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n9746   4.1 Act 4 is divided into three distinct scenes. Scene 1 begins with Gabriel and Frederick mid-conversation about the latter’s romantic prospects and Ferdinand’s perfidy towards Frederick’s beloved Charissa. The dialogue situates them outside Sir Andrew Mendicant’s house, from which father and daughter enter with Sir Raphael Winterplum, who has been recruited to promote Frederick’s suit. Although Raphael’s persuasive skills do not overcome Mendicant’s greedy delusions, Frederick and Charissa manage to kiss, temporarily shielded from paternal sight by Gabriel. On discovering the young lovers’ embrace, Mendicant wounds Gabriel, dismisses him and Raphael, and snatches Charissa back offstage and into his house. Cit-wit arrives to relay Lady Strangelove’s demand that Mendicant remove Ferdinand from her house and to report the attempted rape which is the reason for her demand. As Cit-wit exits, Raphael resolves to devise a stratagem, one which is to involve Frederick and then Gabriel as well, and the three all exit. Scene 2 returns to Strangelove’s house and her revenge. The Doctor enters with Court-wit, who reports their hostess to have been deranged by Ferdinand’s action and agrees to bring her to see him again. Ferdinand is carried on again and, watched by Court-wit, Swain-wit and Strangelove, he gives further, and more elaborate, performances of insanity. When his behaviour begins to threaten Strangelove, he is restrained and carried off again; but the Doctor is kept behind for punishment. Retribution, escorted onstage by Cit-wit, arrives in the person of the Sow-gelder: while Cit-wit, Court-wit and Swain-wit pinion the Doctor to a table, the Sow-gelder gets ready to castrate him in sight of Strangelove. Shitting himself in terror, the Doctor tells her a secret in order to prevent the punishment which has been prepared for him. The secret, which is not explicitly divulged to the audience, suffices to save the Doctor’s testicles. After the announcement, by the Boy, of another doctor’s arrival, in company with Mendicant’s servant, the scene closes with a mass exit. Scene 3, still somewhere in Strangelove’s house, brings on Ferdinand, carried by Servants as before but now accompanied by a different medical team: the new doctor is Frederick, disguised and assisted by Gabriel. Having dismissed the Servants, Frederick reveals his identity to Ferdinand, whose madness vanishes on his being told that Mendicant has sought control of his estate. Relinquishing any claim on Charissa, Ferdinand undertakes to help Frederick secure her hand and confesses to having both pretended insanity, and also attempted rape, in order to settle scores with Strangelove. The lady herself enters and accepts Ferdinand’s apologies: all exit to further the cause of young love by means which are still unspecified. [go to text]

n8843   inhuman Octavo of 1653 reads `inhumane', which was then the prevalent spelling (see OED inhumane a, 1). [go to text]

n9348   impostor, Octavo of 1653 reads `imposture', then a possible spelling [go to text]

gs1681   stand act as (OED stand v, 15a-c) [go to text]

gs377   means, resources (especially financial) [go to text]

n9566   forging grants of the King᾿s favour. Acting as broker on behalf of would-be monopolists and projectors was common courtly practice in the reigns of both James I and Charles I. Indeed, such courtly brokerage, which could involve a fee or a percentage of expected profits, was an important source of speculative income for some impoverished aristocrats at the early Stuart courts. Ferdinand is here accused of swindling his clients and his king alike by faking royal licenses and taking bribes for these documents. [go to text]

n8844   Aye, Octavo of 1653 reads `I,' [go to text]

n8845   lover. Octavo of 1653 reads `Love' [go to text]

gs1730   verge bounds, limits or precincts of a particular place (OED n¹, 11a, where the earliest example given for this sense is 1641) [go to text]

gg5762   lip-labour empty talk [go to text]

n11559   Your want of resolution, yea, of judgement. Octavo of 1653 does not assign this sentence to Raphael. However, it does distinguish it from the immediately preceding sentence by situating it on a new line and indenting it. (At only two other points – [CB 3.1.line1473] and [CB 5.2.line2414] -- in Octavo of 1653 does indentation occur without a change of speaker, and each of these occurrences immediately follows the entrance of another character.) With its moral accusations and rhetorical manoeuvre, this second sentence sounds like Sir Raphael in oratorical flow, to which Gabriel draws attention. [go to text]

gs1577   flown off out of verbal control, ranting and raving [go to text]

n9349   [indicating FREDERICK and GABRIEL, to whom CHARISSA crosses] This stage direction replaces one which in Octavo of 1653 is placed, parenthetically, to the right of the first three lines of MENDICANT's second speech in the scene ([CB 4.1.speech651]). Confusing `Fred[erick]' with `Ferd[inand]' [CB 4.1.line1766]), that stage direction reads: `Ferd; Char. and Gab. aside.' Octavo of 1653 does not provide a direction detaching Charissa from her father and Raphael and moving her to the side. Conventions of young love require that she move towards Ferdinand as soon as she sees him, which a gesture from Raphael would effect. For confusions of Ferdinand and Frederick within speech headings, see: [CB 4.3.line2066] with [NOTE n8975]; and [CB 4.3.line2230] with [NOTE n9035]. [go to text]

gg1144   jointure marriage settlement (usually the part of a husband’s wealth or property that he elected to assign to his wife in the event of his death) [go to text]

