ACT FIVE
5.1*
n6229
The last act comprises two scenes, both situated within Letoy’s household. Audiences first encounter a distraught Joyless searching during the night for Diana whom he fears has slipped his careful guard of her room. His is a mind which fantasizing bred of his fears has carried to an extreme where it verges on madness. He is visited by Barbara who is coming from Peregrine and Martha’s room to inform him of the success of the cure and that the vigorous coupling that has followed on from their second wedding has doubtless got Joyless a grandchild. Mention of a likely conception plunges Joyless into further depths of misery, since he supposes Barbara is talking about Diana and Letoy for whom she has been acting as bawd. He threatens her with a dagger but is prevented from wounding her by the timely arrival of Byplay, who calmly explains the situation and invites Joyless to accompany him to the bridal chamber where they may well find Diana. Continually he plays down the issue of adultery, as if it were of no great seriousness to him. Barbara is joined by her husband, Blaze, who is carrying the costume he must wear in the forthcoming masque with which Letoy, he informs her, intends to welcome all his guests in the morning. They joke about his one-time jealousy which Letoy and the Doctor cured; and clearly for Blaze it is no longer an issue that affects him emotionally in any depth. He is content to allow Barbara her complete freedom. He takes her off with him to a rehearsal that he must attend to perfect his dancing skills ready for the performance. The dramaturgy is masterly here in how it evokes through syntax, changing speech patterns and varying tones quite different attitudes to cuckoldry, jealousy and adultery. By no means is a traditional patriarchal position espoused. If Brome is inviting spectators to debate the subject for themselves, it is not through rhetorical forms of address but through showing how their different perspectives on the issue affect both the general wellbeing and mental balance of three male characters of different age groups and social backgrounds, and the kind of relationship each establishes with the one woman present onstage throughout this sequence: Barbara.
n6229
[Enter] JOYLESS with a light in his hand*n3700
This kind of prop indicated that the scene was to be imagined as taking place by night (in this instance in the dead of night). As has been intimated in respect of the possible lighting state throughout acts two to four, which are also to be deemed as taking place during the late hours of evening, it is possible that the candles illuminating the stage may have been lifted higher above the playing space at the end of 2.1 so that they would cast more shadow and create an effect of dimness appropriate for the fantastic and nightmarish scenes of the play-within-the-play. The final act continues the nightmarish quality at first and that same lighting state may have been preserved throughout the first and much of the second scene of the fifth act, but sanity begins to return to the action with the arrival of Truelock. Perhaps the growing intimations of a secure conclusion were endorsed by a gradual lowering of the candles and an increase in the levels of light to support this on both a symbolic and a realistic level (Truelock's appearance coincides with the return of morning within the play's strictly observed time-scheme). The performance of the concluding, celebratory masque would have gained from a brilliant lighting state, constrasting significantly with the preceding acts.
.
n3700
923JoylessDiana! Ho! Where are you? She is lost.
n9876
Soliloquies are not frequent devices in Brome’s plays and so when they do occur they clearly demand attention for their rarity. Joyless enters the scene intent on finding Diana but, as he discovers most of the doors are locked against him, he begins to fear the worst and suppose that Diana and Letoy are enjoying sexual pleasures somewhere in the house. Joyless has been severely provoked by Letoy’s behaviour with Diana earlier in the play and now he finds himself alone with his fantasies and wild imaginings. The man’s mind has been so driven by his obsession with jealousy, his fear of being cuckolded and of being made an object of social ridicule that he is virtually mad with anxiety and expectation that his dreads will be fulfilled. For the first time in the play he speaks out of the depths of himself. There are inevitably issues of tone here. If Joyless were to be presented as the archetypal jealous old man ripe for cuckolding, what kind of response would this invite from an audience? Is he to be played as a caricature and incite outright laughter at his absurdity? Or might his predicament, once his inward nightmare is shown to an audience through the device of the soliloquy, arouse a more complex response involving some degree of pity? As a soliloquy, does the speech open itself to delivery as direct address to the audience or has it a more inward quality of self-enquiry? Robert Lister, playing Joyless, discussed with Brian Woolland, the director, whether he should acknowledge the audience at any point, and he was encouraged to find at least two points in the speech when, even if only by a glance, he should try and invite the audience to be complicit with him in his jealousy. At this first attempt Robert moves quite decisively out of horrified introspection to address the audience with the line “Is this the hospitality of lords?”, where the import of the words carries not only a personal resonance but opens out into a more general satirical indictment implicit in the plural, “lords”. So it is with the audience that he begins to reason out the situation as to why he was not allowed just to leave or be sent out of the house, giving Diana and Letoy the privacy to pursue their desires. Why has he been kept there, if not to suffer experientially the discovery that Diana is unfaithful? When Robert began the ritual cursing of the pair, he fell to his knees and removed his dagger, holding it like a crucifix, turning that curse into a blasphemous prayer.
It is at this moment that Barbara appears, oblivious of Joyless’s heartbreak and rage. She is coming in search of him with what she believes will be the glad tidings that he is soon to be a grandfather (as matron-of-honour in the wedding-ceremony that closed the last act she has been presiding over the bedding of Peregrine and Martha). The scene becomes a classic comic situation of two people speaking completely at cross purposes. Of immediate concern to Hannah Watkins (Barbara) was the tone she should adopt on entry. The quarto text gives no indication that any of her initial speech should be handled as an aside and yet her third person description of Joyless’s posture and its implications suggests that her words are not directed to him but to the audience. Barbara, like her husband, Blaze, has cheerfully taken spectators into her confidence at many points earlier in the play and these lines would seem to adopt a similar tone of intimacy to those occasions. That confidentiality, when she subsequently turns it on Joyless, he mistakes as the loquacity of a bawd. Her cheerfulness outrages Joyless who, suspecting Barbara is blithely talking of his wife’s infidelity, interprets her tone as expressing rank amorality. After a trial run at this sequence (not shown here), the actors came to realise the importance of pacing the initial speeches to allow time for the audience to register the degree to which the two figures onstage are at cross purposes: Barbara is in raptures that Peregrine’s cure has worked and that he and Martha are even now discovering the joys of sex; she longs to impart the news to everyone in the house: to Joyless, to Letoy and anyone else she encounters. Each character here is locked in his or her immediate thought-process: hers, supremely joyful; his, abjectly joyless. The fact that both speakers had severally taken the audience into their confidence meant that, in terms of that audience’s response, the comedy of the situation was infused with concern for the individuals involved. What on the surface looked like the conventional comedy of misunderstandings had in fact deeper resonances to it.
There is a marked transition of tone in the scene once Joyless produces his dagger and threatens Barbara. The fact that Robert had already a dagger in his hand, though he was holding it by the blade so that with the hilt uppermost it could pass for a crucifix, gave plausible preparation for his decision to use it on Barbara: it was there already to hand; it was a mere turn of the weapon to make it ready for action. Robert argued persuasively that he saw Joyless deciding to attack (not Barbara) but Letoy with the line, “I did before despair of children, I” (meaning in this reading that Letoy has got the child by Diana that Joyless desperately wished to father); he needs Barbara, however, to guide him to where Letoy is; but disgust at the idea that she has acted as Letoy’s bawd makes him round on her with the dagger, while cunningly getting between her and the exit. The cast’s first attempt at these movements and handling of props is what the previous extract showed. The threat of imminent violence remains up until Barbara’s reference to “a pure maid”. She has all along been talking of Martha and does so still; Joyless has understood her to be talking of Diana, whom he knows cannot be referred to as either “pure” or a “maid”. The moment gives him pause for thought and the conflict might easily have been resolved if Barbara had chosen accurately to answer his question (“Who dost thou speak of?”), but her refusal to do so augments his fury. A shape to the scene had by now emerged, where the blocking related precisely to the tonal and emotional fluctuations between the two characters. Noticeably, the playing was beginning too to provoke laughter from the audience, despite their recognition of the darker intimations of the scene.
There was some discussion next of how the scene might appear, if this were treated as one of the “dark” scenes that Martin White has examined (Renaissance Drama in Action, pp.148-151 and passim). The opening stage direction instructs the actor playing Joyless to enter bearing “a light in his hand” and, while this would aid his searching of the room, it would certainly create problems when the business with the dagger commenced. Robert argued that it would be easy to put the light to the floor when he knelt to remove the dagger to aid his “praying”. (Its removal later in the sequence might easily managed by Byplay, who shortly enters to disarm Joyless and prevent him harming Barbara and to clear up their misunderstanding: as a servant in the household he might be expected to remove the candle as he leads Joyless out.) For their next rendition of the scene, Robert was asked to think his way into the full complexities of the situation. Till now the dramaturgy has set him up as a type of buffoon, which the audience feel they can place; but throughout this sequence he reveals levels of pain that begin to invest him with a measure of humanity; he was therefore asked to play in a manner that calls on the audience’s understanding if not their sympathy. The following version of the scene shows the actors drawing all this information together.
What is noticeable is how the acting style has become larger in the expression of its details within the agreed structure of movements and blocking so that more of the dialogue results in audience laughter, as the extent of the divide between the characters grows apparent and a wealth of mishearings between them develops. It was agreed amongst the actors and their audience that, with Robert’s starting the scene playing for laughs from the moment that his quizzical face appeared in advance of the rest of him and then making a bid for seriousness with his direct address to spectators, it became possible to register the darkness of the ensuing encounter with Barbara with no loss of comic impetus. What helped in this was the subtle accentuating of the potential bawdy in the scene from “nose-witness to its rankness” onwards, which helped to control the tone on the right side of the comic/tragic divide. Having set an audience imagining in response to such an explicit phrase, it becomes possible later in the scene for them to piece out in their imaginations what Barbara continually seems about to utter but repeatedly bites back: all the explicit details of the “child-getting” that she has observed and could impart, if propriety did not urge her to refrain. This is signified within the printed text by the use of dashes, which disrupt many of her later speeches: these hesitations invite not only Joyless but also the audience to imagine what she hints at but cannot bring herself to describe and this teasing with possibilities sustains a level of implied bawdy. The cast were next asked to attend to this element and also to use in terms of pacing a feature of the versification that had not been explored till now: the fact that the more heated their exchange becomes and the more the characters are at variance with each other’s thinking, the more they share and complete each other’s verse lines. Richard Cave and Brian Woolland both discussed how this was perhaps an indication of how the pacing of the dialogue might grow faster at this juncture to contrast with a pace that is slow and wary when Barbara first enters. This final version was the result.
n9876
At this first attempt Robert moves quite decisively out of horrified introspection to address the audience with the line “Is this the hospitality of lords?”, where the import of the words carries not only a personal resonance but opens out into a more general satirical indictment implicit in the plural, “lords”. So it is with the audience that he begins to reason out the situation as to why he was not allowed just to leave or be sent out of the house, giving Diana and Letoy the privacy to pursue their desires. Why has he been kept there, if not to suffer experientially the discovery that Diana is unfaithful? When Robert began the ritual cursing of the pair, he fell to his knees and removed his dagger, holding it like a crucifix, turning that curse into a blasphemous prayer.It is at this moment that Barbara appears, oblivious of Joyless’s heartbreak and rage. She is coming in search of him with what she believes will be the glad tidings that he is soon to be a grandfather (as matron-of-honour in the wedding-ceremony that closed the last act she has been presiding over the bedding of Peregrine and Martha). The scene becomes a classic comic situation of two people speaking completely at cross purposes. Of immediate concern to Hannah Watkins (Barbara) was the tone she should adopt on entry. The quarto text gives no indication that any of her initial speech should be handled as an aside and yet her third person description of Joyless’s posture and its implications suggests that her words are not directed to him but to the audience. Barbara, like her husband, Blaze, has cheerfully taken spectators into her confidence at many points earlier in the play and these lines would seem to adopt a similar tone of intimacy to those occasions. That confidentiality, when she subsequently turns it on Joyless, he mistakes as the loquacity of a bawd. Her cheerfulness outrages Joyless who, suspecting Barbara is blithely talking of his wife’s infidelity, interprets her tone as expressing rank amorality. After a trial run at this sequence (not shown here), the actors came to realise the importance of pacing the initial speeches to allow time for the audience to register the degree to which the two figures onstage are at cross purposes: Barbara is in raptures that Peregrine’s cure has worked and that he and Martha are even now discovering the joys of sex; she longs to impart the news to everyone in the house: to Joyless, to Letoy and anyone else she encounters. Each character here is locked in his or her immediate thought-process: hers, supremely joyful; his, abjectly joyless. The fact that both speakers had severally taken the audience into their confidence meant that, in terms of that audience’s response, the comedy of the situation was infused with concern for the individuals involved. What on the surface looked like the conventional comedy of misunderstandings had in fact deeper resonances to it.
There is a marked transition of tone in the scene once Joyless produces his dagger and threatens Barbara. The fact that Robert had already a dagger in his hand, though he was holding it by the blade so that with the hilt uppermost it could pass for a crucifix, gave plausible preparation for his decision to use it on Barbara: it was there already to hand; it was a mere turn of the weapon to make it ready for action. Robert argued persuasively that he saw Joyless deciding to attack (not Barbara) but Letoy with the line, “I did before despair of children, I” (meaning in this reading that Letoy has got the child by Diana that Joyless desperately wished to father); he needs Barbara, however, to guide him to where Letoy is; but disgust at the idea that she has acted as Letoy’s bawd makes him round on her with the dagger, while cunningly getting between her and the exit. The cast’s first attempt at these movements and handling of props is what the previous extract showed. The threat of imminent violence remains up until Barbara’s reference to “a pure maid”. She has all along been talking of Martha and does so still; Joyless has understood her to be talking of Diana, whom he knows cannot be referred to as either “pure” or a “maid”. The moment gives him pause for thought and the conflict might easily have been resolved if Barbara had chosen accurately to answer his question (“Who dost thou speak of?”), but her refusal to do so augments his fury. A shape to the scene had by now emerged, where the blocking related precisely to the tonal and emotional fluctuations between the two characters. Noticeably, the playing was beginning too to provoke laughter from the audience, despite their recognition of the darker intimations of the scene.
There was some discussion next of how the scene might appear, if this were treated as one of the “dark” scenes that Martin White has examined (Renaissance Drama in Action, pp.148-151 and passim). The opening stage direction instructs the actor playing Joyless to enter bearing “a light in his hand” and, while this would aid his searching of the room, it would certainly create problems when the business with the dagger commenced. Robert argued that it would be easy to put the light to the floor when he knelt to remove the dagger to aid his “praying”. (Its removal later in the sequence might easily managed by Byplay, who shortly enters to disarm Joyless and prevent him harming Barbara and to clear up their misunderstanding: as a servant in the household he might be expected to remove the candle as he leads Joyless out.) For their next rendition of the scene, Robert was asked to think his way into the full complexities of the situation. Till now the dramaturgy has set him up as a type of buffoon, which the audience feel they can place; but throughout this sequence he reveals levels of pain that begin to invest him with a measure of humanity; he was therefore asked to play in a manner that calls on the audience’s understanding if not their sympathy. The following version of the scene shows the actors drawing all this information together.
