The Persons of the Play.

PANTALONIn9250, a senatorn9643 GUADAGNIn9251, a senator

FABRITIO, son to Pantaloni

PISO, his friend FRANCISCO, lover of Flavia

HORATIO, his friend

NANULOn9252, servant to Guadagni ASTUTTAn9253, servant to Guadagni

NICOLOn9254, servant to Pantaloni

VICTORIAn9255, the Novellan9256

JACCONETTAn9257, servant to Victoria

FLAVIA, daughter to Guadagni

BORGIO (revealed to be Paulo)n9258.

[DON PEDRO]n9259

SWATZENBURGHn9260

CHEQUINOn9261, a lawyer PROSPEROn9262, a lawyer

PEDLAR-WOMAN ZAFFIn9263, an Officer

PROLOGUE.

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n9250   PANTALONI This is the name given in commedia dell' arte, the traditional form of Italian improvised comedy, to the type figure of the lean, foolish, bearded and bespectacled old man (vecchio), usually a native of Venice (hence the aptness of Brome's usage here). He customarily wore in commedia a predominantly red costume that included Turkish slippers, pantaloons, a close-fitting jacket, and a skullcap. In such comedy he is continually duped by his children and servants. He is sometimes the butt of jokes about the absurdity of lust in old age, since he is often seen courting the young heroine, who is similarly being wooed by the old man's son. The type derives from the senex of Roman comedy; the name is more familiarly translated into English as "pantaloon" with reference to the "long, close-fitting trousers extended to cover the feet in the manner of tights", which the character always wore on the Italian sixteenth- and seventeenth-century stage (OED 2c). [go to text]

n9643   senator Brome is vague about the actual political status of some of his characters. Pantaloni would appear to be higher in the social scale than Guadagni, which is why the latter wishes their respective offspring to wed. Both are definitely of the merchant class and therefore potentially eligible for the title of "magnifico"; but Brome tends to use this term and "clarissimo" indiscriminately (the latter implies a more aristocratic or patrician background and lineage). To bear either title the merchants would need to hold political office in the Great Council (this was no particularly notable honour, since there were some 1600 members of this council in the seventeenth century, according to Coryat) and so might be termed "senators". As a note of benefit to the designer of an intended production: all senior men of the status to be council members would be dressed uniformly in black: "when they goe abroad of their houses, both they that beare office, and they that are private, doe weare gownes [...] of blacke cloth, and over their left shoulder they have a flappe made of the same cloth, and edged with blacke Taffata: Also most of their gownes are faced before with blacke Taffata" (Thomas Coryat, Coryat's Crudities 2 vols [Glasgow: James MacLehose for Glasgow University Press, 1905] Vol. 1, p.397). Coryat's description continues: "All these gowned men doe weare marveilous little blacke flat caps of felt, without any brimmes at all, and very diminutive falling bandes, no ruffes at all, which are so shallow, that I have seene many of them not above a little inch deepe" (p.398). Since younger men would not be constrained to wear this kind of uniform, their clothing might explore other colour ranges, an effect which would make the elderly fathers stand out as distinctive within the stage picture (a distinction that is apparent in many Venetian family portraits of this and earlier periods). [go to text]

n9251   GUADAGNI Though of the type known as vecchi in Italian comedy, there is no figure who bears this name in commedia dell'arte. But Brome's character, who spends much of the play in the company of Pantaloni, does represent one trait that in Italian comedy was exemplified by the latter: a lust for money. The name, Guadagni, derives from the Italian verb, guadagnare, meaning to earn, win or gain, which is generally used in the context of finance. Pantaloni on the Italian stage is both wealthy and greedy; he is obsessed with money and will do anything to get it. In Brome's play this is the dominant characteristic of Guadagni too. [go to text]

n9252   NANULO Nano in Italian means a dwarf. The additional "-ul" is often deployed in Italian to imply a miniature version of something (as such the resulting term can be used as a mark of affection or distaste, depending on the context). [go to text]

n9253   ASTUTTA Astuta in Italian is the feminine form of the epithet meaning astute, shrewd, cunning, witty, insightful, all qualities which this character will demonstrate. [go to text]

n9254   NICOLO This is a common name amongst Italian men, derived from San Nicolo, often called the "wonderworker". It was the first name (spelt Niccolo) of Machiavelli, the Florentine political philosopher, who advocated the arts of pragmatism in public affairs. In renaissance English theatre the type of the Machiavellian became synonymous with an individual adept at manipulating situations to his own advantage (Ben Jonson brilliantly interrogated the type in the characters of Sejanus and Tiberius in his tragedy, Sejanus, His Fall, acted 1603). Brome's Nicolo shows himself a master of disguise and organiser of schemes but always benignly and to the eventual betterment of his master, Pantaloni, and his son. [go to text]

n9255   VICTORIA In its Italian spelling (Vittoria) the name means victory. [go to text]

n9256   Novella This word is ambiguous and complex in its resonances: in English usage it can mean new (novel), while in Italian it can be applied to a novice, but also carries the meaning, "a short story or fiction". All the meanings come to have some degree of valid application to Victoria. Perhaps the ambiguity is deliberate, designed to alert spectators to the surprises that are in store for them regarding this particular character's identity and her fortunes as the action develops. [go to text]

n9257   JACCONETTA The female form of the name, Jacomo (a little, female Jack), which has some bearing on the final moments of Brome's plot. Though the fact is not recorded in the description of this character as Victoria's servant, Jacconetta is a blackamoor. The character is found ultimately to be in disguise, and cast and director may choose whether the black skin is authentic or a part of the disguise achieved with make-up. [go to text]

n9258   BORGIO (revealed to be Paulo) ] Paulo (Bi-named Burgio) (The name and description of this character in the 1653 text reveals his true identity long before the plot resolves with discovery of his having spent most of the action in disguise. This edition throughout names the character in stage directions and speech prefixes by the name (or alias) that he is known to the other characters in Brome's action and reverts to his true name only when the character chooses so to call himself in the final moments of the play.) [go to text]

n9259   [DON PEDRO] This character is omitted from the listing of "The Persons of the Play" in the 1653 text. [go to text]

n9260   SWATZENBURGH No symbolic significance can be detected within this name. "Burg" is modern German for "castle" and "swatz" is akin to "schwartz" meaning "black"; Brome may be inventing a roughly German-sounding surname. Matthew Steggle, however, has traced the name to an actual Franconian family and argues that a recent hero, Adolphus Swarzenburg, may have been his inspiration for the role: Adolphus earned renown fighting against the Turks before his death in 1600 and details of his life were recorded in Knolles's popular and much reprinted General History of the Turkes, an edition of which appeared in the year preceding the performances of The Novella. (See Steggle, Richard Brome: Place and Politics on the Caroline Stage [Manchester: Manchester UP, 2004], pp.33-34.) [go to text]

n9261   CHEQUINO ]Cheqinno (Elsewhere in the 1653 text this character's name is spelt "Checquino". A chequin or chequeen was a gold coin, and being so named here is a comment on this character's nature as a lawyer: he is in the profession for the money. Because chequin is the modern spelling for the coin, that spelling has been used for the character's name (Chequino) for reasons of consistency throughout this edition in speech prefixes and stage directions and to highlight Brome's irony. In the seventeenth century chequins were the most valuable coins and the only gold coins in the Venetian monetary system.) [go to text]

n9262   PROSPERO The name is derived from an epithet which in Italian means "prosperous, flourishing, thriving, affluent". The word is a neatly ironic comment on the character's success as a lawyer. Like Chequino, Prospero is in the legal profession for its financial rewards. [go to text]

n9263   ZAFFI The name indicates the precise status of the character as an officer of the Venetian state. [go to text]

n10118   Should I not speak a prologue Video We decided to explore the prologue to the play in a workshop for a number of reasons. It requires a mode of direct address very different from passages where such address had been investigated previously in workshops. These, being situated within a developing narrative, had often involved a degree of choice for the actor: is this passage better delivered as an aside or directed straight at the audience? Here, however, at the play’s opening Brome is confronting his audience and establishing what their reciprocal relationships will be throughout the coming action. The direct address here is unequivocal. So what kind of tone does this invite the actor to adopt? There is too an idea running through the speech that it is all improvised: the situation supposes that an actor has been pushed on stage by the company because an audience expect a prologue; but, as Brome has not actually written one, the actor has to fall back on his own wits and invent on the spot. The intimation is that Brome has little respect for his spectators. However, though on the one hand the attitude is offhand or even confrontational, by contrast the style is meticulously controlled, the couplets sophisticated in their construction, and the metrics exact. Could one perform such consummate literary artistry as improvised? What can an actor make of all these seeming contradictions? Would it be possible, for example, for the actor to play his own persona off against that which Brome is establishing for himself as dramatist in this moment? How intimate might the tone and relationship between actor and spectator become and on what grounds?

