.
SIR ALEXANDER
Hoyda, at Tower?
TRAPDOOR
I heard it now reported.
[Exit Trapdoor.]
SIR ALEXANDER
Which way gentlemen shall I bestow my care?
I'm drawn in pieces betwixt deceit and shame.
Enter Sir [Guy] Fitzallard.
SIR GUY
Sir Alexander,
You're well met and most rightly served:
My daughter was a scorn to you.
SIR ALEXANDER
Say not so, sir.
SIR GUY
A very abject she, poor gentlewoman;
Your house [has] been dishonoured. Give you joy, sir,
Of your son's gaskin-bride; you'll be a grandfather shortly
To a fine crew of roaring sons and daughters:
'Twill help to stock the suburbs passing well, sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
Oh, play not with the miseries of my heart!
Wounds should be dress'd and heal'd, not vex'd or left
Wide open to the anguish of the patient,
And scornful air let in: rather let pity
And advice charitably help to refresh 'em.
SIR GUY
Who'd place his charity so unworthily
Like one that gives alms to a cursing beggar?
Had I but found one spark of goodness in you
Toward my deserving child, which then grew fond
Of your son's virtues, I had eased you now;
But I perceive both fire of youth and goodness
Are rak'd up in the ashes of your age,
Else no such shame should have come near your house,
Nor such ignoble sorrow touch your heart.
SIR ALEXANDER
If not for worth, for pity's sake, assist me.
GREENWIT
You urge a thing past sense. How can he help you?
All his assistance is as frail as ours,
Full as uncertain. Where's the place that holds 'em?
One brings us water-news; then comes another
With a full-charg'd mouth, like a culverin's voice,
And he reports the Tower. Whose sounds are truest?
GOSHAWK
In vain you flatter him, Sir Alexander.
[SIR ALEXANDER]
I flatter him! Gentlemen, you wrong me grossly.
GREENWIT
He does it well, i'faith.
SIR GUY
Both news are false
Of Tower or water: they took no such way yet.
SIR ALEXANDER
Oh, strange! Hear you this, gentlemen: yet more plunges?
SIR GUY
Th' are nearer than you think for, yet more close
Than if they were further off.
SIR ALEXANDER
How am I lost
In these distractions!
SIR GUY
For your speeches, gentlemen,
In taxing me for rashness, 'fore you all
I will engage my state to half his wealth,
Nay, to his son's revenues, which are less,
And yet nothing at all till they come from him,
That I could, if my will stuck to my power,
Prevent this marriage yet, nay, banish her
Forever from his thoughts, much more his arms.
SIR ALEXANDER
Slack not this goodness, though you heap upon me
Mountains of malice and revenge hereafter:
I'd willingly resign up half my state to him,
So he would marry the mean'st drudge I hire.
GREENWIT
He talks impossibilities, and you believe 'em.
SIR GUY
I talk no more than I know how to finish;
My fortunes else are his that dares stake with me.
The poor young gentleman I love and pity,
And to keep shame from him, because the spring
Of his affection was my daughter's first
Till his frown blasted all, do but estate him
In those possessions which your love and care
Once pointed out for him, that he may have room
To entertain fortunes of noble birth,
Where now his desperate wants casts him upon her;
And if I do not for his own sake chiefly
Rid him of this disease that now grows on him,
I'll forfeit my whole state before these gentlemen.
GREENWIT
Troth, but you shall not undertake such matches;
We'll persuade so much with you.
SIR ALEXANDER
Here's my ring;
He will believe this token. 'Fore these gentlemen
I will confirm it fully: all those lands
My first love 'lotted him he shall straight possess
In that refusal.
SIR GUY
If I change it not,
Change me into a beggar.
GREENWIT
Are you mad, sir?
SIR GUY
'Tis done.
GOSHAWK
Will you undo yourself by doing,
And show a prodigal trick in your old days?
SIR ALEXANDER
'Tis a match, gentlemen.
SIR GUY
Ay, ay, sir, ay.
I ask no favour, trust to you for none;
My hope rests in the goodness of your son.
Exit [Sir Guy] Fitzallard.
GREENWIT
He holds it up well yet.
GOSHAWK
Of an old knight, i'faith.
SIR ALEXANDER
Curs'd be the time I laid his first love barren,
Willfully barren, that before this hour
Had sprung forth fruits of comfort and of honour!
He lov'd a virtuous gentlewoman.
Enter Moll [in man's clothes].
GOSHAWK
Life,
Here's Moll!
GREENWIT
Jack?
GOSHAWK
How dost thou, Jack?
MOLL
How dost thou, gallant?
SIR ALEXANDER
Impudence, where's my son?
MOLL
Weakness, go look him.
SIR ALEXANDER
Is this your wedding gown?
MOLL
The man talks monthly:
Hot broth and a dark chamber for the knight;
I see he'll be stark mad at our next meeting.
Exit Moll.
GOSHAWK
Why, sir, take comfort now, there's no such matter:
No priest will marry her, sir, for a woman
Whiles that shape's on, and it was never known
Two men were married and conjoin'd in one.
Your son hath made some shift to love another.
SIR ALEXANDER
Whate'er she be, she has my blessing with her.
May they be rich and fruitful, and receive
Like comfort to their issue as I take
In them; h'as pleas'd me now, marrying not this:
Through a whole world he could not choose amiss.
GREENWIT
Glad y'are so penitent for your former sin, sir.
GOSHAWK
Say he should take a wench with her smock-dowry,
No portion with her but her lips and arms?
SIR ALEXANDER
Why, who thrive better, sir? They have most blessing,
Though other have more wealth, and least repent:
Many that want most know the most content.
GREENWIT
Say he should marry a kind, youthful sinner?
SIR ALEXANDER
Age will quench that: any offence but theft
And drunkenness, nothing but death can wipe away;
Their sins are green even when their heads are grey.
Nay, I despair not now; my heart's cheer'd, gentlemen:
No face can come unfortunately to me.
Enter a Servant.
Now, sir, your news?
SERVANT
Your son with his fair bride
Is near at hand.
SIR ALEXANDER
Fair may their fortunes be!
GREENWIT
Now you're resolv'd, sir, it was never she?
SIR ALEXANDER
I find it in the music of my heart.
Enter Moll mask'd, in Sebastian's hand, and [Sir Guy] Fitzallard.
See where they come.
GOSHAWK
A proper lusty presence, sir.
SIR ALEXANDER
Now has he pleas'd me right: I always counsell'd him
To choose a goodly, personable creature;
Just of her pitch was my first wife his mother.
SEBASTIAN
Before I dare discover my offence,
I kneel for pardon.
SIR ALEXANDER
My heart gave it thee
Before thy tongue could ask it.
Rise; thou hast rais'd my joy to greater height
Than to that seat where grief dejected it.
Both welcome to my love and care forever,
Hide not my happiness too long, all's pardoned.
Here are our friends. Salute her, gentlemen.
They unmask her.
OMNES
Heart! Who['s] this? Moll?
SIR ALEXANDER
Oh, my reviving shame! Is't I must live
To be struck blind? Be it the work of sorrow,
Before age take 't in hand.
SIR GUY
Darkness and death!
Have you deceiv'd me thus? Did I engage
My whole estate for this?
SIR ALEXANDER
You ask'd no favour,
And you shall find as little; since my comforts
Play false with me, I'll be as cruel to thee
As grief to fathers' hearts.
MOLL
Why, what's the matter with you,
'Less too much joy should make your age forgetful?
Are you too well, too happy?
SIR ALEXANDER
With a vengeance.
MOLL
Methinks you should be proud of such a daughter,
As good a man as your son.
SIR ALEXANDER
Oh, monstrous impudence!
MOLL
You had no note before, an unmark'd knight:
Now all the town will take regard on you,
And all your enemies fear you for my sake.
You may pass where you list through crowds most thick,
And come off bravely with your purse unpick'd;
You do not know the benefits I bring with me:
No cheat dares work upon you with thumb or knife
While y'ave a roaring girl to your son's wife.
SIR ALEXANDER
A devil rampant!
SIR GUY
Have you so much charity
Yet to release me of my last rash bargain,
And I'll give in your pledge.
SIR ALEXANDER
No sir, I stand to't, I'll work upon advantage,
As all mischiefs do upon me.
SIR GUY
Content, bear witness all then
His are the lands, and so contention ends.
Here comes your son's bride, 'twixt two noble friends.
Enter the Lord Noland and Sir Beauteous Ganymede with Mary Fitzallard between them, the citizens and their wives with them.
MOLL
Now are you gull'd as you would be, thank me for't:
I'd a forefinger in't.
SEBASTIAN
Forgive me, father;
Though there before your eyes my sorrow feigned,
This still was she for whom true love complain'd.
SIR ALEXANDER
Blessings eternal and the joys of angels
Begin your peace here to be sign'd in heaven.
How short my sleep of sorrow seems now to me
To this eternity of boundless comforts
That finds no want but utterance and expression!
My lord, your office here appears so honourably,
So full of ancient goodness, grace, and worthiness:
I never took more joy in sight of man
Than in your comfortable presence now.
LORD NOLAND
Nor I more delight in doing grace to virtue
Than in this worthy gentlewoman, your son's bride,
Noble Fitzallard's daughter, to whose honour
And modest fame I am a servant vow'd;
So is this knight.
SIR ALEXANDER
Your loves make my joys proud.
Bring forth those deeds of land my care laid ready,
And which, old knight, thy nobleness may challenge,
Join'd with thy daughter's virtues, whom I prize now
As dearly as that flesh I call mine own.
Forgive me, worthy gentlewoman, 'twas my blindness
When I rejected thee; I saw thee not:
Sorrow and willful rashness grew like films
Over the eyes of judgment, now so clear
I see the brightness of thy worth appear.
MARY
Duty and love may I deserve in those,
And all my wishes have a perfect close,
SIR ALEXANDER
That tongue can never err, the sound's so sweet.
Here, honest son, receive into thy hands
The keys of wealth, possession of those lands
Which my first care provided: they're thine own;
Heaven give thee a blessing with 'em. The best joys
That can in worldly shapes to man betide
Are fertile lands and a fair fruitful bride,
Of which I hope thou'rt sped.
SEBASTIAN
I hope so too, sir.
MOLL
Father and son, I ha' done you simple service here.
SEBASTIAN
For which thou shalt not part, Moll, unrequited.
SIR ALEXANDER
Thou art a mad girl, and yet I cannot now
Condemn thee.
MOLL
Condemn me? Troth, and you should, sir.
I'd make you seek out one to hang in my room;
I'd give you the slip at gallows and cozen the people.
Heard you this jest, my lord?
LORD NOLAND
What is it, Jack?
MOLL
He was in fear his son would marry me,
But never dreamt that I would ne'er agree.
LORD NOLAND
Why? Thou hadst a suitor once, Jack. When wilt marry?
MOLL
Who, I, my lord? I'll tell you when, i'faith.
When you shall hear
Gallants void from sergeants' fear,
Honesty and truth unsland'red,
Woman mann'd but never pand'red,
[Cheaters] booted but not coach'd,
Vessels older ere they're broach'd:
If my mind be then not varied,
Next day following I'll be married.
LORD NOLAND
This sounds like doomsday,
MOLL
Then were marriage best,
For if I should repent, I were soon at rest.
SIR ALEXANDER
In troth, th' art a good wench. I'm sorry now
The opinion was so hard I conceiv'd of thee;
Some wrongs I've done thee.
Enter Trapdoor.
TRAPDOOR
Is the wind there now?
'Tis time for me to kneel and confess first,
For fear it come too late and my brains feel it:
Upon my paws, I ask you pardon, mistress.
MOLL
Pardon? For what, sir? What has your rogueship done now?
TRAPDOOR
I have been from time to time hir'd to confound you
By this old gentleman.
MOLL
How!
TRAPDOOR
Pray forgive him,
But may I counsel you, you should never do't.
Many a snare to entrap your worship's life
Have I laid privily, chains, watches, jewels,
And when he saw nothing could mount you up,
Four hollow-hearted angels he then gave you
By which he meant to trap you, I to save you.
SIR ALEXANDER
To all which shame and grief in me cry guilty.
Forgive me; now I cast the world's eyes from me
And look upon thee freely with mine own:
I see the most of many wrongs before [thee],
Cast from the jaws of envy and her people,
And nothing foul but that. I'll never more
Condemn by common voice, for that's the whore
That deceives man's opinion, mocks his trust,
Cozens his love, and makes his heart unjust.