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

n8846   are started from? That is: have withdrawn from (OED start v, 7). [go to text]

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

gg1144   jointure. marriage settlement (usually the part of a husband’s wealth or property that he elected to assign to his wife in the event of his death) [go to text]

gs1578   are short, fall short, underestimate, miscalculate [go to text]

n9568   keep in bank That is: store, hoard (OED bank n3, III 7d). [go to text]

gg5972   purchase. gain, financial advantage (OED n. 8a and 8c) [go to text]

gg5763   o’er-weening exaggerated (OED adj. 2) [go to text]

gg5764   ‘less unless (OED conj) [go to text]

n10143   a thousand pound According to the online currency converter of the National Archives on 15 July 2009, the spending power of £1000 in 1640 would be equivalent to £85,800 today. [go to text]

gg5458   per annum annually, by the year [go to text]

n8847   T’assure upon her, That is: to guarantee to her (as part of a marriage contract), to settle upon her in jointure: see OED v, 3 and 7a) [go to text]

gg6051   tantalizing proferring something desired but preventing its ever being grasped. In classical Greek mythology, Tantalus both betrayed divine secrets and butchered his son Pelops into a meal for the gods. For these horrendous crimes Tantalus was punished by being eternally dangled, upside down, just out of reach of water and food. [go to text]

gg1144   jointure marriage settlement (usually the part of a husband’s wealth or property that he elected to assign to his wife in the event of his death) [go to text]

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

gg5765   propound put forward, propose (OED v. 1a) [go to text]

n8848   Cynthian orb? The reference is to the moon (`Cynthia' being another name for Diana, goddess of the moon in Greek and Roman mythology). Two lines previously in this speech, Sir Raphael has accused Sir Andrew of negotiating on the basis of an estate `i' th' Moon': ever the orator, he repeats the point with a grandiose circumlocution. [go to text]

n9567   ladder of philosophy. The image of philosophical enquiry as a ladder of gradual ascent to the divine goes back through Boethius to Plato. It is not a figure which Andrew Mendicant might be expected to have on the tip of his tongue, but in making him address it to Raphael Winterplum, Brome efficiently suggests Raphael's neo-Platonic pretensions. [go to text]

gs1731   conjure constrain by putting under oath (OED v. 3) [go to text]

gs1526   means way, method [go to text]

gs1032   politic cunning, scheming, crafty [go to text]

n8849   Dar’st Octavo of 1653 reads `Darst', then still a possible form for the second-person singular indicative present of the verb `to dare'. [go to text]

gg4561   expostulate? argue [go to text]

gg4302   housewife, a worthless or impudent woman or girl (OED n. 2): pronounced ‘hussif’ [go to text]

gg5766   at height! at the highest degree (OED n. IV 16) [go to text]

gs1707   beguile foil, disappoint (OED v. 3) [go to text]

n9801   watchful fury, The furies or `Erinnyes' (`angry ones') were the avenging deities of classical Greek mythology. As they are often represented as a trio of goddesses, the transferred sense of the word `fury' often signifies a bad-tempered woman; but it can be used, without regard to gender, to liken someone to an infernal spirit (OED fury, n, 6). The likeness is rather more than Andrew Mendicant deserves for his display of paternal zeal, but the speaker is angry and his style of speech is, as usual, pretentious. [go to text]

n8850   Hesperian dragon. In classical Greek mythology the eleventh of the twelve labours of Heracles was to fetch fruit from a golden apple-tree which Hera had entrusted to the Hesperides, daughters of Atlas. Because the Hesperides had been helping themselves to the golden apples, Hera set a hundred-headed dragon to guard the tree. [go to text]

gs377   means, resources (especially financial) [go to text]

gg5767   basta! enough (Italian) [go to text]

gs1625   patron. `a defender, a great friend that supporteth one' (John Bullokar, The English Expositor [1616]); protector [go to text]

gg40   creatures one ready to do another's bidding, puppet (through patronage or devotion) (OED 5) [go to text]

n8851   [be] This word is not in the octavo of 1653 but is necessary to make sense of the clause which constitutes this line. [go to text]

gg1956   sworn, promised by oath [go to text]

gg222   humour mood, temper, attitude, frame of mind [go to text]

n8852   who has been a notable gamester at in-and-in, The clause contains a pair of double-entendres, (a) on `gamester' as `professional gambler'(OED 3) and as `person addicted to amorous activity' (OED 5), and (b) on `in-and-in' as a gambling game played by three persons with four dice and as a figure of sexual copulation. Both double entendres had meta-dramatic application to Sir John Suckling, whom Brome mocked through the character of Sir Ferdinand. [go to text]

gs1581   gamester professional dice-player (OED 3), lewd man (OED 5) [go to text]

gs1580   in-and-in, gambling game played by 3 persons with 4 dice (OED n. 1a), here with an obvious sexual innuendo [go to text]

n8853   should he gi’ me the lie, the virtue of my oath were questionable. To paraphrase: `And if he were to accuse me, to my face, of lying, the worth of my oath would be tested.' Cit-wit is afraid that Gabriel, whose doubt he has registered, will call him a liar to his face. Were such an accusation to be made, Cit-wit could not ignore it: the situation would test the efficacy of the oath which Cit-wit swore to Swain-wit in the previous act and of which he keeps reminding the audience with his catch-phrase `I have sworn'. [go to text]

