---

n3937   ACT TWO Act 2 opens with the first of the play’s dumb shows. A display of court power and decorum after the fervid plotting of Act 1, it conveys in ceremonial fashion Eulalia’s removal from power. In the speeches that follow the dumb show, the King attempts to justify his proceedings against Eulalia, but his assertions of the legality of her trial are undercut by the asides of Lodovico. Having gained the overt acceptance of the court for his divorce, the King quickly pressures them to ratify his marriage with Alinda, who has entered ‘like a bride’ [QC 2.1.speech239]. In 2.2, overt opposition to the King begins to be voiced, as Lodovico tells Horatio, ‘It is oppression, tyranny indeed’ [QC 2.2.speech264]; away from the King, Horatio is prepared to criticise him, and to agree to conspire against Alinda. A statement of aggression against the new queen is apparently overheard by Flavello, something which will have serious consequences in the acts that follow. The next scene also demonstrates the loyalty of some to Eulalia, as her fool, Andrea, refuses to stay at court and serve Alinda, preferring to follow his mistress into exile. In 2.4, Petruccio’s disquiet at the queen’s treatment bears fruit, as he frees Sforza, his erstwhile rival, from his captivity. Again, a large-cast sequence (in 2.1) has been followed by smaller, more intimate scenes. Here, the smooth, minutely planned ceremonial of Eulalia’s deposition and Alinda’s elevation is supplanted by the growing unease and nascent opposition of other characters, initially in Lodovico’s asides to the audience, then Horatio’s conversation with Lodovico, and finally in the actions of Andrea (in going into exile) and Petruccio (in freeing Sforza). [go to text]

n11351   2.1 ] ACT. II. Scœn. I. [go to text]

n911   Loud Music In constructing the dumb show in which Eulalia’s deposition is dramatised, Brome seems to have taken up the hint provided in Greene’s Penelope’s Web, where Barmenissa’s removal from her position as queen is described as 'the ceremony of her deposition’ (sig. C4r). The use of a formal, mimed sequence - one of only two in the play - suggests the importance of this heightened moment, during which the removal of Eulalia’s royal status will be ritually performed. Although some have suggested that the dumb show was old-fashioned in the 1630s, it is used in a number of plays in this period, including Thomas Heywood’s A Maidenhead Well Lost (Queen Henrietta Maria’s Men, c. 1625-33), William Cartwright’s The Royal Slave (Oxford, 1636; King’s Men, 1637) and Alexander Brome’s The Cunning Lovers (Beeston’s Boys, c. 1638). In addition, a number of plays revived in the Caroline period, including Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Shakespeare and Wilkins’ Pericles, Fletcher’s The Prophetess, Middleton’s Hengist King of Kent and Webster’s Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil, deploy dumb shows.

Some of the plays which use dumb-shows are self-consciously old-fashioned or nostalgic in their appeal, but this does not apply to courtly productions such as The Royal Slave or to tragicomedies such as A Maidenhead Well Matched. Dieter Mehl writes of dumb shows in seventeenth-century ‘romantic tragicomedy’, in particular the plays of Fletcher, ‘They do not merely consist of brief encounters of processions round the stage, but of momentous scenes, including a large number of characters [...] the dumb show has become a special theatrical effect and is not just an easy way of managing large stretches of plot as in the earlier popular plays of adventure’ (The Elizabethan Dumb-Show: The History of a Dramatic Convention [London: Methuen, 1965], 166). This is true of The Queen and Concubine, in which dumb shows combine spectacle, gesture and narrative in a highly sophisticated manner.

In context, this dumb show carries a great deal of political weight. The trial itself is corrupt: Alinda and Flavello have arranged and bribed the hostile witnesses and the King has already decided on his verdict; the inclusion of the smoothly ordered spectacle of the dumb show - which is perhaps a little too slick and elaborate - therefore embodies the artificiality of the trial as a whole. The play’s dumb shows would probably also be marked out in terms of their performance style. In order for the gestures to be fully legible a slower pace and more formal style would be necessary; this would underline the choric function of this kind of action within the play (something which is even more marked in the play’s second dumb show in Act 3, in which it accompanies the Genius’s narrative). A more stately manner might also be necessary in order for the performers to manoeuvre around what was probably a fairly small stage: there are fifteen performers on stage during the dumb show, all of whom are required to move at some point. [go to text]

n1258   Loud Music Julia Wood argues that evidence from Caroline plays suggests that ‘loud music’ may have been ‘theatrical shorthand’ for ‘powerful-voiced’ instruments such as the hoboy, trumpet or cornet and that it may have been expected to be produced by more than one instrument. On several occasions, as here, it seems to be equated with a flourish (that is, a short ceremonial fanfare marking the entrance of royalty or nobility). See ‘Music in Caroline Plays’, 103-4. [go to text]

n912   , they sit; The King is directed to sit at the start of the dumb show, and to descend when Alinda enters at [QC 2.1.speech239]. It would seem simplest to place his seat upstage; on the other hand, placing his seat downstage means that the King has his back to some of the audience but gives them access to Eulalia’s face and reactions, as in this image from the workshop on this scene: [IMAGEQC_2_1]. [go to text]

n4545   a golden wand in her hand, In addition to representing Eulalia's royal status, the golden wand may have had other associations. The enchantress Circe traditionally used a golden wand to transform her lovers into beasts, and both feature prominently in Aurelian Townsend's masque Tempe Restored performed at court on 14 February 1632, in which, as Sophie Tomlinson suggests, 'the action of the masque shows Circe's tempestuous and tyrannical authority subdued by the radiant influence of Divine Beauty' (Women on Stage in Stuart Drama [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005], 54; see also 51-3 on the broader iconographic context of Circe). Brome appears to draw on this tradition in The Queen and Concubine: from the King's point of view, the dumb-show initially seeks to portray Eulalia as a sexual offender, a woman whose lust is, like that of Circe, uncontrollable. I am very grateful to Clare McManus for suggesting the connection with Circe here. [go to text]

n913   he rejects her with his hand. Video The King uses a visual rhetoric of rejection to underline his sentence against Eulalia. John Bulwar’s manual, Chirologia, or, The Natural Language of the Hand, includes three 'natural’ gestures which may have been drawn on here. Respuo, or ‘THE FLIRTING OUT OF THE BACK PART OF THE HAND, OR PUT-BY OF THE TURNING PALM’ [IMAGEQC_2_2], is described by Bulwar as ‘their natural expression who would refuse, deny, prohibit, repudiate, impute, or to lay to one’s charge, reject or pretend to lay for an excuse, or would wit and hit one in the teeth with a thing, and signify disdain’ (pt. 1, p. 54). Minor, ‘TO SHOW AND SHAKE THE BENDED FIST AT ONE’ [IMAGEQC_2_3], can be used to threaten, ‘strike terror’, menace, contemn and humble, to express hate, and to ‘tell one what he must look for at their hands’ (pt. 1, p. 57). In Negabit [IMAGEQC_2_4], ‘The left hand [is] thrust forth with the palm turned backward, the left shoulder raised, so that it may aptly consent with the head bearing to the right hand’. This gesture, Bulwar argues, ‘agrees with their intention who refuse, abhor, detest, or abominate some execrable thing, against which their minds are bent as a distasteful object, which they would seem to chase away, and repel’. As Dene Barnett explains, the left hand was used in gestures indicating ‘disparagement or obloquy’ from classical times up to the nineteenth century (The Art of Gesture: The Practices and Principles of Eighteenth-Century Acting [Heidelberg: Winter, 1987], 62). Negabit appears to have been in use for a lengthy period of time. Another seventeenth-century manual, Michel Le Faucheur’s Traité de l’action de l’orateur (1657), translated into English as Essay Upon the Action of an Orator (London, 1680), describes a similar gesture but says that ‘we must reject with an Action of the right Hand and turn the Head away at the same time to the left’ (181). A century later, Johann Gottfried Pfannenberg suggests that ‘The words of lament, of sorrow, of suffering [...] of disgust, of contempt and loathing [...] are properly presented with the body bent back, and a hand pushing away from oneself and an averted face’ (Über die rednerische Action erläuternden Beispielen [Leipzig, 1796], 203; translation from Barnett, 233-4). A workshop on this sequence, in which the dumb show was discussed and walked through, was undertaken before I looked into seventeenth-century ideas about gesture. Interestingly, actor Robert Lister (here reading the King), immediately chose a gesture similar to the one specified by Bulwar, Le Faucheur and Pfannenberg, rejecting the queen with his right hand and turning his head away to the left [IMAGEQC_2_5]. [go to text]

n3938   [FABIO and STROZZO]. ] two Souldiers [go to text]