MOLL
Here be the angels, gentlemen; they were given me
As a musician. I pursue no pity;
Follow the law: and you can cuck me, spare not;
Hang up my viol by me, and I care not.
SIR ALEXANDER
So far I'm sorry I'll thrice double 'em
To make thy wrongs amends.
Come, worthy friends, my honourable lord,
Sir Beauteous Ganymede, and noble Fitzallard,
And you kind [gentlewomen], whose sparkling presence
Are glories set in marriage, beams of society,
For all your loves give lustre to my joys.
The happiness of this day shall be rememb'red
At the return of every smiling spring;
In my time now 'tis born, and may no sadness
Sit on the brows of men upon that day,
But as I am, so all go pleas'd away.
[Exeunt all but Moll.]
[Exit.]
The Roaring Girl, the final dramatic collaboration between
Middleton and Thomas Dekker, first appeared in quarto in 1611.
David Lake's textual analyses of both authors' works has confirmed
the date of composition as later rather than earlier in the first
decade of 1600, and he conjectures the date to be 1608. However,
P. A. Mulholland ["The Date of The Roaring Girl,"
RES 28 (1977)], citing allusions to contemporary events,
which I include in the glossary below, maintains a later date
of the spring of 1611, which I believe is more likely. Lake and
others divide the shares as Dekker having written I, III.ii-iii,
IV.ii, V.i, and Middleton II, III.i, IV.i, V.ii, a roughly even
division, although some scenes are probably not solely from one
author's pen. Dekker is undoubtedly the author of the canting
scene: the usages closely parallel his contemporary Bellman
of London and Lanthorn and Candlelight tracts. Editions
of The Roaring Girl include Dyce's of 1840, Bullen's of
1885, Andor Gomme's for the New Mermaids Series (1976), and Fredson
Bowers's in The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker (1953-61),
with Introductions, Notes and Commentaries by Cyrus Hoy
(1980).
The title of the play derives from the riotous gallants of London, known as "roaring boys," whose penchant for machismo quarreling was parodied by Middleton and Rowley in A Fair Quarrel, and by Jonson in The Alchemist. The title character is based upon Mary Frith, the real Moll Cutpurse, whose notorious exploits tested the patience of proper society and often brought her before the court. Accounts of these exploits were variously recorded, and they include wearing men's clothes, appearing on the stage, drinking, swearing, making "immodest and lascivious speeches," prostitution, pick-pocketing, forgery, and highway robbery. A full rap sheet indeed but as the prologue, epilogue, and epistle to the reader clearly demonstrate, Dekker and Middleton were sympathetic to her, and through Moll offer, if not an apologia, at least some well-needed positive public relations. T. S. Eliot observed that the character of Moll is the one exquisite jewel in the crown of a rather mediocre play; without a doubt, she is thoroughly engaging. The loose and episodic structure of the play, in fact, allows Dekker and Middleton to showcase her various talents: she sings, she fights, she rescues Jack Dapper from the clutches of the law; she is just as comfortable with lords and gentlemen as with the thieves whose cant she speaks and over whom she has some authority. Moll's character is also amazingly well-rounded in the Forsterian sense: Dekker and Middleton take her beyond a presentation of the mere spectacle and her iconic status in the contemporary culture. We not only learn the "facts" of her past, but we also hear her heart and mind in many candid reactions to social prejudice and condemnation. It is certainly the best comic female role in the Middleton canon, and few comic female roles of the time are its equal.
Dramatis Personae
Wengrave: Wentgraue (Q), here and elsewhere in the d.p.
NEATFOOT: Neats-foot (Q); neat's foot is the foot of an ox, used as an article of food.
Ganymede: in classical mythology, Jove's page
GREENWIT: green = youthful, but also an emblem of lust; cf. The Revenger's Tragedy II.iii.
LAXTON: As Sir Alexander's pun in I.ii makes clear, his name = "lacks stone," or testicle. Cf. "Singlestone" in A Mad World, My Masters II.vi.
TILTYARD: A tilt-yard is an enclosed space for tilts and tournaments; cf. Your Five Gallants II.i. The connection with his profession lies in the use of feathers for an archer's arrows.
OPENWORK: A piece of cloth with a pattern of holes, like lace or crochet, that shows the material beneath.
sempster: the masculine form of "seamstress," although then used for both genders (cf. Mary's disguise in I.i)
[Hippocrates]: Greek physician (c. 460-357 BC)
GALLIPOT: a small earthen glazed pot, especially one used by apothecaries for ointments and medicines, or, by extension, an apothecary
TEARCAT: to tear a cat = to rant and bluster, to play a roistering hero; cf. A Midsummer Night's Dream I.ii.
CURTILAX: A curtal-ax is a short, broad-cutting sword, or a cutlass.
HANGER: a loop or strap, fastened to the girdle, in which the rapier was suspended; cf. Your Five Gallants I.i.
MINISTRI: servants
FELLOW: a thief; cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One II.i, The Revenger's Tragedy III.v.
To the Comic Play-Reader
Venery: good hunting or, more frequently, the pursuit of sexual pleasure; cf. The Witch I.i, The Second Maiden's Tragedy I.ii, The Family of Love IV.iv, A Trick to Catch the Old One I.ii, The Phoenix III.i, Northward Ho! III.i, Westward Ho! III.iv.
crop-doublet: A richly padded, short doublet, which went out of fashion about thirty years earlier.
bombasted: Bombast was cotton wool stuffing used to pad out clothes and make the wearer look muscular, but also took on this figurative and more familiar usage; cf. Your Five Gallants III.iii, Day's The Isle of Gulls Ind., Satiromastix V.ii.
doublet fell: "Few garments underwent so many changes as did the doublet. From the straight-bodied, full, long-skirted doublet of the reign of Henry VIII evolved the 'Peas-cod' or Dutch 'doublets with great belly and small skirt', so familiar from the seventies...The peas-cod front...disappeared by 1610, and the doublet became form-fitting--but was worn over a stiff lining--with a small waist decorated by points" (Linthicum, Costume in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, as cited by Hoy).
single plots: not characteristic of contemporary plays; as Gomme suggests, Middleton is probably being ironic.
quaint: ingenious
conceits: witty devices
termers: dissolute persons who frequented London during term-time (cf. introductory notes for Michaelmas Term, The Family of Love Pref., The Witch I.i). The law courts were in session during four terms: Hilary Term, Easter Term, Trinity Term, and Michaelmas Term. For various remarks about term-time, cf. The Family of Love I.ii, A Trick to Catch the Old One I.iv & II.i, Anything for a Quiet Life I.i, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.i, The Puritan I.i, The Revenger's Tragedy IV.ii.
sixpence: the price of a printed play
well couched: richly embroidered, and therefore not immediately apparent
and: if (used frequently throughout the play)
statute: Although there was no specific statute that forbade women from wearing men's clothing, the issue seems to have been covered in a general sumptuary law, i.e., a law meant to curtail extravagance.
codpiece point: the lace which fastened the cod-piece, a bagged appendage to the front of the close-fitting hose or breeches; cf. The Puritan I.iii.
galley room: The tiring room at the Fortune Theater was an extension of the upper gallery; Middleton's remark indicates copies of plays were stored there.
mystical: secretive; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside III.i, Your Five Gallants V.i, The Bloody Banquet IV.iii, The Family of Love IV.iv, The Second Maiden's Tragedy II.ii.
vent his private bottle-ale at midnight: Gomme explores the possible bawdy connotations: "'Bottle-ale' appears in 2 Henry IV, II.iv, 128, where the Arden editor suggests it means small beer; and this seems to be confirmed by a remark in Nashe's Fouleweather's Prognostications (Works, ed. Wilson, III, 392).... But it could also means simply windy rhetoric (see Marston, Histriomastix, III.i, 202); 'vent' can mean sniff out, uncover, or emit (urine, wind, etc.), and 'bottle' was one of innumerable words for the female pudenda (cf. Measure for Measure, III.ii, 174)."
ripped up: disclosed, brought out in the open
Prologus
mews: jeers by mewing like a cat
vast theatre: The Fortune Theater on Golden Lane in Cripplegate
(built 1600, burnt 1621, rebuilt 1623, finally destroyed 1662)
was 53 feet square inside (80 outside), and had three tiers of
galleries. To the right, the reconstruction, based on the surviving contract,
is by W. H. Godfrey, and the engraving of
the theater in its last days is by T. H. Shepherd (1811). It
was occupied by the Lord Admiral's Men (which became Prince Henry's
Men in 1603) under the management of Philip Henslowe and Edward
Alleyn, his son-in-law and a leading acting of the Admiral's Men.
covetous: eager
gives braves: offers battle
suburb roarers: i.e., the licentious lower classes of London's suburbs: "These suburb sinners have no land to live upon but their legs" (Lanthorn and Candlelight ix).
beside: besides (Q)
state: estate, wealth
iron grate: the bars of a debtor's prison
I.i.
bands: ruffs, collars; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.ii, The Changeling V.iii, Your Five Gallants I.i, The Family of Love IV.i.
transcendent: Normally, the best possible definition would be "transcending or rising high above the ordinary rank of persons, i.e., given the privilege of meeting him privately even though she is ostensibly of the class of tradesmen." However, Gomme's inclination toward an obscure bawdy connotation is correct, because we ultimately learn that Neatfoot thinks she is Sebastian's whore. In his affected (and probably condescending and self-righteous) way, Neatfoot is saying she will rise, or become pregnant, a common Jacobean pun.
fructify: become fruitful, with the bawdy innuendo; cf. The Family of Love III.iii, IV.ii, Westward Ho! II.i, Love's Labours Lost IV.ii.
falling bands: ruffs falling flat around the neck, a new fashion at the time; cf. 1 The Honest Whore III.i.
curl-pated: Curling the hair was much affected at this time.
ingeniously: ingenuously
[dined]: dyed (Q)
Orleans: a favored wine from the Loire region
buttery: liquor storeroom; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's IV.ii.
antic: grotesque; cf. I.ii "ape's tricks," The Revenger's Tragedy III.v, The Changeling IV.iii.
[fire]: omitted in Q
auricular confession: confession heard by a priest; "confession" has bawdy innuendo
needlewoman: slang for harlot
bond: a common pun; cf. Blurt, Master Constable II.i.
wolf's at door: "To keep the wolf from the door" was proverbial.
As a horse runs...one path still: i.e., like a horse turning a millstone that often stumbles but always keeps to the same path, Sebastian will often seem to be unfaithful but will remain constant; cf. Northward Ho! I.iii.
marks: A mark was worth 13s.4d.
I.ii.
grey groat: A groat was fourpence. "Not worth a grey groat" was proverbial.
galleries: "Sir Alexander's collection suggests a parody of the great collections which began to be made in Elizabeth's reign, and of which Lord Lunley's at Nonesuch Palace, Surrey, was an already famous example. Pictures were sometimes fixed to the wall so close together as to make a mosaic covering the wall entirely. The display hints at the kind of spectacular stage effects which were then becoming popular in masques and is a kind of visual diagram of the action of the play" (Gomme).
plaudities: applause; cf. The Revenger's Tragedy II.i, Dekker's The Noble Spanish Soldier V.iv.
obsequious: dutiful
floating island: "A trompe-l'oeil effect must be in mind here, intended to draw the audience more completely into the spectacle" (Gomme).
comical: cheerful
back friend: a backer or supporter
stoop: the swoop of a hawk (a term from falconry); cf. The Family of Love I.ii.
lure: a fake bird, usually made of pigeon's wings, with a hawk's foot attached
stand: Laxton counters Sir Alexander's cruel pun with the common bawdy Elizabethan pun.
mess: company eating together
heartstrings: The heart was supposedly braced with strings (tendons or nerves) that could be broken with emotional stress. The concept was often likened to the strings of a musical instrument, where there was a handy pun on "fret": 1) stress, worry, 2) a bar of gut, wood, or metal on the fingerboard used to regulate the fingering. Cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.ii, A Yorkshire Tragedy x, The Revenger's Tragedy I.i, Hamlet III.ii, Henry VIII III.ii, Chapman's Monsieur D'Olive.
Fortune: A detail from the title-page of Robert Record's
The Caste of Knowledge, 1556 showing the Wheel of Fortune.
Click on the image for the complete title-page (266 KB), which
illustrates the various concepts associated with the goddess Fortune,
in contrast to Urania, or Wisdom, on the left. Fortune stands
unstably upon a ball, while Wisdom stands firmly on a block.