gg5768   gi’ me the lie, give me the lie, call me a liar to my face (OED n1. 2a) [go to text]

gg5770   virtue worth, efficacy (OED n. II 9d) [go to text]

gg5769   questionable. liable to be called to account (OED 3) [go to text]

n8855   sport and business entertainment and occupation: having been sacked by Sir Andrew, Gabriel is now out of work. [go to text]

gg4781   suddenly. forthwith, promptly (OED adv. 2) [go to text]

gg5913   stratagem artifice or trick; a device or scheme for obtaining an advantage (OED 2) [go to text]

gs1627   venture stake, hazard, gamble, lay [go to text]

n8860   Cupid and Mercury favour our design! In rhyming with Frederick's immediately preceding line, Sir Raphael's exclamation clinches a scene-closing couplet; and his appeal to these two classical Roman divinities matches Gabriel's expectation of `sport and business'. [go to text]

gg3708   Cupid blind boy-god of love or infatuation, son of Venus [go to text]

gg5771   Mercury in classical Roman mythology, the wing-footed divinity who presided over messages and commerce [go to text]

n9419   [RAPHAEL, GABRIEL and FREDERICK exit.] Octavo of 1653 reads: `Ex. Om.'. [go to text]

n8972   by your favour, That is: with your permission; if I may say so (OED n, 3). Court-wit is disarming the Doctor with a gracious formula. [go to text]

gs1582   drew persuaded, induced (OED v. 26a) [go to text]

gg5784   drew on brought about, led to (OED v. 86b) [go to text]

gg5785   affrightment state or fact of being frightened or alarmed (OED 2) [go to text]

n8885   strength of passion, That is: her emotional sensitivities: from `strength' as `power, faculty' (OED n, 5) and `passion' as `feeling' (n, 6a and b). [go to text]

n8886   struck so deep A sense into her, That is: made such an impression on her. [go to text]

n8884   it Octavo of 1653 reads 'is'. [go to text]

gs1583   proper own (OED adj. 4) [go to text]

gg5786   senses. wits, reason (OED n. 10a) [go to text]

gs1592   means. contrivance (OED n3. 2c); opportunity [go to text]

n8887   Enter SERVANTS, [carrying FERDINAND in a chair]. In the first of four confusions of Ferdinand and Frederick on a single page (signature Q8v), Octavo of 1653 reads `Enter Frederick with the servants.' That he is being carried on in a chair is evident from Ferdinand's first line on entry. [go to text]

n8888   [Ferdinand] Octavo of 1653 reads `Fre.', one of four confusions of Ferdinand and Frederick on a single page (signature Q8v). [go to text]

n9802   Mount Lathmos, Mountain on the Anatolian coast. In classical mythology, the goddess of the moon (Selene in Greek narratives, Diana in Latin ones) fell in love with a beautiful youth, Endymion, whom she saw sleeping there. Ferdinand here imagines himself on Mount Lathmos and there gazing at Diana. This reversal of the roles in the myth may upset cosmic order, but it produces a familiar gender configuration: active male gazes at passive female. [go to text]

n9794   Diana, in classical Roman mythology, the goddess of the moon, patroness of virginity and of hunting [go to text]

gg5815   Hymettus’ mountain in Attica in Greece [go to text]

gg5814   Cytheron, mountain range in Greece, between Attica and Boetia, in classical Greek mythology, the scene of the dismemberment of Pentheus by the crazed Bacchantes, worshippers of Dionysus [go to text]

gg5816   Othris mountain in Thessaly in Greece, in classical Greek mythology, home of the Titans [go to text]

gg5817   Pindus, mountain in the Epirus in Greece, home of the centaurs (half human, half horse) in classical Greek mythology [go to text]

gs1732   affects likes, prefers [go to text]

gg5818   Marathon, plain in Attica in Greece, famous as site of battle at which, in 490 BC, the Greeks repulsed an invading army of Persians [go to text]

gg5819   Erymanthus. mountain range between Arcadia and Achaia in Greece, in Greek mythology the haunt of an enormous wild boar which, in the third of his twelve labours, Hercules captured [go to text]

n8889   [Ferdinand] Octavo of 1653 reads `Fre.', one of four confusions of Ferdinand and Frederick on a single page (signature Q8v). [go to text]

n8890   [Ferdinand] Octavo of 1653 reads `Fre.', one of four confusions of Ferdinand and Frederick on a single page (signature Q8v). [go to text]

n9803   jovial pastime. Picking up the Doctor's advice to `pass...time' Ferdinand uses different senses of `jovial' to move from one subject to another. One sense (OED 1, now obsolete) is `Jove-like: the classical Roman god Jove (also known to the Romans as Jupiter, and to the Greeks as Zeus) was notorious for his amorous pastimes. The other sense (OED 6) in play here is `merry, jolly'. [go to text]

n8891   run At base, Base is a game played by two sides, who occupy contiguous ‘bases’ or ‘homes’; any player running out from his ‘base’ is chased by one of the opposite side, and, if caught, made a prisoner (OED base sup2, where this game is said to be for boys, and where the earliest cited example of the phrase `run at base' is inaccurately dated from 1653). [go to text]