n914   He with his finger menaces EULALIA, Video The second part of John Bulwar’s manual, Chirologia, or, The Natural Language of the Hand, Chironomia, or, The Art of Manual Rhetoric, describes two gestures which may have been used here. In the first, Indigitat [IMAGEQC_2_6], ‘The three last fingers contracted close to the palm, and compress’d by the champion of the hand, and the Index display’d in full length; upbraids: is a point of indigitation, most demonstrative’ (pt. 2, p. 77). In the workshop actor Robert Lister came up with a variant on this gesture, with a more loosely clenched hand [IMAGEQC_2_7]. In the second gesture described by Bulwar, Attentionem Poscit [IMAGEQC_2_8], ‘The Index erected from a Fist, doth crave and expect attention; and, if mov’d, it doth threaten and denounce’ (pt. 2, p. 78); rather than the ‘display’d’ finger of Indigitat, Attentionem Poscit may require the finger to be moved. [go to text]

gg662   menaces threatens [go to text]

n916   she looks meekly. Video In the context of the dumb show, this seems to be a performance of meekness, involving gesture and posture, and not merely a ‘meek look’. John Bulwar’s manual, Chirologia, or, The Natural Language of the Hand, describes two 'natural' gestures which could have been used here. Supplico, or stretching out the hands [IMAGEQC_2_9], is ‘a natural expression of gesture, wherein we are significantly importunate, entreat, request, sue, solicit, beseech, and ask mercy and grace at the hands of others’ (pt. 1, p. 12). Libertatem Resigno, in which the hands are held forward together [IMAGEQC_2_10], is ‘their natural expression who yield, submit, and resign up themselves with supplication into the power of another’ (pt. 1, p. 41). In the second part, Chironomia, or, The Art of Manual Rhetoric, Bulwar notes that ‘Both hands dejected, make supplication more canonical’ (pt. 2, p. 55). Similar gestures were suggested in the workshop on this sequence [IMAGEQC_2_11] [IMAGEQC_2_12]. As Julie Sanders pointed out during the workshop, a gesture of this kind would be recalled in the King’s later statement that Eulalia will be deprived of ‘all means to live, even to her naked hands’ [QC 2.1.speech225]; this would be especially true if Eulalia was to remain in this position throughout the King’s long speech. [go to text]

n917   The BISHOPS take her crown and wand,  [and] give her a wreath of cypress, and a white wand. The symbols of the Queen’s political power and, from the King's point of view, her tyrannical lust, are replaced by items representing sorrow and penitence: a wreath of cypress and a white wand. Combined with her black robes these props suggest that Eulalia is being presented simultaneously as a widow and as one who has been found guilty of sexual misdemeanour as, in the context of the hearing, she has. [go to text]

gg663   peruse examine [go to text]

n918   They show various countenances: some seem to applaud the KING; some pity EULALIA. In Greene’s Penelope’s Web, Barmenissa’s deposition is said to be ‘by general consent’ (sig. C4r); opposition is voiced only after the Souldan announces his intention to marry Olynda. [go to text]

gg2471   countenances: expressions, faces, emotions [go to text]

gs89   applaud make gestures of approval, possibly appearing to clap their hands: OED's earliest citation for this sense of applaud is from 1598; applaud meaning 'to express agreement' is in use from the early sixteenth century (OED v1, 2b) [go to text]

n920   My lords and loyal peers. Video If the King has been seated upstage, he might remain seated throughout this speech; this would reinforce his royal authority and the power he has over the court, which could create an ironic tension between his apparent power and the circumlocutory quality of the speech itself. On the other hand, if the King’s seat has been placed downstage, he might stand at this point and begin to move around the stage. In this workshop extract, the King’s addresses to the audience, and his gestures towards Eulalia (here, for instance, on ‘the crime and shame of the delinquent’), become part of his rhetorical attempt to win them over to his position while also encouraging the audience to fix their attention on Eulalia’s predicament. [go to text]

n919   My lords Brome again plays with the insertion of asides into what would otherwise be a continuous speech (see notes on [QC 1.1.speeches47-51] and [QC 1.1.speeches65-73]), ’creating a sequence that is highly charged in both emotional and political terms. Even though he has chosen not to dramatise the trial itself, a trial is effectively created for the audience, in which they are subjected to the King’s dubious reasoning for his divorce and the varied reactions of Horatio (who strives to remain loyal to the King and acts as his mouthpiece) and Lodovico (whose loyalty to Eulalia is displayed in his asides). At the end of the speech Lodovico is forced into a public display of loyalty to the King even as he confesses in aside his deep misgivings at Eulalia’s treatment; the audience, like Lodovico, are unable finally to influence the outcome of this ‘trial’ and are forced into a quiescent position. In this context, words such as ‘I’, ‘we’ and ‘you’ are loaded with political weight. [go to text]

n921   [Aside]A new distinction Video Lodovico’s speeches pose a significant challenge in performance. None of them are marked as asides in the octavo text, but all seem most effective if they are delivered either without the King hearing them, or without hearing precisely what is said. The first two speeches, and the last one, come within reasonably regular verse lines, while the third and fourth seem to break into prose even as the King maintains his regular, metrical lines. Some of them are long speeches for asides, particularly in the context of their position within the King’s own speech. They are similar to Hamlet’s first utterance in Shakespeare’s play, ‘A little more than kin, and less than kind’ (Hamlet, 1.1.65), which is also inserted into a longer speech by another character - also a King - during a public, politically-charged occasion, and which might also be delivered either as an aside or as a direct challenge. (In the RSC's 2008 production of Hamlet, dir. Greg Doran, for instance, the latter was chosen.)

Lodovico’s speeches are not uniform, and each potentially functions in a different way. The first speech seems to be addressed to Horatio, an attempt to draw him into opposition against the King which his fellow courtier rejects. The second seems to be an expression of disgust, which might be interior monologue or might be addressed to the audience (an attempt to collude with them following his rejection by Horatio). The third is perhaps the most difficult, as the use of ‘you’ might suggest that it is addressed directly to the King even if the King does not hear it. The fourth could again be addressed to the audience, and the way in which it breaks off might suggest that the King is increasingly aware that he is facing dissent amongst courtiers loyal to Eulalia. In any case, the moment can gain power if the audience are unsure as to whether Lodovico’s outspokenness is putting him in danger. There are a number of alteratives for the final speech, ‘We must’: it may be overheard by the King, the King might be alerted by Lodovico’s body language, or he may be aware that Lodovico has not joined in with the general assent of ‘We do’. Some different ways of handling these speeches were discussed in the workshop. They might actually be delivered aloud, as in this version. Here, the King is aware of what Lodovico is saying but is forced nonetheless to plough on with his speech because to break off might suggest that the accusations have some truth in them. It is only when Lodovico declines to approve his decision on ‘We do’ that the King can assert his authority. One problem with this version is that it potentially makes Lodovico’s dissent too public and places him in too close proximity to the King. On the other hand, if he is placed too far away the danger of his dissent being noticed by the King is reduced. In this version, the speeches are delivered as asides, but the penultimate and the last are noted by the King. His awareness of the penultimate aside is signalled only in the speed with which he interrupts on ‘living shift -’. The asides themselves are delivered to the audience, and Lodovico’s dissent is indicated through his words rather than his body language. We also tried a slightly more stylised version, in which the other actors froze while Lodovico spoke, giving him more scope to move around before returning to a position at the side of the stage. However, this might again reduce the power of the King to take note of Lodovico’s refusal to be won over by his speech. When the King is placed further forward on the stage than Lodovico and Horatio, as he is in these workshop versions, he seems to assert his authority over the audience while dissent is voiced behind him. In the modern theatre, lighting could also be used to focus the audience’s attention on particular characters (either those speaking, or, in Eulalia’s case, on the silent victim). [go to text]

gg666   temporal. secular [go to text]

n922   Good Lodovico, peace. Although Horatio speaks only two lines in this scene, both are important. In [QC 2.1.speech218] he speaks to Lodovico, attempting to stop him from publicly dissenting against the King’s treatment of Eulalia, but in [QC 2.1.speech222] he speaks on the King’s behalf, supplying the accusation when the King is apparently unable to voice it. The physical position of the actors on stage could be used to signal his divided loyalty: he might be standing near to Lodovico at the start of the King’s speech (as the group entrance of the ‘Four Lords’ in the dumb show suggests), in which case he could hurriedly distance himself from Lodovico on the line ‘Good Lodovico, peace’. On the line ‘in adultery’ he might be standing nearer to the King, aligning himself with the man to whom his public loyalty is devoted. [go to text]

gg667   peace. (int.) be quiet; keep calm [go to text]

gs97   order, procedure, customary practice (OED n, 12a); customary mode of proceeding in conduct of bodies such as parliaments or in trials (OED n, 12b); possibly the King also intends overtones of ‘natural order’ [go to text]

gg688   constrained forced, compelled [go to text]

n924   to a mourning closet i.e. to grieving in privacy [go to text]

gg686   closet private room, study [go to text]

gg687   delinquent. offender [go to text]

n923   I see The King’s speech echoes that of Saladyne in Greene’s Penelope’s Web, but Greene’s Souldan is more overtly threatening and less histrionic than Brome’s King:

It is no marvel if you stand amazed (right mighty Princes of Egypt) to see your King, who was wont to crave your consent in small affairs, without your counsel now to begin [a] thing of such importance, I mean a Parliament. But he that seeketh to have his purpose unprevented must be secret and speedy, lest either fortune or counsel hinder his enterprise. Many things falls out between the cup and the lip, and danger is always a companion to delay (sig. C4r).