She is blindfolded and turns her wheel, which can as easily bring
someone wealth one day as take it all away the next day, for "she
is turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and variation"
(Henry V III.vi); by contrast, Wisdom holds a compass (representing
rational knowledge) and the Sphere of Destiny. Fortune is illuminated
by the moon, a symbol of irrationality and changefulness, and
Wisdom is illuminated by the sun, a symbol of reason and stability:
the inscription ends, "Though earth do honour Fortune's ball,/And
battles blind her wheel advance,/The heavens to Fortune are not
thrall:/These spheres surmount all Fortune's chance."
read o'er his cards: Bowers emends to "cares," but Gomme's gloss of "reckon up his position" is correct: he looks at the cards Fortune has dealt him and realizes his situation is not all bad.
that like: thats like (Q)
by-blows: side-blows or glancing blows
Adam Bell: the famous archer; cf. Romeo and Juliet II.i, Much Ado about Nothing I.i, Satiromastix IV.iii.
more tongues in his head than some have teeth: ostensibly alluding to Sebastian's knowledge of languages, but double-tongued = deceitful (cf. II.ii "two-leav'd tongues"), and cf. the proverb "the tongue walks where the teeth speed not," quoted in Dekker's The Gull's Horn-Book.
flesh-fly: blow-fly, which eats and lays eggs in dead flesh; cf. The Revenger's Tragedy V.i, Women Beware Women II.ii.
It is a thing...than woman: This passage was lifted by Nathan Field for his Amends for Ladies (1612), for a scene in which Moll unsuccessfully attempts to corrupt the virtuous heroine.
two shadows to one shape: i.e., a both a man's and woman's shadow, although Gomme suggests that "by witchcraft she has stolen a shadow and so would have power over another's soul. The devil was normally held to cast no shadow."
blazing star: According to medieval astrology, the stars that controlled men's fate were fixed and incorruptible; on the other hand, meteors, which are sublunary, were corruptible and subject to change, and heralded or were provoked by evil events on earth. Gomme seems to support Bald's conjecture that this is a reference to Halley's comet, which had reached its perihelion in late November 1607, but allusions to this cosmology were quite frequent: cf. Mistress Gallipot's "fixed star" of III.ii, as well as The Changeling V.iii, The Revenger's Tragedy V.i & V.iii, The Bloody Banquet V.ii, Julius Caesar I.iii & II.i.
naughty pack: a term of approach, used for both males and females, almost always occurring in this compound form; cf. Westward Ho! II.i, Northward Ho! II.ii.
naught: wicked, immoral; cf. The Revenger's Tragedy II.i, A Fair Quarrel V.i, 1 The Honest Whore IV.i.
Their: there (Q, here as well as later in the line and throughout the play)
baffle: publicly disgrace, originally a punishment on recreant knights, part of which was being hanged by the heels; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.ii
[Wear]: cf. The Revenger's Tragedy II.i for the same emendation
drab: whore, mistress; cf. The Phoenix I.ii, A Trick to Catch the Old One I.iii, The Witch II.iii, Your Five Gallants III.ii, The Revenger's Tragedy II.ii.
quench out: Deleting "out" would improve the scansion.
I wash a negro: "To wash an Ethiop white" was proverbial, deriving from classical times and reflecting the Elizabethan/Jacobean prejudice toward fair-haired paleness; cf. 2 The Honest Whore IV.iii.
turn: deflect (a hunting term)
ape's tricks: extravagant bowing
To be a shifter...good bit upon't: A shifter is a cozener, or cheater, and Trapdoor promises that he can steal a full platter of food from under someone's nose.
As two crafty attorneys plotting the undoing of their clients: cf. Michaelmas Term III.i.
Simon and Jude's day: October 28th, the day before the Lord Mayor's Day on which the Liveries' pageants turned out; it was proverbially stormy. Cf. Anything for a Quiet Life I.ii, Westward Ho! II.i.
watermen a' th' Bankside: boatmen paid for transporting people up and down the Thames; they were said at this time to number "no fewer than forty thousand." Cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside IV.ii, The Witch II.i.
burnt: Sir Alexander fears that Trapdoor is a branded felon.
mermaid: whore; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside IV.ii, A Fair Quarrel IV.iv, The Old Law IV.i, 2 The Honest Whore IV.iii.
cut her comb: lower her pride; cutting a cock's comb usually accompanied gelding. Cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One IV.i.
Cast out a line hung full of silver hooks: cf. A Fair Quarrel III.ii, Old Fortunatus I.ii.
hobbyhorse: 1) a pantomime horse that was part of a morris dance, 2) slang for harlot
morris: country dance, although sometimes used generally to refer to any wild dancing, such as here; cf. The Changeling IV.iii, Dekker's Patient Grissil II.i, All's Well that Ends Well II.ii, A Midsummer Night's Dream II.i, Henry V II.iv
Zounds: "God's wounds," an oath; cf. The Puritan IV.iii, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's V.i.
bencher: magistrate, judge
goll: hand; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.ii, Blurt, Master Constable I.i, The Revenger's Tragedy V.i, Satiromastix I.ii.
entertain: employ, hire; cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One IV.iv, The Phoenix III.i, The Old Law II.i.
II.i.
rank: row Like many market scenes of the time, this scene is highly visual and includes many sight gags; in an effort to bridge this gap, I've made explicit some implicit stage directions to give a sense of the action.
what is't you lack: the standard cry of shopkeepers; cf. Anything for a Quiet Life II.ii, The Shoemakers' Holiday III.iv.
lawns: fine linen or clothing made from it, so called because it was bleached on a lawn instead of the ordinary bleaching grounds; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.i, Your Five Gallants II.iii, The Witch II.i, The Revenger's Tragedy II.iii.
cambrics: a kind of fine white linen, originally made at Cambray, France, or the clothing made from it; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.i.
minces tobacco: Tobacco was sold in apothecaries' shops. Smoking was used widely for affection during James's reign; it was estimated that London had at least 7000 tobacco shops. Cf. The Witch II.i, The Phoenix I.ii, and Lazarillo in Blurt, Master Constable. There is an interesting article about the Elizabethans and tobacco at http://www.tobacco.org/History/Elizabethan_Smoking.
Indian pot-herbs: "Pot-herbs are simply herbs boiled in a pot; perhaps a misunderstanding of how tobacco is prepared" (Gomme). The statement is not so much a misunderstanding in Laxton's knowledge of tobacco as an inconsistency in the background of the wives, for it is Mistress Openwork who later claims to have been a lady's serving-woman, a "gentlewoman born." On the other hand, it's entirely possible that neither of them came from a higher social class, and that both merely make such a claim as psychological leverage against their husbands (i.e., marrying below their station) and to impress the gallants Laxton and Goshawk.
bankrout: bankrupt
pipes: with the bawdy pun on penis, and much sexual innuendo following; cf. Romeo and Juliet IV.v.
May take up an ell of pure smock: An ell is a measure of length (in England, 45 inches), chiefly used in measuring cloth; cf. The Old Law IV.i, 2 Honest Whore II.ii, Anything for a Quiet Life II.ii. A smock was a woman's undergarment.
closest: most secretive
striker: fornicator
smockster: bawd; cf. Your Five Gallants V.ii.
naked boy in a vial: "Steeven's suggestion--'I suppose he means an abortion preserved in spirits'--seems irrelevant and incredible; the point is presumably the visibility of nakedness seen through clear glass. Naked boys is a popular name for the meadow saffron which flowers after its leaves have withered; but the phrase also occurs in The Alchemist (III.iv.80-1) in such a way as to suggest catamite [page]" (Gomme). In this context, the "naked boy" sounds like an allusion to Cupid, but this does not help to explain the relevance of "vial." "Viol," which has its own sexual innuendo (cf. IV.i), is also spelled "vial" in Q, but this doesn't make the image any clearer.
first day of his feather: newly fledged
woo the hangings and glass windows: i.e., is a wallflower
broken: i.e., already deflowered
almanac: For the background on almanacs, cf. my notes to No Wit, No Help like a Woman's; forecasts were provided for individual meridians as well as the nation in general.
not to be us'd a' that fashion...I understand no French: An extension of the pipe/penis pun: Greenwit comments that Laxton should not wish his pipe to be set on fire, i.e., suffer from venereal disease, which was commonly called "the French disease. Cf. A Fair Quarrel IV.iv, Blurt, Master Constable I.ii, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside V.i, Your Five Gallants III.i, Anything for a Quiet Life II.iv, A Midsummer Night's Dream I.ii, The Revenger's Tragedy I.i.
Jack: Not necessarily Goshawk's proper name, but a familiar form of address, i.e., chap or fellow. Later this is frequently used for Moll.
strange: unfamiliar to me; cf. The Witch III.ii.
Push: Middleton's favorite ejaculation (e.g., cf. The Changeling III.iv, A Trick to Catch the Old One II.i, Your Five Gallants II.i, The Revenger's Tragedy I.iii, The Old Law II.i), and one examined in contrast to Rowley's "Tush!" in one of the earliest attribution studies (1897).
manners: with the pun on manors
['im]: 'em (Q)
stool: with the scatological pun
preyeth: with the pun on prayeth
pleasure: with the sexual innuendo
Bear her in hand: delude her with false hopes; cf. Macbeth III.i, Cymbeline V.v, Much Ado about Nothing IV.i, 2 Henry IV I.ii.
chincough: whooping-cough
I dive down to your ankles: an example of the extravagant bowing of courtiers, emphasized by Greenwit's use of French
he dispatches three at once: Apparently Jack has not bowed to each gallant individually as he should have done.
drink: smoke; cf. The Shoemakers' Holiday III.ii.
ordinary: eating-house; a tavern was primarily for drinking. Cf. Anything for a Quiet Life I.i., The Witch V.i, The Phoenix IV.ii, A Trick to Catch the Old One I.i, Your Five Gallants II.i & III.ii, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's II.iii.
Paul's: St. Paul's. Men who had been turned out of service by their masters posted notices of their availability in St. Paul's nave; Gull eventually loses his position, as we learn in V.i.
hal'p'orth: halfpenny worth
small beer: weak or inferior beer; cf. The Witch I.i, The Old Law II.i. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's V.ii.
cackl'd: gave away secrets
angels: gold coins worth ten shillings each, with the figure of St. Michael defeating the dragon; for Middleton's frequent punning, cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One II.i, The Phoenix I.vi, Blurt, Master Constable II.i, A Yorkshire Tragedy ii, The Old Law IV.ii, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.ii, The Puritan III.iv, The Bloody Banquet II.i, The Revenger's Tragedy II.i.
puts out a candle: cf. the Jeweller's Wife in The Phoenix IV.ii.
arrant: errand
puny: novice; cf. 1 Henry VI IV.vii, The Revenger's Tragedy I.iii, Westward Ho! I.ii.
whoremaster: lecher; cf. Measure for Measure III.ii.
Draw in a third man: Gomme edits to "draw in a thread, man" and explains, "'Third' is occasionally found for 'thread', and 'thrid', for which 'third' could be a compositor's slip, quite commonly. But this is frankly a guess at a meaning which I cannot find in Q as it stands. I suggest that Laxton may be inviting Goshawk to draw in (= inhale) a thread of smoke; or 'thread' may be a measure of tobacco as of yarn. But 'draw in' can mean inveigle or take in, and also, it seems, to lay down a stake at dice (cf. Michaelmas Term II.i)." It seems clear to me that Laxton, returning after his aside, has found Goshawk and Greenwit sharing a bowl--I assume the gallants have been sampling Gallipot's various tobaccos--and asks to be a third; Goshawk refuses, claiming that Laxton himself never shares.
engross: monopolize or obtain exclusive possession of; cf. Anything for a Quiet Life III.i, Dekker's If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil Is in It II.i.
beaver gallants: gallants who wear beavers, hats made of beaver fur; cf. Your Five Gallants I.i, Anything for a Quiet Life II.i, Westward Ho! V.iv.
stone riders: those who ride stone horses, or stallions; there is possibly the stone/testicles pun that Laxton makes later in this scene, hence stone riders might = womanizers, as Gomme suggests
private stage's audience: included in this list of the fashionable well-to-do because of the higher price of admission at the private theaters, which were established to circumvent the law that prohibited houses of public entertainment within the city
twelvepenny-stool: twice the normal price for the use of a stool
[hench]-boy: page; hinch (Q)
[snail]: snake (Q)
wants: i.e., wants finishing
[Hoyda]: Haida (Q), cf. "Hoyda!" in No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.iii, "Heyday!" in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside IV.ii.
shepherd's holland: holland linen used for shepherds' smocks
gear: stuff. The word also refers specifically to tobacco in 1 The Honest Whore II.i and Satiromastix I.ii; Middleton frequently uses the word with bawdy innuendo elsewhere.
arrant's[t]: strictest
frieze: coarse woolen cloth
jerkin: a soldier's short coat; cf. Blurt, Master Constable I.i. The Puritan I.ii, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's II.i, Westward Ho! II.ii.
safeguard: the outer petticoat worn over other clothes to protect them from dirt, the usual riding dress for women; cf. The Witch II.iii.