Two actors worked on the prologue, Hannah Watkins and Alan Morrissey; each took a different approach. Hannah decided to stand her ground confidently and speak down to the audience, as if pained at being required to make such overtures to them. She attended to the structuring of the couplets with considerable precision; frankly explained the distasteful situation of there not being a prologue written, which thus necessitates her improvising extempore. Here is a demonstration of coldly framed wit that chooses not to go for local jokes to provoke laughter by the way but builds towards that final couplet with a controlled disdain. Hannah attends to the syntax with punctilious exactitude, playing every punctuation mark for what it is worth, enforcing spectators to hang on her every word to learn precisely where each long sentence is leading. This is a performance that delights in Brome’s calculated logic. The invitation to laugh is withheld right to the very last word and the pause before its utterance holds the whole speech and the exact relationships of actor and of author to audience in suspension till released into the comic threat implicit in “hereafter”. The tone throughout this performance created by the persona Hannah adopts is what one might term Jonsonian: its over-riding tone is combative; it mocks at audiences, at their bogus tastes that reveal they cannot discriminate good from poor artistry, at their demand that their own expectations be fulfilled and established conventions (such as the prologue and how it is presented) be honoured, whether there is any point to such conventions or not. The joke is at all times directed at the docility of spectators for being in thrall to fashionable taste and devoid of real judgement, which renders them all too easy a target for a playwright’s scorn and satire. Such a reading of the prologue prepares an audience to expect that they will have to be alert to the nuanced implications of the comedy which follows (it is to offer a shrewdly pointed commentary on gender relations and patriarchal responsibilities) and not to expect to rest easy in their laughter.

Alan took a very different line, choosing to create for himself the persona of company clown (one might imagine him subsequently in the role of Nicolo). Rather than stand aloof like Hannah, he chooses to dramatise both speech and situation: he starts having a row with his offstage fellows who are forcing him out onstage; but, once he is in the playing space and observing a watching audience, he turns his attention to them and to creating a good relationship with them. Unlike Hannah who loftily addressed spectators, Alan fraternises with them, takes them all into his confidence, selects individuals to tease, share an understanding with, or befriend. He uses the audience throughout and similarly uses his script with the occasional “ums” and “ahs” to create the illusion that he is winging it and making the whole lot up as he goes along. He makes as many incidental jokes as the lines will allow, though without losing the overall direction of the speech. If Hannah’s account was Jonsonian in its inspiration, this is a much more a Shakespearean delivery, akin to the soliloquies of Launce in The Two Gentlemen of Verona or of Young Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice, which are stand-up turns like the lazzi of commedia dell’arte. Gobbo is an interesting presence behind the performance, since Brome’s comedy, makes numerous inter-textual references to Shakespeare’s, as the Introduction and several annotations to the text of The Novella examine in detail. (The persona was wholly of Alan’s devising; he was in no way tutored to act in this way.) What delights in this reading is how the actor balances a decidedly colloquial delivery with maintaining a light hold on the couplets and the stanzaic structures. This seems improvised but one senses Brome’s control underlying it all, which hints exactly at the situation with the play that will follow: on the surface it invites mirth, but to the astute listener there are serious implications to its witty invention. [go to text]

n6657   In a starched formal beard and cloak Like many of Ben Jonson's prologues and inductions, Brome's frequently give us insights into staging and performance practices in the seventeeth-century theatre. Actors speaking prologues were clearly recognisable to audiences then by how they appeared. Sometimes, as in the prologue to the play-within-the-play in The Antipodes the actor wears clothing symbolic of the ensuing action: in this particular case, since the play that follows is to be about social inversions, he wears on his feet shoes of beaver fur more suited to a hat and on his head a cap of leather more suited to footwear [AN 2.1.speeches250-254]. Generally, however, the prologue-speaker wore a distinctive cloak. In the Induction to Jonson's Cynthia's Revels (acted 1600) three boy actors fight over who shall speak the prologue, which requires them to fight for possession of the cloak. Prologues were often formal occasions, when the actor made suit to the audience for acceptance of the ensuing play. Brome, however, pretends not to have written an appropriate speech, leaving the company to place onstage an actor who must therefore improvise something appropriate to the occasion. (It is all a joke, of course: Brome has certainly penned what is spoken.) So we are presented with a suitably impressive and stately-looking figure (the cloak is noticeably supplemented with a beard that, being waxed or "starched", would follow the currently popular van Dyck style, where the hairs were gathered or teased to a pointed end below the chin) who nonetheless is unsure how to proceed. His speech is about enacting an expected role that goes with a given, known kind of costuming and about how spectators view and, more importantly, judge a role in relation to current theatrical conventions and their own trained expectations. Cunningly Brome has set up the themes that are central to his comedy, particularly in relation to how spectators will view his main character, Victoria, and her costuming as the Novella. [go to text]

n9466   starched Rice starch used for starching ruffs is also a good "hair gel", as it keeps hair or beard in place and can be brushed out quickly. (I am grateful to Dr. Eleanor Lowe for this information.) [go to text]

gg1694   auditory audience [go to text]

n6658   a sermon without a text It was customary for a preacher to start his sermon by reciting a precise passage from the Bible or another religious work which afforded him his theme. The resulting oration became in consequence a kind of meditation or commentary on the given text. [go to text]

gg3457   Nor neither [go to text]

gg2674   wit intelligence, wisdom; quickness, ingenuity [go to text]

gg1021   extempore improvised [go to text]

gs950   commission authoritative charge or direction to act in a prescribed manner; order, charge, instruction (OED 1a) [go to text]

gs951   dubbed given the title of (poet) [go to text]

gs420   fit suitable, proper [go to text]

gg5954   nought nothing [go to text]

gs952   wit a person of lively fancy, who has the faculty of saying smart or brilliant things, now always so as to amuse; a witty person (OED II, 10) [go to text]

gg5955   ’bide abbreviation for abide (meaning to await) [go to text]

n6659   so In the sense: so that (you'll judge) or if (you'll judge). [go to text]

n6661   pride or ignorance (If the audience should be swayed or influenced) by their own egocentricy or stupidity... [go to text]

n6660   rule In the sense: control or influence (the audience, acting as Brome's "jury") [go to text]

n9459   by’s That is: by his (peers). [go to text]

n9267   peers A peer is defined by the OED (1a) as "a person of the same civil or ecclesiastical status or rank as the person in question; an equal before the law"; or as "a member of the same age group or social set; a contemporary" (1c). Both these meanings reside within this usage by Brome here; but, since the over-riding context concerns sound judgement, the dominant meaning of "peers" is one's equals in terms of intelligence, ability, achievement, cultural sensibility. Behind the image lies the concept of justice as involving trial by a jury of equals. [go to text]

gs953   Faith in faith; truly [go to text]

gg4424   dote be overly fond [go to text]

n6662   nature or intelligence That is: humanity or commonsense. [go to text]

n6663   poet-bounces that write English Greek. These are exhibitionistic poets, probably with a university background, who write in an affected or convoluted, neo-classical style, treating English as if it were Greek. [go to text]

gg4425   poet-bounces poets who are boastful swaggerers (OED bounce, n 4b) or show-offs [go to text]

n6664   wont In the sense: resist, will not be open to (laughter) [go to text]

n9441   ACT ONE The relatively short opening act, divided into two scenes, shows Brome's expertise in the art of exposition. Within a short space of playing time he establishes the two linked plots about which his action will evolve; in the first scene he hints at a motif that will help resolve his comedy; and by the second scene he is set to elaborate one of the plots thematically.