[go to text]

gg689   amazed, perplexed, bewildered [go to text]

gg690   marvel wonder [go to text]

gg691   change alteration (OED n, 4); exchange (OED n, 2a); exchange of merchandise (OED n, 2b); substitution of one thing for another or succession of one thing in place of another (OED n, 1a); changeableness, caprice (OED n, 4b); a change of partners in dancing (OED n, 1c) [go to text]

n925   which i.e. ‘makes my voice as faint as a dying breath and chills my blood as it does so’; ‘or makes my voice faint and chills my blood as my dying breath would’. OED defines faintness as: ‘The state or condition of being without strength or exhausted; exhaustion, feebleness’ (1); ‘The state of being faint in spirit; dejection, timorousness; inertness, slackness, sluggishness’ (1.c); ‘Of flesh: Want of firmness or solidity’ (2). The King uses a similar (albeit positive) metaphor in referring to Eulalia in [QC 1.1.speech33], when he calls her ‘dearest life’. [go to text]

n926   so many years i.e. I kept her as close to my heart as she could possibly be, until the evidence [of her supposed adultery] forced its way in, piercing my heart in the way that a dagger would. The King’s metaphor of his heart as a closet, which reworks his earlier statement that he would rather retreat to his closet to grieve, is designed to express the former intimacy between husband and wife, and the rupture of its betrayal. The mixed metaphor in the second part of the statement suggests, however, the strains that run throughout this speech. [go to text]

gg692   self-companion, own companion [go to text]

gg693   compulsive driven on, forced onwards (OED a, 1b), which cites Shakespeare, Othello, 3.3.454-5: ‘The Pontic sea, whose icy current, and compulsive course, / Ne’er keeps retiring ebb’); enforced (OED a, 2) [go to text]

gg694   passage, progress, journey [go to text]

n927   You have given her the bed-right that belonged to your wronged Queen these twelve months. Lodovico accuses the King of having been sleeping with Alinda for the past twelve months; unless the time-scale of the previous scenes has been extremely telescoped, this seems unlikely to be the case. [go to text]

gg695   bed-right conjugal rights [go to text]

n928   Our laws of Sicily In Penelope’s Web, Greene writes that the Souldan ‘caused presently proclamation to be made, that the Princess should have no relief, but what she earned with her hands, that her ladies should be labour, and her maintenance, no other then her own endeavour could provide’ (sig. D1r). [go to text]

gg696   rebated moderated [go to text]

gg697   clemency, mercy, leniency [go to text]

gg698   dignities, positions, honours [go to text]

gg699   means ways [go to text]

n930   even to her naked hands. Video As described in [NOTE n916], Eulalia’s position on stage might add to the force of the sentence against her if she has remained in the kind of submissive posture recommended by Bulwer throughout the sequence. In this extract from the workshop, the King delivers his speech from behind Eulalia, drawing attention to her hands on this line. [go to text]

gg700   even to as far as [go to text]

gg701   naked bare [go to text]

n929   Eulalia, The King finally addresses Eulalia by name, something that he has apparently been avoiding thus far; coming at the point of the harsh sentence against the former queen the use of her name also serves to emphasise the extent to which all of her ‘dignities [and] titles’ have been removed. [go to text]

gg702   condition. state, circumstance [go to text]

n931   she might find something else about her than naked hands Given his pointed reference to Alinda, Lodovico’s emphasis is probably on ‘naked hands’ - Alinda might be able to make a living by baring other parts of her body. [go to text]

n932   to help at a living shift — That is: to help her to find a way of living. [go to text]

n933   Now to this censure, Video The King abruptly moves from his rather convoluted attempts to plead his case against Eulalia to a direct order to his court. As this clip from the workshop shows, this speech can be particularly powerful if it is addressed to the playhouse audience, rather than simply the on-stage audience, the King’s eyes raking up and down as he assesses the loyalty of his ‘court’ in a way that can make the audience feel uneasily complicit with his proceedings against his wife. In a small indoor playhouse such as Salisbury Court this effect would be heightened, as it would in a twentieth/twenty-first century space such as the RSC’s Swan theatre. [go to text]

n3948   All Omn. [go to text]

n934   My thanks unto you all It seems likely that Eulalia rises to her feet before or during this speech; this would allow her gradually to be moved to the side of the stage, so that on her entrance, Alinda can supplant her in the centre of the stage [QC 2.1.speech239]. [go to text]

gg703   incline turn, bend [go to text]

gg704   repining grudging, grumbling [go to text]

gg705   insensible incapable of perceiving or feeling [go to text]

gg152   suborned bribed [go to text]

gg706   continuance maintaining, prolonging (OED 1) [go to text]

gg707   business task, affair [go to text]

gg708   start-up, upstart, social climber [go to text]

gg709   cockered indulged, treated with excessive care (OED cocker v, 1) [go to text]

gg710   beadswoman: almswoman: one who prays for a benefactor [go to text]

gg711   wrath anger, fury [go to text]

n1258   Loud Music Julia Wood argues that evidence from Caroline plays suggests that ‘loud music’ may have been ‘theatrical shorthand’ for ‘powerful-voiced’ instruments such as the hoboy, trumpet or cornet and that it may have been expected to be produced by more than one instrument. On several occasions, as here, it seems to be equated with a flourish (that is, a short ceremonial fanfare marking the entrance of royalty or nobility). See ‘Music in Caroline Plays’, 103-4. [go to text]

n4094   FLAVELLO ] Favello [go to text]

n935   like a bride, [with] two VIRGINS. Alinda’s entrance with the two Virgins seems likely to parallel Eulalia’s entrance at the start of the scene ‘between two Friars’; the contrast between Eulalia’s black clothes and Alinda’s bridal outfit suggests both the paralleling of the two women and the way in which the younger woman is supplanting the elder. [go to text]

n3939   takes her up; Brome probably means that the King either raises Alinda to a position beside him (which could suggest that the King is seated on a dias), or that he raises her from a kneeling positions which she adopts when she reaches him. To 'take up' also means to take someone or something into one's possession (OED take, v. 93d), to accept (OED take, v. 93h) and to take someone into one's protection or other relationship (OED take, v. 93i); a reader might therefore find a certain irony in this stage direction. [go to text]

n936   Let your amazement cease, Brome again draws on the Souldan’s speech in Penelope’s Web:

To take away therefore all occasions of hinderance, I have upon the sudden assembled you, not only to hear what I can say, but without either doubt or denial to confirm what I will say. Being divorced from my quondam wife and your Queen by law, although I am old, yet not so striken in age but that I can and must yield to affection: I intend, nay I will in despite of all men, take Olynda here present to my wife, and before we depart from this session she shall be crowned Queen. Conjecture doth assure me you will all greatly mislike of the match, and grudge that your King should marry so low. But I charge you all in general, and wish every one that loveth his own life, neither with counsel nor reason to persuade me from that I have purposed: least he incur further danger and my perpetual displeasure (sig. C4r)

Brome's King does not talk about his age as explicitly as Greene's Souldan, but both stress the attraction that they feel to the younger woman; Brome omits the Souldan's references to the low status of his lover, which are not so easily applicable to the daughter of a successful general as to a professional courtesan. [go to text]

gg712   in general, collectively, without exception (OED general a, 11c[a]) [go to text]

gg713   rates estimates [go to text]

gg714   meanly indifferently, poorly (OED meanly adv, 1 and 3) [go to text]

n937   Gonzago This is the first time that the King’s name is mentioned on stage; his son has already been addressed by name twice in [QC 1.1.speech40] and [QC 1.1.speech72]. [go to text]

n4095   hypocrisy! ] Hyocrisie [go to text]

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

gg716   voice (v) speak [go to text]

n938   She was my mother Prince Gonzago’s opposition is more muted than that of Garinter in Penelope’s Web. Greene writes,