[GOSHAWK, GREENWIT]: Both. (Q); I have preferred to be more specific here, and make a similar emendation in III.iii for lines shared between Sir Alexander and Sir Adam, and Curtilax and Hanger.
Mile End milksops: a favorite recreation spot for city-dwellers, where apparently cakes and cream were available; the trained bands that guarded the city exercised here. Cf. The Shoemakers' Holiday I.i.
marrow-bone: supposedly an aphrodisiac; cf. A Mad World, My Masters I.ii, Venus and Adonis, If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil Is in It I.iii.
Italian: stereotyped as being extremely lecherous; cf. A Mad World, My Masters III.iii.
bona roba: wanton, courtesan; Blurt, Master Constable II.ii, 2 The Honest Whore I.i.
aqua fortis: nitric acid, a powerful solvent and corrosive
shag: cloth having a velvet nap on one side
fat eel between a Dutchman's fingers: The Dutch were supposedly fond of eels; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.iii.
i' th' low: ith the low (Q)
I send you for hollands...I take nothing: Gomme's gloss is thorough: "A dazzling linguistic challenge. The first pun seems to derive in particular from the brilliant wordplay of 2 Henry IV II.ii, 21-2: 'the rest of thy low countries have made a shift to eat up thy holland': 'low countries' (the first half of the latter word was always suggestive: see Hamlet III.ii.120) meant both the lower parts of the body and the stews [brothels] (where Poins and supposedly Master Openwork beget bastards); hence, similarly, 'holland', as well as, literally, linen--which prompts 'shift' in the sense of chemise. And the seemingly innocent shopkeeping talk win the second sentence conceals a complex obscenity: 'ware' was in regular use for the privates of either sex, but especially of women (where it was commonly 'lady's ware') (cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.i) [also cf. The Family of Love II.i, No Wit, No Help Like a Woman's I.i & III.i, The Witch I.ii, Anything for a Quiet Life II.iv]. The burden, then, of Mistress Openwork's complaint is that by a trick (a shift) she is left to make what shift she can by handling her sexual parts (those next to her shift) herself: a barren ('dead') activity, but she may as well stop offering herself, for when she opens up her 'shop', nothing comes in."
ringing: scolding
warn: deny
goody: goodwife, used for married women of a humble station
skin-coat: a coat made of skins, with the explicit sexual pun
spleen: The spleen was often regarded as the seat of passions and/or impulsive behavior: in Renaissance psychology, an individual had four basic "humours," or temperaments, which were determined by the amount of their corresponding bodily fluids secreted in the spleen. The four humours are choleric (anger) derived from bile (as in The Revenger's Tragedy II.iii and here), phlegmatic (cold torpor) from phlegm, sanguine (geniality) from blood, and melancholy from black bile (as in The Revenger's Tragedy IV.i, The Witch I.i). The spleen was also held responsible for sexual desire (as in The Old Law III.ii, Anything for a Quiet Life III.ii).
tread upon a worm, they say 'twill turn tail: proverbial, meaning that even the lowliest of creatures will resent ill-treatment
yard: 1) three feet, the tailor's yardstick, 2) slang for penis; cf. The Old Law IV.i, Anything for a Quiet Life passim, The Revenger's Tragedy II.i, 1 The Honest Whore V.ii, Love's Labours Lost V.ii.
London measure: London drapers customarily gave a little more than the exact measure; cf. Anything for a Quiet Life III.ii.
snaffle: bridle-bit; cf. A Yorkshire Tragedy ii, The Witch of Edmonton II.i.
Tyburn: Tyburn was the place of public execution in London until 1783. Cf. Anything for a Quiet Life III.ii (illustration in notes section), No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.ii, The Puritan IV.iii.
Brainford: Brentford, eight miles upstream of Cheapside, was a place of resort for the citizenry and had numerous prostitutes. It is also spelled Brainford in The Merry Wives of Windsor IV.ii and Westward Ho! II.iii, but Branford in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.ii.
Staines: on the north bank of the Thames in Middlesex seventeen miles west of London, also well-known as a place of assignation; cf. Massinger's The City Madam II.i.
Ware: twenty miles north of London, a trysting place for lovers; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside III.iii, Northward Ho! I.i.
coach: Coaches were popular places for love-making; cf. The Phoenix II.iii, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside III.iii, Your Five Gallants II.i, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's V.i, The Puritan II.i, The Revenger's Tragedy II.i.
jade: 1) broken-down horse, 2) whore; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside V.iv, Much Ado about Nothing I.i, The Old Law III.ii.
Holborn: The area to the north of the Strand and northwest of the old walled city, a place with an unsavory reputation, especially toward the west end; it takes its name from the Holbourne, a tributary of the Fleet. It was also the center of the legal profession, and contained the Inns of Court (Gray's Inn, Lincoln's Inn, the Middle Temple, and the Inner Temple), as well as the Inns of Chancery; because of their frequent reference in this play, I feel compelled to cite Weinreb and Hibbert's The London Encyclopedia: "By the middle of the 15th century the Inns [of Chancery] had largely been taken over by resident students and solicitors and attorneys and had become preparatory schools for students wishing to be called to the Bar by the Inns of Court which had managed to secure a degree of control over the Inns of Chancery. By 1530 Furnival's and Thavies Inns had become affiliated to Lincoln's Inn, while Staple Inn and Barnard's Inn looked to Gray's Inn, and Clement's, Clifford's, and Lyon's Inns were affiliated to the Inner Temple. After the destruction of the Strand Inn in 1549, the Middle Temple had only one Inn of Chancery, namely New Inn. Each Inn of Chancery normally comprised a Principal, Ancients (Benchers) [magistrates] and Juniors or Companions (barristers and students). Unlike the Inns of Court, the Inns of Chancery--also styled 'Honourable Societies'--had no power to call students to the Bar but in most other respects their constitutions were similar to those of the Inns of Court. By 1600 eight Inns of Chancery were in existence but, with the decline in the educational role of these Inns, students were tending increasingly to enroll directly in the Inns of Court. At the same time the attorney and solicitors, who were being gradually excluded from the Inns of Court, took over the Inns of Chancery." For references to various Inns, also cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.i, The Puritan I.iii, Your Five Gallants IV.ii, A Trick to Catch the Old One I.iv.
Gray's Inn Fields: open fields to the north of Gray's Inn, used as grounds for recreation but eventually frequented by petty thieves
[heard]: hard (Q)
Saint Antling's bell: St. Antlings was another name for the Puritan church of St. Antholin, on Watling Street on the north side of Budge Row. In 1599, the congregation of St. Antholin's began sermons at 5 a.m., heralded by the chapel bells, much to the frustration of the neighbors. Cf. the character Nicholas St. Tantlings in The Puritan (specifically II.i for the earliness of their sermons), Michaelmas Term V.i.
liberties: the liberties of the city of London
Kent, unconquered: It was a Kentish boast that it had never been conquered; there is a pun on Kent/cunt.
wiles: with the pun on wilds, referring to the formerly heavily forested nature of Kent; cf. Michaelmas Term II.iii, 1 Henry IV II.i.
queans: whores, strumpets; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.ii, A Yorkshire Tragedy v, Your Five Gallants III.ii, The Witch III.ii, A Trick to Catch the Old One III.iv, The Family of Love IV.iii, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.ii.
spital dealing: Spitals were originally houses for lepers and victims of other diseases, but the term came a hospital specifically for venereal disease; frequently alluded to in Middleton, e.g., A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.ii & V.i.
[burr]: a broad ring of iron behind the handle of a tilting lance; burgh (Q)
young flood: when the tide begins to flow up the river; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.ii, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's II.ii.
put case: suppose (a legal term), with the sexual pun of case = vagina; cf. II.ii, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.i, Your Five Gallants III.ii, The Changeling II.ii, Women Beware Women IV.ii, Westward Ho! I.i.
service: with the bawdy double meaning; cf. Anything for a Quiet Life II.i, The Witch I.i, Blurt, Master Constable II.ii. Trapdoor continues to quibble on the bawdy.
high German's size: a reference to a famous German fencer of the time
same wine: Bastard was a sweet Spanish wine.
Parker's ordinary: not particularly identified
duck: i.e., a decoy; the use of spaniels in duck-hunting was quite popular, and alluded to frequently by Dekker. Cf. The Witch of Edmonton IV.i, Match Me in London III.ii, The Noble Spanish Soldier II.ii, Marston's Histriomastix II.
Hogsden: Hoxton, a northern suburb of London, a favorite place for afternoon jaunts by Londoners
pigsney: pig's eye, a common form of endearment
Spits in the dog's mouth: "The reason for this action is obscure. Mr. T. R. Henn suggests that it may have been a device to ensure that the dog memorized its master's scent; he also informs me that he has known groundskeepers to spit on a ferret after it has been muzzled to smooth down the fur ruffled by the muzzled. Possibly the dog was similarly muzzled" (Gomme). Hoy replies, "Perhaps so; but other evidence suggests that the action betokens some odd sign of affection bestowed on a pet. Cf. Jonson, Discoveries, lines 309-311: 'what hath he done more, then a troublesome base curre? bark'd, and made a noyse a farre off: had a foole, or two to spit in his mouth, and cherish him with a musty bone?'" I tend to agree with Hoy; cf. The Witch of Edmonton IV.ii.
Parlous Pond: Parlous, or Perilous, Pond, so called because of the numerous accidents there, was in Hoxton and visited by many Londoners for both duck-hunting and swimming.
II.ii.
two-leav'd: two leaud (Q); "the primary sense intended is the comparison of the tongue to the two hinged parts of a door or gate" (Bowers)
hog-rubber: a term of contempt, probably derived from "hog-grubber," a sneak; cf. Bartholomew Fair V.iv, The Devil's Law-Case IV.i.
pageant-bearer: Porters were employed to carry pageants, or portable stages, for plays and other spectacles in the streets.
at first: in the first place
a chopping and changing: an exchange
poor younger brothers...old cozening widows: i.e., one who has not benefited by inheritance and must therefore be more aggressive in marrying for money; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's III.ii.
sturgeon voyage: fishing-voyage for sturgeon; "The point here, and in what follows, seems to be: don't chose [sic] a wife as if you were going to be away from home and would never have to live with her, or as if you were going to a barbaric country where any female would do" (Hoy).
as if you were going to Virginia: cf. Women Beware Women I.ii.
She is but cunning, gives him longer time in't: i.e., like a usurer who gives a debtor more time to repay, thus allowing the interest to mount
so ho ho so ho: the falconer's cry, encouraging the bird to stoop to the lure; cf. Old Fortunatus I.i.
There boy, there boy: a huntsman's cry to his dogs; cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One IV.iv, The Tempest IV.i.
clout: a pincushion strapped to the wrist or finger for use in tailoring
two trinkets: Apparently, small ornaments on the breeches, perhaps referring to the points (cf. gloss below), although Gomme's conjecture of "testicles" is certainly valid.
coats: petticoats
great Dutch slop: wide breeches, like those worn by Moll in the title-page illustration; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.iii, Blurt, Master Constable II.i, The Alchemist III.iii.
lusty: full of healthy vigor (cf. the "Lusty Servant" in A Yorkshire Tragedy), as well as the sexual definition
he that is sway'd...rusty clock: "A sardonic comment on the old man's incapacity--once he is old and impotent he cannot hope for sexual success, his spring is no longer taut, his action is rusty, his rhythm erratic and weak--with a warning that the young (those in their springtime) be not ruled by the dicta of the elderly" (Gomme).
Ludgate: one of the eight gates in the Roman wall of ancient
London, built during the reign of King Lud in 66 BC and rebuilt
in 1586. It had a flat leaded roof but no clock; Gomme conjectures
Sebastian means St. Martin's Church. Ludgate is also mentioned
in The Puritan I.iii. Illustration: 1) Aldgate, 2) Bishopsgate,
3) Moorgate, 4) Cripplegate, 5) Aldersgate, 6) Newgate, 7) Ludgate,
8) Temple Bar; all but the last were demolished before the end
of the 18th century.
lets off the hour...time is satisfied: i.e., tolls the hour, after which it stops
stops: stop = mechanism which prevents the striker
short prayer: i.e., before execution
sessions-house: courtroom
Keep the left hand: i.e., the sinister or perverse way; cf. The Spanish Tragedy I.i.