It is night-time in, we are to suppose, a piazza in Venice. Two young men, Fabritio and Piso, enter in deep disagreement about the former’s conduct: he is planning to flee his home rather than enter an arranged marriage (organised by his father) with a girl, Flavia, for whom he entertains no feelings: he is already pledged to another, Victoria, whom he encountered during his travels in Rome. Fabritio’s continuing respect for his father, Pantaloni, appals the cynical opportunitist, Piso: but to stay would involve Fabritio in a loveless marriage, while to return to Rome would risk losing his inheritance. Though much information is rapidly imparted to the audience, it is enlivened by being staged as an amicable disagreement (it is indicative of considerable openness and trust between Fabritio and Piso) and by the strongly contrasting characters of the young men: Fabritio, despairing but morally decent; Piso, frank, shrewd, one who values duty to self above any traditional parental claims. They are interrupted by music and the passage over the stage of numerous serenading young gallants severally drawn in one direction, which Piso identifies as the home of a courtesan newly arrived in Venice. Among those passing by both Piso and Fabritio recognise the elderly Pantaloni, seeking with the aid of a dark lantern to hide his identity and reputation from view as he too makes his way to or from the courtesan’s house. An embarrassed Fabritio silences Piso’s comments about aged lechers in general and Pantaloni in particular. Alone again, the young men discuss the Novella, the courtesan who has claimed the right as a virgin, supposedly a custom in Venice, to establish her own fee (in the event an extremely high one) for taking her maidenhead and to await the choice of an ideal suitor for a period of a month. Piso in telling this to Fabritio reveals a marked misogyny, a quality which Brome is to examine in some detail throughout the play. Two new gallants intent on serenading the courtesan, Francisco and Horatio, appear, causing Fabritio and Piso to hide and overhear the newcomers’ conversation about her. In due course Francisco’s identity is revealed to the listeners, who realise he is the man originally pledged to wed with Flavia, a match that like Fabritio’s with Victoria was broken off by her father, Guadagni, who wished to pursue the more lucrative prospects offered by marriage to Pantaloni’s son. All four lovers are at the mercy of the two old fathers. A fight seems imminent, until Fabritio makes clear to Francisco his lack of interest in Flavia; amity prevails; and the four men withdraw to Horatio’s house nearby to plan ways of resolving what they now appreciate to be a shared predicament.

The second scene moves to the interior of Guadagni’s house, where he is found soliloquising in praise of his deep-rooted concern to husband his wealth, which he sees the intended arranged marriage as augmenting substantially, since it involves a union between two established merchants’ households. In a long sequence with his daughter, Flavia, Guadagni rapidly shifts his mood from amiable geniality when he thinks he is getting his way, through tyrannous fury when he supposes that Flavia is challenging his authority, to excessive generosity when his antagonism is proved by her to be misplaced. (On several occasions later in the play Flavia is to be rendered dumbstruck by his outbursts, so this sequence establishes what is a kind of emotional patterning in their relationship.) What emerges from this is an incisive critique of patriarchal power and the ways that, far from encouraging acquiescence, its abusive insistence encourages modes of duplicity and fosters outright subversion in Flavia. Guadagni departs to join with Pantaloni and their lawyers to finalise the marriage documents, instructing his servant, Nanulo, to admit no one and allow no one to depart from his house. Left a virtual prisoner in her own home, Flavia is in despair and fantasizes about suicide till teased by her maid, Astutta, into a calmer frame of mind when she can review her resources. Nanulo appears with the message that Guadagni is allowing Fabritio to send a woman pedlar to the house to bring betrothal gifts of jewels, costly fabrics and the like. Astutta recognises the woman as a well-known go-between; she encourages Flavia to agree to the pedlar’s visit; and privately admits to seeing how now they might build out of these new circumstances a strategy for Flavia’s escape. The two women leave to work out their tactics. [go to text]

gg4426   checks restrain, hold in check, curb, control (OED check v1, 14a) [go to text]

gg4427   blood passion, temper, anger (OED n. 5) [go to text]

gg4428   clogging halting (one's steps), as if hampered by fetters or chains (clogs) [go to text]

gs954   proper apt, fitting (here ironic) [go to text]

n6665   bears his hue–and–cry in’s conscience Piso is being ironic. He is asking what the point is of setting out with the clear intention of achieving something, if you feel inwardly guilty about doing so. [go to text]

gg4429   hue–and–cry the pursuit of a felon (by constables or by a mob of people) with a loud outcries, such as "Stop, thief!" [go to text]

gg2344   reverence profound respect [go to text]

n6830   so! Do ] so, doe [go to text]

gg848   fly flee, break away [go to text]

gg915   to boot also [go to text]

gs955   stay a stopping behind, halt, delay, postponement [go to text]

gs956   Stay stop in one's tracks, stand still [go to text]

gg4430   perfidious guilty of breaking faith or violating a confidence [go to text]

gg5957   shadowed concealed, screened, obscured [go to text]

gg4432   steel dagger, sword [go to text]

n9425   steel Much later in the play when Victoria (Fabritio's love) finds the integrity of her passion and commitment to him under threat, she too resorts to a dagger and threatens she will commit suicide rather than lose the virginity she has pledged to Fabritio (see NV 5.1.speeches 705-706[NV 5.1.speeches705-706]). [go to text]

n6667   Remove thy hindrance from a second choice He means that, while he remains living, he prevents Victoria from marrying another. To kill himself would allow her to pursue another relationship. It must be stressed here that a quite different set of values are at work in this situation than are apparent to twenty-first-century sensibilities. What is implicit behind all these speeches, though never explicitly stated because Brome could assume his contemporary audience would understand Fabritio and Victoria's predicament, is the binding power of handfasting, the pledging of troth between lovers, which was tantamount to marriage, regardless of whether or not it was accompanied by a church ceremony. While the English church had done much to try and stamp out the custom and its codes, it still prevailed and, in terms of theatre, was as here in Brome's comedy a very good basis for a dramatic crisis. Victoria's is the same predicament as that faced by both Juliet and Marianna in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure : the first has taken the social power of the handfast to consummate her union with Claudio; the second has been jilted by Angelo in direct opposition to the traditional expectations of a union that has progressed so far. For a first-rate discussion of the intricate social codes surrounding handfasting, see chapter six of Germaine Greer's Shakespeare's Wife (London: Bloomsbury, 2007). In the immediate context of this line, what has to be understood is that in terms of handfasting Victoria would still be considered married to Fabritio and so only his death would allow her to accept the suit of another man. Much of what follows in the dialogue between Fabritio and Piso has to be understood in this context: hence, for example, Piso's reference to "bastards" as the offspring of any union that either lover might pursue outside or instead of their own handfasted state. [go to text]

n9426   break your faith This is the nearest that Brome comes to being explicit about handfasting and its subsequent demands on both partners to that contract. Over the next few speeches (and passim throughout the play) Brome is to work some interesting oppositions between "faith" and "marriage", in which marriage is conceived as a sin (being in the instance of Fabritio's union with Flavia an arranged match made more for the commercial benefit to both their fathers than to either marital partner, each of whom loves elsewhere). [go to text]

n6668   To make your children bastards o’ both sides This is an idea that runs throughout the play: that children are in effect illegitimate, when they are born into a loveless marriage where both parents love (and in this instance are affianced to) another person. Again the sheer force of terms like "bastard" have to be understood in the seventeenth-century context of the codes of handfasted unions. [go to text]

n9435   Music Such a simple direction gives no indication of how this sequence was handled in performance. There would have been musicians available in the Blackfriars Theatre but whether they simply accompanied the flow of gentlemen across the stage playing from within their gallery "above" or whether they themselves joined various groups of the actors to swell the scene onstage, it is impossible to gauge. If spectators are to suppose that the gentlemen are suitors to Victoria serenading her in her house, which is to be imagined as situated just offstage, then that would suggest that isolated instrumentalists were deployed, each accompanying one or more gentleman. For such an arrangement to create a continuous flow of music would require expert timing and a developed ensemble. But then Martin White (Renaissance Drama in Action [London and New York: Routledge, 1998], p.154) quotes Bulstrode Whitelock's opinion (1634) that the orchestra at the Blackfriars was "esteemed the best of common musicians in London", so such a treatment of the scene would not be impossible. How close this episode came to the style of Italian commedia is another unaswerable question; but mime of any kind, particularly if involving a number of individuals as here, works best if there is some sense of a shared "beat" amongst the cast to give the action a tight structure and dynamic. The play is set in Venice and perhaps some reference to Carnival might have been deployed in the look of the scene, when again random groups of seen musicians would be more appropriate than a hidden orchestra. Whatever style is adopted in a modern production, it would be important to establish a mood and rhythm so that a significant change might be effected once Pantaloni arrives, comically endeavouring to remain incognito. [go to text]