The nobility, but especially [the Souldan’s] son Garinter [...] grudging at his mother’s mishap, and that such a common strumpet should possess her place, made furious by the force of nature, burst out in this choleric reply. "May it please your Highness (I fear to offend) if I say what I should, and yet were loath to flatter in saying what I would not: but if I may have free liberty to speak what I think, my verdict shall be soon given. I confess that what pleaseth the father ought to content the son: and therefore I count the will of Saladyne a law to Garinter: yet as obedience wisheth a consent, so Nature willeth with a friendly denial to disuade from things that offend not only men, but that are even hateful to the Gods. I say, therefore, that Saladyne should get more honour by exiling Olynda, not only from Babylon, but out of all the confines of Egypt, than if he had obtained more triumphs than that invincible Caesar. No doubt your Grace shall soon, nay I fear too soon, find my words to be true, that in hoping to get a sweet content you gain a sour mislike: like to them which pleased with the colour of the tree lotus, are poisoned as soon as they taste of the apples" (sigs C4r-v)

[go to text]

gg162   late recent [go to text]

n939   O show it in your duty then, Eulalia’s speeches to her son and to the King draw on Barmenissa’s much longer speech to Garinter in Penelope’s Web:

Although, son, the law of nature wills thee to be partner of thy mother's misfortunes, yet the Gods, whose laws are above nature, commands that thou gainsay not the edict of thy father: For as Proclus the Academic affirms, there is nothing which we ought more to regard than duty and obedience: the command of the father is not to be limited by the conceit of the child, for as their superiority is without proportion, so their wills ought to be without denials, first the frown of a father (sayth Epictetus) is like the elevation of a comet which foreshows ever some fatal and final ruin. Then Garinter offend not thy father in thought, least the gods, grudging at thy secret disobedience, plague thee with an open revenge: further, son, thou art his subject, and he thy sovereign, what duty is due to such a mighty potentate thou must by law and conscience offer unto him. And seeing by the consent of the Egyptian laws I am deposed, and Olynda invested with the regal crown, if a mother's command may be a constraint to the son, I charge thee that thou show her the same obedience that belongs to a princess, and thy father's wife. Philarkes the son of Psamnetichus obeyed Rhodope, whom his father raised from a common courtesan to a princess. Antiochus the son of Demetrius builded stately sepulchres for his father's concubines: revenge (son) ought not to go in purple, but in white, and the salve for injuries is not choler but patience. For mine own part, Garinter, I set thee down no precept but that which myself mean to hold for a principle, and thou by imitating thy mother's actions, show thyself to be dutiful, which if thou perform, I will continually pray to the Gods of thy good, otherwise, if for my cause thou intend revenge, I wish thy ill: and so wishing to thy father as to my sovereign, and to the princess as to one honoured with a diadem, I take my leave at that court, as well content with my adversity, for that it is the king's command, as ever I was with prosperity (sigs C4v-D1r).

Eulalia is less pointed in her response to Alinda than Barmenissa is in her reference to the ‘common courtesan’ Rhodope, but she nonetheless manages to irritate Alinda thoroughly. [go to text]

gg717   wills commands, requires [go to text]

gg718   edicts orders (generally used to refer to the orders of the sovereign) [go to text]

n940   thou hadst not mine, i.e. you do not have my obedience (if that obedience entails obeying the King) [go to text]

n3940   [Aside]Faith, thou hadst not mine, good woman — I must Not call thee queen now. I have re-lined this speech: in the octavo the line breaks at 'woman - / I'. [go to text]

gg719   grudge (n) discontent; reluctance; resentment, ill-will [go to text]

n3945   Put forth that woman — do it without grudge — Out of the court, I mean, to seek her way. Do you refuse? I have re-lineated this speech: in the octavo the line breaks are at 'woman: / Do' and 'Court , / I'. [go to text]

n3945   Put forth that woman — do it without grudge — Out of the court, I mean, to seek her way. Do you refuse? I have re-lineated this speech: in the octavo the line breaks are at 'woman: / Do' and 'Court , / I'. [go to text]

gg720   present, (v) represent [go to text]

gg722   part depart; take my leave [go to text]

n3941   Since it is your command, as e’er I was To sit in that promotion. This is printed as one line in the octavo. [go to text]

gg721   promotion. favoured position [go to text]

n3942   Sir, I may Not sit to be taunted and upbraided thus. This is printed as one line in the octavo. [go to text]

gg723   upbraided reproached, found fault with [go to text]

n941   Pardon me, Again, Eulalia’s apparent passivity may be calculated to annoy Alinda; her reminder to the younger woman of their former affection and of her own role in bringing Alinda to court seems somewhat disingenuous. [go to text]

n3943   When I sent for you to the court, and there into This heart received you. This is printed as one line in the octavo. [go to text]

gg209   plainly candidly, openly; explicitly; bluntly [go to text]

gg724   jeered; mocked [go to text]

n3944   I am plainly jeered; Hence that woman! This is printed as one line in the octavo. [go to text]

n3947   EULALIA [exits] with GONZAGO. ] Exit Eulalia with Gonzago [go to text]

n3304   GONZAGO. ] Conzago [go to text]

n3946   And let it be proclaimed according to Th’ extremity of law our censure be observed. This is printed as one line in the octavo. [go to text]

gg725   extremity utmost severity; greatest amount [go to text]

n3948   All Omn. [go to text]

n1259   [Aside] This direction is included in the octavo text, in square brackets, placed at the end of this line. [go to text]

gg726   get beget; gain [go to text]

n3949   [They all exit.] ] Exeunt [go to text]

n11352   2.2 ] Scœn. III. [go to text]

n3305   [Lodovico] ] Hor. (the misattribution is corrected in the octavo's list of errata) [go to text]

gg727   excuse clear from blame; save from harm [go to text]

gg728   appurtenances appendages, accessories [go to text]

gg729   shambles. meat-market [go to text]

gg730   purposely on purpose, deliberately [go to text]

gg731   have a mind wishes, desires [go to text]

n942   kiss the mistress. hit the jack, a term deriving from bowling which plays on ‘bowled’ earlier in the sentence; the phrase also suggests, perhaps, a sardonic reference to the current political situation [go to text]

gg732   ensuing resulting; approaching [go to text]

n943   of necessary course Inevitably (the ‘mischiefs’ must follow as a result of the King’s behaviour). [go to text]

gg733   lewd vile, evil; worthless; lascivious [go to text]

gg734   middle earth the world, worldly things (OED n, 1) [go to text]

gg735   warrants authorises, sanctions [go to text]

gg736   articles charges [go to text]

gg737   framed prepared; composed; uttered; imagined (it does not yet mean to ‘frame’ someone by devising a plot against them) [go to text]

gg738   pattern example, model [go to text]

gg739   obsequious obedient [go to text]

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

gg741   now-she-start-up female social climber or upstart [go to text]

gg742   supplants dispossesses, takes the place of [go to text]

gg559   nigh near; nearly [go to text]

gs99   blood; murder, death (OED n, 3a); used in the Bible and theological language to refer to blood shed in sacrifice (OED n, 3b); life (OED n, 4a); there is perhaps a pun on blood meaning family/kindred (OED n, 10), since Alinda is usurping Eulalia’s place in the royal family [go to text]

n3821   this concubine this is the only point in the play at which Alinda is referred to specifically as a ‘concubine’ [go to text]

gg152   suborned. bribed [go to text]

n944   My thoughts are warranted by the proverb. Horatio probably alludes to the proverb ‘thought is free’, which was current in English from the late fifteenth century. See R.W. Dent, Proverbial Language in English Drama Exclusive of Shakespeare, 1495-1616 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), T244; Morris Palmer Tilley, A Dictionary of the Proverbs in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1950), T244. A Caroline collection of proverbs, Outlandish Proverbs, Selected by Mr. G.H. (London, 1640), includes one that would be particularly appropriate for the politic Horatio: ‘He is a fool that thinks not, that another thinks’ (No. 287; sig. B3v). This proverb is F484 in Tilley. [go to text]

gg743   make compose (does not yet refer to cosmetics) [go to text]

gg744   temper (v) regulate, control, restrain [go to text]

gg745   in height, at its climax or highest pitch (of celebrations, power, etc.); cf. Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, 3.10.18-20: ‘Claps on his sea-wing and, like a doting mallard, / Leaving the fight in height, flies after her’; Thomas Campion, The Lords’ Masque, in A Relation of the Late Royal Entertainment [...] To our Most Gracious Queen, Queen Anne [...] Whereunto is Annexed the Description, Speeches, and Songs of the Lords' Masque, Presented in the Banqueting-House on the Marriage Night of the High and Mighty, Count Palatine, and the Royally Descended the Lady Elizabeth (London, 1613): ‘Dance, dance, and visit now the shadows of our joy, / All in height, and pleasing state, your changed forms imploy’ (sig. D3v) [go to text]