[Marry]: Many (Q)
suspect: suspicion, the accent on the last syllable
a' th' good man's: "God is a good man" was proverbial; cf. Much Ado about Nothing III.v.
give but aim: give aim = stand by the target and inform the shooter how close his arrow came to the bull's eye in order for him to perfect his shot; cf. Westward Ho! II.ii.
III.i.
tester: sixpence, so called from the teston of Henry VIII and the image of his head (Old French teste) stamped on it; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.i, The Merry Wives of Windsor I.iii, 2 Henry IV III.ii.
Marybone Park: "Until 1611 Marylebone Manor was crown property: the gardens (ultimately incorporated into Regent's Park) were said in A Fair Quarrel IV.iv to be suitable as a burial ground for whores and panders because it was near Tyburn. The point of Laxton's quip, however, is enriched by the linking of a pun on Marybone (= marrow-bone) and park in the sense of 'the female body as a domain where the lover may freely roam' (cf. Venus and Adonis 231ff.)" (Gomme).
[frampold]: phrampell (Q); fiery, mettlesome, spirited. Cf. Wit at Several Weapons III.i, The Merry Wives of Windsor II.ii.
Smithfield: a horse-market outside Aldersgate; the reputation of its dealers was not very high; cf. 2 Henry IV I.ii.
you: your (Q)
[couch'd]: coacht (Q); embroidered with gold
tufftaffety: Hoy cites Linthicum, p. 124: "Plain taffeta was not rich enough for Elizabethan taste. It must be 'tufted', i.e. woven with raised stripes of spots. These stripes, upon being cut, left a pile like velvet, and, since the tufted parts were always a different colour from the ground, beautiful colour combinations were possible.... Tuft-taffeta was used for hats for both men and women, and for men's hose, jerkins, cloaks, and jackets." Sir Godfrey has a "taffety" hat in The Puritan III.vi.
vild: vile
highways are stopp'd with them: the nouveaux riches, who, by the sheer number of coaches and their incompetent driving, clogged up the highways
Cerberus: watchdog, from the three-headed dog that watched the gates of Hades; cf. Blurt, Master Constable III.i.
Savoy: the 13th-century palace reconstructed as a hospital
for the poor in 1505; in the late 16th century there were complaints
that criminals used it as a sanctuary from the law. Cf. The
Shoemakers' Holiday IV.iv. The illustration is from an 18th-century
engraving depicting the Savoy c. 1550.
Islington: one of the northern suburbs of London, another favorite place of recreation
mercers: Mercers dealt in costly fabrics. A Trick to Catch the Old One I.i, The Phoenix I.ii,
catchpole: sheriff's officer who acted as tax gatherer; cf. Blurt, Master Constable II.i, The Puritan III.v, Westward Ho! III.ii.
corruption: decomposition
if they would keep...generation of a sergeant: if gallants were as prompt paying the mercers' bills as they were meeting their harlots, not even bankrupts would want to become sergeants, because, would you know, that's why men become sheriff's officers, i.e., they buy their way into a post in which they were likely to be bribed or be able to keep some of the money for themselves
Three Pigeons: This inn in Brentford finally closed in 1916; I.ii of She Stoops to Conquer takes place here. Cf. The Alchemist V.iv.
untruss a point: Untied one of the points that joined the breeches to the doublet; Laxton believes she is beginning to undress.
There's the gold: the ten angels which Laxton gave Moll in II.i.
hackney: 1) horse kept for hire, 2) prostitute; cf. 1 The Honest Whore II.i.
pace: 1) speed of the horse, 2) training as a prostitute; cf. Pericles IV.v.
racks: moves with the gait called a rack, in which the horse raises both hooves on the same side at the same time
Win 'em and wear 'em!: a popular expression, a variation of which is "Win her and wear her," referring to a bride; cf. Much Ado about Nothing V.i, The Witch of Edmonton I.ii & II.ii.
serve an execution on thee: 1) formally deliver a legal writ, 2) inflict corporal punishment, 3) Gomme sees sexual innuendo: "draw meant also to expose the penis (as a sword from a scabbard), and an execution a performance of the sexual act (see Troilus and Cressida III.ii.81, and cf. below, l. 118). Her threat therefore is that she will geld him."
monkey: exotic pets such as monkeys (proverbially lascivious) were mentioned to indicate the decadence of court ladies; cf. Michaelmas Term I.i, The Puritan I.iii & IV.ii, The Bloody Banquet I.iv, Cynthia's Revels IV.i.
cup and lip: sharing a loving-cup and kissing
act: sexual act; cf. The Merchant of Venice I.iii. For a similar sentiment, cf. Shakespeare's Sonnet 121: "'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed...."
lay ledger: lie, rest, reside
golden hook: "To angle with a golden hook" is proverbial; cf. A Fair Quarrel III.ii.
wedlocks: wives; cf. The Poetaster IV.iii.
shifting sisters: probably prostitutes, i.e., the "sisterhood" that shifts beds; cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One V.ii.
'cause: so that
[slanderers]: slanders (Q)
familiar: a spirit or demon appointed to serve a particular person; cf. The Witch I.ii.
[voyage]: viage (Q)
chirurgeon: surgeon (archaic)
umbles: physical constitution (literally, the edible innards of an animal, usually a deer)
stand to't stiffly: with the sexual innuendo
[make]: meke (Q)
their tricks in't: how they do it
[Yea]: Ye (Q)
Fillips: fillip = a stroke or tap given by bending the last joint of a finger against the thumb and suddenly releasing it; the pun, of course, is on "temple." Cf. Anything for a Quiet Life IV.ii.
Chick Lane: better known as Stinking Lane, just off Newgate Street to the east of Grayfriars Church (later Christchurch)
wide straddle: apparently a characteristic of the real Moll
entertainment: employment
cast off this: i.e., she will give Trapdoor the clothes she now wears as hand-me-downs; cf. Your Five Gallants IV.viii, Blurt, Master Constable II.ii, The Revenger's Tragedy V.i.
St. Thomas Apostle's: on Knightrider Street by Wringwren Lane, east of St. Paul's near College Hill
III.ii.
pruing: with the possible pun on "proo," to call an animal to stand (dial.)
kyes: cries
up and ride: a common phrase; cf. Blurt, Master Constable IV.i, The Family of Love I.ii.
What is't: whats ist (Q)
drugs: drudges
pounded: with the sexual innuendo
teeth waters: i.e., mouth waters; cf. 2 The Honest Whore IV.ii.
cookish: like a cook, i.e., hovering over, tending all the time
fool's head: with a pun on bauble, the ornament on the end of the wand carried by a jester, which often carried sexual innuendo, which certainly seems to be the case here
[sting]: sing (Q); cf. The Taming of the Shrew II.i.
[apron] husbands: aperne (Q); husbands who are tied to their wives' apron-strings
cotqueans: men who meddle with female affairs (Dyce)
milch-kine: milk-cows
scurvygrass: cruciferous plant which supposedly prevented scurvy; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.ii.
Demophon was false to Phyllis: "Demophon, son of Theseus, en route back to Athens at the end of the Trojan War, met and married Phyllis, a Bisaltian princess. When he tired of her and announced his need to visit his mother in Athens, Phyllis knew he would not return though he swore by all the gods that he would be back within the year. On his departure, she gave him a casket containing a charm, with instructions to open it when he had abandoned all hope of returning to her. Instead of going to Athens, Demophon settled in Cyprus. At the end of a year, Phyllis committed suicide. In the same hour, Demophon was prompted to look in the casket. The contents (their nature undisclosed in the myth) maddened him. Galloping off insanely on his horse, he was thrown and impaled on his own sword" (Hoy, referencing Robert Graves, The Greek Myths). Gomme confuses this with another tale involving a Thracian princess named Phyllis at the time of the Trojan War.
Pan-da-rus was to Cres-sida: Dyce was first to observe that the hyphens probably indicate the difficulty with which Mistress Gallipot reads their names.
Aeneas made an ass of Dido: Returning from the Trojan War, Aeneas was shipwrecked in Carthage and with whom Dido, the queen, fell in love. He took advantage of her luxurious accommodations until Jupiter prompted him to leave in order to found Rome; at his departure, Dido killed herself.
die to thee: with the sexual innuendo
I know his threes too well: Mistress Gallipot may merely be making a comment on Laxton's handwriting, but this sounds like a laugh-line, probably bawdy; I haven't been able to discover any such significance, but it has been noted that Middleton, for one, had a penchant for things coming in threes.
adamants: magnets, lodestones
Hockley Hole: village that lay in the Fleet Valley northwest of Clerkenwell Green, not to be confused with Hockley-in-the Hole in Bedfordshire, mentioned in The Puritan IV.ii, Northward Ho! I.i.
made sure: contracted, betrothed
twelve months three times...silver bow: cf. 2 The Honest Whore V.ii, The Whore of Babylon I.i ("Five summers have scarce drawn their glimmering nights/Through the moon's silver bow...") & IV.ii.
sleight: contrivance; cf. Your Five Gallants II.iii, The Changeling IV.i.
God-so: an oath; cf. "catso," Blurt, Master Constable V.i.
turtles: turtle-doves, emblems of true love; cf. The Changeling III.iv.
sirrah: This form of address for servants was sometimes used for women.
sadness: seriousness
rubbers in a false alley: Rubbers, a singular form, was the third game after the players had each won one game in a match at bowls, a very popular sport often gambled upon. Aspects and terminology of the game were often used by playwrights, often with sexual overtones. Rubbing, a variation of rubbers, has obvious sexual overtones; cf. Love's Labours Lost IV.i. Alleys, or banks, were undulations in the open green which skilled bowlers used when rolling their bowls; here, the false alley is Openwork's supposed harlot. The bias was the impetus given to cause the bowl to run obliquely. For various allusions to bowls, cf. Blurt, Master Constable III.iii, If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil Is in It II.i, Old Fortunatus IV.i, Troilus and Cressida III.ii, Satiromastix V.ii.
stale mutton: mutton was slang for strumpet, hence stale = overused, worn-out; cf. Your Five Gallants III.iii, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.i, II.i, IV.i, Blurt, Master Constable I.ii, No Wit, No Help Like a Woman's I.i, The Bloody Banquet II.i, 1 The Honest Whore II.i.
abroad: i.e., outside the house
rack and manger: i.e., his food; to live at rack and manger was to live in reckless abundance. Cf. Northward Ho! IV.iii.
saddle him in's kind: treat him as he should be treated, i.e., subdue him
ride our journey: with the innuendo of "enjoy our sexual pleasure"
amble: originally used only for horses; another in the series of sexual metaphors
'Ud's light: God's light, an oath; cf. IV.ii, "'Ud's soul"
glister: clyster, enema; cf. Dr. Glister in The Family of Love, A Trick to Catch the Old One V.ii, The Old Law III.ii, Anything for a Quiet Life IV.ii.
one of Hercules' labours: Hercules performed twelve nearly impossible tasks as penance for killing his wife and children in a fit of insanity.
pudding tobacco: tobacco compressed into rolls resembling pudding, or sausage, but Laxton's question seems to be a threat, probably implying that he is after Gallipot's pudding, or guts; cf. Satiromastix I.ii.
[precontract]: precontact (Q); a contract of marriage. Cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One IV.iv.
No wild fowl to cut up: Wild fowl is slang for whore; cf. Northward Ho! I.ii.
[lain]: lien (Q)
[now]: uow (Q)
Be-Lady: by our Lady, an oath (appears variously as berlady and byrlady; cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One IV.ii, The Puritan III.vi.
III.iii.
bouncing ramp: bold, vulgar, ill-behaved woman or girl
oyster-wench: cf. Richard II I.iv.
As a barber's every Saturday night: alluding to barbers' reputation for gossip-mongering
in conjunction: in the same zodiacal sign (with the sexual innuendo); for more astrological metaphors, cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's
holes of her upper body: i.e., the eyelets of the bodice of her gown; cf. A Mad, World, My Masters III.iii.
placket: a short opening or vent at the top of a woman's petticoat or kirtle skirt, hence slang for vagina; cf. The Family of Love IV.ii, Anything for a Quiet Life II.ii.
standing collars: a high, straight collar fastened in front, like that worn by Moll on the title-page; cf. Northward Ho! II.i, If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil Is in It III.iii.