What is noticeable is how the acting style has become larger in the expression of its details within the agreed structure of movements and blocking so that more of the dialogue results in audience laughter, as the extent of the divide between the characters grows apparent and a wealth of mishearings between them develops. It was agreed amongst the actors and their audience that, with Robert’s starting the scene playing for laughs from the moment that his quizzical face appeared in advance of the rest of him and then making a bid for seriousness with his direct address to spectators, it became possible to register the darkness of the ensuing encounter with Barbara with no loss of comic impetus. What helped in this was the subtle accentuating of the potential bawdy in the scene from “nose-witness to its rankness” onwards, which helped to control the tone on the right side of the comic/tragic divide. Having set an audience imagining in response to such an explicit phrase, it becomes possible later in the scene for them to piece out in their imaginations what Barbara continually seems about to utter but repeatedly bites back: all the explicit details of the “child-getting” that she has observed and could impart, if propriety did not urge her to refrain. This is signified within the printed text by the use of dashes, which disrupt many of her later speeches: these hesitations invite not only Joyless but also the audience to imagine what she hints at but cannot bring herself to describe and this teasing with possibilities sustains a level of implied bawdy. The cast were next asked to attend to this element and also to use in terms of pacing a feature of the versification that had not been explored till now: the fact that the more heated their exchange becomes and the more the characters are at variance with each other’s thinking, the more they share and complete each other’s verse lines. Richard Cave and Brian Woolland both discussed how this was perhaps an indication of how the pacing of the dialogue might grow faster at this juncture to contrast with a pace that is slow and wary when Barbara first enters. This final version was the result.
This was the bawdy†gg3047
dirty; vile, monstrous; lewd, unchaste (all senses of the epithet are applicable here in Joyless's usage)
way, by which she ’scaped*n3701
escaped
gg3047
n3701
My narrow†gg3048
rigorous, painstaking
watching†gg3049
wakefulness; vigilance (spying)
. Have you privy posterns
gg3048
gg3049
Behind the hangings in your strangers’ chambers?*n3702
That is: Do you have secret doors ("privy posterns") concealed behind the tapestries ("hangings") in your guest rooms ("strangers' chambers")?
n3702
She’s lost from me for ever. Why then seek I?
Oh, my dull eyes! To let her slip so from ye,
To let her have her lustful will†gg1970
in an early modern context: desire, longing, liking, inclination
upon me!
gg1970
Is this the hospitality of lords?
Why, rather, if he did intend my shame
And her dishonour, did he not betray†gs566
mislead; lead astray (here meant literally "out of the house")
me
gs566
The bare suspicion of their filthiness?
But hold me a nose-witness to its rankness*n3703
"Nose-witness" is a verbal invention of Brome's; it is unrecorded in the OED. The phrasing perhaps owes something to his recall of Hamlet's disgust at his mother's coupling with his uncle: "Nay, but to live /In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, /Stew'd in corruption; honeying and making love /Over the nasty sty"(3.4.81-84). The tone is as obsessive as Hamlet's and the mental imagery that the idea of adultery stirs in him is as sickening. Joyless is experiencing in his imagination the very odour of the corruption of which he supposes Diana guilty.
?
n3703
No! This is sure the lordlier way; and makes
The act more glorious in my sufferings. O――[Kneels]*n3706
A direction has been added in this edition, since Barbara's comment on her entrance where she supposes, ironically, that Joyless is praying, would seem to require some stance or posture on his part to make her misconception plausible. Rather than praying, he is kneeling to curse and invoke damnation on Letoy and Diana whom he believes to be his enemies. The exclamation that Brome inserts here ("O---") would, if vocally extended, give an actor both time and emotional impetus to fall to his knees as a gesture of total despair.
n3706
May my hot curses on their melting†gg2769
dissolving (OED a, 1a); delicate, tender, sweet (OED a, 1b); ‘Yielding to strong or tender emotion; feeling or expressing tenderness, pity’ (OED a, 2); deeply touching or affecting (OED a, 4)
pleasures,
gg2769
Cement†gs567
cohere, stick (the word in context carries an aural echo of "semen")
them so together in their lust
gs567
That they may never part, but grow one monster*n3704
That is: neither male nor female but an unnatural compound of both genders. The idea occurs graphically in Iago's description to Brabantio of how his daughter is coupling with Othello: that they are "making the beast with two backs", which comes as the climax of a series of images of beasts in rut.
.
n3704
Enter BARBARA.*n3705
The period text designates a new scene here ("Act 5. Scene 2") before the stage direction.
n3705
924Barbara [Aside] Good gentleman! He is at his prayers now,
For his mad son’s good night-work with his bride.
Well fare your heart, sir: you have prayed to purpose;
But not all night I hope. Yet sure he has,
He looks so wild†gs396
savage; uncontrolled, unrestrained; reckless; unruly, wayward; wanton, dissolute; savage, violent; passionate; furious; demented
for lack of sleep. [Aloud] You’re happy, sir.
gs396
Your prayers are heard, no doubt, for I’m persuaded
You have a child got you tonight.
925JoylessIs’t gone
So far, do you think?
926BarbaraI cannot say how far.
Not fathom-deep†gg3053
literally a measurement that is the equivalent of the distance between the fingertips of each hand when the arms are outstretched to the full (roughly six-foot); figuratively, especially when as here coupled with the word "deep", a great distance is implied
, I think, but to the scantling†gg3054
the required distance to achieve (something); within one's limits or capacities'; but the usage here may include a punning reference to a term in archery signifying "the distance from the mark [target] within which a shot was not regarded as a miss"
gg3053
gg3054
Of a child-getting, I dare well imagine.
For which, as you have prayed, forget not, sir,
To thank the lord o’th’ house.
927JoylessFor getting me
A child? Why, I am none of his great lordship’s tenants
Nor of his followers, to keep his bastards*n3707
A snide reference to the practice of "droit de seigneur", which dates back to medieval times after the Norman conquest, when the lord of the manor had the right to claim the virginity of his tenants' wives.
.
n3707
Pray stay a little.
928BarbaraI should go tell my lord
The news: he longs to know how things do pass.
929JoylessTell him I take it well, and thank him.
I did before despair of children, I.
But I’ll go wi’ye and thank him.
930Barbara [Aside] Sure his joy
Has madded him. Here’s more work for the doctor.
931Joyless [Withdrawing his dagger]*n3708
Q gives no direction here, but clearly Joyless needs to produce a weapon from about his person, if Barbara's next line is to make sense.
But tell me first: were you their bawd†gg356
procurer, go-between
that speak this?
n3708
gg356
932BarbaraWhat mean you with that dagger?
933JoylessNothing, I
But play with’t. Did you see the passages*n3709
events, incidents (OED passage n, 14); but also a term for an amorous exchange (OED passage n, 16); the phrase also carries a more obscene reference to genital contact
n3709
Of things*n3709
events, incidents (OED passage n, 14); but also a term for an amorous exchange (OED passage n, 16); the phrase also carries a more obscene reference to genital contact
? I ask: were you their bawd?
n3709
934BarbaraTheir bawd?
I trust she is no bawd that sees and helps,
If need require, an ignorant lawful pair
To do their best.
935JoylessLord’s actions all are lawful.
And how? And how?
936Barbara [Aside] These old folks love to hear.
[Aloud] I’ll tell you, sir―and yet I will not neither.
937JoylessNay, pray thee out with’t.
938BarbaraSir, they went to bed.
939JoylessTo bed! Well, on.
940BarbaraOn?*n3710
The puns engage with the various possibilities of the preposition: on as meaning "go on, advance"; on as meaning "on heat", "on target" (picking up the archery reference from a little earlier in the exchange)
They were off, sir, yet;
n3710
And yet a good while after. They were both
So simple, that they knew not what, nor how.
For she’s, sir, a pure maid.
941JoylessWho dost thou speak of?
942BarbaraI’ll speak no more, ’less you can look more tamely.
943JoylessGo bring me to ’em then. Bawd, will you go?
[He threatens her again with his dagger.]*n3711
Q offers no direction here, but Joyless must be threatening violence to make Byplay's rapid intervention necessary.
n3711
944BarbaraAh―――
Enter BYPLAY, [who] holds JOYLESS*n3712
Q marks Byplay's entrance as the start of a new scene ("Act 5. Scene 3.").
.
n3712
946JoylessYour lord’s bawd and my wife’s.
947ByplayYou are jealous mad.
Suppose your wife be missing at your chamber,
And my lord too at his: they may be honest.
If not, what’s that to her, or you, I pray,
Here in my lord’s own house?
948JoylessBrave†gs520
bold! (in the sense of "braving something out") or excellent! (but delivered in an ironic or snide-tone)
, brave, and monstrous!
gs520
949ByplayShe has not seen them. I heard all your talk.
The child she intimated is your grandchild
In posse †gg3055
Latin: literally the meaning is "potentially", but here in context "in the making"
sir, and of your son’s begetting.
gg3055
950BarbaraAy, I’ll be sworn I meant and said so too!
951JoylessWhere is my wife?
952ByplayI can give no account.
If she be with my lord, I dare not trouble ’em.
Byp[lay] takes away his dagger.
But come with me: I’ll counsel, or at least
Govern you better. She may be, perhaps,
For you can make her none, ’las, good old man—
953JoylessI’m most insufferably abused.
954ByplayUnless
The killing of yourself may do’t; and that
955JoylessIf fire or water, poison, cord or steel,
Or any means be found to do it, I’ll do it;
Not to please her, but rid me of my torment.
956ByplayI have more care and charge of you than so.JOY[LESS] and BYP[LAY] ex[it].*n3713
Q situates this stage direction in the right margin, spreading it over two lines: the last of Joyless's speech and Byplay's calming response. In performance the departure from the stage could be timed to coincide with Byplay's line.
n3713
957BarbaraWhat an old desperate man is this, to make
Away yourself for fear of being a cuckold!
If every man that is, or that but knows
Himself to be o’th’ order, should do so,
How many desolate widows would here*n3714
The dynamic of this word changes depending on how the actor chooses to perform the whole speech. It could be delivered as inward musing on Barbara's part, when the implication would be "here in the world generally". But, if the performer takes the audience into "her" confidence here and plays the whole speech as direct address, then "here" would have a more local and topical inference, meaning "within this auditorium", when the wit would become altogether more barbed.
be!
n3714
They are not all of that mind. Here’s my husband.
Enter BLAZE*n3715
Q creates a new scene ("Act 5. Scene 4.") with the arrival of Blaze.
with a habit†gs521
stage costume
in his hand.
n3715
gs521
958BlazeBab! Art thou here?
959BarbaraLook well. How think’st thou, Tony*n4423
Barbara's use of Blaze's first name here indicates that what follows is to be an intimate scene between the married couple. That they each have nick-names for the other, abbreviated from their full Christian names, shows the degree of cheerful equality that exists in their relationship.
?
n4423
Hast not thou neither*n3716
Meaning "as well as me", "also". Modern usage would phrase this as "not...either" to get the sense required here.
slept to-night?
n3716
960BlazeYes, yes.
I lay with the butler.*n3717
Servants frequently slept in the same bed in even large households. Neither the practice nor the use of the word, "lay", would in 1636 have implied sexual relations between the two men.
Who was thy bedfellow?
n3717
962BlazeYes, with the doctor in the bride-chamber.
But had you two no waggery*n3718
Parr reminds readers that earlier in the play's opening scene Doctor Hughball had shown a propensity for "undertaking" women, where through its repetition that word comes to take on increasingly bawdy connotations. Clearly he has a reputation as a ladies' man, which Blaze knows of and teases his wife about what she and the doctor might have got up to while ostensibly watching over the wedding night of Peregrine and Martha.
†gs523
sexual games and fumblings
? Ha!
n3718
gs523
963BarbaraWhy,
How now, Tony?
964BlazeNay, facks†gg3056
A common exclamation that may be derived from "by my faith". Ben Jonson uses the word frequently in his plays to express surprise.
, I am not jealous.
gg3056
Thou know’st I was cured long since, and how.
I jealous! I an ass. A man shan’t ask
Or how such a gentleman did or which did best,
But she must think him jealous.
965BarbaraYou need not: for
If I were now to die on’t, nor the doctor,
Nor I came in a bed tonight. I mean
Within a bed.
966BlazeWithin or without, or over
Or under: I have no time to think o’ such poor things.
967BarbaraWhat’s that thou carriest, Tony?
968BlazeOh ho, Bab!
This is a shape†gg1035
stage costume
.
gg1035
969BarbaraA shape? What shape, I prithee, Tony?
970BlazeThou’lt see me in’t anon; but shalt not know me
From the stark’st fool i’th’ town. And I must dance
Naked*n4311
A range of meanings is possible here. Blaze may be indicating that he is to perform with no clothing under the stage costume (which implies that it is figure-fitting, as many masquing costumes were). This logically leads into the following bawdy exchange about Barbara seeing his "thing". The word can be deployed too to mean that in performing as an amateur Blaze fears that he will be vulnerable and exposed both to view and to possible censure.
in’t, Bab.
n4311
971BarbaraWill here be dancing*n5682
There is something of an issue here surrounding the final letter of the initial word in the period text, where most extant copies of Q appear to read: "WilI here be..." There is too a slightly larger gap between the letter "l" of "WilI" and the final letter than is customary generally in the text within a single word. The "I" may be a somewhat worn piece of font badly set and in fact be a second "l". However, the odd placing of that "I" also suggests that the overall intended reading might be "Will there be...". This edition follows the example of previous editors.
, Tony?
n5682
972BlazeYes, Bab. My lord gave order for’t last night.
It should ha’ been i’th’ play, but because that
Was broke off, he will ha’t today.
973BarbaraOh, Tony,
I did not see thee act i’th’ play.
974BlazeOh, but
I did though, Bab: two mutes*n3720
The following exchange puns with two meanings of the word "mute", one of which is now largely obsolete except amongst ornithologists, so the full force of the joke is lost. Blaze intends by his usage the meaning "mime, or silent performer"; Babs to tease him takes the word as meaning "shit", hence her pretended concern for her husband's breeches. (Mute was a word defining bird dung, especially that of falcons.)
.
n3720
975BarbaraWhat, in those breeches?
976BlazeFie fool, thou understand’st not what a mute is.
A mute is a dumb speaker in the play.
977BarbaraDumb speaker! That’s a bull*n3721
Poor Blaze digs himself yet deeper into Babs's linguistic traps. "Bull" here means a paradox, a manifestly self-contradicting proposition or ludicrous inconsistency (OED n4, 2), as in "dumb speaker". Though the tone of the exchange remains light and affectionate throughout, Babs twits her husband relentlessly. She is not a woman to be modestly subservient, which gives point to the ensuing exchange about bulls, deploying the sense meaning a "point of advantage" in a game or the one who hits the bull's eye (the target), where Blaze noticeably defers to Bab's superior wit (OED n1, III 8b), while pointing out that she too is indulging in absurdity in desiring to see a bull roar.
. Thou wert the bull
n3721
Then in the play. Would I had seen thee roar.
978BlazeThat’s a bull too, as wise as you are, Bab.
And yet says nothing. I did two of them.
The sage man-midwife and the basket-maker*n4424
These refer presumably to appearances in the procession that rapidly traverses the stage to a commentary by Hughball, the doctor, (see [AN 4.1.speeches 816-818]), though only the basket-maker in learned conference with Bellarmine is readily identifiable. Parr suggests in his edition that Blaze's other role as "man-midwife" may refer to the "tradesman" accompanying the traveller in the procession.
.
n4424
979BarbaraWell, Tony, I will see thee in this thing*n3722
This final exchange puns wittily on a variety of meanings of the seemingly innocuous word, "thing", which is taken here variously to refer to Blaze's costume, the entertainment in which he will appear, his penis and (in the plural) to the genitalia of his fellow-actors. The actors playing Blaze and Babs can use the neat banter to establish how well the couple understand each other and accept each other's proclivities, in marked contrast with the dysfunctional pairing of Joyless and Diana.
.
n3722
And ’tis a pretty thing.