gs509   divers various, sundry [go to text]

n6669   dark-lanterns A lantern with a slide or arrangement by which either the light may be concealed or give off a dim, meagre and diffused light over a limited space. Fynes Moryson describes the use of such "close" lanterns in Florence: "...the gentlemen in Companies walked by nights in the streetes, with Rapyers, and close lanthornes, I meane halfe light, halfe darke, carrying the light syde towardes them, to see the way, and the darke syde from them, to be unseene of others" (Shakespeare's Europe, Unpublished Chapters of Fynes Moryson's Itinerary, Being a Survey of the Condition of Europe at the end of the 16th Century, ed. by Charles Hughes [London: Sherrat and Hughes, 1903], p.463). [go to text]

n9467   Piso The following speech accompanies and in a sense frames the dumbshow that it comments upon, so the actor speaking it must carefully time the development of his dialogue with what occurs on the stage before and about him, particularly so with regard to Piso's first sighting and then recognising the aged Pantaloni. [go to text]

n9460   night-walkers That is: people walking about the city by night. Repeatedly Brome in the early phases of this opening scene reiterates the idea (by word and then by the use of "lights") that the situation is to be imagined as taking place by night. In the final speeches of this scene reference is made to the near approach of dawn; and in the scene that follows dawn has come and a point is made verbally and through action of snuffiing out a candle. The whole play is to be imagined as occurring within the passage of a single day. Fleay (A Biographical Chronicle of the Engliish Drama, 1559-1642, 2 vols. (London, 1891), I, p.38) argued that this was a topical reference to Fletcher's play of c. 1611, The Night Walker, or The Little Thief, which had been revised by James Shirley for performance by Queen Henrietta Maria's Company. The fact that Shirley's play was not licensed for performance till 11 May, 1633 disproves this claim. Fleay thought that the adjacent usage of "Balls" was a similar topical reference to Shirley's The Ball (licensed 1632), but there is no evidence to support this notion. [go to text]

n6670   Balls Entertainments with dancing. These were often in Venice initiated with a serenade (hence the music) at the mistress's window then evolved into dancing in the street or piazza (if the mistress descended) or within the house (if the lover and his entourage were invited within). In England in the seventeenth century, something was known of carnival time and its traditions of cloaked and masked figures pursuing their amorous activities while protected by the measure of anonymity afforded by wearing masks. English responses alternated between the titillated and the shocked. Interestingly Coryat, Brome's source for details of Venetian life, makes no mention of carnival (though he attended and writes about numerous musical performances, a visit to the theatre for a commedia show and the staged antics and loquacity of mountebanks). Since he was present in the city for only some six weeks, he is likely to have missed an experience of what for many then and now is still the Venetian experience. Fleay in his Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, 1559-1642, (2 vols. [London: 1891], I, p.38) argued that this was a topical reference to Shirley's play, The Ball, which like The Novella, was also staged in the 1632-1633 season but by Queen Henrietta Maria's Company. Bentley considered the notion unfounded (see G.E. Bentley The Jacobean and Caroline Stage [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1941], III, p.85).

Fynes Moryson offers a different possible interpretation of the line in observing that courtesans' admirers and patrons would often "in the tyme of Carnovall publickely [...] grace them by flinging egs filled with rosewater at their windowes, where they stand to be seene" (Shakespeare's Europe, Unpublished Chapters of Fynes Moryson's Itinerary, Being a Survey of the Condition of Europe at the end of the 16th Century, ed. by Charles Hughes [London: Sherrat and Hughes, 1903], p.412). The titlepage of Coryat's Crudities contains a number of illustrations, one of which in the bottom righthand corner shows a courtesan throwing eggs at Coryat as he tries to depart in a gondola. (In his account of visiting Margarita Emiliana, Coryat takes meticulous care to suggest that he went there not for licentious reasons but to preach to the woman in the hope of her ending her sinful ways. That she should retaliate by pelting him out of her house in this manner is hardly surprising. Maclehouse's edition of Coryat's Crudities, [Glasgow: University of Glasgow Press, 1905] includes a fine reproduction of the titlepage.) [go to text]

n6831   mistresses'. Well, of ] Mistresses, well of [go to text]

n9427   mistresses' A noun, such as "homes" or "houses", has to be understood here. [go to text]

gs957   venery sexuality, lust (but the reference here hints at the astrological influence of the planet, Venus, named after the Roman goddess of love and sex) [go to text]

gs958   civil’st most sophisticated, subtle, advanced [go to text]

gg4434   salute greet, hail, pay one's respects, honour (often with elaborate compliment, gesture or bow) [go to text]

n6671   What grave beast, what reverend gib is that The terms here are delightfully ambiguous. "Grave" can mean both sombre, serious; but also marked for the grave, ancient. The combination with "beast" creates a mixed image of a lusty senior (or dirty old man), which the phrase "reverend gib" amplifies. "Reverend" implies one who is old and so deserving of reverence, but "gib" is a fond term for a pet cat, usually applied to a tom-cat (though in some usages in the seventeenth century a castrated tom was so defined). [go to text]

n9428   Pray forbear. Fabritio has clearly recognised his father the moment he appears and now tries to hush Piso's outburst. [go to text]

gs524   Pray forbear stop (this behaviour), desist [go to text]

n6672   Venus Venus was the Roman goddess of love, sex, lust and desire. [go to text]

n6673   that little loving glimpse of light This is a precise description of the quality of light spilling out from a dark-lantern. [go to text]

n6675   vaulting school A riding academy is the superficial meaning here. But "vaulting" with its connotations of leaping onto a horse's back or into the saddle has obvious sexual resonances, so that a "vaulting school" may be interpreted as a brothel, where in this instance young and old vie for the attentions of the inmates. "Vaulting-house", according to the OED (vbl.n2, 4) had been used to reference a brothel from the 1590s and "vaulting-school" (OED vbl.n2, 5) similarly from c.1606. It recurs in drama of the 1630s: when Silius, for example, in Nathaniel Richards's Messallina (c.1635) attacks the whores in Rome, he accuses them of inhabiting "the divels vaulting-school" (l.438). [go to text]

n6832   Of his old bones. The 1653 text gives this as an incomplete half-line and, after the following stage direction marking Francisco and Horatio's entrance, creates a new verse line for what is the continuation of Piso's speech: "Stay, here comes more. This is..." Metrically the two half lines taken together create a single verse line and so they have been set out as such in this edition. [go to text]

gg4435   rampant lustful (but often with connotations of vicious) [go to text]

n6676   gallantry Here the word is used with irony or with a degree of opprobrium to mean men who fancy themselves to be gallants, showy exhibitionists when courting women. [go to text]

n6677   stale fish A fish was often used as a pejorative term for a whore; and an ageing prostitute was commonly referred to as "stale fish" (a fish that has lost its savour, lively eye and firm flesh). [go to text]

n6678   stamped for Several meanings underlie this usage. The basic meaning is obviously "priced at"; but "stamped" can carry the meaning "printed" so the phrase here would signify "advertised" about Venice (though the OED does not record a usage in this way after 1624). Other meanings relevant in the context are "to give authority to by giving a mark of approval" (and, as we learn later in the play, Victoria is calling on the authority of a precise ruling in Venice in calling herself a Novella). This last usage often also carried with it the sense of "assigning a distinct quality to". That these last usages were generally deployed in material or mercantile contexts is fitting, given the pejorative cast of most of Piso's comments about both Victoria and women generally, until finally he learns a new language as the fifth act evolves. [go to text]

n6679   new nothing This is the tone of the jaded man about town who has seen it all before, which is a neat piece of characterisation on Brome's part: Piso thinks he can easily place Victoria as just another courtesan in Venice (there have been far too many predecessors for him to get excited about the new girl). Experience of her will steadily prove him wrong. [go to text]

gs957   venery sexuality, lust (but the reference here hints at the astrological influence of the planet, Venus, named after the Roman goddess of love and sex) [go to text]