Michaelmas Term: the first term in the legal year, when termers would have a lot of money; cf. Westward Ho! II.i, III.iii, IV.i.
tilting: encountering (cf. IV.ii for other meanings, although this usage has sexual innuendo as well)
them: the other knights
[Pox]: Foxe (Q)
Russian bear: Bears were imported from Russia for the bear-baitings, and they were known for their ferocity; cf. The Whore of Babylon II.i, Macbeth III.iv.
baggage: wanton; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.i, Romeo and Juliet III.v, Pericles IV.ii, The Comedy of Errors III.i, The Merry Wives of Windsor IV.ii.
take up more: i.e., on credit
ningles: ingles, i.e., favorite boys, catamites; cf. Satiromastix I.ii.
horse-leeches: rapacious parasites; cf. A Fair Quarrel III.ii.
advise: advice
woodcock: a bird easily trapped and hence a dupe; cf. The Witch II.iii, The Family of Love II.iv, the character Woodcock in Blurt, Master Constable, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's III.i, Northward Ho! V.i.
counter: Counters (or compters) were debtors' prisons (in London were the Poultry Counter, in which Dekker himself was once imprisoned, and the Wood Street Counter); they were divided into four wards. The master's was for the richest and provided the best accommodations; then came the knight's, the twopenny, and finally, for the poorest, the Hole, a name which Middleton frequently takes advantage of for the bawdy pun. Cf. The Phoenix II.iii & IV.iii, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside V.iv, Your Five Gallants I.i, Michaelmas Term III.iv, A Trick to Catch the Old One IV.iii, The Puritan III.iv.
countertenor: for the same pun, cf. The Witch of Edmonton II.i.
bridled there: with a pun on Bridewell, a prison for prostitutes
Bedlam: St. Mary of Bethlehem Hospital, the lunatic asylum just outside London (for its location, consult the map in the notes for A Chaste Maid in Cheapside). Cf. The Changeling I.ii.
counter:/Why, 'tis an university!: Writers at this time frequently made this comparison (e.g., Middleton in The Phoenix and Michaelmas Term).
commence: earn a degree
be plac'd: beg plac't (Q)
Proceeds: advances to a higher degree
dispute: undergo a disputatio, or oral examination; cf. Middleton's parody in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside IV.i.
Lies by th' heels: is arrested and chained; cf. Anything for a Quiet Life V.i.
puttocks: buzzards; this is the name of the sergeant in The Puritan.
spirits: i.e., sergeants (looking ahead to Curtilax's line about conjuring); cf. Michaelmas Term III.iii.
muzzle-chops: nickname for a man with a prominent nose and mouth
blue coat: describing the uniform of serving-men; cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One II.i, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's IV.ii, The Shoemakers' Holiday V.ii.
honesty: a collective term for gentry, here used in the singular ironically
I conjure most in that circle: with the pun on the circle in which conjurers evoked spirits
toward: promising, hopeful
One pair of shears sure cut out both your coats: i.e., you are two of a kind; cf. Measure for Measure I.ii.
ware: merchandise (cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.iii); as Gomme notes, the image is not very precise, unless Sir Davy is thinking of the wares a peddler carries on his back, just as these officers are always on the backs of gentlemen.
great fish and little fish: proverbial; cf. Pericles II.i.
a sergeant cares but for the shoulder of a man: i.e., because he claps the man on his shoulder to signify his arrest; cf. Michaelmas Term III.iii, The Puritan III.iii, Satiromastix IV.ii, Westward Ho! V.iv.
Jews: Jews were often unkindly depicted or referred to in these terms in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama; the most notable examples are of course The Merchant of Venice and The Jew of Malta. Also cf. The Phoenix II.ii, Your Five Gallants IV.viii, The Family of Love I.iii.
[flay]: flea (Q)
Bartholomew Fair: London's annual jamboree and chief national cloth sale; it was opened by the Lord Mayor on St. Bartholomew's Eve (August 23) and lasted a fortnight. Cf., of course, Jonson's Bartholomew Fair.
Sa, sa: from the French "ça, ça" the exclamation of fencers when delivering a thrust, here used as a hunting cry; cf. King Lear IV.vi, The Revenger's Tragedy V.i, Patient Grissil III.ii.
give the counter: "To hunt counter is to run a false scent, or follow it in reverse direction; so here, turn him back. There is doubtless a play on counter in the sense of prison" (Gomme).
mace: A sergeant's scepter or staff of office, with the pun on the spice; cf. A Mad World, My Masters III.ii, The Old Law V.i, Anything for a Quiet Life III.ii.
caudle: warm drink of gruel and ale or wine, often used medicinally; cf. Your Five Gallants IV.ii, The Witch II.iii, The Family of Love III.i, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's II.iii, The Puritan IV.iii.
double your files, traverse your ground: literally, make the ranks smaller by putting two files in one, and move from side to side; it doesn't make sense, but Sir Davy's enthusiasm outstrips his knowledge of military maneuvers.
and: and and (Q)
ambuscado: ambush
[nook] thou: uooke (Q); hide in that nook
wrangling: noisy, argumentative
ravens: Ravenshaw is a sergeant in The Puritan; also cf. Westward Ho! III.ii.
wind-shaken: weakened by the force of the wind, here a metaphor for having been weakened by debts and ill-luck
men-midwives: cf. The Whore of Babylon II.i.
Peeping?: The officers are peeking into the tavern to see when Jack Dapper will come out.
two infected maltmen: "Presumably the cloaks would hide the visible signs of an infection (but 'infected' could mean tainted with crime). I do not know why maltmen...should be picked on.... Maltmen appear in several proverbs, none of which seems to tell on the present context" (Gomme). Cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's III.i.
course: a pursuit with hounds, a hunting term
buckler: a small, round shield; cf. The Phoenix II.iii, The Changeling I.ii, Much Ado about Nothing V.ii.
dry-beat: cf. The Shoemakers' Holiday I.iv.
a butcher dry-beat him with a cudgel: As Mulholland conjectures, an allusion to fray in February 1611 involving two butchers, Ralph Brewin of St. Clement's Eastcheap and John Lynsey of St. Andrew's Undershaft, accused on assaulting gentlemen patrons of The Fortune.
[MOLL]/Honest sergeant--/[TRAPDOOR]: In Q, the s.p. is Both, and the word "sergeant" is "Seriant" uncorrected, "Serieant" corrected. Gomme follows Dyce and Bullen, and maintains the dual s.p. while emending to "servant". On the other hand, Bowers prefers "sir", believing Gull would not be addressed before his master, and that the compositor mistakenly expanded the abbreviation "Sr". However, I tend to think the Q reading is correct, and that Moll's and Trapdoor's lines were fused to convey the fact that they are acting in tandem and are speaking almost simultaneously. Splitting the s.p. somewhat clarifies the action and helps a reader visualize the trick: Moll accosts and in some way "hangs upon" Curtilax (as he puts it) in order to expose him and divert his attention, leaving it to Trapdoor to sound the alarm, thus allowing Jack and Gull to escape. (Cf. similar "rescue" in The Phoenix IV.iii, where a reveler physically prevents an arrest by feigning a jest.)
rescue: the taking of a person or goods out of custody by force; cf. 1 The Honest Whore IV.iii, Coriolanus III.i.
Shoe Lane: the lane that ran south from Holborn Street to Fleet Street; it paralleled the Fleet Ditch to the east
scriveners' bands: i.e., in debt; Middleton especially took a very dim of scriveners (i.e., notaries, those who draw up contracts and bonds of debt): cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One I.iii, The Family of Love III.i, The Phoenix II.ii, A Yorkshire Tragedy i, The Revenger's Tragedy I.iii.
IV.i.
German watch: renowned for their complexity and craftsmanship; cf. A Mad World, My Masters IV.i, Love's Labours Lost III.i.
hundred marks in yellow links: his chain of office as magistrate; cf. A Mad World, My Masters V.i & V.ii.
headboroughs: parish officers whose functions are identical to those of petty constables'; cf., e.g., Verges in Much Ado about Nothing, The Changeling I.ii.
court cupboard: a sideboard with three shelves and elaborately carved legs
closely: secretly
lets: prevents
[glisterings]: gilsterings (Q)
mysteries: skill, art (obs.), cf. All's Well that Ends Well III.vi, Ford and Dekker's The Sun's Darling IV.i; Dyce suggests emending to "miseries".
to choose: for choice
[father's]: fathets (Q)
I pitied her for name's sake: Moll was traditionally the name of a "low" woman; cf. A Yorkshire Tragedy i, the lascivious Moll Plus in The Puritan, and Moll Yellowhammer (ironically named because she is virtuous) in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside.
lays: wagers; cf. The Revenger's Tragedy V.i, The Changeling III.iii.
ring-doves: like turtle-doves (III.iii), emblematic of true love; cf. A Game at Chess IV.iv.
fury: with a pun on fury in the sense of musical inspiration
Like a swan above bridge: Bullen notes that "the Thames abounded with swans at this date." There is a pun on the piece of wood over which the strings of the viol are stretched.
close: secretive
call the viol an unmannerly instrument for a woman: viol de gambo, a six-stringed violin which was gripped between the player's thighs, with the sexual innuendo reinforced by the sexual pun on "instrument"; cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One I.i, Your Five Gallants II.i.
Burse: The Royal Exchange, built by Sir Thomas Gresham in 1566-68; it had many shops and was famous for its silks and draperies. Cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.ii ("Gresham's Burse"), Anything for a Quiet Life I.i, Westward Ho! II.i.
Saint Kathern's: the dockside district of London's East End, which had a notorious reputation; cf. The Devil is an Ass I.i, The Alchemist V.iii.
Fleet: the Fleet prison
hoise up sails: cf. 2 The Honest Whore IV.ii, Patient Grissil III.i, If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil Is in It II.i.
tails: 1) cant term for the sexual organs and, by extension, lascivious people, 2) pun on tales
cousin-germans: first cousins; cf. The Old Law II.i, Blurt, Master Constable I.ii.
many a younger brother...wriggle in and out: "Suggestive of a variation on that type of cony-catching known as 'The curbing law' (whereby a thief angles with a hooked rod through an open window for valuables that he has previously spotted)" (Hoy).
eel in a sandbag: Gomme glosses as "a proverbial phrase used of things languishing for want of proper sustenance" (as Cynthia's Revels II.v), but this doesn't seem to fit the context.
ballets: i.e., ballads commemorating the condemned
brokers/Would be chosen for hangmen: It was customary for hangmen to receive the clothes of their victims; cf. The Devil Is an Ass I.i.
wardropes: wardrobes
No poison, sir, but serves us for some use: cf. The Changeling II.ii, "The ugliest creature/Creation fram'd for some use."
Foot: by God's foot, an oath (elsewhere "'Sfoot"); cf. The Phoenix I.ii, A Yorkshire Tragedy ix, Blurt, Master Constable I.i, The Bloody Banquet I.iv, The Revenger's Tragedy I.iii.
sight: sigh
plunge: stress, straits, i.e., into a dilemma
Puts down: 1) surpasses, 2) overthrows, which Sir Alexander interprets as doing so by means of venereal disease
And will do still; he'll ne'er be in other tale: he'll always be wanting the full payment, i.e., nobody will pay him if doesn't extend credit
Clifford's Inn: the oldest of the Inns of Chancery, next to St. Dunstan's in the West on Fleet Street
You teach to sing too?: with the sexual innuendo; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.i, Troilus and Cressida V.ii.
prick-song: a pricked song is music written down, with the sexual innuendo; cf. Women Beware Women III.ii, The Phoenix I.ii, Your Five Gallants II.i, Romeo and Juliet II.iv, The Witch III.ii, Match Me in London IV.ii.
lesson: musical exercise or composition written for use in teaching
mend: surpass
angels mark'd with holes in them: Small holes are drilled in the shillings for means of identification; evidently Sir Alexander means to have Moll arrested later for stealing them.
IV.ii
fish: slang for loose women or the female genitals
roses: Large silk roses on shoes became fashionable at the end of the 16th century; Moll wears them in the title-page illustration. Cf. Webster's The White Devil V.iii, Chapman's Caesar and Pompey II.i.