980BlazePrithee, good Bab,
Come in and help me on with’t in our tiring-house†gg3059
communal dressing room (though large enough to allow for dance rehearsals)
,
gg3059
And help the gentlemen, my fellow dancers,
And thou shalt then see all our things, and all
Our properties and practice*n3723
Rehearsal (still in use today in relation to band practice or choir practice). What we are left to imagine here as going on in the "tiring-house" is actually staged in 5.2 of Brome's The Court Beggar, where we see the riotous preparations for a masque involving singing, dancing, fiddling and footing, all nakedly exposed to our view and amused censure.
to the music.
n3723
981BarbaraOh, Tony, come. I long to be at that.[BLAZE and BARBARA] ex[i]t.*n3724
The direction in Q is printed in the right margin alongside Barbara's final line, where the actors clearly rush out together to fulfil her "longing".
n3724
5.2*n3725
Q mis-numbers this scene as "Act. 5. Scene 2.", which, to be consistent with the compositor's practice, ought to be designated "Scene 5". In this edition, this is properly the second scene, since it follows after a momentary emptying of the stage with the departure of Blaze and his wife, the first since the Act began. However brief the pause, it should allow spectators to register the distinct change of tone when Diana is pursued onto the playing space by Letoy. On the Caroline stage the action would be near-continuous, since provision for the stage being set with the required props and furniture for this next sequence is prescribed through a direction situated some five lines into the dialogue.
*n6230
This second, longer scene completes both act and play. Letoy enters with Diana: he is attempting to seduce her to his pleasure, but she resists his every move. He tempts her with lavish jewellery, gold and treasure, sensual satiety, aristocratic status through marriage; and, when all these fail, he threatens her with public exposure as a whore if she still refuses to bend to his will. Continually Diana parries each of his moves with remarkable intellectual skill: her strength of mind, her developed sense of selfhood as an ethical yardstick of her own behaviour, her powers of argument, her zealous defence of her status as a married woman, and her refusal to denigrate her husband, all in turn show in her a prodigious control. She may have been playacting her flirtatiousness in earlier scenes, but there is no doubting her sincerity or her clarity of insight into both Letoy and Joyless now. Letoy unexpectedly gives up his pressing suit in the firm belief that she is invincible, and Joyless enters to admit as much too, having watched some of the previous sequence himself with Byplay from a concealed window above. The married couple are reunited, despite a sudden upsurge of Joyless’s suspicions which are quelled by Letoy’s admission it was all playacting on his part and that he would have rejected Diana, had she at any point succumbed to his tempting and for a very good reason. Letoy adopts a new tone with Diana and casually asks her if she knows her father. She and Joyless talk of Truelock as her parent and Letoy asks that he be fetched, since he too is resident in the mansion. On his arrival, Letoy frees him from a vow of secrecy and the two men tell Diana’s past history: how she is in fact Letoy’s daughter; but, being as deeply suspicious of his wife’s fidelity as Joyless has recently been, how he refused to accept Diana as his and with the connivance of a midwife gave her to Truelock and his wife to bring up as their own child. Neither wife knew of this stratagem. Letoy continued in his misprisions of Diana’s mother until in dying she finally convinced him of her honour and rectitude. At a distance he has watched Diana’s upbringing, respected her choice of marriage partner, but feared for her when Joyless too became obsessed with jealousy. The cure for Peregrine was arranged as a cover for this revelation and for the important cure of Joyless’s condition. Reclaiming her as his own, Letoy showers Diana with promises of immediate and future wealth. Diana remains silent in face of her knowledge and new social position. Barbara comes to inform everyone of Peregrine’s revival and of his and Martha’s continuing exuberant exploration of their sexuality. His family leave to welcome Peregrine's return to sanity and marital responsibility, while Letoy gives Quailpipe final instructions for the promised masque. A further procession brings Peregrine to be introduced to Letoy; the group of guests settle again as an audience onstage to watch Letoy’s troupe now embody a range of allegorical figures proper to a masque, which tells of a conflict between Discord and Harmony. Discord brings with her figures embodying madness and anarchy, while Harmony is accompanied by classical deities representative of joy in life. For a while Discord holds the stage but is dispelled with the arrival of her opposite; there is dancing and singing before Harmony and her deities salute the guests and depart, leaving a restored Peregrine and the Doctor jointly to speak the Epilogue.
n3725
n6230
[Enter] LETOY and DIANA.
982DianaMy lord, your strength and violence prevail†gg3060
succeed in persuading, inducing, influencing
not.n9877
The challenge of this scene derives from the fact that Diana does not know that this is a trial of her morals and not the intended seduction which she supposes it to be, though she clearly should believe to the very end that sex is Letoy’s actual objective. The interesting question that derives from this is: Are the audience to be similarly in the dark about what exactly is going on? By now they know that Letoy’s mansion is a house of illusions, and this seems to be confirmed for spectators by the fact that Brome appears at first quite deliberately to be inviting his audience to recall Volpone’s seduction of Celia in Jonson’s comedy (but here there is to be no interruption and the lady has a great deal more to say for herself). So, if spectators pick up the allusions, how much of this is quickly viewed by the audience as playacting (and therefore potentially comic) and how much is taken for real (and therefore deeply serious)? If the former (all a matter of role-play), what do they read as Letoy’s motive? The problems circle around how exactly the actor in the role of Letoy plays the scene, given what is revealed ultimately as his purpose (a testing of Diana’s integrity). Should there be in the playing an element of self-conscious parody or pastiche? To what degree can or should the performing make a modern audience recall Volpone? Diana has throughout gone along with Letoy’s courtship games, involving kissing and fondling and making jokes (often cruel ones) about her husband. Given that knowledge, what should spectators read as motivating her through this scene? Many of the answers to these questions would seem to lie in how the two actors make their entrance, particularly given Diana’s opening line: “My lord, your strength and violence prevail not”. The workshop alternated casting amongst three men and one woman, so that in addition to the enquiry outlined so far, there was also the possibility available to us of examining how the dynamic in the scene changed if Diana were played by a man or by a woman.
The opening attempt deployed conventional modern-day casting: Hannah Watkins and David Broughton-Davies. David sports a genial stage persona and, as this short extract shows, sustained a half-smile through the scene, which was highly enigmatic. That perpetual smile could be read as sinister, a toying (aptly given the man’s name) with his prey: the placing of his arm over her shoulder in this reading was horribly possessive, assuming a familiarity that her prompt removal of his hand showed as utterly tactless and gross. Equally the smile could be read as a studied watchfulness indicative of an inner pleasure that Diana was resisting his every blandishment and threat. He was wholly relaxed and charming; she was earnest, cold and decisive. Arguably the version lacked dramatic tension (it was a first read-through); there seemed no basis for Diana’s show of intellectual strength; she had nothing weighty to act against; and, interestingly, when Letoy later in the scene had the aside, “This is not earnest!”, it provoked a laugh. As yet, there was no sense of the encounter being any kind of test. What Brian Woolland said when the scene ended was that the couple had given a profound sense of game-play, of sparring between equally matched intelligences, in which Diana’s holding her ground defined in her a remarkable power. It was decided that more would be got from this complex sequence if a short passage only was focused on; and future explorations worked between Letoy’s line: “This is not yet the way” [AN 5.2.speech993] and Joyless’s entrance [AN 5.2.speech1001].
The director, noting the impact of that earlier moment when Letoy touched Diana in so unwelcome a fashion, asked David next to get altogether physical whenever the lines seemed to invite such an interpretation. This approach of Letoy’s was repugnant to Diana, but what impressed in Hannah’s playing was her ability (largely by keeping her gestures small) to grow in stature with every repulse. Had the actors been in period dress, such a manner of clearly defined but understated playing would have indicated Diana’s care not openly to offend an aristocrat who has throughout the play made his social power very evident: she needs as far as possible to know her place even while endeavouring to protect her private honour. The consequence was quite spontaneous in the actors: David felt compelled to circle about Hannah getting ever closer to her so that he could whisper his nastier suggestions in her ear from behind (Satan’s traditional placing of himself in relation to his target), while Hannah remained wholly still, refusing to let even David’s closest approach move her to leave her position. Physical movement and posture began to carry moral resonance. In the discussion afterwards, David said that he was listening more and more to Hannah’s replies and had throughout a mental image of a list that he was ticking whenever he thought she gave a good retort, which was a more sophisticated development of his initial reading of the role as shown in the first recorded extract. To develop this approach to the role he asked that he and Hannah take time to explore how they each could use the audience more through asides and direct address.
Robert Lister and Jean-Marc Perret took over the roles of Letoy and Diana while the other pair went to work on their ideas for the scene. Brian asked them to take a totally different perspective: Robert was not to direct any of his lines to the audience, while Jean-Marc was throughout to act as if finding Letoy’s urgent demands and covert threats wholly amusing. This Diana was not to feel under threat but to sense that what was happening was more a game than in earnest. Both were instructed to use the audience but not to address them: they were to communicate a sense of being in a confined space but wholly on their own, so that spectators would almost feel as if they were interlopers or voyeurs. Here is a roughly parallel sequence from this pair’s enactment, which demonstrates the differences that Brian Woolland asked for. Again what this first attempt lacked was a sense of tension: there was no threat underlying what was happening. Jean-Marc’s smiling confidence was perhaps too easy. Could the confidence be played as a cover, as defensive role-play, an assumed mode of protection against a man who was increasingly a menace? The audience and director particularly liked the fact that Jean-Marc actually looked at Robert on Letoy’s line “Look at my face” and that what Diana saw there prompted her laugh. This was not Hannah’s outright derision but was utterly subversive of Letoy’s amour proper. They were invited to play the passage again from “This is not earnest!” to allow Jean-Marc to develop a tone of light-hearted scorn. When played so, the laugh propelled Letoy into an angry outburst of self-justification; and having nettled him to that extent, Diana next risked being openly rude with her curt reflection on Letoy’s age. The stages of the encounter were now being invested with a psychological dynamic in what the actors saw as a sustained battle of wits. This is clear from the way the sequence developed in their hands. Here is how Robert built on what he saw as an unfair comparison between himself and Joyless implicit in Diana’s critique. He carefully enumerates the grounds on which Joyless must consider himself a cuckold only to be confronted by Diana next questioning his actual status as an aristocrat. Jean-Marc felt that it was difficult to sustain the cheerful scorn: it was propelling Letoy into revealing unpleasant aspects of himself, but he considered his Diana wholly static, not responsive to the effects she was noticeably having on her opponent; the argument was not showing her in any appreciably new light. This casting opined that they felt the scene could not be acted as comedy and kept “light” (their chosen word). As the high point of the play, it is arguable whether Brome intended that it partake of such a tone or that it should be played for high seriousness as a profound moral experience for spectators which, through many of Diana’s speeches, took on a decisively subversive social critique.
The director called the first pairing back and, in response to this latest thinking within the group of what would be an appropriate tone for the scene, he asked that they play it as dark as possible, but that David as Letoy should use every opportunity to signal to the audience that it was all a devised game on his part and try to make them complicit in what he was doing. What was increasingly apparent was the shift in power-relations marked by how, while Diana’s speeches are far longer than Letoy’s in the opening extracts that were attempted in the scene, in these later stages it is he who is compelled into more extensive speaking by the brevity of her replies. Richard Cave thought that the scene did not yet have a sufficient sexual charge, that both Robert and David were not pressing the lechery sufficiently for the audience to feel that Diana was in the hands of a dangerous man (that he was dangerous socially had been established but not dangerous physically). This was the next approach. What impressed in this was how despite the grabbing at her person (here were manifestations of the strength and violence referred to in Diana’s opening remarks) Diana’s response was not to cower in fear: she was no victim; she not only stood her ground but advanced after Letoy fearlessly, insisting on her right to speak. The derision and the subversion were now in her refusal of the submissive role and these qualities fuelled in her a force of anger at her treatment that gave yet added weight to her social criticism of Letoy as aristocrat. Equally impressive was Diana’s ability to state her case with intellectual passion in a downright manner that could not leave her open to male chauvinist denigration of her as an immodest shrew.
The director wished to go back and see if this new approach to Diana’s role could be established at the very start of the scene: he asked now Robert and Jean-Marc to enact the opening line in a way that showed Diana breaking Letoy’s hold on her (this was to give point to the words about strength and violence). What was interesting here was the total silence of the audience when they performed in this manner: it was an unexpectedly shocking moment that in a full performance would certainly establish not only momentum but a clear structure to the scene which followed. Brian asked them to attempt it again but this time with Diana maintaining an absolute self-control and without raising her voice. With the force of this contrast in mind, the actors were then asked to go to the sequence that Hannah and David had been performing and to act it with the sexual charge and tension that had been explored in their last effort. Perhaps because in the twenty-first century we have lost the art to read a male performer in a female role as a woman, this did not carry as sexual a charge as when Hannah played Diana. For all the sexual implications in what was going in the scene with Robert and Jean-Marc, it remained very much a contest of wills and intelligences. Robert said he felt that the nearest in this reading he could come to the physical was in the touching of Diana’s chin and the cheek in an effort to get her to smile. Perhaps that violent opening was to be taken as indicating the extent of the violence that Letoy dare attempt. What was notable in this version was how Letoy was almost pleading for acceptance as lover. There was no doubting this Diana’s integrity or strength of character. What has gone now is any sense that this might be a test and consciously acted on Letoy’s part. What the workshop overall revealed was the sheer complexity of the scene in terms of its emotional and intellectual dynamics and the power that Brome invests in Diana. More difficult to determine was how open to make Letoy’s motivation to spectators. Various possibilities were attempted but none proved wholly satisfying, given the larger contextualising of the scene within the final act with the proving that Diana’s chastity is invincible, her reconciliation with her husband and her discovery both that Letoy is her father and that her behaviour has cured him of a life-long jealous mania too. The actor playing Letoy would need a grasp of this larger structure before a full reading of his character in this scene would be possible.
gg3060
n9877
The opening attempt deployed conventional modern-day casting: Hannah Watkins and David Broughton-Davies. David sports a genial stage persona and, as this short extract shows, sustained a half-smile through the scene, which was highly enigmatic.
That perpetual smile could be read as sinister, a toying (aptly given the man’s name) with his prey: the placing of his arm over her shoulder in this reading was horribly possessive, assuming a familiarity that her prompt removal of his hand showed as utterly tactless and gross. Equally the smile could be read as a studied watchfulness indicative of an inner pleasure that Diana was resisting his every blandishment and threat. He was wholly relaxed and charming; she was earnest, cold and decisive. Arguably the version lacked dramatic tension (it was a first read-through); there seemed no basis for Diana’s show of intellectual strength; she had nothing weighty to act against; and, interestingly, when Letoy later in the scene had the aside, “This is not earnest!”, it provoked a laugh. As yet, there was no sense of the encounter being any kind of test. What Brian Woolland said when the scene ended was that the couple had given a profound sense of game-play, of sparring between equally matched intelligences, in which Diana’s holding her ground defined in her a remarkable power. It was decided that more would be got from this complex sequence if a short passage only was focused on; and future explorations worked between Letoy’s line: “This is not yet the way” [AN 5.2.speech993] and Joyless’s entrance [AN 5.2.speech1001].The director, noting the impact of that earlier moment when Letoy touched Diana in so unwelcome a fashion, asked David next to get altogether physical whenever the lines seemed to invite such an interpretation.