gs1584   downright plain; mere (OED adj, 2a and 2b) [go to text]

gg5787   mad exuberant, chaotic (OED adj. 7a, where the earliest instance of this sense being predicated of an action -- rather than as earlier, of a person -- is dated inaccurately as from 1650) [go to text]

gs1585   catch catch: round in which the words are so arranged that one singer picks up the word[s] of another (OED n1. 14) [go to text]

n8892   Enter COURT-[WIT,] SWAIN[-WIT and] STRANGELOVE. ] Octavo of 1653 reads: `Enter Court-Swaine. Strangelove.' [go to text]

n8893   the madman’s revels And after that the doctor’s tragicomedy. Court-wit uses the word `revels' in its general sense as `merry-makings', but Swain-wit responds to its specific sense as `a courtly household entertainment'. In so doing, he opposes it to another entertainment -- tragicomedy, generally a play which mixed tragedy and comedy, and specifically one in which that mixture included a most unexpectedly happy resolution of the plot. (The form was much in fashion in early Stuart theatre.) He also, of course, answers `madman' with `doctor'. [go to text]

n9804   your windpipes tuned The windpipe is the trachea; but according to the OED, at this time the plural form `windpipes' could collectively designate all of the larger respiratory tubes -- the bronchi as well as the trachea. Ferdinand's use of the plural form does not necessarily indicate that he is addressing more than one person: he could be speaking to the Doctor, to the Servants, or to both the Doctor and the Servants. The sense of the image is, however, clear: having just demanded that a catch be sung, Ferdinand imagines the human respiratory system as a musical instrument. [go to text]

n9420   Sing a catch! In Octavo of 1653, the second and third words in this command are presented as a stage direction: they are printed on a separate line, and there centred. (See [CB 4.2.line1913].) Unlike the Act 2 stage direction which calls for `A catch' (after [CB 2.1.speech303]) and unlike the stage direction which calls for `Song' further on in the present scene (after [CB 4.2.speech747]), however, the words `A catch' are not italicised here in Ferdinand's speech ([CB 4.2.speech713]). The absence of italicisation is not decisive evidence that they are to be construed as dialogue rather than as a stage direction: the very next such direction, which elaborately prescribes Ferdinand's mad dance, is not italicised either. The words `a catch' do, however, complete both the predication and the meter of Ferdinand's command. Having demanded `a mad catch' from the Doctor a few lines earlier (at [CB 4.2.speech 710]), he repeats the demand after Court-wit's re-entry with Strangelove (whom Ferdinand does not notice). Whether the demand for a catch is met is uncertain: a catch cannot be sung solo, but the Servants are at hand to join voices with Frederick's. (They have not been given an exit: their services will be required too soon for them to make one.) Yet this sequence about singing segues into the next turn: the joke of Ferdinand's dance routine will be that he cavorts as if he were four or six people, including women. The same joke may be in play around his call for a catch. [go to text]

gs1585   catch! catch: round in which the words are so arranged that one singer picks up the word[s] of another (OED n1. 14) [go to text]

n8894   A-hey! A-hey! Octavo of 1653 reads: `---Ahaigh---Ahaigh'. [go to text]

gg5788   A-hey! A-hey! Hey-ho! Hey-ho! [go to text]

gg5771   Mercury, in classical Roman mythology, the wing-footed divinity who presided over messages and commerce [go to text]

gg5820   conceited whimsical, fantastical (OED ppl a, 4) [go to text]

gg5801   honours, obeisances; bows or curtsies [go to text]

gg1000   as as if [go to text]

gs1586   as when (OED adv. 16a), but retaining sense `as if' [go to text]

n8900   the lesser lights Become obscured when Cynthia appears, Ferdinand's circumlocution posits that just as the brightness of the stars seems to dwindle when the moon (figured as Cynthia, its goddess in classical Roman mythology) comes out, so his dancing partners have disappeared from sight with the appearance of Lady Strangelove. The analogy thus explains why he can no longer see these imaginary figures. [go to text]

gg5821   Hydras, in classical Greek mythology, the Hydra was a huge serpent which breathed poison vapours from its nine heads, one of which was immortal and the others not removed but doubled by decapitation (it infested a marsh at Lerna in the Peloponnese, where Hercules dispatched it as the second of his twelve labours) [go to text]

gg5822   Gorgons in classical Greek mythology, the Gorgons (Stheno, Euryale and Medusa) had wings on their shoulders, serpents for hair, boars' tusks for teeth, and bronze hands (of these three sisters, only Medusa, the ugliest, was mortal) [go to text]

gg5823   Chimeras in classical Greek mythology, the Chimera was a fire-breathing monster (part lion, part goat, and part serpent) who was slain by the Corinthian hero, Bellerophon [go to text]

gg5824   Centaurs Greek mythological creatures who were half human and half horse [go to text]

gg5825   Harpies, in classical mythology, monsters who had the faces and breasts of women but the wings and bodies of birds and who fouled everything they touched [go to text]