Bunhill: A street in London near Moorfields; on its east side were the artillery fields, used for archery practice. Bullen notes that in September 1623, Middleton received twenty marks "for his service at the shooting on Bunhill, and at the Conduit Head before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen."
fline: flown
Pimlico: The part of Hoxton from the corner of St. John's Road and New North Road to Hoxton Street, which was called Pimlico Walk; it was a place of resort and famous for fresh cakes and ale. The name was later transferred to the area between the Thames and St. James's Park. Cf. The Alchemist V.ii.
double: be duplicitous, evasive; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's II.i.
shag-ruff band...set in a cramp-ring: "One of a number of ingenious depictions of the Jacobean gallant's head precisely fixed in the centre of a stiffly elaborate ruff" (Hoy). Cramp-rings were rings that supposed protected the wearer from the cramp and epilepsy; they were hallowed by the king or queen every year on Good Friday. Cf. The Alchemist IV.iii, The White Devil III.i.
tilt: an awning over a boat
punk: whore; cf. Your Five Gallants I.i, A Trick to Catch the Old One I.ii, Blurt, Master Constable III.i.
incontinently: 1) immediately, 2) with an insatiable sexual appetite; cf. Blurt, Master Constable II.ii, The Old Law V.i, Satiromastix III.i.
poking my ruff: poking-sticks (or poting-sticks) were steel sticks used to set the plaits of the ruff; cf. Blurt, Master Constable III.iii, A Yorkshire Tragedy i, 1 The Honest Whore II.i.
hit I him i' the teeth: I reproached him; cf. A Fair Quarrel II.ii, Satiromastix I.ii.
rest: a wood pole with an iron spike on one end driven into the ground, and a semicircular piece of iron on the other which supported the musket when firing
whisking: moving actively, brisk, lively
running: flighty
purse-nets: a bag-shaped net, the mouth of which can be drawn together with cords, used especially for catching rabbits or fish; cf. Pursenet the pickpocketing gallant in Your Five Gallants, 2 The Honest Whore IV.ii.
[MISTRESS GALLIPOT/ ]: A line of Mistress Gallipot's seems to have dropped out, for Mistress Openwork has two consecutive speeches. "Then they hang the head" appears at the top of the page, with the s.p. appearing as the catchphrase at the bottom of the previous page. The sequence of dialogue doesn't necessitate a line between the two speeches (i.e., Mistress Openwork's second speech can follow the first without any disruption in sense), but another line could easily be inserted. Three copies of (Q) were reset, resulting in accidentals such as "Then they hang head": Bowers conjectures that the printer realized Mistress Gallipot's was missing, unlocked the frame, found it could not be inserted, and the reset the type carelessly.
hang the head...droop: with the sexual innuendo
cog: wheedle, fawn, employ feigned flattery; cf. The Merry Wives of Windsor III.iii, Westward Ho! II.i.
ingle: 1) fondle, caress, or 2) wheedle, cajole (as in Blurt, Master Constable II.ii)
riven: broken, split
frump'd: mocked, insulted
how shall I find water to keep these two mills going?: a pun on water = semen; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.ii
clapp'd under hatches: kept below deck, with the pun clap = clip, i.e., embrace
all split: to make all split = to wreak havoc; cf. The Witch II.ii, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside IV.ii, A Midsummer Night's Dream I.ii.
cork heels: Chopines had cork soles and high cork heels, and were often associated with wantonness; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside III.ii, The Changeling III.iii & V.iii, Much Ado about Nothing V.iv, The Revenger's Tragedy I.ii, 2 The Honest Whore III.i.
gudgeons: small, easily-caught fish, therefore fools; cf. the character Gudgeon in The Family of Love, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside IV.ii, The Bloody Banquet II.i, Northward Ho! I.ii, Match Me in London V.ii.
false faces: At one time fashionable only among the upper classes, the wearing of masks to conceal a woman's identity had worked its way down the social scale; by Restoration times, it was mostly identified with prostitution. Cf. The Phoenix I.v.
you'll eat of a cod's head of your own dressing: i.e., you'll catch yourself in your own net (cod's head = fool), but also with sexual innuendo. Cf. Blurt, Master Constable II.ii, 2 The Honest Whore V.ii.
gib: cat, a term of reproach, especially for an old woman
Your worst: Gomme emends to "you're worsted", i.e., you're blemished, but the Q reading can stand as an abbreviation for "Do your worst," as Mistress Gallipot says later this scene.
music of the spheres: in Ptolemaic astronomy, crystal spheres revolved between earth and God's throne, a frequently occurring image; cf., e.g., The Revenger's Tragedy II.i.
get you a-mumming: literally, a command to don a mask and take part in a mummers' play, but Mistress Openwork is telling him to be quiet (pun on mum)
Pass by their privilege current: i.e., most people, believing the wearer to be beautiful beneath the mask, show her respect; as Gomme notes, however, the prostitutes who wore masks did not always pass current, as in Northward Ho! I.ii, 2 The Honest Whore IV.i.
Dam: dambe (Q); both "dam" and "damn" fit the context, and the pun is probably intentional, but the OED records "dambe" as an erroneous form only of "dam."
beldam: witch
[sprites]: spirits (Q), emended for the rhyme
[them]: then (Q)
as shopkeepers do their broid'red stuff: a popular charge against tradesmen of keeping the light low to disguise shoddy merchandise; cf. the draper Quomodo (whose henchmen are Falselight and Shortyard) in Michaelmas Term, The Duchess of Malfi I.i, Anything for a Quiet Life II.ii. Hoy suggests emending to "braided", i.e., goods that have changed color, or faded.
two flags were advanc'd: an allusion to the raising of flags at theaters to announce performances; cf. The Whore of Babylon IV.i.
MISTRESS [GALLIPOT]: Mist. Open. (Q)
Westward Ho: the cry of the Thames watermen, but obviously a direct reference to Dekker's and Webster's 1604 comedy, which features citizens' wives and their gallants on a journey westward to Brainford; also cf. Twelfth Night III.i.
toss/Me in a blanket: Blanketing, or tossing in a blanket, was a form of punishment, the offender being tossed in the air by blanket held by those below. There is the innuendo of love-making in a blanket, as Openwork links baboon, a term of abuse, with its proverbially lascivious nature. Cf. The Bloody Banquet III.i, Satiromastix IV.iii.
stale: a lover or mistress whose devotion is turned into ridicule for the amusement of rivals
reversion: 1) legal term for the right of succession after death or the expiration of a grant, 2) leftovers of a meal; cf. The Old Law II.ii, The Changeling IV.iii.
Cold Harbour: Also called Cole Harbour, a mansion by the Thames on Upper Thames Street, later tenements where debtors and vagabonds found sanctuary from the law (a cole = a cheat, sharper); it burned down in the Great Fire of 1666. Cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One II.i, III.i, IV.i, Anything for a Quiet Life II.iii (illustration), Westward Ho! IV.ii.
MISTRESS [OPENWORK]: Mist. Gal. (Q)
western [pug]: png (Q). 1) pug = harlot, 2) western pug = navigators of barges down the Thames from places like Brentford to London; cf. Westward Ho! II.ii.
tilted: 1) jousted, with the sexual innuendo, 2) pitched in the boat on the waves, with the sexual innuendo; cf. III.iii, 1 Henry IV II.iii.
run atilt: engage in a joust
OPENWORK: Mis. Open. (Q)
I'll ride to Oxford...brazen head speak: At Oxford, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay spent seven years constructing a brass head in order to ask it if it was possible to build a brass wall around England. Unfortunately, the head was left unattended when it came time for the head to speak. The story would have been familiar from The Famous History of Friar Bacon (earliest extant copy dated 1627, but prob. c. 1550), and from Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1594), the prologue and epilogue of which Middleton wrote in 1602.
text letters: large or capital letters; cf. If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil Is in It I.ii, The Whore of Babylon V.ii.
turn'd it all to poison: It was believed that every spider was poisonous, but only if the victim knew it was there; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's II.i, The Winter's Tale II.i.
OPENWORK: Mist. Open. (Q)
[counterfeit]: counterfet (Q)
chore: core, here, the core of the apple from the garden of Eden
rub: another allusion the game of bowls, where rub = an obstacle by which a bowl is hindered in its proper course: cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.i & II.iii, The Revenger's Tragedy III.v, The Shoemakers' Holiday V.iv, Richard II III.iv, Hamlet III.i, Henry VIII II.i, and Henry V II.ii, V.ii.
deal upon: 1) set to work upon, 2) have sexual intercourse with
sumner: summoner, a petty officer who notified people when they were to appear in court; cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One II.i, Anything for a Quiet Life I.i.
aloof off: cf. s.d.'s for Michaelmas Term I.i, III.i, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's IV.i.
snaffling: snuffling (var.); Greenwit is pretending to have a cold in order to disguise his voice.
Rose Tavern: There were many London taverns bearing this name. Hoy and Gomme think that the one near Temple Bar at the corner of Thanet Place, frequented by lawyers, is the most attractive candidate. Another Rose Tavern stood on Holborn Hill, from which coaches departed for Brentford.
Crastino sancti Dunstani: the morrow after St. Dunstan's Day (19 May)
Bow Church: St. Mary's le Bow (Sancta Maria de Arcubus) on the corner of Bread Street in West Cheap, the original site of the Court of Arches, the chief court of the Archbishops of Canterbury; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.i.
libel: the plaintiff's charges
fagary: vagary; cf. Satiromastix IV.ii.
tawny-coat: the traditional dress of a summoner; cf. Patient Grissil IV.iii.
I must lose my hair in their company: with the jest that he has syphilis, which causes the hair to fall out; cf., A Midsummer Night's Dream I.ii, The Revenger's Tragedy I.i, The Bloody Banquet II.iii, A Trick to Catch the Old One IV.v, Westward Ho! V.iv, 1 The Honest Whore II.ii.
in the nose: The advanced stages of syphilis involved the disintegration of cartilage and tissue, and the disfigurement of the nose was an obvious sign; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's IV.ii.
a knack to know an honest man: An anonymous play by this title was mentioned by Henslowe as being a new piece on 22 October 1594, between which date and 3 November 1596 twenty-one performances by the Admiral's Men at the Rose on the Bankside are recorded; it was printed in 1596. This and "a knack to know a knave" were proverbial.
A very clean shift,/But able to make me lousy: with the pun on shift = piece of clothing and lousy = lice-ridden
[Gelt]: Get (Q). This seems to be the best emendation, = gold (from geld, i.e., money)
Irish: a dice game resembling backgammon
when she comes to bearing: 1) in Irish and backgammon, the removal of a piece at the end of a game, 2) child-bearing; cf. Northward Ho! IV.i.
V.i.
perspicuous: clear in statement
Meg of Westminster: There was another Moll, much like Moll Frith, whose exploits are told in The Life and Pranks of Long Meg of Westminster (1582); cf. Satiromastix III.i, Jonson's The Fortunate Isles.
forlorn hope: Originally, a chosen body of fighters detached to the front to begin the attack, or skirmishers, it came to mean figuratively those in a desperate condition.
mittimus: a writ for the receiving and keeping of a criminal; cf. The Phoenix V.i, The Old Law V.i.
Newgate: One of the six gates of ancient London and a chief prison, demolished in 1767; see the illustration above. Cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.ii, Your Five Gallants III.v, Anything for a Quiet Life III.ii, The Puritan I.iii.
firework to run upon a line: for an illustration, cf. "firedrake" (a firecracker) in The Witch I.i; also cf. Your Five Gallants III.ii, The Whore of Babylon III.i.
linstock: a stick approximately three feet long used to hold matches for igniting a cannon; cf. Blurt, Master Constable II.ii.
captain of the galley-foist: a term of contempt. A galley-foist was a large barge with oars, used specifically as the one that transported the Lord Mayor to Westminster to take his oath; cf. 2 The Honest Whore IV.iii.
shovel-board shilling: a highly-polished shilling used in the game of shovel-board, a game resembling the modern shuffleboard; cf. The Merry Wives of Windsor I.i, Every Man in His Humour III.v.
whistled the poor little buzzard off: a term from falconry, meaning to dismiss by whistling; cf. Othello III.iii.
boot-halers: freebooters, marauders, highwaymen
boon voyage: an anglicizing of bon voyage
nappy: heady, intoxicated
ging: company, crew
world's end: There were apparently many taverns of this name within and (more appropriately) far outside London.
cow-heel: a cow's foot stewed to a jelly
Alla corago: from coraggio (Ital., courage); cf. All's Well that End's Well II.v, The Tempest V.i.
siege of Belgrade: The Hungarians lost Belgrade to the Turks in 1521.