This approach of Letoy’s was repugnant to Diana, but what impressed in Hannah’s playing was her ability (largely by keeping her gestures small) to grow in stature with every repulse. Had the actors been in period dress, such a manner of clearly defined but understated playing would have indicated Diana’s care not openly to offend an aristocrat who has throughout the play made his social power very evident: she needs as far as possible to know her place even while endeavouring to protect her private honour. The consequence was quite spontaneous in the actors: David felt compelled to circle about Hannah getting ever closer to her so that he could whisper his nastier suggestions in her ear from behind (Satan’s traditional placing of himself in relation to his target), while Hannah remained wholly still, refusing to let even David’s closest approach move her to leave her position. Physical movement and posture began to carry moral resonance. In the discussion afterwards, David said that he was listening more and more to Hannah’s replies and had throughout a mental image of a list that he was ticking whenever he thought she gave a good retort, which was a more sophisticated development of his initial reading of the role as shown in the first recorded extract. To develop this approach to the role he asked that he and Hannah take time to explore how they each could use the audience more through asides and direct address. Robert Lister and Jean-Marc Perret took over the roles of Letoy and Diana while the other pair went to work on their ideas for the scene. Brian asked them to take a totally different perspective: Robert was not to direct any of his lines to the audience, while Jean-Marc was throughout to act as if finding Letoy’s urgent demands and covert threats wholly amusing. This Diana was not to feel under threat but to sense that what was happening was more a game than in earnest. Both were instructed to use the audience but not to address them: they were to communicate a sense of being in a confined space but wholly on their own, so that spectators would almost feel as if they were interlopers or voyeurs. Here is a roughly parallel sequence from this pair’s enactment, which demonstrates the differences that Brian Woolland asked for.
Again what this first attempt lacked was a sense of tension: there was no threat underlying what was happening. Jean-Marc’s smiling confidence was perhaps too easy. Could the confidence be played as a cover, as defensive role-play, an assumed mode of protection against a man who was increasingly a menace? The audience and director particularly liked the fact that Jean-Marc actually looked at Robert on Letoy’s line “Look at my face” and that what Diana saw there prompted her laugh. This was not Hannah’s outright derision but was utterly subversive of Letoy’s amour proper. They were invited to play the passage again from “This is not earnest!” to allow Jean-Marc to develop a tone of light-hearted scorn. When played so, the laugh propelled Letoy into an angry outburst of self-justification; and having nettled him to that extent, Diana next risked being openly rude with her curt reflection on Letoy’s age. The stages of the encounter were now being invested with a psychological dynamic in what the actors saw as a sustained battle of wits. This is clear from the way the sequence developed in their hands. Here is how Robert built on what he saw as an unfair comparison between himself and Joyless implicit in Diana’s critique. He carefully enumerates the grounds on which Joyless must consider himself a cuckold only to be confronted by Diana next questioning his actual status as an aristocrat. Jean-Marc felt that it was difficult to sustain the cheerful scorn: it was propelling Letoy into revealing unpleasant aspects of himself, but he considered his Diana wholly static, not responsive to the effects she was noticeably having on her opponent; the argument was not showing her in any appreciably new light. This casting opined that they felt the scene could not be acted as comedy and kept “light” (their chosen word). As the high point of the play, it is arguable whether Brome intended that it partake of such a tone or that it should be played for high seriousness as a profound moral experience for spectators which, through many of Diana’s speeches, took on a decisively subversive social critique.The director called the first pairing back and, in response to this latest thinking within the group of what would be an appropriate tone for the scene, he asked that they play it as dark as possible, but that David as Letoy should use every opportunity to signal to the audience that it was all a devised game on his part and try to make them complicit in what he was doing.
What was increasingly apparent was the shift in power-relations marked by how, while Diana’s speeches are far longer than Letoy’s in the opening extracts that were attempted in the scene, in these later stages it is he who is compelled into more extensive speaking by the brevity of her replies. Richard Cave thought that the scene did not yet have a sufficient sexual charge, that both Robert and David were not pressing the lechery sufficiently for the audience to feel that Diana was in the hands of a dangerous man (that he was dangerous socially had been established but not dangerous physically). This was the next approach. What impressed in this was how despite the grabbing at her person (here were manifestations of the strength and violence referred to in Diana’s opening remarks) Diana’s response was not to cower in fear: she was no victim; she not only stood her ground but advanced after Letoy fearlessly, insisting on her right to speak. The derision and the subversion were now in her refusal of the submissive role and these qualities fuelled in her a force of anger at her treatment that gave yet added weight to her social criticism of Letoy as aristocrat. Equally impressive was Diana’s ability to state her case with intellectual passion in a downright manner that could not leave her open to male chauvinist denigration of her as an immodest shrew.
The director wished to go back and see if this new approach to Diana’s role could be established at the very start of the scene: he asked now Robert and Jean-Marc to enact the opening line in a way that showed Diana breaking Letoy’s hold on her (this was to give point to the words about strength and violence).
What was interesting here was the total silence of the audience when they performed in this manner: it was an unexpectedly shocking moment that in a full performance would certainly establish not only momentum but a clear structure to the scene which followed. Brian asked them to attempt it again but this time with Diana maintaining an absolute self-control and without raising her voice. With the force of this contrast in mind, the actors were then asked to go to the sequence that Hannah and David had been performing and to act it with the sexual charge and tension that had been explored in their last effort. Perhaps because in the twenty-first century we have lost the art to read a male performer in a female role as a woman, this did not carry as sexual a charge as when Hannah played Diana. For all the sexual implications in what was going in the scene with Robert and Jean-Marc, it remained very much a contest of wills and intelligences. Robert said he felt that the nearest in this reading he could come to the physical was in the touching of Diana’s chin and the cheek in an effort to get her to smile. Perhaps that violent opening was to be taken as indicating the extent of the violence that Letoy dare attempt. What was notable in this version was how Letoy was almost pleading for acceptance as lover. There was no doubting this Diana’s integrity or strength of character. What has gone now is any sense that this might be a test and consciously acted on Letoy’s part. What the workshop overall revealed was the sheer complexity of the scene in terms of its emotional and intellectual dynamics and the power that Brome invests in Diana. More difficult to determine was how open to make Letoy’s motivation to spectators. Various possibilities were attempted but none proved wholly satisfying, given the larger contextualising of the scene within the final act with the proving that Diana’s chastity is invincible, her reconciliation with her husband and her discovery both that Letoy is her father and that her behaviour has cured him of a life-long jealous mania too. The actor playing Letoy would need a grasp of this larger structure before a full reading of his character in this scene would be possible.
There is a providence†gg2236
God (‘applied to the Deity as exercising prescient and beneficent power and direction’: OED n, 4); divine care or guidance (OED n, 3)
above my virtue
gg2236
That guards me from the fury of your lust.
983LetoyYet, yet, I prithee, yield. Is it my person
That thou despisest? See, here's wealthy treasure:
A table set forth, covered with treasure.*n3726
Parr, Kastan and Proudfoot all move this direction to the start of the scene, but this edition chooses to follow Haaker in situating it where it appears in Q, though there the compositor has set the direction in a block of three lines ("A table set /forth, covered /with treasure") in the right margin alongside the last three lines of Letoy's first speech). To place the direction at the start of the scene is to lose some of the dramatic effect produced by the sudden revelation of the massed treasure. Parr suggests in a footnote that the element of surprise might be retained if the treasure were covered by a cloth, which the actor removes at the appropriate moment. While this is feasible, it would seem to lack the theatrical impact of a table being carried in unexpectedly into such a fierce exchange or being "revealed" or "discovered" by some means. All three of the last suggestions would endorse for the alert spectator the sense that this whole sequence is stage-managed by Letoy for his own particular ends. For him, even as a character, this is a performance (though spectators do not discover that to be the case for some time) even though for Diana the scene has to be supposed as "real". Consequently there are two levels of acting occuring onstage at this moment: one self-consciously theatrical, the other not so. The audience has had ample evidence already of Letoy's interfering with events to shape them to his purposes, even milling among his actors in the previous act to move matters to his wished conclusion; and so the carefully engineered presentation of the table and its treasures might suggest to that theatre audience something of this complexity (the playing with levels of reality), even though confirmation of such an insight is currently withheld from them.
n3726
Jewels, that Cleopatra would have left
Her Marcus for.*n3727
The reference is to Cleopatra and Mark Antony (Marcus Antonius). More importantly the lines echo the manner in which Ben Jonson handles Volpone's attempted seduction and rape of Celia (see Volpone, 3.7.190-191) where, having revealed to her the contents of his cabinet of treasures, Volone begins lovingly to fetishise each item as he proffers it to his intended victim. The first such gift is "a rope of pearl: and each more orient /Than that the brave Egyptian queen carous'd". Gift follows gift but always Volpone's description of each item's worth subverts or parodies classical literary or historical prototype. For all its poetic nuance and seductive tone, the speech is a deeply disturbing image of cultural spoliation. Though after this first instance, Brome deploys different classical references from Jonson, his technique is at first similar in its portrayal of wealth as expressing itself through prodigal waste. There is, however, much more than pastiche of Jonson at work here in Brome's text. With the overt presentation of the table and its treasures and then this brief referencing of Volpone, Brome would appear to be signalling that he is deploying a self-conscious and self-reflexive theatricality within this sequence so that the episode should seem on one level to be obviously staged, even stagey. It is, we later discover, a deliberate testing of Diana, who throughout therefore must play her lines absolutely in earnest. The final revelation of the truth of what is happening to her in this scene carries with it overtones of potential incest. Brome was faced here with the problem of offering what is tonally and morally the darkest episode in his play (veering towards tragedy when one considers its possible outcome in retrospect), while sustaining his action within the bounds of comedy. His meticulous use of theatricality allows him to do this; his control of tone and genre is remarkably precise. This in turn invites a highly sophisticated response from his audiences, who must at once "believe" the seriousness of what they are watching, while simultaneously being aware that, at some level different from the accepted make-believe that is theatre, this is a constructed event with Letoy as its masterly producer.
n3727
984DianaMy lord, ’tis possible
That she who leaves a husband may be bought
Out of a second friendship.
985LetoyHad stout Tarquin*n3728
Tarquin (Sextus Tarquinius, one of the early kings of Rome) lusted after and eventually raped Lucretia; she commited suicide in the presence of her husband and father, who, vowing to avenge her, roused the Roman citizenry to overthrow their leader, which led, despite much bloodshed, to the founding of Rome as a republic. A detailed account of the episode shapes Shakespeare's poem, The Rape of Lucrece.
n3728
Made such an offer, he had done no rape,
For Lucrece*n3729
This is Shakespeare's anglicising of Lucretia's name. Thomas Heywood, Brome's collaborator on The Late Lancashire Witches, dramatised the story in a play (printed 1607) bearing the same title as Shakespeare's poem.
had consented, saved her own,
n3729
And all those lives that followed in her cause.
986DianaYet then she had been a loser.
987LetoyWould’st have gold?
Mammon*n3730
The personification of wealth, often seen as one of Satan's many devils in medieval morality plays (Milton in Paradise Lost (I.678ff) describes him as "the least erected spirit that fell /From Heaven" because he preferred looking down to admire "the riches of Heav'ns pavement" than contemplating "aught divine").
, nor Pluto’s self*n3731
The reference is to Plutus, the Greek god of wealth and treasure.
should overbid me,
n3730
n3731
For I’d give all. First, let me rain a shower
To outvie that which overwhelmed Danaë*n3732
The reference is to a story from Greek mythology. To protect his daughter, Danaë's virginity, her father locked her into a tower of brass, but Zeus contrived to visit her by transforming himself into a shower of gold. The son of their union was the hero and demi-god, Perseus, an idea about the consequences of a god's mating with a mortal which Brome takes up and elaborates in Letoy's next speech.
;
n3732
And after that another, a full river,
Shall from my chests perpetually flow
Into thy store.*n3733
Letoy takes the story of Danaë and elaborates it into a lewd conceit in which he imagines not a shower but a whole river flowing into Diana's "store", which can variously mean "warehouse", "hoard" or, figuratively in the context of this particular classical myth, "vagina". Whichever meaning one chooses to take is insulting to Diana, considering Letoy is attempting to woo her.
n3733
988DianaI have not much loved wealth,
But have not loathed the sight of it, till now
Of being the price of virtue. Though the metal
Be pure and innocent in itself, such use
Of it is odious, indeed damnable,
Both to the seller and the purchaser.
Pity it should be so abused! It bears
A stamp†gg3062
the engraved portrait of a monarch pressed (stamped) into a coin
upon’t, which but to clip†gg3063
"to mutilate (current coin) by fraudulently paring the edges" - a common practice among thieves at this and later periods, which was a treasonable or criminal offence (OED clip v2, 4a)
is treason.*n3734
The literal meaning relates to coins and the offence of trimming away thin strips of the gold or silver so that they were no longer their proper weight and so no longer worth their given value. But, given the context of an attempted adulterous seduction, the line can also be interpreted as referring to a wife as bearing a ring which signifies her status so that to kiss and embrace her (a secondary meaning of the word "clip") would be treasonous to herself and to her husband.
gg3062
gg3063
n3734
’Tis ill used there, where law the life controls*n3735
That is: clipping coin is against the law and like all treasonable offences customarily punishable by death.
;
n3735
Worse, where ’tis made a salary for souls.*n3736
This line takes the second meaning of the word "clip" (seductive embraces): here such clipping (adultery in return for financial gain) would cost a woman her soul. The idea is of paid sex as a form of bribery leading to spiritual corruption.
n3736
989LetoyDeny’st thou wealth? Wilt thou have pleasure then,
Given and ta’en freely without all condition?
I’ll give thee such, as shall (if not exceed)
Which Jupiter got the demigods with*n3737
Roman Jupiter, like his Greek prototype Zeus, was continually seeking sexual involvement with mortal women. The offspring of these unions were demigods in the sense that they inherited half of their mothers' human genes and half of Jupiter's divine essence. Perseus, the son of Danaë, was one such, as was Hercules, the son of Alkmene, and also the twins, Castor and Pollux, who were fathered on Leda.
; and
n3737
Juno was mad she missed.*n3738
Juno, queen of the gods and wife to Jupiter, was the goddess who protected the sanctity of marriage. She was continually angered by Jupiter's philandering and often set out to mar the careers of his demigod offspring. Letoy in a chauvinistic conceit supposes that her anger was the result of continuing sexual frustration.
n3738
990DianaMy lord, you may
Gloze†gg3065
to comment or explain, but usually with the intimation that the talk is specious or dubiously flattering
o’er*n3739
Q reads "glose o'er" (with a long 's'). Recent editors have followed Haaker and silently emended this to read "gloss o'er". "Gloss" carries the two meanings of "give a comment upon" and "put a sheen on". The latter definition is implicit in "gild", the next verb in the sentence and Brome is not prone to duplicating ideas, while the former definition does not carry to the same critical degree the sense of a recognised speciousness in what is being said (which is present in "glose" or "gloze"). In 1636 the word we nowadays spell as "gloze" might be spelt variously as "glose" or "gloze" (the OED offers both spellings but signals the latter as currently preferred ). It would seem unlikely that the compositor would read a final 's' in "gloss" as an 'e' in the manuscript he was following. For these reasons this edition follows the reading in Q, emending the long 's' to 'z' to bring the word into line with current spelling. Interestingly, in Robert Cawdrey's A Table Alphabeticall of 1604 (see The First English Dictionary: 1604. Robert Cawdrey's A Table Alphabeticall [Oxford: The Bodleian Library, 2007], p. 92), both words appear. "Glosse" is there defined as a "tongue or exposition of a darke speech", whereas "gloze" is given the stark meaning , "dissemble". In context again the latter would seem the preferable reading.
and gild the vice which you call pleasure
gg3065
n3739
With god-like attributes, when it is, at best,
A sensuality†gg3066
here used in the sense of a gratification or pleasuring of the senses
, so far below
gg3066
Dishonourable, that it is mere beastly;
Which reason ought to abhor; and I detest it
More than your former hated offers.