n8973   charms of Hecate take force To dim Apollo’s brightness? Across classical Greek mythology, Hecate's identity is somewhat fluid. In this context, she is the moon goddess of witchcraft and her darkening charms are opposed to the brightness of Apollo, the sun god of poetry and prophecy, with whom Sir Ferdinand madly associates himself. [go to text]

n9421   [SERVANTS, having forced FERDINAND back into his chair, carry him offstage.] Octavo of 1653 reads `Exiunt [they exit] with Ferd[inand].' `Exiunt' should be `Exeunt'. [go to text]

n9422   [Pulling DOCTOR back from the departing group] In Octavo of 1653 the corresponding stage direction is placed, parenthetically, to the right across Swain-wit's command and the Doctor's question. It reads: 'Swa. pulls back the Doctor.' [go to text]

gs1628   censures. formal judgements or opinions of an expert, referee, etc. (OED 2) [go to text]

gg103   presently immediately (OED adv. 3); without delay [go to text]

gg5802   hanged out o’ the way. executed by hanging (OED way n1, IV 37i) [go to text]

n8945   high strained. That is: excessive (with play on the notions of a gallows being taller than the height of its victim and a hanging rope being strained by his/her weight). [go to text]

gg876   rectify set right, reform, remedy [go to text]

gg5803   picked gathered, plucked (OED v1. 12a) [go to text]

n8946   pericranium, Octavo of 1653 reads `pericranion'. In medical parlance (OED 1), the term designates the membrane which envelops the skull; but Court-wit is deploying it in its general sense as the skull itself (OED 2). [go to text]

gg5804   cerebrum, brain [go to text]

gg5971   albo vino, Latin meaning `white wine', a common pharmaceutical ingredient of the time [go to text]

n8948   thoroughly Octavo of 1653 reads `throughy', an easy typographical error for `throughly'. [go to text]

n8947   guilty Octavo of 1653 reads `guily'. [go to text]

gg5806   dog-leech, ignorant medical practitioner; quack (OED n. 2) [go to text]

gg5805   purged cleansed, purified [go to text]

gg5807   hogshead, large cask for liquids (OED 1) [go to text]

n9423   [Horn blows offstage.] In Octavo of 1653, the corresponding stage direction reads: 'A Guilders horne.' It is placed, parenthetically and to the right, across two lines -- the one in which Strangelove draws attention to it, and then the reply in which Cit-wit identifies the source. The link between sowgelders and horns was sufficiently familiar for Thomas Middleton to make use of it in a pamphlet of 1604. In Father Hubburds Tales: or The Ant and the Nightingale there is a description of a tobacco-smoker 'winding the pipe like a horn at the pie-corner of his mouth, which must needs make him look like a sow-gelder' (ed. Adrian Weiss in Thomas Middleton: The Collected Works, ed. Gary Taylor, John Lavagnino, et al. [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007], 172). [go to text]

n10258   Hark ye, gentlemen! Do you hear? Video The 13 December 2008 workshop session on the Sowgelder sequence proved extremely productive. Principal among the points which it raised were: the effect of direct address to the audience; the dynamic between the punitive group and their victim, the Doctor; the matter-of-fact way in which the threat is presented to him; the extent to which that threat is a performance by which the Doctor is completely taken in; and finally the transformation of the physical threat into humiliation. All of these discoveries were evident in the final run-through . [go to text]

gg2258   sow-gelder. someone who makes a living by gelding or spaying sows (OED) [go to text]

gg2258   sow-gelder? someone who makes a living by gelding or spaying sows (OED) [go to text]

gg857   and if [go to text]

n9192   other women have Seen the dissections of anatomies, The Barber-Surgeons' Company (a single professional body from 1540 to 1745) of London used dissection for anatomy lectures, which covered viscera, muscles and bones. The lectures were partly for the benefit of members of the company, whose regulations required attendance (in gowns) at a certain number every year. They also were public occasions, evidently intended to impress the uninitiated, and as Lady Strangelove's line implies, people were indeed attracted to them. In 1636 the Barber-Surgeons commissioned an anatomical theatre from Inigo Jones, whose designs for it are startlingly similar to his plans for playhouses. Visual representations of anatomies staged there and elsewhere in northern Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are numerous. In these images, however, women are rarely to be seen save on the dissecting table; and the few female figures that are discernible elsewhere prove, on close scrutiny, to be allegorical. See: Jessie Dobson and R.Milnes Walker, Barbers and barber-surgeons of London (London: Blackwell, 1979); Michael Neill, `The Stage of Death: Tragedy and Anatomy', in Issues of Death (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997, paperback 1998),102-140 ; and Jonathan Sawday, The Body Emblazoned (London: Routledge, 1995), 41-46, 56-77, 183-4. [go to text]

n8949   anatomies, Octavo of 1653 reads `Anotamies'. [go to text]

gg5808   anatomies, dissected corpses; bodies used for dissection (OED n. 2a and 2b) [go to text]

n9193   executed men ripped up and quartered? Lady Strangelove here refers to the public disembowelling and dismemberment of persons who had been convicted of treason and therefore condemned to be dragged to a site of execution and there hung, drawn and quartered. There is much evidence for the presence of women in the crowds at such executions. [go to text]

gg5910   heavily, sorrowfully, angrily (OED adv. 3); burdensomely, weightily (OED adv. 1) [go to text]