Moldavians, Walachians, and Transylvanians: inhabitants of three of the Balkan provinces in modern Rumania
Sclavonians: a general name for the Slavic people; cf. A Fair Quarrel IV.i.
from Venice to Roma...diverse others: "An amble indeed: Vecchio is presumably Civitavecchia, Bononia and Bolonia are one and the same, the modern Bologna, Romania is Romogna, Valteria Volterra, Mountepulchena Montepulciano. Moll recognizes that this is not proper journey but a string of names picked up at hearsay" (Gomme).
butter-box: The Dutch were stereotyped as being overfond of butter, and therefore fat; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.iii, The Shoemakers' Holiday I.iv.
ruffling: swaggering
Ick, mine here...mine here: Gomme provides a translation, although "a 'translation' must be a matter partly of guesswork, but it isn't entirely gibberish, though some words are hard to identify. (I have supposed that, since Tearcat goes once into Spanish, he may also include an attempt at a French word: it looks as if Beasa may be baiser.) 'I, sir? I am the ruffling Tearcat, the brave soldier, I have traveled through all Holland: the rascal who gave more [than] a kiss and a word. I beat him with blows on the head; pulled out thence a hundred thousand devils, cheerfully, sir'."
jobbering: jabbering
Not a cross: i.e., not a penny; coins were frequently stamped with a cross on the reverse. Cf. Blurt, Master Constable II.i, The Family of Love I.ii. Sir Beauteous is trying to get rid of them by offering them money.
skeldering: sponging, used especially for vagabonds posing as soldiers; cf. Satiromastix I.ii, the character Shift in Every Man out of His Humour.
glaziers: eyes
black patches: black patches were fashionable, and often hid blemishes such as rheum and scabs; cf. Blurt, Master Constable III.iii, Anything for a Quiet Life IV.ii.
Isle of Dogs: a peninsula in the Thames between Limehouse, Greenwich, and Blackwall Reaches, so named because it was said the king's hounds were kept there; it was a place of refuge from creditors and the law, which led to frequent jokes. The lost play The Isle of Dogs by Jonson and Nashe led to the theaters being closed for two months. Cf. Satiromastix IV.i.
whip-jack: A "sort of nimble-fing'red knaves...who talk of nothing but fights at sea, piracies, drownings and shipwracks, travelling both in the shapes and names of mariners, with a counterfeit license to beg from town to town.... The end of their land voyage is to rob booths at fairs.... These whip-jacks will talk of the Indies and of all countries that lie under heaven, but are indeed no more but fresh-water soldiers" (The Bellman of London).
horners: 1) workers in horn (i.e., the animal's horn is the raw material), 2) cuckolds (obs.)
horns for the thumb: case or thimble of horn which the cutpurse wore when using a knife to cut the strings of a purse; thieves came to be known as horn-thumbs.
nipping: cutting a purse
maunderer: beggar
pad: road
out at elbows: have a coat worn out at the elbows, to be ragged, poor, in bad condition
cant: "It was necessary that a people, so fast increasing and so daily practicing new and strange villainies, should borrow to themselves a speech which, so near as thy could, none but themselves could understand; and for that cause was this language, which some call pedlar's French, invented.... This word canting seems to be derived from the Latin verb canto, which signifies in English to sing, or to make a sound with words, that's to say, speak. And very aptly may canting take his derivation a cantando, from singing, because amongst these beggarly consorts that can play upon no better instruments, the language of canting is a kind of music, and he that in such assemblies can cant best is counted the best musician" (Lanthorn and Candlelight). Some canting phrases have already been glossed above; Gomme provides an excellent glossary, culled from works of Dekker and others featuring canters' dictionaries.
upright man: The highest "office" in the thieves' hierarchy; after him comes the ruffler, the angler, the rogue, and finally the wild rogue.
doxy: whore
Halt not: do not limp, i.e., be roundabout
by the salomon: by the Mass, an oath
kinchin mort in her slate at her back: "Kinchin morts are girls of a year or two old, which the morts, their mothers, carry at their backs in the slates, which in the canting tongue are sheets" (The Bellman of London).
dell: "A dell is a young wench...but as yet not spoiled of her maidenhead.... These dells are reserved as dishes for the upright men, for none but they must have the first taste of them" (The Bellman of London). A wild dell was one born or begotten under a hedge.
darkmans: night
strommel: straw
ben: good
[booze]: bouse (Q)
gruntling cheat, a cackling cheat, and a quacking cheat: "By joining of two simples do they make almost all their compounds. As for example, nab...is head, and nab-cheat is a hat or a cap, which word cheat being coupled to other words stands in very good stead and does excellent service" (Lanthorn and Candlelight). Trapdoor therefore refers to a pig, a cock or capon, and a duck.
old: fine, rare
ken: house. Like "cheat," this word is often used in combination with other cant, e.g., a boozing ken is an alehouse, and a few lines later a lib ken is a "sleep-house" or lodging, and a stalling (or stuling) ken is a house for receiving stolen goods.
queer cuffin: "The word cove or cofe or cuffin signifies a man, a fellow, etc., but differs something in his property according as it meets with other words, for a gentleman is called a gentry cove or cofe, a good fellow is a ben cofe, a churl is called a queer cuffin...and in canting they term a Justice of the Peace (because he punisheth them, belike) by no other name than by queer cuffin, that's to say a churl or a naughty man" (Lanthorn and Candlelight).
heave: rob
mill: rob
bung: purse
couch a hogshead: lie down asleep
ruffmans: woods or bushes
wap: have sexual intercourse
niggle: have sexual intercourse
Cut benar whids: speak good words
fambles: hands
stamps: legs
fadoodling: apparently Trapdoor's invention; the earliest OED entry is 1670 (= something ridiculous)
fit: strain
gage: quart pot
rom-booze: wine
Romville: London
caster: cloak
Peck: meat
pannam: bread
[lap]: butter; lay (Q)
popler: porridge
deuse a [vill]: the country; vile (Q)
[MOLL, TEARCAT]: Tearcat's name appears as a s.p. at both the third and tenth lines, and the s.d. The song appears in the right-hand margin at the sixth; like Gomme, I think it is reasonable to assume they join in a chorus here, as well as the last two lines.
lightmans: day
hartmans: stocks
scour the queer cramp-ring: to wear fetters (a jocular use of cramp-ring: cf. IV.ii)
palliard: beggar
docked: lay with
skew: cup
Avast: away
bing: go
Romford market: Romford, twelve miles northeast of London in Essex, famous for its hog market; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside IV.i.
stall'd: made, ordained
trine: hang
cheats: gallows
I prae, sequor: go before, I follow
gallant: finely dressed
wand: switch for urging a horse on; cf. The Witch II.iii.
strike: Their cant here is best explained by this passage
from The Bellman of London, some of which is covered in
Moll's explanation below: "This figging law, like the body
of some monstrous and terrible beast, stands upon ten feet, or
rather lifts up proudly ten dragon-like heads, the names of which
are these, viz.:
He that cuts the purse is called the nip.
He that is half with him is the snap, or the cloyer.
The knife is called a cuttle-bung.
He that picks the pocket is called a foist.
He that faceth the man is the stale.
The taking of the purse is called drawing.
The spying of this villain is called smoking or boiling.
The purse is the bung.
The money the shells.
The act doing is called striking."
Shadow: follow closely
cheaping: asking the price of, bargaining for
caduceus: Strictly defined, the wand carried by an ancient
Greek or Roman herald: one was carried by Mercury, the messenger
of the gods. Although it sounds as Moll is referring to a rod
on which the goldsmith kept his rings in the marketplace, Mercury
was also the god of thieves (cf. the inscription in the title-page of the 1662 prose tract above), and this stick may be similar to
a curber's hook (cf. IV.i). Cf. Troilus and Cressida II.iii.
ken: know
[trust]: rrust (Q)
last new play i' the Swan: Further evidence for the 1611
date of composition. The Swan produced no new plays from 1597/8
to 1611, featuring acrobatic performances and sports contests
instead. The Swan was used exclusively as a theater from 1611
to 1615; A Chaste Maid in Cheapside was performed there
in 1613. It was located in the Paris Garden, Southwark, at the
western end of the Bankside, west of Hopton Street (click here for a map: the Swan is on the left, the Globe on the right). Illustration:
the famous 'de Witt sketch' by Arend van Buchel, after a drawing
by his friend Johannes de Witt, who had visited the Swan Theater
around 1596. This is the only contemporary picture of the interior
of an Elizabethan playhouse.
Make it good: Returning property stolen by cutpurses was evidently a custom of Mary Frith's.
synagogue: meeting-house of thieves where stolen money and goods are accounted for and divided, officers elected, etc.
Pacus palabros: from pocas palabras (Spanish, few words); cf. The Taming of the Shrew Induc., The Spanish Tragedy III.xiv.
In younger days: Moll Frith would have been about 26 in 1611.
cheaters: "The cheating law, or the art of winning money by false dice. Those that practise this study call themselves cheaters, the dice cheaters, and the money which they purchase cheats" (The Bellman of London). Cf. 1 The Honest Whore IV.ii.
lifters: The lifting law "teacheth a kind of lifting
of goods clean away. The such liftings are three sorts of levers
used to get up the baggage, viz.:
He that first stealeth the parcel is called the lift.
The that receives it is the marker.
He that stands without and carries it away is called the santar"
(The Bellman of London).
puggards: thieves; cf. The Winter's Tale IV.iii.
curbers: Those who hook goods out of a window (cf. IV.i)
black guard: cf. Westward Ho! III.iii.
some Italian pander: In further support of a 1611 composition date, Mulholland ties this observation to the Crudities of Thomas Coryate (?1577-1617), entered in the Stationers' Register on 26 November 1610 and printed in 1611. The interesting link is that Prince Henry, who financed its publication, was also the patron of the company at the Fortune Theater; Mulholland suggests that this allusion could be either "a token of support for the beleaguered Coryate" or "a form of advertisement."
quick: lively
tickling: pleasing, amusing, with the pun on making an arrest, or whipping; cf. Your Five Gallants IV.viii, Blurt, Master Constable I.ii, passim, Anything for a Quiet Life III.ii.
V.ii.
close: secretly
the Sluice: an embankment on the Thames built to protect the low-lying district of Lambeth Marsh from flooding, with a possible pun of sluice = to have sexual intercourse with
Lambeth: notorious for thieves; cf. Westward Ho! IV.i.
six wet towns: possibly the riverside towns of Fulham, Richmond, Kingston, Hampton, Chertsey, and Staines
where fares lie soaking: i.e., where travelers lie soaking wet, with the sexual innuendo
Blackfriars: cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside for a map showing the Blackfriars stairs.
[has]: had (Q)
gaskin-bride: a bride who wears gaskins, a particular kind of breeches or hose; cf. The Puritan III.iii.
rak'd up: i.e., smothered
culverin: a large cannon, ten to thirteen feet long; cf. Patient Grissil IV.iii, The Noble Spanish Soldier II.i.
[SIR ALEXANDER]: Fitz-All. (Q)
He does it well: Indicating that Greenwit and Goshawk know about Fitzallard's plot?
For your speeches...rashness: i.e., though I foresee that you will tax me for rashness
engage: wager
his: i.e., Sir Alexander's
upon her: i.e., Moll
matches: wagers
In that refusal: i.e., of Moll
Of an old knight: in the manner of an old knight
monthly: like a lunatic, who supposedly were made mad by Luna, the moon; cf. The Witch IV.i, The Phoenix IV.i ("privileg'd by the moon"), The Changeling III.iii.
smock-dowry: with no dowry but her smock; cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One IV.iv, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside III.iii.
unmark'd: unnoticed, of no account
work upon advantage: take advantage of my position; cf. A Fair Quarrel III.iii.
citizens and their wives: In the d.p. in (Q), Tiltyard, Openwork, and Gallipot are bracketed with the Latin cives et uxores to the right.
challenge: be the equivalent of, rival
sped: 1) provided, 2) sexually fertile
simple: pure, disinterested
[Cheaters]: Cheates (Q)
booted but not coach'd: Gomme offers various explanations for this line; the best sense seems to me to be that those who cheat at dice will be rich or respectable enough to be well-shod but not enough to ride in coaches.
Vessels: maidenheads
before [thee]: done to thee; hee (Q)
pursue: seek
cuck: put on the cucking stool
[gentlewomen]: gentlewoman (Q); the following line calls for the plural: Moll is addressing the citizens' wives.
beams: sunbeams
Epilogus
hit her o'er: directed criticism toward
book: Believed by R. C. Bald to be Martin Mark-All, Beadle of Bridewell: His Defence and Answer to the Bellman of London, a pamphlet of 1610, now lost. Its author, one S. R., and Dekker exchanged hostilities in print, stemming from S. R.'s deriding Dekker's attempts at rogue literature and questioning his knowledge of thieves' cant.
humourous: full of humours or fancies, whimsical
The Roaring Girl...recompense: That this passage refers specifically to Moll Frith herself has been much discussed; it was certainly within her character, although, as Gomme suggests, it could refer to the actor playing Moll who was to appear at the Fortune in another play.