991LetoyLastly,
Wilt thou have honour? I’ll come closer†gg3067
both the sense of a nearer proximity and of greater intimacy or privacy are implicit in the situation here; also the sense of arguing more forcefully
to thee:
gg3067
For now the flames of love grow higher in me
And I must perish in them or enjoy thee.
Suppose I find by power, or law, or both,
A means*n3740
This would mean either commiting or arranging a murder (the means by which King David in the Bible could marry Bathsheba whom he coveted) or by divorce (the means by which Henry VIII lost his first queen (Katharine of Aragon) and acquired his second (Anne Boleyn).
to make thee mine, by freeing
n3740
Thee from thy present husband.
992DianaHold, stay there.
Now should you*n3741
Q reads "I" at this point, which makes a nonsense of Diana's passionate argument. She is fiercely denouncing Letoy's ideas and seductive manner. An emendation is clearly necessary and that favoured by Haaker is followed here. Kastan and Proudfoot prefer the alternative emendation, "ye". This is possible, but seems oddly intimate in the context and mars the euphony of the verse line overall.
utter volumes of persuasions,
n3741
Lay the whole world of riches, pleasures, honours
Husband, and from your own mouth spoke, confutes
Of husband, rightly weighed and well remembered,
Without more law or discipline, is enough
To govern womankind in due obedience,
Those idols*n3743
This is a complex usage, meaning at once the objects of a person's idolatry but also, in the biblical sense of idols as false gods, that which is against Christian and moral precept. There is an edge to this second level of meaning, since Letoy has throughout his attempted seduction deployed reference to classical (pagan) deities to justify his behaviour.
, which too much, too many love,
n3743
Me of the faith I owe him. But remember
I seek his love. ’Tis fit he loves no whore.
993LetoyThis is not yet the way. You have seen, lady,
My ardent love, which you do seem to slight,
Though to my death, pretending zeal to your husband.
My person nor my proffers are so despicable
But that they might (had I not vowed affection
Entirely to yourself) have met with th’ embraces
Of greater persons, no less fair, that can
Too, if they please, put on formality*n3744
That is: assume, pretend to a conformity to established proprieties, do something just for the form's sake. More crudely, given Letoy's threatening attitude, this might be interpreted in context as "play the part of a righteous Christian" (see OED formality n, 6 and 9).
,
n3744
And talk in as divine a strain as you.
This is not earnest.*n3746
You cannot be serious! You do not mean what you are saying.
Make my word but good
n3746
Now with a smile, I’ll give thee a thousand pound.
Look o’ my face―Come!―prithee look and laugh not―
Yes, laugh, an dar’st―*n3745
Q reads "and dar'st" here, where the intended meaning is clearly "if you dare". "An" was in the period more conventionally used in place of "if" than "and" (though they were to some degree interchangeable). This usage survives in the folk rhyme: "If ifs and ans were pots and pans...."
Dimple this cheek a little;
n3745
I’ll nip it else.
I’m past a child, and will be made no wanton.
995LetoyHow can this be? So young, so vigorous,
And so devoted to an old man’s bed!
996DianaThat is already answered. He’s my husband.
You are old too, my lord.
997LetoyYes, but of better mettle†gs568
strength of character, vigour, feistiness (there are implications of sexual prowess in the context too)
.
gs568
A jealous old man too, whose disposition
Of injury to beauty and young blood
Cannot but kindle fire of just revenge
With your own pleasure his unnatural spite.
You cannot be worse to him than he thinks you,
Considering all the open scorns and jeers
You cast upon him, to a flat defiance;
Then the affronts†gg825
insult, indignity
I gave, to choke his anger*n3747
That is: to make him choke on his anger.
;
gg825
n3747
And lastly your stol’n absence from his chamber,
All which confirms (we have as good as told him)
As ’twere not worth the doing.
998DianaAre you a lord?
Dare you boast honour and be so ignoble?
That you would cure his jealousy, which affects him
Like a sharp sore, if I to ripen it
Would set that counterfeit face of scorn upon him,
Only in show of disobedience, which
To render†gg2111
give back, return
me unstained†gg3075
pure, not morally sullied, harmed or compromised
to his opinion
gg2111
gg3075
999LetoyNo: not unstained, by your leave, if you call
Unchastity*n3748
There are two possible interpretations of Letoy's remark. Either he is being dismissive of the whole idea that a woman who loses her virginity also loses her honour (in which case he is pressing his seduction even harder), or he is reminding Diana that she has been guilty of loose behaviour and an even looser tongue while watching the play-within-the-play and making suggestive asides about a number of the young men who appeared in the action and especially about the actor Byplay, whom she called Extempore.
a stain. But for his yellows†gg3076
a figurative meaning for jealousy, derived from "yellow", the colour traditionally emblematic of jealousy (The OED cites Every Man In His Humour, where Ben Jonson makes aural (and in terms of the printed text, a visual) pun which explains wittily the connection between the psychological state and the colour: "You have a spice of the jealous yet both of you, (in your hose I mean)". The quotation is to be found only in the Quarto text of 1601 (5.3.389-390), see Herford and the Simpsons, vol.III.)
,
n3748
gg3076
Let me but lie with you and let him know it,
His jealousy is gone, all doubts are cleared*n5683
In Q this appears as "clear d" with the apostrophe missing that should denote the omitted "e": "clear'd". This type of lacuna, which may have been occasioned by the type failing to catch the ink, occurs several times in the setting of the final act.
,
n5683
And for his love and good opinion,
He shall not dare deny’t. Come, be wise,
And this is all: all is as good as done
To him already: let’t be so with us;
And trust to me, my power and your own,
To make all good with him. If*n5734
This edition. Q reads: "him--If", where the dash helps to point the balanced equation that underlies Letoy's rhetoric: "either you let me do this, or else I'll do that..." But a modern actor with a developed sense of structuring speech and pauses will point the speech appropriately.
not: now mark†gg2220
(v) pay attention to, observe
—
n5734
gg2220
To be revenged*n5684
This is a second example where in Q an apostrophe is omitted that would denote a missing "e": the text reads "reveng d" rather than the expected "reveng'd".
for my lost hopes (which yet
n5684
I pray thee save) I’ll put thee in his hands,
To boast thou art my prostitute; and thrust ye
Out of my gates, to try’t out†gg3078
determine, thrash out, decide, argue out, resolve (OED try v, 5a and 5c)
by yourselves.
gg3078
1000DianaThis you may do, and yet be still a lord;
This can I bear, and still be the same woman!
I am not troubled now: your wooing oratory*n3749
Diana means Letoy's specious rhetoric, but the word also carries resonances of a prepared speech, as if at a subtle level Brome is preparing his audience for the revelation that the whole seduction is a constructed event in being a test of Diana's moral standing.
,
n3749
Your violent hands (made stronger by your lust),
Your tempting gifts, and larger promises
Of honour and advancements†gs527
raising to a higher rank (that is, in making her his wife, Letoy would elevate Diana to the aristocracy and a title as Lady)
were all frivolous;
gs527
But this last way of threats, ridiculous
My peace dwells here, while yonder sits my judge*n3750
The remark, accompanied no doubt by a gesture towards the heavens, refers to God, as all-seeing judge. But the audience know that somewhere above the action onstage Joyless along with Byplay is watching Diana's behaviour in the role of her mortal judge. Maybe the actress's gesture, while seeming spontaneous, could be directed to the very spot where Joyless is any moment to appear.
,
n3750
And in that faith I’ll die.
1001LetoyShe is invincible!
Ent[er] JOYLESS and BYPLAY.*n3756
Q starts a new scene with the phrase, "Act. 5. Sce", placing the direction in the right hand margin alongside Diana's line "And in that faith I'll die." The direction for Joyless and Byplay's entrance is then situated in the right margin alongside Letoy's "She is invincible!" Previous editors since Haaker have tended to place this entrance where the scene break occurs, that is immediately after Diana's speech and before Letoy's. This edition places the direction exactly where it occurs in Q to give point to Letoy's intention: "Come I'll relate you to your husband", which is here voiced immediately he sees Joyless appear so that Joyless replies even while still entering. Given the force of his jealousy previously in the play, his new-found relief in his wife's innocence should propel him onto the stage intent on embracing her. Having misnumbered as "Act 5. Scene 2." the start of the previous scene for Letoy and Diana (when it should have been "Scene 5") the compositor was clearly foxed about what to do here so leaves the number blank. He will get back to the correct numbering with the entrance of Truelock anon. From this point on in Q, all but the last two scene divisions will be placed in the right hand margin and not as previously in the act given a central placement within the column of text.
n3756
Come I’ll relate†gg3079
restore (but also with intimation of bringing a person into relation to another, and with the further intimation of giving an account, good or bad, of one person to another)
you to your husband.
gg3079
1002JoylessNo,
I’ll meet her with more joy than I received
Upon our marriage day. My better soul,
Let me again embrace thee.
1003ByplayTake your dudgeon†gg3080
dagger (the term actually refers to the wood from which the hilt or handle of a knife or dagger was fashioned but came to stand for the entire weapon)
, sir,
gg3080
I ha’ done you simple service.
1004JoylessOh, my lord,
My lord, you have cured my jealousy. I thank you;
And more, your man, for the discovery;
But most the constant means, my virtuous wife,
Your medicine, my sweet lord.
1005LetoyShe has ta’en all
I mean to give her, sir. Now sirrah, speak.
1006ByplayI brought you to the stand†gg3081
observation post, vantage point, viewing place (a term derived from hunting or warfare where the meaning is "a place of ambush", "cover")
from whence you saw
gg3081
How the game*n3751
Various meanings are relevant, all being contracted into the neat image which draws on hunting metaphors, developing from "stand" in the previous line. "Game" then can mean the prey, the object of the hunt. But what is being watched by Joyless is a "game" in the sense of a seduction in which, if she succumbs, Diana will prove herself a daughter of the "game" (a whore). Yet all the scene that we have just watched is a "game" in the sense of an enacted play, devised and performed by Letoy.
went.*n3752
Brome is meticulous about his stage directions for entrances and exits in this play, especially in Act 4 regarding the appearance of actors "above" watching the play-within-the-play being performed in the main playing space below. We have been told at the end of the opening sequence of this act that Byplay will lead Joyless to where he may see Diana and Letoy and his reappearance onstage is marked distinctly to coincide with his claim that his wife "is invincible". Parr speculates whether the audience see (or originally saw) Joyless eavesdropping on the attempted seduction and, if so, at which point they should become conscious of the spying husband. Given the sexual tenor of the scene between Letoy and Diana, this would be tantamount to marking the audience as voyeurs along with Joyless and Byplay. Neither Jonson nor Brome is afraid of casting their audiences in this disturbing role on occasion. Whether the strategy should operate here is a matter for experiment in the rehearsal room. Brome does not give any direction that indicates that the audience should see the seduction being watched by Joyless, which rather suggests that he did not intend such a situation to occur. However, to give Letoy and Diana an onstage audience (and one that Letoy has given instructions to Byplay to set up) would further endorse the sense for the attentive spectator that this whole episode of Diana's trial is a deliberately constructed event and not a casual occurence, though why this is so is not made clear till Joyless joins Diana and Letoy, and all begins to be explained.
n3751
n3752
1007JoylessOh my dear, dear Diana.
1008ByplayI seemed to do it against my will, by which I gained
Your bribe of twenty pieces.
1009JoylessMuch good do thee.
1010ByplayBut I assure you, my lord give me order
To place you there, after it seems he had
Well put her to’t within.
1011JoylessStay, stay, stay, stay.
Why may not this be then a counterfeit†gg3082
pretended, spurious, feigned, acted (OED a, 2)
action,
gg3082
Or a false mist to blind me with more error?
The ill I feared may have been done before,
And all this but deceit to daub†gs529
to plaster over, whitewash; put on a false show, dissemble
it o’er.
gs529
1012DianaDo you fall back†gg3083
(in military terms) to retreat; that is, fall back to one's previous position
again?
gg3083
1013JoylessShugh†gg3086
"An expression of impatience". OED cites this as the only known example of its usage.
, give me leave.
gg3086
1014Byplay [Seizing the weapon out of JOYLESS'S hand]*n3754
That Byplay takes hold of the dagger is clear from his later line when he again returns it to Joyless; hence the inclusion of this stage direction. Parr also adds a stage direction to coincide with Joyless's previous speech, indicating that he (Joyless) begins to fumble in his pockets as if to retrieve the weapon. It would not appear necessary for Joyless to pocket up the dagger to allow for this extended piece of stage business. Given the fact that within a few lines of handing over the dagger ("dudgeon"), Byplay is to seize it back again when Joyless appears to grow frantic once more and maybe threatens Diana, it would seem sensible for the actor playing Joyless simply to continue holding the weapon in his hand.
I must take charge, I see, o’th’ dagger again.
n3754
1015LetoyCome, Joyless, I have pity on thee. Hear me.
I swear upon mine honour she is chaste.
1016JoylessHonour! An oath of glass!*n3757
An oath so fragile that it is easily shattered. That is, your words are meaningless.
n3757
1017LetoyI prithee, hear me.
I tried and tempted her for mine own ends,
More than for thine.
1018JoylessThat’s easily believed.
1019LetoyAnd had she yielded, I not only had
Rejected her (for it was ne’er my purpose—
Heaven, I call thee to witness— to commit
A sin with her) but laid a punishment
Upon her, greater than thou could’st inflict.
1020JoylessBut how can this appear†gg3087
be; be made clear or evident to understanding; be manifest
?
gg3087
1021LetoyDo you know your father, lady?n9878
What follows from this line is a remarkable scene, yet one that is comparable with the resolution of many a renaissance comedy: Diana is the focus of the action, and yet she hardly utters a word. What is the impact of that silent character on the dynamic of the scene in performance? And what impact does her prevailing silence have on such brief phrases as she does speak and actions she performs? Is this all to be viewed in the tradition of comic resolutions involving the discovery or recovery of long-lost parents? Or is there something altogether more complex going on than such a potential excuse for sentimentality? The problem is one of tone again and the variety of possible ways of receiving the scene when enacted. The workshop was designed to experiment with pacing too to see how that relates to the particular tone the scene generates. In terms of verse, this is one of the tightest-written sequences in the play, though it deploys a remarkable number of shared lines. What dramaturgically might be the dynamic this creates in the playing, if a pace is maintained that allows one to hear the verse lines that are divided between speakers? All leads to Letoy’s grand revelation and explanation of his conduct. How are we to view his control in the scene and that reiterated phrase about being “still Letoy”?
Brian Woolland asked the actors from the start to observe the versification and stay alert to completing lines for another speaker. A run-through of the scene that observed the shared lines did build up an onrush towards the final revelation in the long narrative speeches from Truelock and Letoy. There was a sense of mounting confusion in Joyless and Diana, which required explanation. Brian next chose to place Hannah Watkins as Diana absolutely dead centre in the most commanding position onstage where she has full view of the audience and they of her; and asked her to do nothing and to register nothing precisely on her face, so that spectators must read there whatever they choose to see there as determined by how they themselves respond to the actual revelations. He wished her to take everything in but to show no emotion whatever. David Broughton-Davies as Letoy he placed close and somewhat to Diana’s rear, arguing that this would allow the character to seem in control of the situation; and he instructed Robert Lister as Joyless and Jean-Marc Perret as Truelock to use the two downstage entrances so that a wide expanse of stage lay between them and Diana. Brian further asked the actors to play very formally and then requested the audience to note who they were actually watching as the scene evolved.