n9191   you look heavily, methinks, You shall be lighter by two stone presently. A double pun, playing on two senses of `you look heavily' (`you are scowling' and `you appear to be overweight') and of `two stone' (`pair of testicles' and `28 pounds avoirdupois'). [go to text]

gg5911   stone unit of weight which varies with different commodities but is equivalent to 14 pounds avoirdupois when used in stating human weight (OED n. 14a) [go to text]

gg103   presently. immediately (OED adv. 3); without delay [go to text]

n8950   CIT-WIT [and SOW-]GELDER. Octavo of 1653 reads `Cit-wit, Guelder'. [go to text]

gg5912   rarest finest, worthiest (OED rare adj 1, 5a) [go to text]

gg5809   libbing castration [go to text]

gg5811   tooth-drawer person who extracts teeth; dentist (OED 1) [go to text]

gg5812   corn-cutter person who cuts corns off feet; chiropodist [go to text]

gg5810   feeling physical sensation (OED vbl n, 2b) [go to text]

n11550   More rude than rage of prentices. On Shrove Tuesday 1617, London apprentices went on the rampage. One of their targets was the Cockpit Theatre in Drury Lane, newly converted by Christopher Beeston. (Rapidly repaired after the wreckage, the playhouse also became known as the Phoenix.) The damage, which was serious and involved costumes and playbooks as well as the fabric of the building, would have been well remembered when Brome wrote The Court Beggar for performance there. For contemporary accounts, see Herbert Berry, `The Phoenix’, in Glynne Wickham, Herbert Berry and William Ingram, eds., English Professional Theatre, 1530-1660 (Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 623-637, especially 628-9. [go to text]

gs1629   prentices. apprentices [go to text]

n9424   [SOW-GELDER, who has been unpacking his professional equipment, gets it ready for use: he whets his knife, lays out linen, places a basin by table.] In Octavo of 1653, the corresponding stage direction is placed, parenthetically and to the right, across seven lines (beginning at [CB 4.3.line2005] and corresponding to [CB 4.3.speech754] through the first three of Swain-wit's commands in [CB 4.3.speech756]). It reads: `Guelder whets his knife and all in preparation, Linnen, Bason, &c.' As the final abbreviation -- et c[etera], meaning `and other things' -- suggests, and as workshop session confirmed, the performance possibilities for this sequence are numerous. [go to text]

gg5904   cross across (OED prep) [go to text]

gg5903   delivered divested, rid (OED v1. 2a) [go to text]

gg5905   secrets private parts (OED n pl, 6) [go to text]

gg103   presently. immediately (OED adv. 3); without delay [go to text]

gg5906   give fetch, be worth (OED v. 34) [go to text]

gs1624   Forbear spare (OED v. 8) [go to text]

n9186   ‘Sweet’, sayst? Thou art not, I’ll be sworn. This speech ([CB 4.3.speech761]) is the first of three (the others being CB 4.3.speech767] and [CB 4.3.speech771]) in which Swain-wit indicates that the Doctor has been shitting himself in fear. The fact that only Swain-wit comments on this indicates the speaker's characteristically rude bluntness and/or his position (as required by the penultimate sentence of [CB 4.2.speech756]) behind the Doctor when that character sits up and rolls off the table. Beyond the dramatic fiction, the Doctor's self-befoulment is another jibe at Sir John Suckling's reported conduct at the front in the first Bishops's War. According to the seventh and ninth of ten stanzas in a derisive ballad: ` For when the Scots army came within sight,/ And all men prepared to fight-a,/ He ran to his tent; they ask'd what he meant;/ he swore he must needs goe shite-a'; and `To cure his fear, he was sent to the rere,/ Some ten miles back, and more-a;/ Where he did play at tre trip for hay,/ And ne'er saw the enemy more-a.' Reprinting the ballad in English and Scottish Ballads (Vol. 7, [1859], 128-131), Child recorded that it is `sometimes attributed to Suckling himself'. [go to text]

gs1588   trifles. testicles (ironic paraphrasis) [go to text]

gg4633   wariness concern; caution; circumspection [go to text]

gs1587   counsel. deliberation, consultation (OED n. 1a) [go to text]

n9194   I list not be no nearer him: no more would my cousin had he my nose. Swain-wit's relative is Court-wit, whom the Doctor has just selected to be the personal guard demanded by Strangelove. The implication is that Court-wit (unlike Swain-wit) cannot smell the Doctor's faeces. The line thus serves both to restate the Doctor's shitty condition and also, beyond the dramatic fiction, to mock the syphilitic nose (or lack of nose) of Sir William Davenant, the courtier poet and playwright to whom Brome repeatedly refers through the figure of Court-wit. [go to text]

gg3940   finical over-particular or affectedly fastidious [go to text]

gg1956   sworn, promised by oath [go to text]