n1126   Troy An ancient city in Asia Minor, besieged for many years and finally taken by the Greeks; Lodovico’s description of the burning city and the fleeing survivors is indebted to Virgil’s Aeneid, Book 2. He also (unknowingly?) echoes Horatio’s earlier comment in 1.1 that he ‘should as soon be won to set [the King’s] court / On fire’ than invite Petruccio to it [QC 1.1.speech53]. [go to text]

gg746   dearer more important, more urgent [go to text]

gg747   affrighted terrified [go to text]

gg748   reverted directed backwards [go to text]

n945   more horrible aspect, In a more horrible form. [go to text]

gg749   aspect, appearance [go to text]

n946   fury, A furious or malignant woman: refers to the avenging deities in classical mythology, the Furies. [go to text]

gg750   outrageous wicked, evil; violent, furious; immoderate [go to text]

n947   queen Puns on quean: whore. [go to text]

gs100   treads steps on; crushes, beats down; oppresses; possibly puns on ‘tread’ meaning copulation between birds (OED tread v, 8) [go to text]

gg752   tramples stamps on; treats with contempt (OED trample v, 3b; the earliest citation is John Hall, Horae Vacivae, or, Essays. Some Occasionall Considerations [London, 1646]: ‘trample not on the imperfections of any, but modestly dissemble them’ [93]) [go to text]

n3306   government. ] Covernment [go to text]

gg753   effect, result [go to text]

n948   Alinda’s death? It is possible that the text has become corrupted at this point, since it would seem more logical for answer to follow question, rather than two questions being followed by two answers:

Horatio: Alinda’s death?
Lodovico: Is it not necessary?
Horatio: Who’s there? [Looks about]
Lodovico: Nobody: what d’ ye fear?

On the other hand, however, the stuttering and slightly jumbled quality of the lines as they are presented in the octavo conveys effectively the jittery conversation between Horatio and Lodovico. Compare Horatio’s next speech, with its nervy parenthetical statements and reluctance to commit firmly to a definite political stance. [go to text]

gg754   rate? price [go to text]

n3822   How apt his nature is to fell oppression, Lodovico’s words echo those of the nobleman Egistus in Greene’s Penelope’s Web:

Saladyne [...] hath been so tyrannous to his commons from his first coronation, that unless his unmoderate pride and presumption had been mitigated by the virtuous clemency of his wife, the burthen of his cruelty long time since had been intolerable: but now having deposed that peerless princess, whose virtues made her famous and us happy, and married a concubine, whose vanities breeds her envy and our mishap, we are to look for no other event but our particular ill fortune, and the general ruin of the weal public. (sigs. D2r-D3r).

[go to text]

gg323   fell dreadful, terrible; cruel, savage [go to text]

gg755   burden load [go to text]

gg697   clemency mercy, leniency [go to text]

gg756   allayed alleviated; appeased [go to text]

gg757   mitigated, moderated, alleviated, assuaged, tempered [go to text]

gg758   subversion. ruin, overthrow [go to text]

gg759   peerless unequalled [go to text]

n949   The court being surfeited too with wine and noise Greene in Penelope’s Web remarks that ‘the King solemnised his marriage with sumptuous shows and triumphs, and Garinter that he might show how careful he was to obey his mother's last command, brought in masques and comical delights to finish up the solemnity of the nuptials’ (sig. D1r). Brome keeps this action offstage, and avoids involving Prince Gonzago. Flourishes are indicated in 2.3 to signal the king drinking healths to Alinda, and a production might also use off-stage sound here. Compare the use of off-stage sound in Hamlet, 1.4, in which Hamlet comments,

The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swagg'ring upspring reels,
And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge. (1.4.9-13)

[go to text]

gg760   surfeited fed gluttonously, overindulged [go to text]

n950   talk to the point Come to the main subject of discussion or the essence of the matter (OED point, n.¹ 10.b). Given that Horatio is talking about the murder of Alinda there may a pun on ‘point’, as in the point of a sword or dagger. [go to text]

gg761   fit (a) appropriate; necessary [go to text]

n4103   Aye ] I [go to text]

gg762   strumpet debauched woman, whore [go to text]

gg763   conveniently appropriately [go to text]

gg764   enterprise, undertaking [go to text]

n3823   We shall seem born more for ourselves than country. Horatio’s speech follows that of Egistus in Penelope’s Web: ‘and lest we should seem to be born more for ourselves than our country, let us attempt the restitution of the Queen, and the fatal overthrow of the insolent concubine, although death and danger were the end of our enterprise’ (sig. D3r). [go to text]

n1265   This way, good Horatio. It seems likely that Lodovico sees Flavello approach and tries to lead Horatio away; Alinda’s question in 3.2, ‘Poison or sword thou heard’st him speak?’ [QC 3.2.speech657] suggests that Flavello comes close enough to overhear Horatio’s next comment. [go to text]

n3824   if poison, sword, policy or strength may do it — Egistus in Greene’s Penelope’s Web is more explicit, telling the assembled lords, ‘The plot, my Lords, I have laid by impoisoning her cup at the next supper’ (sig. D3r). [go to text]

gg765   policy cunningness; a stratagem [go to text]

gg252   strength a body (of men); military strength [go to text]

gg254   minion. favourite (of the king or queen) (OED n, I 1a); popular favourite (OED n, I 1c) [go to text]

n3950   monkeys, parrots, short-nosed dogs and starlings; All of these animals were kept by upper and middle-class women in the seventeenth century; see notes on 'short-nosed dogs' and 'principal pug' for further comments. [go to text]

n951   short-nosed dogs Refers to the lap-dogs seen in many portraits of high-status men, women and children. See, for instance, the spaniel held by its ear by the infant Charles II in a portrait of 1630 (unknown artist, National Portrait Gallery, London). In The History of Four-Footed Beasts (London, 1607), Edward Topsell writes of the ‘delicate, neat, and pretty kind of dogs called the spaniel gentle, or the comforter’; he associates them particularly with women, saying that they are ‘sought for to satify the delicateness of dainty dames, and wanton women's wils, instruments of folly for them to play and dally withal, to trifle away the treasure of time, withdraw their minds from more commendable exercises, and to content their corrupted concupiscences with vain disport’ (p. 171). Sir Glorious Tipto in Jonson’s The New Inn (King's Men, 1629) describes how he would dress in order to ‘entertain’ a dog ‘That were a dog of fashion, and well-nosed, / And could present himself’ (The New Inn, ed. Michael Hattaway [Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984], 2.5.60-1). [go to text]

gg767   Foisting farting (often used in reference to dogs) [go to text]

gg766   diet, feed [go to text]

gg768   disple discipline, correct [go to text]

gg769   cattle livestock; vermin (OED n, 7) [go to text]

n952   spiders for principal pug, ‘Pug’ here refers to a monkey (see OED pug, n.² 6), thought to be particularly fond of spiders: cf. Brome, The City Wit: ‘Knavery is restorative to me, as spiders to monkeys’ [CW 5.1.speech830]; Fletcher, Field and Massinger, The Queen of Corinth (King’s Men, c. 1617): ‘He will eat spiders faster then a monkey’ (4.1.69); Nabbes, Microcosmus (Queen Henrietta Maria’s Men, 1637; published London, 1637): ‘I am my Lady's gentleman usher, and kill spiders for her monkey’ (sig. D3v). Monkeys were kept by the rich as a high-status pet throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: for one such pet monkey (seemingly named Pug) see Anthony van Dyck’s portrait of Henrietta Maria with Jeffrey Hudson (1633; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC: Samuel H. Kress Collection). The way in which the queen’s hand is placed on the monkey in this portrait has often been thought to indicate her control over sexual desire; Arthur Wheelock, Susan J. Barnes and Julius C. Held comment, ‘Monkeys were traditionally associated with erotic passion, and a chained monkey embodied a soul enslaved by the forces of sensuality. Henrietta Maria, by gently laying her hand on the monkey and clasping his belt, may well signify her control over the passions that he represents’ (Van Dyck: Paintings [Washington, DC: National Gallery, 1990], 264). Alinda’s putative ownership of a monkey in The Queen and Concubine has the opposite effect, suggesting the erotic irresponsibility of its owner as well as her desire for the trappings of high status. An example of this iconographic use of a monkey can be seen on the title page of The Court and Kitchen of Elizabeth, Commonly Called Joan Cromwell, the Wife of the Late Usurper (London, 1664), a satirical cookery book which mocks Elizabeth Cromwell as an ambitious parvenue. Laura Lunger Knoppers comments that in addition to being a symbol of lust, the monkey alludes 'to the proverb that the higher one climbs the more one's backside is exposed' ('Opening the Queen's Closet: Henrietta Maria, Elizabeth Cromwell, and the Politics of Cookery', Renaissance Quarterly 60 (2007), 464-99 [484]; the titlepage is reproduced on 485). [go to text]