What surprised everyone in this staging was the emphasis that was suddenly placed on money (that given for Truelock’s secrecy; that given to Joyless as the heiress’s husband), as if money could heal over the conflicts that Letoy had fostered and the injuries that he had perpetrated over many years. The scene met with a prolonged silence from the audience: even though they knew the content from the editor’s discussion with the director and cast and had witnessed a read-through, they still found the situation depicted here profoundly shocking. All admitted to focusing entirely on Diana, empathizing with her predicament. Brian asked David and Robert to introduce some small movements into the blocking, as first Letoy comes to claim Diana as his daughter and then Joyless approaches to claim her as his wife. Richard Cave said there was perhaps another movement sequence that needed to be attended to, when Diana spontaneously kneels to greet Truelock as her father only to be told her action is so much “knee-labour lost”. How does she get up? Does anyone help her? How and where does she next move? The cast decided to explore Brian’s set of movements first and then turn to the kneeling episode with the knowledge that Diana would by then have a position to move into once she stood up.
The instruction to the actors had been that first Letoy and next Joyless, in coming to Diana to claim her affection, should be arrested in their approach by her cold stare. This emphasized the extent to which, after the various revelations, Joyless resorts to the formal extended syntax and verse style adopted by Truelock and Letoy at the end of the scene: three older men are choosing to determine the life of a much younger woman who has shown herself their equal in intellect, passion of argument and wit. Yet all they seem to value in her earlier testing has been proof of her bodily virtue. The cast took time to explore the seeming motivation that lies behind this climactic moment: the setting up of the whole edifice of “play” that involves Peregrine and Martha but which is to lead ultimately to Letoy’s decision to reveal his true relation to Diana; Letoy’s role as playwright and stage manager throughout the entire action (we learn in this very sequence that Blaze was deliberately sent into the country to entice Joyless’s family to London in hope of finding a cure through the ministrations of Hughball, so even from the very first scene of exposition Letoy was the brains behind everything that happened); Letoy’s aristocratic assumption (“For I am still Letoy”) that he can predict the reactions and behaviour of others as if they were his puppets (even though he relishes actors who have the confidence and nerve to improvise). David and Hannah felt that he had, however, met his match here in Diana, who did not respond with the joy he had expected. All felt that the scene was becoming dark, highly negative, and overly influenced by modern ideological standpoints. Might a more positive and comic reading be possible, where perhaps an element of farce could convey a moral critique of what was happening? Might it be played as a send-up of the long tradition of reconciliation scenes, where satire would function as the moral critical charge? This was the thinking that propelled the next rendering.
What surprised about this version was the audience’s delight and willing suspension of disbelief: it was as if they suddenly recognised they were on familiar territory with farfetched revelations and yet, even in recognising the hackneyed quality of the situation, there was an element of laughing superiority to its absurdity. This ending was accepted as a typical fanciful dramatic fabrication, as so much theatrical make-believe, but admitted by spectators to be just that and no more: a convenient ending. The rendering was not without its darker element: Diana’s mouth-agape, mystified confusion at the sheer rapidity of the revelations was disturbing until the moment when she rushed into Joyless’s arms (at least he seemed the man she had always known and not some trickster). But many in the audience felt this was at the sacrifice of the integrity which they had come to prize so highly (as had Letoy and Joyless) in the seduction scene which immediately precedes this sequence. For a final attempt Jean-Marc replaced Hannah as Diana and it was agreed to play the full scene as in the previous version, but to hold back a little on the farce and try and play for “real” so that there is a felt (credible) sense of reconciliation and redemption. The workshop had achieved three quite contrasting tonal performances of the scene: dark, farcical, lightly humorous but emotionally secure. In a full-scale production any of those choices would have to be prepared for, though it was agreed that, whatever the tone pursued, the dilemma confronting Diana ought not to be underplayed or underestimated: her capitulation as wife is not without its losses, given what the play has revealed of the complexities of her true nature. A production of this sequence should not undermine Brome’s establishment of her in the drama as a woman of decided power.
n9878
Brian Woolland asked the actors from the start to observe the versification and stay alert to completing lines for another speaker. A run-through of the scene that observed the shared lines did build up an onrush towards the final revelation in the long narrative speeches from Truelock and Letoy. There was a sense of mounting confusion in Joyless and Diana, which required explanation. Brian next chose to place Hannah Watkins as Diana absolutely dead centre in the most commanding position onstage where she has full view of the audience and they of her; and asked her to do nothing and to register nothing precisely on her face, so that spectators must read there whatever they choose to see there as determined by how they themselves respond to the actual revelations. He wished her to take everything in but to show no emotion whatever. David Broughton-Davies as Letoy he placed close and somewhat to Diana’s rear, arguing that this would allow the character to seem in control of the situation; and he instructed Robert Lister as Joyless and Jean-Marc Perret as Truelock to use the two downstage entrances so that a wide expanse of stage lay between them and Diana. Brian further asked the actors to play very formally and then requested the audience to note who they were actually watching as the scene evolved.
What surprised everyone in this staging was the emphasis that was suddenly placed on money (that given for Truelock’s secrecy; that given to Joyless as the heiress’s husband), as if money could heal over the conflicts that Letoy had fostered and the injuries that he had perpetrated over many years. The scene met with a prolonged silence from the audience: even though they knew the content from the editor’s discussion with the director and cast and had witnessed a read-through, they still found the situation depicted here profoundly shocking. All admitted to focusing entirely on Diana, empathizing with her predicament. Brian asked David and Robert to introduce some small movements into the blocking, as first Letoy comes to claim Diana as his daughter and then Joyless approaches to claim her as his wife. Richard Cave said there was perhaps another movement sequence that needed to be attended to, when Diana spontaneously kneels to greet Truelock as her father only to be told her action is so much “knee-labour lost”. How does she get up? Does anyone help her? How and where does she next move? The cast decided to explore Brian’s set of movements first and then turn to the kneeling episode with the knowledge that Diana would by then have a position to move into once she stood up.
The instruction to the actors had been that first Letoy and next Joyless, in coming to Diana to claim her affection, should be arrested in their approach by her cold stare. This emphasized the extent to which, after the various revelations, Joyless resorts to the formal extended syntax and verse style adopted by Truelock and Letoy at the end of the scene: three older men are choosing to determine the life of a much younger woman who has shown herself their equal in intellect, passion of argument and wit. Yet all they seem to value in her earlier testing has been proof of her bodily virtue. The cast took time to explore the seeming motivation that lies behind this climactic moment: the setting up of the whole edifice of “play” that involves Peregrine and Martha but which is to lead ultimately to Letoy’s decision to reveal his true relation to Diana; Letoy’s role as playwright and stage manager throughout the entire action (we learn in this very sequence that Blaze was deliberately sent into the country to entice Joyless’s family to London in hope of finding a cure through the ministrations of Hughball, so even from the very first scene of exposition Letoy was the brains behind everything that happened); Letoy’s aristocratic assumption (“For I am still Letoy”) that he can predict the reactions and behaviour of others as if they were his puppets (even though he relishes actors who have the confidence and nerve to improvise). David and Hannah felt that he had, however, met his match here in Diana, who did not respond with the joy he had expected. All felt that the scene was becoming dark, highly negative, and overly influenced by modern ideological standpoints. Might a more positive and comic reading be possible, where perhaps an element of farce could convey a moral critique of what was happening? Might it be played as a send-up of the long tradition of reconciliation scenes, where satire would function as the moral critical charge? This was the thinking that propelled the next rendering.
What surprised about this version was the audience’s delight and willing suspension of disbelief: it was as if they suddenly recognised they were on familiar territory with farfetched revelations and yet, even in recognising the hackneyed quality of the situation, there was an element of laughing superiority to its absurdity. This ending was accepted as a typical fanciful dramatic fabrication, as so much theatrical make-believe, but admitted by spectators to be just that and no more: a convenient ending. The rendering was not without its darker element: Diana’s mouth-agape, mystified confusion at the sheer rapidity of the revelations was disturbing until the moment when she rushed into Joyless’s arms (at least he seemed the man she had always known and not some trickster). But many in the audience felt this was at the sacrifice of the integrity which they had come to prize so highly (as had Letoy and Joyless) in the seduction scene which immediately precedes this sequence. For a final attempt Jean-Marc replaced Hannah as Diana and it was agreed to play the full scene as in the previous version, but to hold back a little on the farce and try and play for “real” so that there is a felt (credible) sense of reconciliation and redemption.
The workshop had achieved three quite contrasting tonal performances of the scene: dark, farcical, lightly humorous but emotionally secure. In a full-scale production any of those choices would have to be prepared for, though it was agreed that, whatever the tone pursued, the dilemma confronting Diana ought not to be underplayed or underestimated: her capitulation as wife is not without its losses, given what the play has revealed of the complexities of her true nature. A production of this sequence should not undermine Brome’s establishment of her in the drama as a woman of decided power.
1022DianaI hope I am so wise a child*n3755
Proverbial: "it's a wise child that knows its own father".
.
n3755
1023LetoyGo call
In my friend Truelock.
1024ByplayTake your dagger, sir,
Now I dare trust you.
1025LetoySirrah, dare you fool
When I am serious? Send in Master Truelock.BYP[LAY] exit[s].
1026DianaThat is my father’s name.
1027JoylessCan he be here?
1028LetoySir, I am neither conjurer nor witch,
You are happy in a wife, sir, happier――yes
Happier by a hundred thousand pound
Than you were yesterday――
1029JoylessSo, so. Now he’s mad.
1030LetoyI mean in possibilities: provided that
1031JoylessMust it come that way?
1032LetoyLook you this way, sir,
As I am true Letoy.
1033JoylessMad, mad, he’s mad.
Would we were quickly out on’s fingers yet.
1034LetoyWhen saw you your wife’s father? Answer me?
1035JoylessHe came for London four days before us.
1036Letoy’Tis possible he’s here then, do you know him?
Enter TRUELOCK.*n3758
Q places this direction in the right margin alongside Diana's recognition and greeting: "Oh, I am happy in his sight! Dear sir." Considering that a new entrance here requires the insertion of a new scene, the compositor adds this required scene division but situates it in the right margin two lines up in the text from the direction for Truelock's actual arrival and alongside Joyless's remark, "He came for London four days before us". The scene numbering which was causing the compositor problems with the previous two scenes is still an issue: he numbers this "Act. 5. Sc. 6", though to be accurate by the format he established at the start of the act, this is in fact the seventh scene.
n3758
1037DianaOh, I am happy in his sight. She kneels.*n3759
Q places this direction as part of a block of directions in the right margin directly under the instruction for Truelock's entrance. In consequence this situates the prescription that Diana kneel beside the line in which Letoy, telling her such an action is "knee-labour lost", bids her "Stand up", which makes her kneeling redundant. This edition moves the placing of the direction to where it logically should occur in relation to the dialogue.
Dear sir.
n3759
1038Letoy’Tis but so much knee-labour lost. Stand up,
Stand up and mind†gg1460
(v) pay attention to
me.
gg1460
1039TruelockYou are well met, son Joyless*n3760
Truelock, Letoy and Joyless have by now been established as roughly of an age; but Truelock is addressing Joyless here as his son-in-law by marriage.
.
n3760
1040JoylessHow have you been concealed, and in*n3761
The word is omitted in Q, but is clearly necessary to both the sense of the line and its metrics. Baker was the first to make the emendation.
this house?
n3761
Here’s mystery in this.
1041TruelockMy good lord’s pleasure.
1042LetoyKnow, sir, that I sent for him and for you,
Instructing your friend, Blaze, my instrument†gg3084
"a person made use of by another [...] for the accomplishment of a purpose" (OED n, 1b); an agent, tool
gg3084
Your wife, I knew, must follow. What my end
Was in’t shall quickly be discovered to you
In a few words of your supposèd father.
1043DianaSupposèd father!
1044LetoyYes. Come, Master Truelock,
My constant friend of thirty years’ acquaintance,
Freely declare with your best knowledge now
Whose child this is.
1045TruelockYour honour does as freely
Release me of my vow, then, in the secret
I locked up in this breast these seventeen*n5686
This edition. "ſeaventeene" Q.
years*n3762
This indicates in terms of casting for a modern production that there should be an age-difference of as many years, if not more, between Diana and her husband. It was customary in the seventeenth century and earlier for adolescent girls of the middle and upper classes to marry as soon as they were pubescent (it was more common for women of the lower classes not to wed before their mid-twenties). Romeo's Juliet according to Shakespeare's text is but fourteen. Again in terms of casting, this means that Diana, Peregrine and Martha should be roughly of an age (with the latter pair perhaps slightly older).
,
n5686
n3762
Since she was three days old?
1046LetoyTrue, Master Truelock,
I do release you of your vow: now speak.
1047TruelockNow she is yours, my lord, your only daughter.
And know you, Master Joyless, for some reason
Known to my lord, and large reward to me,
She has been from the third day of her life
That not her lady mother nor my wife
Knew to their deaths the change of my dead infant
For*n9880
] Nor (All previous editions have reproduced this reading from Q: "That not her lady mother nor my wife /Knew to their deaths the change of my dead infant /Nor this sweet lady." And yet a moment's pause for thought shows that this is nonsense. Of course Diana ("the sweet lady") does not know of the exchange, else why has this elaborate scenario been set up to inform her who her real father is? The grammar of the clause about the substitution remains unfinished in Q's reading: we learn that Truelock's "dead infant" was exchanged but Q does not establish precisely with whom. Moreover the picking up and continuation of a syntactical formation from early in the sentence in the way of Q's reading ("not [...]nor [...] Nor")when another complex clause has intervened is not typical of Brome. It requires highly sensitive attention to his vocal phrasing on the part of the actor playing Truelock to make the continuation of a previous clause in this manner clear to a listener. The substitution of "For" for "Nor" makes sense of the final clause by completing the information about the exchange and removing an uncharacteristic use of convoluted syntax. I tested my suggested emendation with actors during the workshop on this scene, giving them initially the reading from Q. Almost immediately one of the players picked on "Nor" as illogical and confusing and asked if it were an accurate transcription. No press variant occurs in any of the copies consulted by Haaker, Parr or me to show that a change was made during the course of printing.)
this sweet lady. ’Tis most true we had
n9880
A trusty nurse’s help*n3763
Births were in the period one place where men were excluded (except on occasion a doctor). Midwives, therefore, were figures of some power and authority, especially in a time when primogeniture was legally and politically sacrosanct. Jonson saw the potential subversion to the patriarchy that a midwife might exact, if she were so disposed, as he explores in his late play, The Magnetic Lady (acted 1632), where the plot turns on an exchange of babies and the substituting of one of lower class in place of an heiress.
and secrecy,
n3763
1048LetoyNow shall you know what moved me, sir. I was
Jealous; and had that strong distrust, and fancied
Such proofs unto myself against my wife,
That I conceived†gs531
considered, believed (in context, there is also the potential for a pun on the meaning "got with child")
the child was not mine own,
gs531
And marry her as the daughter of this gentleman
(Two thousand pound, I guess, you had with her).
But since your match*n3765
That is, the wedding between Diana and Joyless.
, my wife upon her death-bed
n3765
So cleared herself of all my foul suspicions
(Blest be her memory) that I then resolved
To make her mine, as I should find her worthy.
And now thou art my daughter, and mine heir.
Provided still (for I am still Letoy)
You honourably love her, and defy
The cuckold-making fiend, foul jealousy.