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

gg3082   counterfeit pretended, spurious, feigned, acted (OED adj. 2) [go to text]

n8974   d’ye Octavo of 1653 reads `dee'. [go to text]

gg5828   house music. household musicians [go to text]

n9744   Go, Octavo of 1653 reads: `(Goe'. The open-parenthesis sign suggests that the compositor may have construed the word as the beginning of a stage direction and omitted to remove it when he realised otherwise. [go to text]

gg5826   spurging shitting, defecating, bowel-emptying (from OED spurge v1: to empty or relieve the bowels by evacuation) [go to text]

gg5095   skitterbrook! one who befouls his breeches; a coward (this would appear to be a Brome coinage, as the OED cites the only usages as occurring in The Novella [NV 4.2.speech583] and in The Court Beggar [CB 4.2.speech771]) [go to text]

gg5827   perfumes, fumigants, incense [go to text]

n9187   [Boy] Octavo of 1653 does not provide a speech heading for the Boy immediately after his entrance, but this is obviously his line. [go to text]

gg5817   Pindus mountain in the Epirus in Greece, home of the centaurs (half human, half horse) in classical Greek mythology [go to text]

gg5829   Ossa, mountain in Thessaly in Greece, in classical Greek mythology used by the Titans in an unsuccessful attempt to scale neighbouring Mount Olympus, home of the gods [go to text]

gg5830   Atlas Classical Greek mythology includes more than one mountain of this name, which is also borne by the Titan who, in punishment for rebellion against the Olympian gods, supports the pillar of the world upon his shoulders [go to text]

gg5831   Olympus, Steep-sided mountain (9000+ feet), part of an identically-named chain in northwest Greece and home of the gods in Greek classical mythology [go to text]

n9805   He’s more than six of us hold when his hot fit’s upon him. According to the Servant, Ferdinand's strength in insanity exceeds that of six servants. Being offered by way of warning, this claim is likely to be overstated, and in any case it can refer to events imagined offstage. On its own, then, it cannot be taken as certain evidence of the number of servants accompanying Ferdinand. In context of a play written for performance at the Cockpit in 1640/1, however, it does strengthen the already obvious hypothesis that these supernumerary roles were played by the youngest of Beeston's Boys. [go to text]

n8975   [Frederick] Octavo of 1653 reads `Fer': see [CB 4.3.line2066]. See also: [CB 4.3.line2230] with [NOTE n9035]; and [CB 4.1.line1766] with [NOTE n9349]. [go to text]

gs1620   civil gentle (OED adj. 11) [go to text]

n9190   Hercules eye The Servant is saying that Ferdinand looks insane. The wife of the ancient Greek mythological hero Hercules was tricked into giving him a shirt soaked in the blood of a centaur whom he had killed. When Hercules put on the shirt, the burning pain which it caused literally infuriated him, and he could not take it off. He raged about, did colossal damage, and finally committed suicide. The grandeur of this story ridicules Ferdinand by implied comparison, and the line invites business to make him seem sillier still. [go to text]

gs1589   charge give order, command [go to text]

gg255   fast. secure [go to text]

gg491   want lack [go to text]

gs1742   wonted used (OED wont v, 3) [go to text]

gg6074   abound pour forth (OED v1. 6) [go to text]

gg302   conceit notion [go to text]

gg5832   tumour swelling, bubble (OED 4) [go to text]

gg6073   vainglory inordinate or unwarranted pride in one's accomplishments or qualities; disposition or tendency to exalt oneself unduly (OED n. 1) [go to text]

gs1631   sensible free from delirium (OED adj. 13) [go to text]

n8976   battle of Musselburgh Field 1547 battle in which the English forces trounced the Scots and about which there survives a ballad rejoicing in the rout. Sir Ferdinand's mad persistence in performing this ballad, actions and all, despite Frederick's attempts to silence him, mocks both the general humiliation of English forces by the Scots in the hostilities of 1639 and 1640, and Sir John Suckling's particularly poor showing on those occasions. (See Introduction.) The text of the ballad was printed in Thomas Percy's Reliques of ancient English Poetry (1765) and in Francis Child's The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882-1898). It is here modernised from http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=4089: On the tenth day of December,/ And the [first] year of King Edward's reign,/ At Musselburgh, as I remember,/ Two goodly hosts there met on a plain/ All that night they camped there,/ So did the Scots, both stout and stubborn;/ But, "Welladay," it was their song,/ For we haue taken them in their own turn./ Overnight they carded for our Englishmen's coats;/ They fished before their nets were spun:/ A white for sixpence, a red for two groats;/ Now wisdom would haue stayed till they had been won./ We feared not but that they would fight,/ Yet it was turned unto their own pain;/ Tho' against one of us that they were eight,/ Yet with their own weapons we did them beat./ On the twelfth day in the morn/ They made a face as they would fight,/ But many a proud Scot there was down born,/ And any a rank coward was put to flight./ But when they heard our great guns crack,/ Then was their hearts turned into their hose;/ They cast down their weapons, and turned their backs,/ They ran so fast that they fell on their nose./ The Lord Huntly, we had him there;/ With him he brought ten thousand men,/ Yet, God be thanked, we made them such a banquet/ That none of them returned again./ We chased them to Dalkeith. [go to text]

n8977   sings part of the old song, and acts it madly. The part of the old song which is most apposite to Sir John Suckling's reputation is also the part which would be easiest for Ferdinand to act out -- the verse about the Scots gambling at cards for the Englishmen's outfits without having won them first. [go to text]

gs1621   pretty, skilful, artful (OED adj. 1); charming (OED adj. 2b) [go to text]