gg770   pug, monkey (OED n2, 6; usage here is antecedent to OED’s earliest citation) [go to text]

gg771   prime foremost, most important [go to text]

n4096   bees in his head. To have bees in one's head or brain was to have an eccentric whim, craze or obsession (OED bee n1, 5a; the earliest citation is from 1513); the best-known version of the saying today is to have a bee in one's bonnet. [go to text]

gg772   engrosses collects, monopolises [go to text]

gg1888   suits, (n) petitions, requests [go to text]

n953   ’fore Before. [go to text]

n954   common good The good of the community. [go to text]

n3951   [They all exit.] ] Exeunt. [go to text]

n11353   2.3 ] Scœn. V. [go to text]

gg774   wonnot, won't [go to text]

gg774   wonnot. won't [go to text]

n3952   See, here’s poor Andrea mourning as well as we and all the rest of the poor Queen’s castaways. This speech is printed as verse in the octavo. [go to text]

gg775   castaways. those cast away with the Queen [go to text]

gg776   on’t of it [go to text]

gg777   entertain receive [go to text]

gg778   high stately (OED a, 5a); well-advanced, well in progress (OED a, 11a) [go to text]

n955   on a fasting night: fools are meat then. The word ‘fool’ was already being used to refer to a sweet desert as early as the late sixteenth century (see OED n² 1); John Florio in A World of Words (London, 1598) translates the Italia mantiglia as ‘a kind of clouted cream called a fool or a trifle in English’ (216). Dairy produce such as milk, butter and cheese (sometimes including eggs) had been known as ‘white meat’ since at least the early fifteenth century (OED 1.a); it was traditionally forbidden to consume them during Lent, but since the Reformation their consumption had been increasingly condoned. Andrea’s joke therefore rests on the fact that during a period of fasting such as Lent dairy products become ‘meat’; Alinda either sees fools as legitimate fare during a fasting period, or does not care that she is violating a religious dictate. We might compare Brome’s somewhat similar joke about cheese-cakes containing bones in The New Academy [NA 4.1.speech777]. I am indebted to a discussion of the passage in The New Academy on Blogging the Renaissance for help with this note. [go to text]

n3953   No, no, take you your course, and serve her if you please; I have played the fool too long to play the knave now. I’ll after my old mistress. This speech is printed as verse in the octavo. [go to text]

gg29   course, way of proceeding, action; also trick, way of gaining money illicitly [go to text]

gg779   knave rogue, scoundrel [go to text]

gg780   after follow, pursue [go to text]

gg781   compass range, reach (OED n1, 9a) [go to text]

gg782   relief aid, help, succour [go to text]

n1263   [Rugio and Jago] ] Both. [go to text]

gg783   swinge, (n) 'freedom of action [...] liberty to follow one's inclinations (OED n1, 2) [go to text]

n1260   Flourish As Julia Wood notes, flourishes were associated with royalty and kingship and are generally used in plays to announce the ceremonial entry or exit of important persons. Here they seem to be part of an off-stage ceremonial drinking ceremony intended to underline Alinda’s new status as queen. Wood suggests that flourishes were probably 'short simple fanfares’ played on trumpet, cornet or hoboy, and says that ‘it seems likely that they were extemporized’ (‘Music in Caroline Plays’, 99). The use of hoboys elsewhere in The Queen and Concubine suggests that they might have been preferred to the trumpet or cornet here. [go to text]

gg784   frolic make merry, gambol (with sexual innuendo) [go to text]

n1264   Catch me if you can. a proverbial phrase [go to text]

n1260   Flourish As Julia Wood notes, flourishes were associated with royalty and kingship and are generally used in plays to announce the ceremonial entry or exit of important persons. Here they seem to be part of an off-stage ceremonial drinking ceremony intended to underline Alinda’s new status as queen. Wood suggests that flourishes were probably 'short simple fanfares’ played on trumpet, cornet or hoboy, and says that ‘it seems likely that they were extemporized’ (‘Music in Caroline Plays’, 99). The use of hoboys elsewhere in The Queen and Concubine suggests that they might have been preferred to the trumpet or cornet here. [go to text]

gg785   retinue. train, attending servants [go to text]

gg6   Beseech entreat, beg [go to text]

gg787   true loyal, faithful [go to text]

gg788   pesters obstructs (OED pester v1, 1); overcrowds (OED pester v1, 2); infests (OED pester v1, 3); bothers, annoys (OED pester v1, 4) [go to text]

gg789   trash rubbish, dross [go to text]

gg790   trumpery, trifles, rubbish [go to text]

n1261   [All except ANDREA, HORATIO and FLAVELLO exit.] ] Exeunt Omn. præter Andrea. [go to text]

gg794   proper exclusive, special, private (OED a, 2a); appropriate [go to text]

gg795   plate gold or silver vessels and utensils (OED n, 2a) [go to text]

n956   Opens the box: coxcomb,  bauble,  bells and coat. These are the widely represented costume and accessories of the court fool. A fool in Sebastian Brant, The Ship of Fools (London, 1509), wears a long coat with bells on the sleeves, and a cap with two ears with bells; he carries a bauble with a little jester’s head. A Pleasant History of the Life and Death of Will Summers (London 1637), sig. C5v, shows Will Summers, court fool to Henry VIII (left), and Patch, Cardinal Wolsey’s fool (right); both wear a fool’s coat with bells on the sleeves, Patch wears a coxcomb. The ballad A Fool's Bolt is Soon Shot (London, 1636) shows a fool wearing a shorter coat and a hat with a coxcomb and two asses’ ears. The fact that Andrea carries his tools in a box may suggest that he is not wearing a fool’s coat or any other signifier of his trade in this scene; this would reinforce on a visual level his determination to leave the court and his refusal to serve Alinda. In [QC 3.1.speech452] Eulalia says that Andrea is in disguise, but Fabio's comment, 'We dare come roundly to you, for all your guard, your old fool and your young here' [QC 3.1.speech561] suggests that by this point he may be recognisable as a fool; at [QC 3.1.speech574] the Curate refers to him as 'the fool'. [go to text]

gg797   coxcomb, cap in the shape of a cock’s comb worn by a professional fool (OED 1) [go to text]

gg799   bauble, baton or stick, usually decorated with a head, often with asses ears or a fool’s coxcomb, carried by a court fool or jester as the emblem of his office (OED 4) [go to text]

gg800   Heyday, an exclamation indicating surprise [go to text]

n957   stuff This can mean both household goods (OED n1, 1g), linking with Horatio’s description of ‘plate and jewels lost today’, or cloth (OED n1, 5), the meaning picked up by Andrea in his next speech. [go to text]

n958   Your wardrobe cannot match it. This statement could be delivered in ways that suggest two different meanings: ‘your wardrobe cannot match it’ would suggest that the royal wardrobe does not hold anything like Andrea’s fool’s costume; ‘your wardrobe cannot match it’ would suggest that the clothes worn by Horatio (and possibly Flavello) cannot match the clothes of a fool. [go to text]

gg801   wardrobe room in which apparel was kept (OED 1a); office of the royal household in charge of regal apparel (OED 2); stock of clothes owned by an individual (OED 3a) [go to text]

gg802   takers, officers who exact supplies for the sovereign (OED taker, 2c); thieves (OED taker, 2d) [go to text]

gg725   extremity utmost severity; greatest amount [go to text]

n959   present this to his highness, and this to hers, Andrea presumably gives Horatio his coxcomb and bauble, but it is not clear which gift he intends for each recipient. If the coxcomb is given to the King it would parody his crown and mock him for his folly; compare the Fool’s gift of his coxcomb to Kent as a symbol of his folly in wanting to follow Lear (Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King Lear, 1.4.94-103). The bauble as a gift for Alinda would satirise her pretensions to royal status (as the bauble parodies the sceptre) and her status as the King’s sexual plaything: cf. John Day, The Isle of Gulls (Queen’s Revels, 1606; published London, 1606): ‘tho' she be but a fool, the bable's good enough to make sport withal in the dark’ (sig. H1v). If the gifts are reversed, the coxcomb given to Alinda might signify her folly in seeking to rise in status through corruption, while the bauble given to the King becomes a phallic symbol of his sexual incontinence. See Williams 1: 77-9. The sexual connotations of coxcomb and bauble are highlighted in an exchange between Mellida and her unwanted suitor, Galeatzo, in Marston's Antonio and Mellida (Paul's, c. 1599). Galeatzo pledges to 'accept of the coxcomb, so you will not refuse the bauble', to which Mellida replies, 'Nay, good sweet, keep them both; I am enamoured of neither' (Gair, ed., Antonio and Mellida, 5.2.98-101). [go to text]