1049JoylessMy lord, ’tis not her birth and fortune, which
Do jointly claim a privilege to live
Above my reach of jealousy, shall restrain
That passion in me, but her well-tried virtue,
In the true faith of which I am confirmed,
And throughly†gs532
completely, absolutely
cured.
gs532
1050LetoyAs I am true Letoy,
Well said. I hope thy son is cured by this too.
Enter BARBARA.*n3766
In Q this stage direction is inserted into the right margin alongside the line in which Letoy addresses Barbara directly: "Now, Mistress Blaze!" This edition places the direction immediately before this line so that Letoy speaks to her as she is entering the playing space. The compositor of Q takes the entrance as the cue for a new scene break ("Act 5. Sce. 7"), which he sites directly above the stage direction for Barbara to create a two-line block of italicised text, all cramped into the right margin. Again the scene-numbering is inaccurate, as this should be Scene 8.
n3766
Now, Mistress Blaze! Here is a woman now!
I cured her husband’s jealousy and twenty more
I’th’ town, by means I and my doctor wrought.
1051BarbaraTruly, my lord, my husband has ta’en bread
And drunk upon’t*n3768
That is: while dining he has proposed a toast to (Letoy) or taken an oath that....
that, under heaven, he thinks,
n3768
You were the means to make me an honest woman,
Or (at the least) him a contented man.
1052LetoyHa’ done, ha’ done.
1053BarbaraYes, I believe you have done!*n3770
Brome puns here to offset the different characters of Letoy and Barbara. Letoy deploys the word to mean "stop, cease" since he is embarrassed by Barbara's praise. She bawdily transforms the term into a sexual innuendo referring to the copulating that she supposes he has indulged in but recently with Diana.
n3770
And if your husband, lady, be cured, as he should be,
And as all foolish jealous husbands ought to be,
I know what was done first, if my lord took
That course with you as me―――*n3771
It seems that the mode of Blaze and Barbara's cure was decidedly different from Joyless and Diana's and did perhaps involve Letoy sexually playing with Barbara. This implication is followed through in many of the exchanges between Letoy and Barbara from this moment till the performing of the masque and the play's conclusion. Letoy is noticeably quick to interrupt Barbara here with a fresh enquiry after the occasion for her joining them, when it looks as if she will reveal too much about Letoy's methods and his past. Though much is implied here, nothing is confirmed. Perhaps Brome felt he had gone far enough in questioning Letoy's autocratic ways with others.
n3771
1054LetoyPrithee, what cam’st thou for?
1055BarbaraMy lord, to tell you, as the doctor tells me,
The bride and bridegroom, both, are coming on
The sweetliest†gg3091
OED records two distinct meanings that are relevant in this context: most satisfyingly; most affectionately.
to their wits again.
gg3091
1056LetoyI told you.
1057BarbaraNow you are a happy man, sir; and I hope
A quiet†gg3092
placid, carefree
man.
gg3092
1058JoylessFull of content and joy.
1059BarbaraContent! So was my husband, when he knew
The worst he could by his wife. Now you’ll live quiet*n3772
There is punning here of a type characteristic of Barbara: whereas when she applied the word to Joyless she meant "calm, at ease, contented", here she adds a sexual innuendo to the epithet to make it mean "gratified, fully satisfied physically", implying that she supposes that Diana's desire is no longer rampant.
, lady.
n3772
1060LetoyWhy fliest thou off thus, woman, from the subject
Thou wert upon?
1061BarbaraI beg your honour’s pardon.
And now I’ll tell you. Be it by skill or chance,
Or both, was never such a cure as is
Upon that couple! Now they strive which most
Shall love the other.
1063BarbaraUp! Up*n3774
Out of bed, but so roused sexually that they are longing to get back there to begin having sex all over again.
and ready to lie down again:
n3774
They have been in th’ Antipodes*n4308
The phrase as used here, particularly when taken in context with the next line, "now are risen and returned themselves", carries (beyond the obvious meaning relating to the play-within-the-play) a sense of being at a nadir psychologically and emotionally, that is deep in a depression.
to some purpose,
n4308
And now are risen and returned themselves:
He’s her dear “Per” and she is his sweet “Mat”.
His kingship and her queenship are forgotten,
And all their melancholy and his travels*n3776
] travailes (As previously the word is spelt "travailes" in Q. This neatly encapsulates in the one word both Peregrine's suffering and the cause of his problems: his obssession with travel.)
passed†gs552
puns on the sense of both "past", "now over" (as in the phrase "a thing of the past"), and also of "passed" as meaning "trials (travails) endured"
n3776
gs552
And but supposed their dreams.
1064Letoy’Tis excellent.
1065BarbaraNow, sir, the doctor (for he is become
An utter stranger to your son; and so
Are all about ’em) craves your presence
And such as he’s*n4309
That is, Peregrine.
acquainted with.
n4309
1066LetoyGo, sir.
And go you, daughter.
1067Barbara [Aside]*n3777
This edition adds an aside here which is not to be found in Q. However, the term "aside" tends to lose some of the potent variety of possibilities facing the actress in delivering these lines. They could be spoken inwardly by Barbara as an ironic and rather sardonic musing to herself. Or they could be delivered as direct address, in which the sentiment is shared as a bawdy joke with the audience. While Letoy is upstage shepherding Diana, Joyless and Truelock off to meet with Peregrine and Martha, there is ample opportunity for the actress playing Barbara to take command of stage and audience in this moment, as she laughs about the numerous ways in which out-of-wedlock relations were referred to at the time. It was quite common in the seventeenth century and earlier, for example, for illegitimate female offspring to be brought up in the father's household but to be called "cousin" by the legitimate children and "niece" by the likely father. Some critics suppose that this is Beatrice's relation to Hero and Leonato in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing; the progeny of the Borgia pope, Alexander VI, and of other pontiffs were referred to politely as their nieces and nephews.
Daughter! That’s the true trick
n3777
Daughters.
1068LetoyHas he known you, friend Truelock, too?
1069TruelockYes, from his childhood.
What art, what means, what friends have been employed
In his rare cure; and win him, by degrees
To sense of where he is. Bring him to me;
And I have yet an entertainment for him
(Of better settle-brain, then drunkard’s porridge*n3779
A settle-brain is defined in the OED as "something that calms the [whirling, maddened or troubled] brain", hence anything that was a cure for a hang-over. Jonson in Every Man Out Of His Humour refers to porridge as productive of "a thick [dull] brain" (2.3.64-65), which is why it may have been considered a good antidote to an indulgence in alcohol. OED cites this example from Brome and another from John Ford's The Lover's Melancholy (2.2.21-22), which draws the same comparison: "Sir, is your stomach up, yet? Get some warm porridge in your belly, 'tis a very good settle-brain" (1629). Porridge is made from oats and perhaps a heavy preponderance of oats in the belly was deemed to anchor an overly painful or wandering brain.
)
n3779
To set him right. As I am true Letoy,
I have one toy†gs534
trick, entertainment
left. Go.JOY[LESS, DIANA and TRUELOCK] ex[it].
gs534
And go you. Why stay’st thou?
1071BarbaraIf I had been a gentlewoman born,
I should have been your daughter too, my lord.
1072LetoyBut never as she is.*n3780
A remarkable response, since Letoy does not deny that he would deploy such a ruse (passing off a mistress with a suitable social pedigree as his daughter) if occasion required it; but he simultaneously asserts that Diana would never offer such an occasion (because, as spectators know, she is his true daughter and so out-of-bounds as an object for genuine seduction).
You’ll know anon.
n3780
1073BarbaraNeat city-wives’ flesh yet may be as good
As your course country gentlewoman’s blood.*n3781
The couplet intimates that Barbara is feeling deeply hurt and envious. If, as so many of the exchanges between Barbara and Letoy intimate, theirs has been a sexual relationship, then she may well suppose that she has been supplanted by Diana in Letoy's affections. The bitter and snide quality of her outpouring is the more pointed for being couched as a perfect rhyming couplet, the conventional mode for expressing moral or social truths (sententiae). Director and cast must decide whether to play the couplet directly and accusingly at Letoy or as direct address to the audience. The former would seem preferable, given Letoy's cruel reply.
BAR[BARA] exit[s].
n3781
1074LetoyGo with thy flesh to Turnbull shambles*n3782
The OED (shamble n, 3a) defines "shambles" as a flesh or fish (meat) market. The area of Clerkenwell popularly known as Turnbull Street was notorious for the scale of its prostitution. Barbara's nasty couplet meets with a remarkably crude, if angry retort from Letoy. With her exit line she has raised issues of social standing, of caste and class; and Letoy in response puts her firmly in her subordinate place. As a father newly reconciled with his daughter, he is not prepared to hear Diana's name and reputation sullied on the lips of a woman whom it seems ever clearer he knows or has known as a mistress. The darker elements of a social critique steadily build as the play moves to its conclusion, undermining the tone of concord that the action through Letoy's efforts is attempting to reach.
! Ho!
n3782
Within there!
Ent[er] QUAILPIPE.*n3791
In Q the stage direction is placed in the right hand margin alongside Letoy's shout: "Ho, /Within there." which suggests that Quailpipe should come in quickly after the summons. The compositor creates a new scene here, situating "Act. 5. Sce. 8." immediately before the stage direction; again the numbering of the scene is inaccurate, since it should properly be Scene 9.
n3791
1075QuailpipeHere, my lord.
1076LetoyThe music, songs
And dance I gave command for, are they ready?
Enough applaud your honour’s quaint conceit*n3783
a witty conception, artful or fanciful device (he is referring to the forthcoming masque)
n3783
In the design; so apt, so regular,
So pregnant†gg3094
acute, imaginatively fertile; but also compelling, cogent; telling, significant
, so acute, and so withal
gg3094
Poetice legitimate*n3784
That which is poetically formal and correct (because honouring the traditions and conventions of good poetry); verse in the finest taste. Quailpipe is showing a pedantic trait.
, as I
n3784
May say justly with Plautus*n3785
A Roman writer of comedies, whose works from the early Elizabethan period onward were deemed the perfect classical models to imitate rather than the plays of his near-contemporary, Terentius (Terence). Shakespeare's A Comedy of Errors is modelled on a Plautine prototype, while Jonson's highly popular The Case Is Altered imitates the plot-lines and conventions of two of Plautus's plays.
―――
n3785
1078LetoyPrithee say no more,
But see upon my signal given they act
As well as I designed.
1079QuailpipeNay, not so well,
1080LetoyI know no flatterer in my house but this,
’Sprecious!†gs145
common oath derived from 'By God’s precious blood!'
They come already. [To offstage musicians]*n4310
An added stage direction here, not found in Q, helps indicate the changing tones of Letoy's speech, which shifts between direct address to the audience where Letoy confides in them his attitude to Quailpipe, a quick exclamation that everything risks getting out of his control, to his command that the ceremonies begin, as he reasserts his authority.
Now begin.
gs145
n4310
A solemn lesson†gg3097
"A piece [of music] to be performed" (OED n, 5a)
upon the recorders.*n3790
With this large-scale entrance Q inserts a new scene: "Act 5. Sce. 9.". Again the number assigned is out of its proper sequence: the scene should be numbered 10. The scene heading is placed far over in the right margin alongside the final line of speech 1081 ("Now begin.") The ensuing direction for the processional entrance is presented by Q's compositor as a block of italicised prose extending over some five lines.
Ent[er] TRUELOCK, JOYLESS and DIANA, PEREGRINE and MARTHA, DOCTOR and BARBARA.
LETOY meets them. TRUELOCK presents PEREGRINE and MARTHA to him; he salutes†gg3098
greets
them.
They seem to make some short discourse†gg1027
talk, conversation
. Then LETOY appoints them to sit*n3786
That is: organises who sits where.
.
PEREGRINE seems something amazed. The music ceases.
gg3097
n3790
Ent[er] TRUELOCK, JOYLESS and DIANA, PEREGRINE and MARTHA, DOCTOR and BARBARA.
LETOY meets them. TRUELOCK presents PEREGRINE and MARTHA to him; he salutes†
gg3098
They seem to make some short discourse†
gg1027
n3786
PEREGRINE seems something amazed. The music ceases.
1082PeregrineI am what you are pleased to make me,*n3788
This whole speech is set in prose in Q, which Haaker reproduces. Parr, Kastan and Proudfoot however, have chosen to lineate the speech. Iambic pentameter is firmly present throughout, and this edition likewise sets out the speech as verse.
but
n3788
Whether I sleep, or wake, or talk, or dream;
Whether I be, or be not; or if I am,
Whether I do or do not any thing:
For I have had (if I now wake) such dreams,
And been so far transported*n5975
This awakening with a sense of a complete and mysterious loss of selfhood is akin to Brome's evocation of Theophilus's reactions after meeting again his beloved Millicent, whom he believed to be dead: first he is struck dumb and is transfixed, then faints with joy on apprehending that his perception that she is alive is a true one. Observing him, Millicent describes how rapture quite "transmutes" him (a neat pun that captures both his silence and his being taken out of himself). He is "transported", even as Peregrine has been, a state the latter continues to sense himself as still experiencing to some degree. Theophilus sums up his predicament in the following words: "I see, I feel, I hear and know ye all: /But who knows what he knows, sees, feels, or hears?" See The English Moor (5.2. speeches 974-1000, especially 990 and 992)[EM 5.2.speeches974-1000].
in a long
n5975
And tedious voyage of sleep, that I may fear
My manners can acquire no welcome where
Men understand†gg3099
"to know one's place" and how "to conduct oneself properly"; "to be in possession of one's senses or faculties"
themselves.
gg3099
1083LetoyThis is music!*n3789
This is music [to my ears]. That is: this is just what I want to hear.
n3789
Sir, you are welcome; and I give full power
Unto your father and my daughter here, your mother,
To make you welcome.
1084PeregrineHow! Your daughter, sir?
JOYLESS whispers [to] PEREGRINE.*n3792
Unfortunately the compositor for reasons of space has chosen to situate the direction in the right margin alongside Letoy's last words "you welcome" rather than beside the next speech where Peregrine expresses surprise at discovering Diana is Letoy's daughter. This edition sites the direction where it most logically belongs.
n3792
1085DoctorMy lord, you’ll put him back†gg3100
cause him to have a relapse, undo his cure
again, if you
gg3100
Trouble his brain with new discoveries.
1086LetoyFetch him you on again*n3793
Then restore him at once; cure him again. Letoy is remarkably tetchy since Barbara's exit after their short quarrel. Clearly he will not suffer a second disruption to his intention to stage the masque (the scheme was abandoned when the proceedings as originally planned had to be broken up when Peregrine departed for bed with Martha). The masque Letoy doubtless views as the high point of his invention. His excitement is steadily getting the better of his manners and there is something frenetic about his ordering of events in these final sequences. The modern actor may make of this psychologically what he will.
then: pray are you
n3793
Letoy or I?
1087JoylessIndeed it is so, son.
1088DoctorI fear your show will but perplex him too.
1089LetoyI care not, sir, I’ll have it to delay
Your cure awhile, that he recover soundly†gs550
completely (but also with the sense here of becoming sound in mind)
.
gs550
Come, sit again*n3794
A director may decide whether Letoy's anger has provoked a general rising of the onstage audience, or whether only Peregrine rises in amazement at discovering Diana's full identity and status.
; again you are most welcome.
n3794
A most untuneable†gg3101
utterly discordant, cacaphonous
flourish.*n3795
Q precedes this direction for music with an indication for a new scene, "Act 5. Sce. 10", since another large-scale entrance occurs here. The misnumbering continues: this should properly be Scene 11. With this scene division the compositor of Q reverts to the format of placing the information as part of a centrally sited direction.