gg4437   prodigality wasteful and reckless extravagance [go to text]

gg4438   at odds in conflict, at variance [go to text]

n9429   Peace, and stand close. At this moment Brome sets up a typical metatheatrical strategy, which he will repeat and make increasingly complex as the comedy evolves. He takes two characters to the margins of the playing space ("stand close"), where they observe and comment on two more, who are in earnest discussion. Effectively, he creates a small play-within-the-play so that the theatre audience respond to the proceedings through the framing commentary of the onstage spectators. In the process he creates too a divided focus of interest for his theatre audience, as they shift their attention between two groups of speakers. What both audiences quickly learn is that Francisco is Fabritio's rival and a tense conflict might ensue, except that Brome has other objectives in mind for his plot-line. [go to text]

gs895   rare exceptional; splendid [go to text]

n6833   impossible ] unpossible (OED cites this usage as common up to 1660 but present only in dialect thereafter) [go to text]

gg4439   belie give a false impression, misrepresent [go to text]

gg4440   unkennel bring out into open ground [go to text]

gs962   earthed hiding within its burrow or den [go to text]

n6680   They have the scent Piso's speech here plays with the punning resonances of the term, venery, which can mean both the sport of hunting and the pursuit of sexual pleasure. [go to text]

n6685   At church This is a neatly ambiguous statement. By the end of the play when we have come to learn Victoria's moral nature, we know that attending mass is for her a highly likely occupation. It was, however, a social fact about Venice in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that church was a good situation in which a courtesan might advertise herself. Most citizens would attend a church regularly and particularly on Sundays, and courtesans would be conspicuous presences there, given their dress and elaborate ways of offsetting their beauty. During the period of the sermon given at certain masses, they would provide a particular focus of attention for the wandering male gaze. Gazing might well then lead to the making of assignations via a courtesan's servant or bravo. [go to text]

gs965   rare exceptional, unusual, remarkable, excellent (but here used with profound irony) [go to text]

gg508   piece a woman, usually with the connotation of being a sexual object (OED II 9b) [go to text]

n6834   worth. ] worth [go to text]

gg4450   cried at proclaimed, advertised, offered for sale (OED cry v, 5a and 5b) [go to text]

gg4451   society exclusive access, association, relationship, sexual union [go to text]

n6686   buttock-beef A pejorative term for a prostitute. Piso means that for the money required to purchase the Novella's maidenhead a man could acquire access to endless common whores. OED lists a similar usage in Brome's The Queen's Exchange: "I would I had but this fellow's weight in buttock beef" [QE 2.3.speech351]. [go to text]

n9644   Duke That is: the Doge, the most senior member of the Venetian governing system. Unusually amongst the Italian states, the office was held by election not by inheritance or force of arms. It was the only Venetian office of state that was held for life. [go to text]

gs966   bear maintain, support, sustain (the cost or responsibility of); but there is also resonant in this usage the sense of "bearing the weight of (a woman)" during sex [go to text]

n6687   sin at less advantage This is part of the male characters' double thinking in the play. Horatio sees it as a "sin" if Victoria loses her maidenhead and honour. Given the price set on its loss, he argues that such a "sin" in her case deserves no less a taker of her chastity than the doge (duke) himself. [go to text]

gg4452   expense expenditure, costs incurred [go to text]

gg4453   ready money immediate payment in coin [go to text]

n6688   That’s worth our adventure He means that, given the fact that a courtesan may well give herself to a first lover purely for affection (and not ready money), then it is worth their while to chance gaining access to Victoria in this hope, since they cannot afford the required fee. They will rely on their sheer bravado and gallantry. Horatio and Piso will make such an attempt in Act Three. [go to text]

gg1249   grudge (v) grumble, complain [go to text]

n6689   turns There is a neat pun here: the men will share Victoria's favours ("turn" here meaning sexual union as in "the best turn in the bed"), while taking turns in being with her. [go to text]

n6835   couples! ] couples. [go to text]

gg4454   whelps ill-conditioned or low fellows; saucy or impertinent young louts; ‘unlicked cubs’, ‘puppies’ (OED n1. 3b) [go to text]

n9461   Would That is: would that (he had her); if only..... [go to text]

gg4455   pitch place, situate, establish (themselves) [go to text]

gs967   close two senses are apt here: nearby (close to) and also covert, hidden (closed to view) [go to text]

n9436   Song. No lyric is suggested by Brome and no song is inserted after the epilogue as is sometimes the case with printed texts of Caroline plays. While the text of Horatio's composed lyric in 3.1 is first read aloud before being sung and so is printed in full in the 1653 volume, this is not the case with the other incidental songs used in the course of the play. [go to text]

n6836   Flavia, ] Flavia; [go to text]

gs524   forbear stop (this behaviour), desist [go to text]

n6692   wanton out your holy vows Piso's next speech (52) offers an apt precis of these words. [go to text]

n6693   the torrent of her father’s will "Will" here means not only desire but also intent, ambition, which is seen as overbearing all opposition and so is likened to a "torrent". [go to text]

n6837   Pantaloni’s ] Pantalonies [go to text]

gg2319   breach breaking, violation [go to text]

gg4458   signory a governing body, especially deployed with reference to that of Venice or other mediæval Italian republics (derived from the Italian, signoria (OED 4). [go to text]

gg2208   dowry as used here, dowry means the same as ‘jointure’: a piece of a husband’s estate left to the wife to sustain her during her widowhood (OED dowry n, 1; and dower n2, 1); ‘dowry’ can also mean a present or gift given by the husband to the wife (OED n. 3) [go to text]

n6838   Here is my hand, Francisco: I’ll ] (Here is my hand Francisco,) i'le [go to text]

n9462   Please you That is: would it please you to (retire); would you care to...? [go to text]

n6697   comfort. There is the primary meaning of "ease" in this context but it shades into the sense of "future bliss", "sexual union" and "a happy ending". [go to text]

n6839   comfort ] comfort; [go to text]

n6840   large. Yet ] large: yet [go to text]

n6702   securely There is a spectrum of meanings in this usage: safely, free from care, threat or anxiety, undiscovered. [go to text]

gg4460   Lurk hide, live concealed, be secret, furtive [go to text]

gs500   close hidden (OED a and adv, 4a) [go to text]

gg4461   over-slipped passed by, lapsed [go to text]

n6707   Take mine honour of it That is: I give my word of honour (as pledge for what you ask and for your safety). [go to text]

gg4462   prevent hinder, thwart, forestall, frustrate (OED v. II 8) [go to text]

n6709   (As being thy servants) Piso imagines the group of men as being like a lord's entourage who must shadow his every movement; and so they hide away with the night from daylight which might expose them and their plotting, if their identities and whereabouts became known. [go to text]

n6841   approaching day ] approach day (Some emendation is necessary here as the 1653 text does not make sense as it stands and is metrically short-changed. Two possible readings might be offered: "approaching day", as given; or "approach of day". The former reading is preferred here, since in Horatio's earlier speech (57) there is a description of "the light /That now is near at hand", while in the ensuing scene Guadagni ends his short soliloquy by snuffing his taper to denote that daylight has fully arrived.) [go to text]

gg4463   spirits spirits, ghosts, fairies, imps or elves [go to text]

n6842   spirits ] sprights (This is the 1653 reading, which is defendable. The metrics of the line, however, are in consequence somewhat infelicitous. "Spirits" gives a more musical rendering to the line and to modern ears more readily conjures up images of ghosts, which is clearly the relevant meaning here, than imps and elves which are what "sprites" or "sprights" imply, though they are in folklore seen as "night-walkers" too.) [go to text]

n6714   warned away by th’ morning star Renaissance drama abounds in instances where supernatural visitations or manifestations vanish with the approach of daylight. Hamlet's father's ghost departs with the crowing of a cock or when "the glow-worm shows the matins to be near", while Oberon and Titania's retinue must leave with "the break of day". Invocations to the morning star were often the signal that one of Jonson's masques was nearing its end. The "morning star" was in fact the planet Venus, which is visible in the east immediately before sunrise. Such a reference to Venus is wholly appropriate in a comedy about the trials and tribulations of lovers. [go to text]