n960   a whip for advantage, Fools were proverbially susceptible to whipping, probably due to a combination of their lowly status in a noble or royal household and the likelihood that one of their jokes might backfire. In Samuel Rowley’s If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody (Prince Henry’s Men, c. 1604; published London, 1605), Cardinal Wolsey tells Henry VIII’s fool, Will Summers, ‘A rod in school, a whip for a fool, is always in season’ (sig. E4v). See Tilley, W305. [go to text]

gg803   advantage, interest [go to text]

n3954   excusez-moi ] excusee moy [go to text]

n961   In country, court and city The style of Andrea’s mock-prophesy, with its regular, rhymed iambic pentameter lines, parodies prophesies found in other early modern texts. In particular, it may be intended to remind spectators of the Fool’s prophesy in Shakespeare’s King Lear (King’s Men, c. 1606), found only in the Folio text. [go to text]

gg804   makes shift endeavours, tries all means [go to text]

n3955   Let the fool go, my lord; ’tis but a fool the less, for he’ll get wit by it to wish himself here again. This speech is printed as verse in the octavo. [go to text]

n962   Let the fool go, my lord; ’tis but a fool the less, for he’ll get wit by it to wish himself here again. That is: let the fool go, all we'll lose by it is a fool, since his exile will make him wise enough to wish that he was back at court (and he will therefore no longer be a fool). [go to text]

gg806   factious seditious [go to text]

gg807   crew 'crew' could be neutral, meaning a gathering or group, but here the pejorative meaning is clear: 'a number of persons classed together (by the speaker) from actual connexion or common characteristics; often with derogatory qualification or connotation; lot, set, gang, mob, herd' (OED n1, 4) [go to text]

n3956   [They exit.] ] Exeunt. [go to text]

n11354   2.4 ] Scœn. VI. [go to text]

n963   as in prison. Video As Dessen and Thomson note, 'a sense of prison' might be generated 'by one or more prisoners in chains/gyves/irons/manacles/shackles accompanied by a jailer/keeper with keys'; 'as in' or 'as from' prison directions are found in a number of Caroline plays (A Dictionary of Stage Directions in English Drama, 1580-1642 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999], 171). Unlike Petruccio, who was kept under house arrest until his release by Horatio in 1.2, Sforza is being kept in a real prison. However, early modern prisons varied greatly: men of Sforza’s status would normally be held somewhere like the Tower of London, in which noble prisoners were able to lead relatively normal lives, rather than a prison such as Newgate or the Clink. A modern-day production might choose whether to have Sforza apparently able to move at will, as in this workshop version, which would suggest a higher-status prison, or confined or chained in some way, as in this alternative version, which would suggest the harshness of the King’s treatment of the former general. [go to text]

gg808   thraldom captivity [go to text]

gg809   sepulchred buried [go to text]

gg810   visage, face [go to text]

gg811   conjure entreat (OED v, 4) [go to text]

gg812   vent give free expression to; utter [go to text]

gg813   carry-tale: tell-tale [go to text]

gg255   fast secure [go to text]

n964   what’s laid unto my charge? Of what offence am I accused? [go to text]

n1188   All I can say, Video The tone of this scene and its effect in performance depends to a large extent on a production’s interpretation of the Keeper, who must not break his orders and tell Sforza why he has been imprisoned, either through loyalty, fear or a kind of officious sadism. If the Keeper is petty or sadistic, the injustice of the situation is emphasised and the scene might gather a kind of harsh comedy, as in this extract. Here we experimented with a clash of tones and genres, playing Sforza as if he was in a tragedy and the Keeper in a comedy. However, it was not ultimately convincing because it made the final aside very difficult to deliver convincingly. If the Keeper is played as being sympathetic to Sforza’s plight - which seems the more plausible interpretation - the scene creates pathos through Sforza’s obliviousness to the cause of his imprisonment and the Keeper’s inability to tell him the cause. For instance, in this extract from the workshop, the Keeper pities Sforza and is tortured by the fact that he cannot tell him his supposed offence; suspense is created because he often seems on the verge of talking to his prisoner, only to pull back. Another option is to play the scene in a more serious way, but to make the Keeper’s seeming harshness conceal a hidden sympathy for his prisoner, as in this extract. A clue to the scene’s original effect in performance might be found in the similar predicament of the Provost in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure (King’s Men, c. 1603), who, like the Keeper, confesses his pity for his prisoner in an aside (2.2.2-6). [go to text]

n965   off your command No longer on your command (OED off prep, 1a). That is: (1) you no longer have your position as commander, or (2) you can no longer command me. [go to text]

n966   Lions may rage Video This might be delivered as an aside, or to Sforza, depending on how a production interprets the sequence. If the Keeper is sympathetic to Sforza, it may work better as an aside, as in this version from the workshop on this scene; if the actor intends the Keeper to appear initially more officious or brutal, it may work better delivered as a direct warning to Sforza, as in this version. [go to text]

gg814   toils, traps, snares [go to text]

gg815   enthral enslave [go to text]

gg816   deal behave; proceed [go to text]

n3957   [Aside] This line is enclosed by brackets in the octavo to indicate the aside. [go to text]

n967   [KEEPER] shakes his head. Video The stage directions suggest that the Keeper makes a mute gesture after each of Sforza’s questions, as in this sequence from the workshop, in which the original stage directions are followed fairly closely. On first reading the scene, I wondered how the Keeper’s gestures would come across in performance: could there be something grotesquely funny about them, or was the sequence purely serious in tone? If the scene is played in a satiric fashion, with an officious or sadistic Keeper, the gestures might be caricatured, as in this extract. Another option is to make them comparatively restrained and naturalistic, as in this version, in which Robert Lister, playing the Keeper, also uses props to help him regain his distance from Sforza after seeming to be on the verge of breaking his silence. [go to text]

n968   how fares the Queen? (1) How is the Queen? (2) What is happening to the Queen? [go to text]

gg818   antagonist opponent, adversary [go to text]

gg819   Repealed recalled (often used to talk about return from exile) [go to text]

n969   Thence may spring my mischief. Video This line could be delivered as an aside, as it is in this version from the workshop. [go to text]

gg820   dogged malicious, spiteful [go to text]

n970   He makes legs. Video Making a leg is a deferential gesture similar to a bow, made by drawing back one leg and bending the other. A man would usually make a leg when he greeted someone or departed from them; the Keeper’s making a leg here suggests that he is withdrawing from Sforza’s presence prior to his aside to the audience and his exit. A modern production might substitute a different gesture, such as a salute or the offer of food or drink (though neither of these would necessarily suggest departure). [go to text]

n971   It adds to some men’s misery not to know it. i.e. it makes some men more miserable not to know the reason for their misery. [go to text]

gg821   double walls paired or coupled walls (OED double a, 1a), often used in fortifications; walls of twice the normal size or strength (OED double a, 4a) [go to text]

gg823   mollify appease, soften [go to text]

n972   May spirit i.e. may my spirit (or the Holy Spirit) help me to disregard/reject this scornful treatment on top of the wrongs done to me. [go to text]

n11355   2.5 ] Scœn. VII. [go to text]

n3963   GUARD. Petruccio's direction to 'All' to leave the room in [QC 2.5.speech371], and the Guard's reply, 'We shall' [QC 2.5.speech372], may suggest that this is a guard of soldiers rather than a single guard, given that the only other character to exit on his order is the Keeper. [go to text]

gg295   base contemptible, degraded, unworthy [go to text]

gg824   baser lesser [go to text]

gg825   affront insult, indignity [go to text]

gg826   stood offered myself as a candidate [go to text]

gg828   election. choice, preference [go to text]

n3958   Stand back I say — The octavo text places these words in brackets, signalling a break with the surrounding speech. [go to text]

gg829   addition augmentation; something added to a coat of arms as a mark of honour (OED n, 5) [go to text]

gg830   advancement, promotion, preferment [go to text]

n3959   Enter KEEPER. The octavo text places this stage direction in the margin next to the Keeper's 'Here my Lord'. [go to text]

n3960   My honour be your warrant. Petruccio puns on the Keeper's 'your honour has brought warrant', in which 'your honour' is a convential form of address to one of high status, to suggest that his personal honour (which could mean either his reputation or his innate virtue) should mean that a formal warrant in the shape of a document or token is unnecessary. [go to text]