Ent[er] DISCORD*n3798
From early in his career as a creator of masques, Jonson had evolved the format of preceding the masque proper and its resplendent array of celestial beings with a representation of the antithesis to such a world in the form of an anti-masque. The figures who appeared within the anti-masque posed a threat to the peace and concord of the world (in Charles's reign, these qualities were increasingly interpreted as what politically was opposed to his authority as king, though the deviser of these later masques was Inigo Jones and his cohorts such as Aurelian Townshend or Sir William Davenant rather than Jonson). Conventionally the world of the anti-masque was completely dispelled with the arrival of the gracious, benign, authoritative figures of the masque proper, who then held the stage for the rest of the performance with displays of singing and dancing. Following this format, the entertainment provided by Letoy starts with an anti-masque involving Discord and her followers; but Brome significantly begins to depart from the prototype as the action develops.
attended by FOLLY, JEALOUSY, MELANCHOLY and MADNESS.
gg3101
n3795
n3798
attended by FOLLY, JEALOUSY, MELANCHOLY and MADNESS.
There's an unwelcome guest*n4318
From here till the end of the masque Letoy assumes the role of commentator. In a modern production the director and the actor playing Letoy must decide whether in this function he is to address his comments solely to Peregrine or to the assembled onstage audience. In the conventional masques it was generally the custom to have such commentator figures, usually played by professional actors, to explain the meaning and symbolic significance of how the aristocratic performers appeared and what they were doing. The aristocratic masquers carried their dazzling costumes with elan, looked beautiful, and at a given moment danced superbly; they did not act in the conventional sense of the term.
: uncivil†gg2063
crude, unseemly
Discord
n4318
gg2063
Folly and Jealousy, Melancholy
And Madness.
1090BarbaraMy husband presents Jealousy
In the black-and-yellow jaundied*n3799
The epithet is drawing attention to the emblematic nature of the colour yellow as representative of both jealousy and the liver-condition of jaundice, when the skin of sufferers turns yellow. The word is an invention of Brome's, as OED records no usage.
suit there:
n3799
Half like man and t’other half like woman,
With one horn and ass-ear upon his head*n3800
Horns were the emblem of the cuckold; ass's ears were representative of stupidity (professional fools often bore asses' ears on their coxcomb-caps to signify their status). Here Blaze carries the stereotypical emblems of both cuckold and fool as aptly representing the emotional and psychological effects of jealousy.
.
n3800
1091LetoyPeace, woman. [Aside to PEREGRINE] Mark what they do: but, by the way,*n9891
] but but by the way (This was first emended by Baker in 1914.)
n9891
Conceive me this but show, sir, and device*n3801
Consider (or think of) this as just an entertainment, as so much theatrical artifice, a fanciful invention. The remark is addressed exclusively to Peregrine.
.
n3801
1092PeregrineI think so.
1093LetoyHow? Goes he back again now, doctor? Sheugh†gg3108
A vocalised exclamation, a scoffing sound (Brome attempts to spell phonetically the aural effect of the sound). The word existed as a noun from 1501 signifying a furrow, ditch or drain, and may be deployed here by Brome as expressive of Letoy's distaste for fussy doctors.
!
gg3108
Song in untunable†gg3109
lacking both tune and harmony, cacaphonous, discordant (as distinct from the celestial music of the spheres, indicative of divine harmony)
notes.
gg3109
1094DiscordCome forth my darlings, you that breed
The common strifes that discord feed:
Come in the first place, my dear Folly;
Jealousy next, then Melancholy;
And last come Madness, thou art he
That bear’st th’ effects of all those three,
Lend me your aids, so Discord shall you crown,
And make this place*n3802
Discord claims the playing space and Letoy's hall where that space is situated as her kingdom. However, given that masques were usually presented at court where the "kingdom" represented England, there is considerable irony at work here. Masques were generally the entertainments offered to monarchs; here Letoy's masque is offered to a man, Peregrine, who was but recently deemed insane, and who at the height of his madness made himself king of an anti-world.
a kingdom of our own.
n3802
They dance.*n3806
Q sets this part of the stage direction centrally on a line apart from what follows, distinctly separating the dance from the arrival of Harmony and the gods. The compositor also inserts a new scene division at this point so that the stage direction is preceded by "Act 5. Scene 11" (the correct numbering would be Scene 12). In terms of the logistics of performance, the instruction ("They dance.") should be placed before the new scene heading, since in terms of the format of Q respecting scene-divisions, the new scene should commence with the arrival of Harmony and her train.
After a while they are broke off by a flourish,
and the approach of HARMONY followed by MERCURY, CUPID, BACCHUS and APOLLO*n3803
These were four classical deities, often impersonated in court masques at the time: Mercury was honoured for his quick-thinking (hence his association later in Letoy's descriptive speech with Wit); Cupid, as son to Venus, was the god of Love; Bacchus was god of wine, jollity and theatre; Apollo was god of the sun, music, poetry and the arts and so is honoured later by Letoy as god of Health (sanity).
.
DISCORD and her faction fall down*n3804
Noticeably the figures of the anti-masque are not immediately and absolutely expelled from the stage (as was generally the practice in court masques), though they are forced into postures of subjection to Harmony and her attendant gods.
.
n3806
and the approach of HARMONY followed by MERCURY, CUPID, BACCHUS and APOLLO*
n3803
DISCORD and her faction fall down*
n3804
1095LetoySee Harmony approaches, leading on,
’Gainst Discord’s factions, four*n3807
] feare. (All editors have followed Baker in emending this word as here. One might argue, however, for the spelling "fere", which as an epithet carries the meaning "healthy, health-bearing, wholesome, sound" as opposed to Discord's followers and their promoting of forms of ill-health and insanity. "Hale and fere" was a common Scottish toast into the nineteenth century. The compositor's choice of spelling (possibly imitating Brome's) might also carry the additional meaning "awesome". (See OED fere.) "Four" makes for clarity for a modern audience (as the other suggestions deploy terms which are now obsolete), but those other possibilities should be considered by a director if a means could be found in performance to convey their meanings.)
great deities:
n3807
Mercury, Cupid, Bacchus, and Apollo.
Wit against Folly, Love against Jealousy,
Wine against Melancholy, and ’gainst Madnesss, Health.
Observe the matter and the method*n3805
Why does Brome draw his audience's attention to both the content and the dramaturgy of the masque here? One can hardly suppose that spectators would have lost interest, given the spectacle on offer and the constant surprises being sprung on them by Letoy's entertainment. Is this a conscious theatrical strategy? Does this injunction alerting spectators to pay close attention to the meaning and the artistry of what they are watching, actually in consequence draw the focus of their awareness subtly to what is different here from a conventional masque?
.
n3805
1096PeregrineYes.
1097LetoyAnd how upon the approach of Harmony,
Song.
1098Harmony.Come Wit, come Love, come Wine, come Health,
Maintainers of my commonwealth†gg3110
state, community
,
gg3110
’Tis you make Harmony complete,
And from the spheres*n3808
"One or other of the concentric, transparent, hollow globes imagined by the older astronomers as revolving round the earth and respectively carrying with them the several heavenly bodies (moon, sun, planets, and fixed stars)" (OED n, 2a). In poetic language the term is often a synonym for the heavens. It was also believed that the moving of each of the globes caused a pleasant sound, while together they created a divine harmony, which only the intiated could hear. The idea is most powerfully evoked in the final act (or scene 21) of Shakespeare's Pericles, where the hero's daughter, Marina, is restored to him and he experiences ecstacy in every level of his being.
(her proper seat)
n3808
You give her power to reign on earth,
Where Discord claims a right by birth*n3809
In Christian doctrine, all things earthly are of necessity imperfect; discord by its very nature cannot therefore be of heavenly origin.
.
n3809
Then let us revel it†gg3111
make merry, be festive
while we are here,
gg3111
And keep possession of this hemisphere*n3810
Noticeably Harmony's newly claimed realm does not extend to the Antipodes, which is more appropriately the kingdom of discord.
.
n3810
After a strain†gs538
a specific section of music within a composition; the particular music for one set within a group of dances
or two, DISCORD cheers up her faction. They all
rise, and mingle in the dance with HARMONY and the rest*n3811
This is a decided break with precedent in terms of the structure of a masque. Generally the figures of the anti-masque disappear when the masque proper begins and the dialogue or a song indicates that the gross figures of misrule have been vanquished, routed and wholly dispelled. Here they have been cast into abject postures but have not left the stage and now rise to join in the dance with the performers representing gods. Interestingly in classical lore all the gods included here have their darker traits: Mercury was the god of thieves and trickery; Cupid as Eros was associated with lust; Bacchus could be a figure of drunken debauchery; and Apollo could instil madness in his enemies and was certainly jealous of his musical rival, Marsyas, with sadistic consequences. There is possibility for ironic staging here with the gods dancing in pairs with members of Discord's train in a manner which shows that they share commonalities with the figures which till now have been presented as their opposites. The play overall has shown increasingly how difficult it is to draw precise divisions between sanity and madness, rule and misrule, order and subversion. Discrimination is often a matter of perspective. It would be possible to represent this complex theme through the patterns of the dance here and how the partnering was arranged. Letoy in his choric commentary on the action as it occurs presents it all as an allegory to Peregrine, showing how his mind has been temporarily possessed by aberration over which he has now gained control. This is to reduce the significance of the action to the personal. However the larger political relevance still obtains.
. Dance.
gs538
rise, and mingle in the dance with HARMONY and the rest*
n3811
1099LetoyNote there*n4319
This speech requires that the actor playing Letoy meticulously times sections of his speech to coincide with the numerous actions he describes as they are severally performed. This is a challenge in vocal terms, since the speech is one long sustained sentence and is perhaps therefore best delivered rather in the manner of a list so that spectators' ears are attuned to the ongoing dynamic of the syntax: "first this...next that...and then..."
how Discord cheers up her disorders,
n4319
To mingle in defiance with the virtues:
But soon they vanish and the mansion quit DISCORD [and her train] ex[it]*n3812
Q situates the direction "Ex. Discord." in the right margin alongside this whole verse line but in this edition it has been sited where the action it prescribes actually occurs during Letoy's speech.
.
n3812
Unto the gods of health, love, wine, and wit,
Which they have taken, and assign to you;
In which they now salute you― bid you be
Of cheer; and for it, lay the charge†gg113
trouble, expense, responsibility (OED n, 11)
on me.[HARMONY and her train] salute [PEREGRINE and] ex[it]*n3813
Q offers a highly condensed direction for what is to happen here ("Salute Exe.") and places it alongside Letoy's line, "In which they now salute you - Bid you be [...]". This suggests that the reverence and departure of Harmony's train should occur at the moment when the dash in the text disrupts the flow of Letoy's commentary. This edition follows Parr and places the direction at the end of Letoy's account of what is happening, which avoids breaking up his speech on the page with numerous short directions. In performance, of course, each stage of the direction should be timed to coincide with Letoy's description of it.
.
gg113
n3813
And unto me you’re welcome, welcome all.
Meat, wine, and mirth shall flow, and what I see
1100PeregrineIndeed I find me well.
1101MarthaAnd so shall I,
After a few such nights more.
1102BarbaraAre you there?
1103MarthaGood Madam, pardon errors of my tongue.*n3814
There is some discrepancy among editors as to whom this line should be assigned, given the ambiguity of the layout in Q. Martha's half-line, "And so shall I" is positioned by the compositor alongside Peregrine's "Indeed I find me well", demonstrating clearly that together they are a single line of verse. The continuation of Martha's speech, "After a few such nights more", is placed precisely where a new line of verse should be situated. It too is not a full line in itself and Barbara's "Are you there?" completes the scansion to make the next full line of verse. Barbara's three words and the speech prefix are positioned far out into the right margin (further to the right than Martha's half-line above), which might be a means of indicating that the speech is to be delivered as an aside. The following line, "Good Madam, pardon errors of my tongue", is aligned properly with the rest of the verse lines on the page and looks to be a continuation of Martha's speech, which has been briefly interrupted by Barbara's short private interjection. No new speech prefix is given in Q so that it remains a question whether the line is to be spoken by Martha or by Barbara. Haaker, Kastan and Proudfoot assign the line to Barbara. There is some reason for this, since Barbara has said some hurtful things about Diana when she was last onstage (that the line is addressed to her is clear from the fact that Diana is the one who responds); but the nastiness of those sentiments was directed more at Letoy than at his daughter, who by then was offstage. This edition follows Parr in assigning the questionable line to Martha; she is more modest than Barbara throughout the action (where Barbara has never apologised previously for anything she has said); and she has just spoken from the depths of her desires and been somewhat indelicate in doing so publicly. In the circumstances, an apology to Diana seems more in keeping with how her character has till now been presented than with Barbara's.
n3814
1104DianaI am too happy made to think of wrong.
1105LetoyWe will want nothing for you that may please,
Though we dive for it to th’ Antipodes.
The Epilogue
1106DoctorWhether my cure be perfect yet or no,
It lies not in my doctorship to know.
Then all the College of Physicians*n3815
Throughout the seventeenth century the College was highly protective of its powers of control over apothecaries in their use of various toxic substances and over the licensing of medical books and pamphlets. Most of their own professional activities and writings were conducted or written in Latin, which alienated them from the majority of the populace. They were popularly believed to be less efficacious than apothecaries or alternative practitioners such as herbalists or radical experimenters such as Hughball himself.
can;
n3815
Then by the strokings†gg3114
passings of the hand "softly in one direction over (the head, body, hair of a person or animal) [...] as a method of healing" (OED stroke v1, 1a); a laying on of hands as a mode of healing
of the seventh son*n3817
In folklore the seventh son of a family, and especially if he were himself the son of a seventh son, was believed to be gifted with supernatural powers; hence an embodiment of great good fortune for those he in any way fostered.
.
gg3114
n3817
1107PeregrineAnd from our travels in th’ Antipodes,
We are not yet arrived from off the seas:
But on the waves of desp’rate fears we roam
Until your gentler†gg3115
kinder, courteous, more civilised, honourable and honoured
hands do waft†gg3117
transport (often with sense of instantaneously as if by magic); propel or convey safely; also to move "by producing a current of air" (that is, by clapping, though OED does not list a usage with this meaning before 1839)
us home*n5687
Between the final word of the Epilogue and the word "FINIS", which ends the text in Q, an address from Brome to his readers is to be found. It is not included here, since the modernised version is to be viewed as a text for performance. However, it does contain interesting reference to the play's first performances and so its value to the theatre historian is considerable. Brome's note (modernised) reads:
"Courteous Reader, You shall find in this book more than was presented upon /the stage, and left out of the presentation, for superfluous length (as some of the /Players pretended)[.] I thought good all should be inserted according to the allowed /original; and as it was, at first, intended for the Cockpit Stage, in the right /of my most deserving friend Mr. William Beeston, unto whom it properly /appertained; and so I leave it to thy perusal, as it was generally applauded and /well attended at Salisbury Court. Farewell, Ri. Brome." By "allowed" Brome means that the play had been licensed for performance by the Lord Chamberlain. The theatrical in-fighting that lay behind the initial staging of Brome's comedy is hinted at and the differences between himself and the company at the Salisbury Theatre. But of most interest is the admission that the play was deemed too long as written and so was cut considerably to create a stageable version. This practice has been followed in all three recent productions of the play by professional or student casts (with the cutting predominantly made in Act IV).
.
gg3115
gg3117
n5687
Edited by Richard Cave