n6722   Enter GUADAGNI in his study. A taper, bags, books, etc. This direction may indicate the use of a discovery space, set out as described with Guadagni seated within it. Brome, however, throughout his career often created a specific environment for a scene by having a table carried in already covered with a number of items to indicate the kind of room in which the scene was set (see, for example, the opening of 5.2 in The Antipodes [AN 5.2.speech983]). If one consults in Dessen and Thomson's A Dictionary of Stage Directions, 1580-1642 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) under "study" (pp.220-221), one quickly appreciates that this direction is so common in its features as to have almost iconic status: bags and books indicate more a workroom or counting house than a study, while the taper indicates a night-time setting. Similar features can be found listed in the Dictionary in directions for Satiromastix, Two Merry Milkmaids, Thomas Lord Cromwell etc.. [go to text]

n6723   leaden-fingered god of sleep Hypnos (in Roman mythology, Somnus) was the god of sleep whose twin was Thanatos (death); his three sons, Morpheus, Phobetor and Phantasos, were controllers of human dreaming. The deepest level of sleep is often described as "leaden" and the gods bringing sleep or death are often figured as touching the eyes of humans till they succumb to either state. [go to text]

gs1012   close closed, shut (OED a and adv, 1a) [go to text]

gs969   fantastic here used in the sense of "prone to fantasy" [go to text]

n6724   fantastic This is an interesting juxtaposition with the "god of sleep" in the previous line and the "airy fancies" and "light dreams" of the following one. Phantasos, the third son of the god of sleep, induced fantastic dreams in humans, according to Greek mythological thinking and the adjective derives from his name. [go to text]

n6725   Feeding their airy fancies with light dreams One recalls here Mercutio's account of the kinds of dreams induced in love-sick youths by Queen Mab (Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet 1.4.55ff). His lengthy peroration concludes: "I talk of dreams, /Which are the children of an idle brain, /Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, /Which is as thin of substance as the air, /And more inconstant than the wind..." (1.4.96-100). There is also Theseus' account of the madness that overtakes the lunatic, the lover and the poet (A Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1.16-17) with its particular reference to the poet's pen as giving to "airy nothing /A local habitation and a name". [go to text]

gg4469   ever-watchful vigilant, sleepless, continually on the watch, wakeful [go to text]

n6726   gates and windows of soft rest A fanciful depiction of the eyes and other senses that are normally dulled in sleep. [go to text]

n6727   off-springs Guadagni's thoughts are more for his bags of gold that will buy him status than for the daughter, Flavia, he is about to sacrifice to his ambitions. His salutation to his gold has echoes of the hymn to his wealth that Ben Jonson gives to Volpone at the start of his comedy (1606), which is also set in Venice. As Dr. Eleanor Lowe reminded me: the situation of a father more concerned for his money than his daughter is not only akin to that of Shylock and Jessica in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (staged c.1597-8), but also that of Jaques de Prie and his daughter, Rachel, in Ben Jonson's early success, The Case Is Altered (acted c.1598). [go to text]

gs970   implore beg or pray for [go to text]

gg4462   prevent hinder, thwart, forestall, frustrate (OED v. II 8) [go to text]

gg4470   breakers disturbers, disrupters [go to text]

gs971   relieve offer release, free from an obligation (derived from the sense of being relieved from one's guard-duty, which is applicable here) [go to text]

gg4471   provident economical, frugal, thrifty [go to text]

gg4472   Do out extinguish [go to text]

n6729   Is it midnight with you? That is, are you still asleep? [go to text]

gs972   About bestir (yourselves); get a move on [go to text]

gg4474   drones non-workers, lazy idlers, sluggards (derived from "drone" as the male of the honey-bee, a non-worker in the hive) [go to text]

n6843   Pantaloni’s ] Pantalonies [go to text]

gg4475   magnifico a great or noble person (generally deployed as an honorary title for any of the magnates of Venice who held high office) [go to text]

gg4476   rat (you) contemptible individual, (you) rag, (you) scrap (perhaps here used as a pejorative reference to Nanulo's dwarf-like stature) [go to text]

gs1669   attend await, expect [go to text]

gg4477   expedite hasten, push on with [go to text]

gs973   travail effort, exertion [go to text]

gg4478   watches vigilance, staying on guard, attentiveness [go to text]

gg1250   match (v) marry [go to text]

gs491   will here used specifically in the sense of intent and inclination [go to text]

n9430   this coin Guadagni's priorities are all too clear: "coin" is far dearer to him than his daughter. [go to text]

n9431   both our joys may find increase Perversely Guadagni couples his delight in a good business transaction that promises to augment his wealth with Flavia's sexual satisfactions leading to her pregnancy ("increase"). [go to text]

gg1781   ere before [go to text]

gg4479   appointment arrangement, nominating [go to text]

gg4480   offscum that which is skimmed off, scum or dross; that which is rejected as vile or worthless, a contemptible person, scum [go to text]

gs974   blood family line, lineage [go to text]

gg4481   degenerate a person of debased breeding, one who has fallen on hard times [go to text]

n9269   fellow――― ] fellow, (The 1653 text runs the sentence on, but the punctuation must attempt to take account of the fact that Guadagni cannot bring himself to voice the word, Francisco; and throughout the previous line and a half has been vainly trying to avoid saying his name by using all manner of epithets, such is his disgust at the very idea of a man without money wanting to marry Flavia. This edition has endeavoured by careful choice of punctuation to capture the drama of the moment.) [go to text]

n9432   [Aside] There is no such direction in the 1653 text; but, given how rapidly and angrily Guadagni picks up later intimations that Flavia is anything but happy with the arranged marriage (see [NV 1.2.speech78] onwards), then by no means should Guadagni overhear this sighed utterance of her lover's name (the very name he cannot bring himself to utter). [go to text]

gg1881   nonpareil unrivalled, unequalled person [go to text]

gg4482   riddance the getting rid [go to text]

n6844   (Both which are equal blessings unto me) ] Both which are equal blessings unto me (The lack of punctuation in the 1653 text leads to a degree of grammatical confusion unless an actor point the speech particularly well. The brackets around what is an inserted clause make for greater clarity and are designed to assist the actor shape the meaning more precisely.) [go to text]

gg4471   provident economical, frugal, thrifty [go to text]

gg2598   comfort happiness, joy [go to text]

n6845   near ] deare (The topic of the ensuing dialogue between father and daughter is continually referring to the temporal proximity of the intended wedding. Hence this emendation, especially given how close the usage is here to the word, "tomorrow". The 1653 reading of "dear", whether used in the sense of "heartfelt, affectionate" or as meaning "costly", does not seem appropriate for the context, though that reading might be allowed, if "dear" were taken to mean "glorious" or "noble", implying that Flavia is smiling to imagine how grand an occasion the wedding will be.) [go to text]

gg4483   hymeneal bridal (derived from Hymen, the Roman god of marriage) [go to text]

gg4484   procrastination. delay, postponement [go to text]

n9433   procrastination ] procrastination, [go to text]

gg4481   Degenerate a person of debased breeding, one who has fallen on hard times [go to text]

n6846   brat! Changeling! ] Degenerate brat, changeling [go to text]

gg4485   Changeling a fickle or inconstant person; a waverer, turncoat [go to text]

gs975   black dire, awful, dreadful [go to text]

n6847   in. ] in [go to text]

gg4486   mew shut away, confine, imprison [go to text]

gs976   succour relief, release, comfort [go to text]

n6848   ear ] Eare. [go to text]

gg4487   carver one who carves (meat) at table [go to text]

gs977   withal besides [go to text]

n6849   Didst thou not say thou wept’st, because tomorrow Was come so nigh? The 1653 text prints this as prose: "Didst thou not say thou wept'st, because to mor- /row was come so nigh?" The confusion may have arisen as a consequence of the way that "to morrow" spills over into the following line of printed matter. "Was come so nigh?" makes a complete, if divided, verse line when taken with Flavia's response: "So nigh and yet not come, sir". Hence the emendation turning prose into verse in the current text. [go to text]

gg559   nigh near; nearly [go to text]

gs978   dangerous hazardous, risky, unsafe [go to text]

gs1670   thither up to that time; until then; between now and then (OED 3a) [go to text]

n6850   each, ] each [go to text]