gg831   grace favour [go to text]

gg571   place? rank, position, office [go to text]

gg832   signet, a small, engraved stamp of metal, usually placed in a finger-ring (OED n, 1), used to produce an impression in a wax seal on a document as evidence of authority; ‘signet’ can also mean the document itself (OED n, 3b) [go to text]

n973   and it please you. If it is agreeable to you. This is a mark of politeness often used by someone of low social status to his or her social superior. [go to text]

gg833   changed exchanged [go to text]

gg834   Lineally directly, in a direct line [go to text]

n974   Cerberus. A three-headed dog (or in some legends, fifty-headed) that guarded the entrance to the underworld in Greek myth (Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, ed. Howatson, s.v. Cerberus). [go to text]

n3961   see, there’s the signet. Petruccio presumably produces the King's signet at this point. [go to text]

n3962   I’ll fetch the prisoner. May it please you to come forth, my lord? This speech is printed as verse in the octavo. [go to text]

n3307   Enter SFORZA. ] this direction is missing in the octavo but is supplied ('Ent. Sforza') in the octavo's list of errata. [go to text]

n3969   KEEPER and GUARD [exit]. ] Exeunt Keeper and Guard. [go to text]

gg835   object thing presented to the eyes [go to text]

gg836   obscurity, period of darkness [go to text]

n3964   The better. ’Tis best to know the worst; he Cannot deceive me. This is printed as one line in the octavo. [go to text]

n975   possessed That is: possessed by the belief that. [go to text]

gg837   compliment; greeting [go to text]

gg838   sour, embittered, morose, peevish [go to text]

gg839   captious carping, likely to find fault [go to text]

gg840   vexation trouble, harassment, affliction [go to text]

n976   Has over-tamed him. Audiences may detect a certain irony in a character named Petruccio complaining that someone has been ‘over-tamed’. Both Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and Fletcher’s mock-sequel, The Woman’s Prize or The Tamer Tamed (in which Petruccio’s second wife, Maria, tames him) were current on the stage in the early 1630s: The Taming of the Shrew was performed at court by the King’s Men on 26 November 1633, when Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels, says that it was ‘Liked’; The Tamer Tamed was performed two days later, on 28 November, and according to Herbert was ‘Very well liked’ by the royal audience. See N.W. Bawcutt, ed., The Control and Censorship of Caroline Drama: The Records of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels 1623-73 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 185. [go to text]

gg841   committed, put in prison [go to text]

n3308   court, ] Cuurt; Pearson also amends to ‘Court’. [go to text]

n3965   Tell me something. This appears to be a deliberately short line, giving time for Petruccio to hesitate and for Sforza to fear that Petruccio will, like the Keeper, refuse to tell him anything about the reason for his imprisonment. [go to text]

gg842   take no notice take no notice of: have no knowledge/awareness of [go to text]

n3309   rebellious ] Rebellions [go to text]

gg843   doubtful apprehensive [go to text]

gg844   about in attendance on, in the company of [go to text]

n977   The Queen and she’s all one. Two meanings are possible here: (1) the Queen and she are always together; (2) the Queen and she are one and the same. [go to text]

n978   keeps fair quarter with her; That is: treats her appropriately (but ‘fair quarter’ is used in sexual contexts elsewhere; cf. Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, 2.1.108: ‘So he would keep fair quarter with his bed’). [go to text]

n979   I’ll put him to it. i.e. I’ll test him; I’ll challenge him; I’ll urge him. [go to text]

gg736   articles? charges [go to text]

gg845   ’Twere it were (i.e. it would be) [go to text]

n980   Umh, umh, umh. Sforza’s grunted reaction to Petruccio’s information and the King’s dubious treatment of him (for which I have retained the octavo’s spelling) could be interpreted in various ways by an actor. In particular, they might give the dialogue a colloquial and quasi-improvisational quality. [go to text]

gg846   Umh, inarticulate sound indicating doubt, hesitation or dissatisfaction [go to text]

gg846   umh, inarticulate sound indicating doubt, hesitation or dissatisfaction [go to text]

gg846   umh. inarticulate sound indicating doubt, hesitation or dissatisfaction [go to text]

gg765   policy cunningness; a stratagem [go to text]

gg847   assurance, certainty [go to text]

gg293   desert, deserving, merit [go to text]

n3966   when soldiers, men of best desert, Have merited more than they have means to give, To cut their lives by whom they only live. That is: when the best soldiers have been so excellent that Kings do not have the ability to repay their actions, they instead execute the men who have preserved their own lives. [go to text]

gg848   fly flee, break away [go to text]

gg849   engaged obliged; locked (as if in combat) [go to text]

n3967   You fly now from the question. Y’ are engaged By the honour of a soldier unto That accusation: guilty or not guilty? I have re-lineated this speech: in the octavo there is only one line break, at 'Souldier / Unto'. [go to text]

gg850   forsworn perjured [go to text]

n4102   aye ] I [go to text]

gg851   on’s of his [go to text]

n981   A wrestling towards; That is: an oppressive force/action coming towards (me). Sforza interprets the entrance of the Guard as evidence of violence intended towards him. [go to text]

gg852   wrestling action of opposition or strife (OED vbl. n, 2a) [go to text]

n4546   away, whist, away! ] away west, away [go to text]

gg853   whist, hush, keep silent (OED int, 1) [go to text]

n3968   He comes but to insult and to torment me! This line may be delivered as an aside, since Petruccio rather than the Guard has been doing the 'insult[ing]' and 'torment[ing]'. [go to text]

n982   Passion of heart! i.e. overpowering emotion (OED passion n, 6a) [go to text]

gg854   redamnation renewed damnation (this is OED’s only citation) [go to text]

gg867   oppress overcome; keep in subjection [go to text]

gg869   forbear avoid, shun [go to text]

n3970   GUARD [exits]. ] Exit Guard. [go to text]

gg871   mad madden, enrage [go to text]

gg872   innocency innocence [go to text]

gg874   close (v) unite, join [go to text]

gg875   apprehend understand, conceive [go to text]

gg330   moan complaint, lamentation [go to text]

gg877   conceive think [go to text]

gg879   Foh! exclamation of disgust (also spelt 'faugh') [go to text]

gg881   putrefaction, corruption [go to text]

gg882   grossly. palpably; excessively [go to text]

n983   umh, whu. Sforza again reacts to Petruccio with quasi-colloquial noises: here they seem to convey his disgust at what he thinks is Petruccio’s flattery. ‘Whu’ might be modernised to ‘whew’, but this may give the wrong impression to a modern reader; I have therefore retained the spelling from the octavo. [go to text]

gg846   umh, inarticulate sound indicating doubt, hesitation or dissatisfaction [go to text]

gg883   whu. an inarticulate noise indicating astonishment, disgust, dismay, etc. [go to text]

n3971   So, so: umh, whu. So much for my virtues. What’s your business now? I have re-lineated this speech: in the octavo text the line break is at 'vertues: / What's'. [go to text]

gg330   moan complaint, lamentation [go to text]

n984   making of a knight, i.e. knighting someone. (A general’s power to knight his soldiers or followers could be a point of contention in early modern society.) [go to text]

gg295   base contemptible, degraded, unworthy [go to text]

gg295   base? contemptible, degraded, unworthy [go to text]

gg884   present urgent, pressing, immediate [go to text]

gg885   leave permission [go to text]

n985   undervalue’t undervalue it [go to text]

gg886   example; precedent; imitation [go to text]

gs108   strength. power, especially ‘power to resist temptation or fulfil a difficult duty’ (OED n, 1d); perhaps with a pun on ‘military power’ (OED n, 1e) [go to text]

gg890   strain (v) transgress the strict requirements (OED v1, 11b) [go to text]

gg891   engage pledge, offer as guarantee [go to text]

gg893   forfeit (v) lose [go to text]

n986   War’s sword, Brome follows a resounding final couplet at the end of a scene with a further half-line, a technique that appears frequently in his plays. Here, it serves to emphasise Sforza’s new respect for Petruccio and his trust in his erstwhile rival. In addition, this is the first time that either man has used the other’s name in addressing him directly, something to which Brome draws attention by placing the name at the end of the half-line. [go to text]

n1262   [SFORZA and PETRUCCIO exit together.] ] Exeunt Ambo. [go to text]

© University of Sheffield, 2010
The transcribed text is made freely available for non-commercial usage. Copyright, of the design and content, remains with the Royal Holloway, University of London and the University of Sheffield. Commercial exploitation of this material is prohibited without licence from the Royal Holloway, University of London and the University of Sheffield.