gg4488   chequins gold coins, a currency in Italy and Turkey (each was valued by Hakluyt c.1599 as the equivalent then of "seven shillings and two pence sterling" (OED), which in today's currency would equal roughly £36 [go to text]

gg4793   expiate make amends or reparation for [go to text]

gg319   trespass (n) offence (OED n. 1); minor violation of the law (OED n. 2); crime [go to text]

n6740   But do not let thy husband know of them Traditionally in most European countries in the seventeenth century, all a wife's possessions became on marriage the property of the husband, except for the dowry. Guadagni is here encouraging his daughter in subterfuge, by advising her to keep a secret store of money that she is to offer to her future husband only if she commits some fault and requires to buy his good opinion again. [go to text]

gg4489   honey a term of endearment: sweetheart, darling (OED n. 5a) [go to text]

gs979   approvèd commended (but also in this instance with the meanings, sanctioned, agreed, contracted) [go to text]

gg4490   magnified enlarged, increased, augmented [go to text]

gs980   providence prudent management or provision (OED 1a and 4) [go to text]

gg4491   parts attributes, qualities, abilities, gifts [go to text]

gs1671   estate property, possessions, fortune, capital (OED n. 12a) [go to text]

gg1143   portion dowry (monies, goods or lands brought by the wife to augment her husband’s estate on their marriage) [go to text]

gg5956   fitter better suited, more appropriately used [go to text]

n6741   another’s muckhill Flavia subtly offers a disparaging reference to hoarded wealth, thereby criticising the future husband and father-in-law that Guadagni has chosen for her. [go to text]

gg4492   muckhill heap of refuse, dung, filth [go to text]

gg4493   fly not off do not grow angry, lose control [go to text]

n9463   sit still The words are capable of two slightly different meanings. Guadagni is seated when spectators first see him at the start of the scene and it may be at this point that he rises in anger from the table that is serving as his desk. Or it may be that the actor would prefer to squirm in his seat with both anger and discomfort at what his daughter is saying. [go to text]

n6742   tradesman’s son This is another subtle hit at Guadagni's want of insight and taste. Flavia might have used the more flattering word, "merchant" (with its connotations in the Venetian context of shipping, trading overseas, the source of much Venetian wealth and international culture) but instead she deploys the more mercenary term, tradesman, for Pantaloni and Fabritio, which with the earlier use of "muckhill" conjures up an image of father and son as money-grubbing artisans or usurers. [go to text]

gg4494   tendered offered for approval and acceptance (but with a suggestion of contractual obligation) [go to text]

n6852   since, I must confess, a ] since I must confesse a [go to text]

gs148   proper handsome, distinctive, really masculine (the modern equivalent would be 'sexy') [go to text]

n9434   modesty! ] Modesty. [go to text]

n6743   heaps Flavia picks up and develops her earlier disparaging reference to Pantaloni's accumulated wealth as his "muckhill". [go to text]

n6744   Which tother’s wants can never wash away. Flavia hints that Fabritio's "honour" is so innate and fundamental a part of his nature that, however impoverished he may become, it cannot be suppressed, compromised or lost. [go to text]

n6853   tother’s ] to'thers [go to text]

gg4808   wants needs (OED v. 4a) [go to text]

n6854   away. ] away, (Given the abrupt dismissal of Francisco envisaged here, a full stop marks a more definite end to the relationship than the comma deployed in the 1653 text.) [go to text]

gg4495   closing concluding, final [go to text]

n6855   Pantaloni’s ] Pantalonies [go to text]

gg4496   justified affirmed, corroborated, acknowledged [go to text]

gs981   party (my) person, condition, social position [go to text]

gg4541   upbraid reproach, find fault with [go to text]

n9464   Enter NANULO This direction is placed in the 1653 text after the end of Guadagni's speech, but clearly Nanulo's arrival must anticipate the change of direction in Guadagni's thinking that is signified by his sudden exclamation. [go to text]

n6745   Rialto An exchange or mart. The OED cites Coryat's Crudities ([Glasgow: James MacLehose for Glasgow University Press, 1905], Vol. 1, p. 312), which gives a very exact description: "The Rialto which is at the farther end of the bridge as you come from St. Marks, is a most stately building, being the Exchange of Venice". It was the place where Venetian merchants did their business twice a day. Coryat describes the Rialto as "of goodly heigth, built all with bricke as the Palaces are, adorned with many faire walkes or open galleries [...] and [it] hath a prety quadrangular court adjoyning to it " (Ibid). He thought the building inferior to London's Exchange "though, indeede there is a farre greater quantity of building in this then in ours" (Ibid). [go to text]

gg958   advocate’s lawyer [go to text]

gg4497   interchangeably mutually, reciprocally, in turn, one after the other [go to text]

n6857   covenants. Make ] covenants; make thee happy, (There is an abrupt shift in Guadagni's speech, as he turns from mention of the occasion of his leaving to instruct his daughter to stay within the house and guard his "havings"; and some break needs to be made grammatically to mark that shift of intention. It would be feasible to leave the semi-colon after "covenants" as in the 1653 text, but then a full stop would be required after "happy". The inference of the speech with such a reading is that the "covenants" would be the source of Flavia's future happiness. However, it would seem equally feasible to mark the turn in Guadagni's thinking with "covenants", after which he instructs Flavia to enjoy her own company and thoughts before advising her to guard his property in his absence. This is the preferred reading here. [go to text]

gg4498   covenants contracts [go to text]

n9270   Look to my house and havings, keep all safe. There is a distinct echo here of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice when Shylock bids his daughter, Jessica, farewell on the night that he is invited to feast with Bassanio (2.5). He too is anxious for the safety of his house and three times warns Jessica to watch over it carefully in his absence: "Jessica, my girl, /Look to my house..." (ll.15-16); "Hear you me, Jessica, /Lock up my doors..." (ll.28-29); and "Do as I bid you. Shut doors after you. /Fast bind, fast find --- /A proverb never stale in thrifty mind" (ll.52-54). This is the first of many inter-textual references to Shakespeare's play, which establish a kind of dialogue between the comedies for the informed spectator. [go to text]

gg3994   Look to look after [go to text]

n6858   havings, keep all safe. ] havings; keepe all safe, (Again there is an abrupt shift of subject after "safe", as Guadagni informs Flavia how long he supposes he will be absent; and so a stronger pause than is provided by a comma would seem to be required here. Hence the emendation.) [go to text]

gg4499   havings that which one has or possesses: one's possessions, property, wealth, belongings (OED vbl. n, 2) [go to text]

gg4500   warranted authorised, given permission to [go to text]

n6859   Ay, Ay, ] I. I, ("I" is regularly deployed in texts of the period in place of the "ay" that indicates assent, as is required by the context here.) [go to text]

n6746   My thoughts were prisoners too Flavia is aware that her thoughts have a freedom to roam where they will but always they bring her nothing but sadness, given her current plight. She wonders whether it would make matters easier for her, if her thoughts were as imprisoned within the house as is her body. [go to text]

gg4501   casement window [go to text]

gg4502   wicket a small gate or door [go to text]

gg740   loose free from moral restraint, wanton (OED adj. 7) [go to text]

gg930   returns yield, interest or profit [go to text]

n6747   Now or never help me! Astutta hears the end of Flavia's speech as she enters and from that and the tone of Flavia's "O, my Astutta!" guesses that her charge is going to beg her aid. Throughout the play Astutta shows a wickedly satirical streak in her nature, as if she wishes continually to deflate the emotionalism of both her master and his daughter. An actress might make a great deal of this running character-trait. [go to text]

gg4503   bondage slavery, subjection [go to text]

gs982   vex torment; but also with the suggestion of urging (that which is painful to undertake) or teasing (OED v. II 6c and I 4c) [go to text]

n6748   Cupid In Roman Mythology, the god of love, son of Mercury and Venus, identified with the Greek Eros. [go to text]

gg4504   termagant boistrous, overbearing, bullying [go to text]

n6749   ticklish trifles Astutta is being ironically scathing again, referring to Flavia as being like all sixteen-year-olds: giggling triflers (silly chits of girls). [go to text]

gg4505   allayed tempered, modified (with the intimation of sexually experienced) [go to text]

n6750   course That is: a course of action, a plan or plot. [go to text]

n9271   What, to ] what to [go to text]

gg4462   prevent hinder, thwart, forestall, frustrate (OED v. II 8) [go to text]

gg2445   cross (v) thwart, forestall; contradict; afflict, go against [go to text]

gs983   else indeed I will [go to text]

n6751   the Canal Grande The reference is to Venice's Grand Canal; but the Italianate pronunciation would seem necessary for the rhythm of the line. [go to text]

n6860   Canal ] Cavail (The context clearly indicates that an emendation is necessary here, and OED lists no word akin to "cavail". However, Coryat frequently in his Crudities [Glasgow: James MacLehose for Glasgow University Press, 1905] refers to the "Canal il grande", as, for example, on pp. 310 and 313. It may be that Brome, a scribe or the compositor misread or compressed that phrase to produce the 1653 reading.) [go to text]

n6752   courteous gondolier This is somewhat ironic. Gondolas were generally believed in the popular imagination to be the means of pursuing illicit sexual liaisons and Coryat in his Crudities (1611) describes gondoliers as "seducing and tempting" and warns English visitors especially to avoid the gondoliers that trade around the Rialto as being "vicious and licentious". (See Coryat's Crudities, 2 vols. [Glasgow: James MacLehose for Glasgow University Press, 1905], Vol. 1, p.311.) [go to text]

gg4506   gondolier one who rows a gondola about the canals of Venice, steering with a single oar from the rear of the boat [go to text]

gs984   waft to convey safely by water (OED v. 2) [go to text]

n6753   house of dear delight This may refer to the home of her lover, Francesco, or, more ironically, to a brothel. [go to text]

n6754   Go-by-ground The resonances to this abusive nick-name are many: the reference may be to Nanulo as a kind of devil and so he is likened to the snake which after the Fall from the Garden of Eden was made by God to go upon its belly on the ground; or it may be a cruel reflection on Nanulo's want of size as a dwarf. [go to text]

n6755   giant An ironic reflection on Nanulo's size as a dwarf. Astutta may be trying to joke Flavia out of her fears by making their enemy appear laughably puny and not worth worrying about. [go to text]

n6756   Cerberus A frightening, three-headed dog who, according to Greek mythology, guarded the entrance to Hades, the kingdom of the dead. [go to text]

n6861   key: ] Key, [go to text]

gg4562   excursion an issuing forth; an escape from confinement (OED n. 1a and 3) [go to text]

gs985   redemption freedom from captivity [go to text]

gg1761   quaint skilful, clever [go to text]

gs986   conjure magically enchant [go to text]

gg3212   elected chosen [go to text]

gg4507   Dissemble put on an act, mimic [go to text]

n6757   patience, as you are a woman In the medieval and renaissance periods, patience was considered one of the chief virtues to be cultivated by women, along with submission to the will of the men in their lives. The story of Patient Griselda, who was subjected to numerous tests of her submissiveness by her lordly husband, was a familiar trope in art and literature, best known in English literature through Chaucer's "Clerk's Tale". [go to text]

gs987   handsomely courteously (but with a suggestion of cunningly) [go to text]

gg896   abroad out and about [go to text]

gg4508   Insolent offensively contemptuous of the rights or feelings of others (OED I, 1) [go to text]

gg2441   mar spoil, damage [go to text]

gg236   anon soon; immediately; in good time [go to text]

gg4509   Mercadante a tradeswoman, (female) seller of goods (Italian) [go to text]

gg4510   Merceria generally the Italian term for a market, but to English ears this aptly suggests also "mercery" a market or shops given over to the sale of fine haberdashery and quality ornamental materials and wear [go to text]

n9645   Merceria The Merceria in Venice occupied what Coryat describes as "the fairest street in all Venice saving Saint Markes"; it was so called because "many Mercers dwell there, as also many Stationers, and sundry other artificers". He describes it as reaching from near the Rialto to the piazza of St. Mark's; as wide enough for "five or sixe persons to walke together side by side"; and as "paved with Bricke and adorned with many faire buildings of a competent height on both sides". (See Thomas Coryat, Coryat's Crudities, 2 vols. [Glasgow: James MacLehose for Glasgow University Press, 1905], Vol. 1, p.328). [go to text]

n6758   A ceremony used on wedding eves It was customary, certainly in Italy, for wealthy bridegrooms to visit their intended brides on the eve of the marriage day, bringing rich gifts (often silks, damasks, fine linens and decorative materials like ribbons and laces and sometimes jewels or money) in specially craftsman-made wooden chests or cassoni, which were exquisitely gilded and painted. For details of the ceremony and examples of cassoni, see Graham Hughes, Renaissance Cassoni (Polegate and London: Starcity Publishing with Art Books International, 1997). [go to text]

gg4511   knacks ingenious contrivances; toys, trinkets, trifles, knick-knacks (OED knack n2, 3) [go to text]

gg4512   knots an ornament or adjunct to a dress made from a complicated interweaving or bows of ribbon; sometimes in the form of a cockade or epaulette [go to text]

gg4513   bobs bunches of coloured yarn, ribbons; ornamental pendants or ear-drops [go to text]

gg4514   curls locks of hair of a spiral or convolute form either used as a hair-extension or as a keepsake if made of the lover's own hair; wreaths of jewels on wires to adorn the hair [go to text]

gg4563   purls threads or cords made of twisted loops, especially of gold or silver wire, used for bordering and embroidering (OED n. I 1) [go to text]

gg4515   tricks ingeniously constructed toys or pieces of artifice, baubles [go to text]

gg4516   trillibubkins used generally in alliterative collocation, such as "tricks and trillibubs"; "trilly bubkins" is a nonce diminutive (OED cites Brome's usage in this play) [go to text]

n9465   As maids would turn no maids almost to see ’em! That is: at the sight of them [the valuable trinkets] maidens would almost be willing to lose their virginity to possess them. [go to text]

gg4517   gladsome cheerful, joyous [go to text]

n6759   close affairs secret liaisons (the implication is that the pedlar-woman is a known go-between) [go to text]

gs988   parties lovers [go to text]

n6760   golden offers bribes of ready gold [go to text]

n6862   d’ye ] dee [go to text]

n6863   pinch. ] pinch, [go to text]

gg4518   pinch crisis, emergency [go to text]

gg4564   Return say or state by way of reply or answer (OED v1. 19b) [go to text]

gg715   fain gladly, willingly, eagerly [go to text]

gs704   dowry the money or property which the wife brings to her husband; the portion given with the wife (OED dowry n, 2; dower n2, 2) [go to text]

gg4519   convey lead, carry, conduct, guide [go to text]

n6761   On the condition In the context, Flavia means that as part of her agreement with Astutta (a proviso within the contract) she will hope that Astutta may successfully fake a second hymen or maidenhead to grace her marriage bed. Devices to fake the loss of a hymen were deployed in the brothels in Venice as elsewhere in this period when so much social, ritual and iconic importance was invested in a woman's virginity. [go to text]

gs989   condition something demanded or required as a prerequisite to the granting or performance of something else (OED I, 1a) [go to text]

n6762   Refresh your temples That is: wash your face and eyes. Cold water would make the skin appear fresh and, as the temples are pressure points, to bathe them would be generally reinvigorating. [go to text]

gs1672   invention capacity for scheming [go to text]

n6763   found ground to build on The reference is to the parable in the New Testament of the man who built his home safely on rock as distinct from he who built unwisely on sand. When the storms came, the first withstood the blasts while the second sank without trace. The terms of the parable of the wise and foolish builders, which is to be found in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7: 24-27), underlie the whole of Astutta's speech. It is tempting to emend "found ground" to "sound ground" in light of the content of the parable, but the 1653 text decidedly has the former reading; there is no long "s" to make the word an epithet rather than a verb. [go to text]

gg4522   lacks needs, is in need of, requires, wants [go to text]

gg4520   rewing scoring or marking out in lines (for foundations) [go to text]

gg4521   squaring setting square or true [go to text]

gg4523   jointing making of firm joints to support a structure [go to text]

n6864   sure ] sure, [go to text]

gs762   sure firm, immovable (OED adj. 5) [go to text]

gg4524   architure an early obsolete form of the word, architecture (OED records no usage after 1594) [go to text]

gg4525   counsel deliberate, consult (together) [go to text]

n6865   [FLAVIA and ASTUTTA] ex[it] ] Exeunt Om. [go to text]

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