gg5907   back away (OED adv. 2) [go to text]

n9437   [FERDINAND] Octavo of 1653 reads `He'. [go to text]

n9439   Not know my sovereign lord? Cursed be those knees And hearts that fall not prostrate at his feet! Octavo of 1653 presents this speech ([CB 4.3.speech797]); but by Brome's metrical standards, it is fairly regular blank verse. The joke, of course, is that Ferdinand speaks as if Frederick were the king: courtly decorum in drama requires that he do so in verse. [go to text]

n9438   [Removing his false beard and doctor's gown and casting them upon the bed] In Octavo of 1653 the corresponding stage direction is placed, parenthetically and to the right, across three lines (the third through fifth of Frederick's speech at [CB 4.3.speech798]). It reads: `Off his beard & gown.' Frederick's placement of those items of disguise on the bed would facilitate their removal from the stage at scene's end. [go to text]

gs1622   frantic lunatic (OED adj. 1); delirious (OED adj. 3) [go to text]

gg2642   prosecute pursue, continue with (OED v. 1a) [go to text]

gs1623   doubtful uncertain, questionable [go to text]

gg5908   whatnot anything and everything (OED 1) [go to text]

n9188   cries a courtier up proclaims someone to be a courtier [go to text]

n9440   I would but live to subdue the Pisidians, And so to bring the Lydians under tribute Still making fun of Sir John Suckling's incompetence as a soldier, Ferdinand's mad talk continues in military mode but moves two millennia back in time and many miles away to Asia Minor. He speaks as Cyrus (the Younger), who in 401 BC led an enormous army in rebellion against his elder brother Ataxerxes, King of Persia. The initial pretext for raising the army was to tighten Persian control over the Pisidians, hill tribes above the coast of what is now Turkey. Although that bluff was successful, the campaign eventually cost Cyrus his life. Xenophon, who was one of 10000 Greeks in Cyrus's army, recorded the campaign in the Anabasis [Going-Up]. This model text of classical military history was widely available both in Xenophon's Greek and in English translation. [go to text]

gs1632   wit reason, mental capacity (OED n. 2a) [go to text]

n9442   [Throwing away his dagger] In Octavo of 1653, the corresponding stage direction is placed, parenthetically and to the right, across two lines (the second and third from last in [CB 4.3.speech802]). It reads: `Throw away his dags.' The stage direction cuing Frederick's introduction of a weapon into the scene had called for only a `Dagger.' [CB 4.3.speech789]. A typographical error has probably occurred in one stage direction or the other: compare [CB 4.3.line2089] with [CB4.3.line2136]. Since only one dagger is required by the intervening dialogue, during which Frederick needs to keep one hand free for removal of his disguise as a physician, this edition has opted for a single dagger. [go to text]

gg3269   Pish! an interjection 'expressing contempt, impatience, or disgust' (OED) [go to text]

gg6052   Hand lay hold of, grasp (OED v. 1) [go to text]

n9443   O, ho, ho, ho– The minimal dialogue which is here assigned to Ferdinand (and then broken off) suggests that he continues to act the madman while Gabriel and Frederick discuss his condition in speeches Nos. 803 to 806, the last line of which will produce a visible (and obviously sane) reaction from Ferdinand. [go to text]

n8978   madman! Octavo of 1653 reads `Madam'. [go to text]

n9806   I tell’t the devil in him, then, to divulge it When I have dispossessed him. exorcised. Getting no reply from Ferdinand himself, Frederick undertakes to address the devil in him. The construction of insanity as diabolical possession was common: see Michael MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam (Cambridge University Press, 1981) pp. 9-10, 155-6, 205-7. [go to text]

gs1590   means bribes (OED n3. 2c) [go to text]

gg5840   wind take or place [oneself] (OED v1. 2b) [go to text]

gs274   counsel, secret [go to text]

gg5841   posted, disgraced by having shameful facts made known, even advertised upon a placard or notice (OED v1. 3a and 3b) [go to text]

gg5842   balladed made the subject of a scurrilous ballad (OED v. 2) [go to text]

n9031   which Octavo of 1653 reads `with' (probably an easily made confusion of common abbreviations w^ch and w^t). [go to text]

gg6053   blab, talk indiscreetly, reveal or betray secrets (OED v1. 3) [go to text]

gs274   counsel secret [go to text]

gg699   means ways [go to text]

n9480   Enter STRANGELOVE, GABRIEL [and] DOCTOR. Octavo of 1653 places this stage direction after the end of Frederick's speech (No. 837). [go to text]

gg5839   epididymis. part of the testicles [go to text]

n9035   [Ferdinand] Octavo of 1653 reads `Fred.': see [CB 4.3.line2230]. See also: [CB 4.3.line2066] with [NOTE n8975]; and [CB 4.1.line 1766] with [NOTE n9349]. [go to text]

gg1946   undone. ruined, destroyed [go to text]

n9807   make this injured gentleman’s fortune Strangelove has just threatened to make Ferdinand the shame of Court. Echoing her own word, she now commands him to help her to make Frederick's fortune in Charissa -- that is, to secure the success of Frederick's suit for Charissa's hand. [go to text]

n10131   [ Octavo of 1653 assigns this speech ([CB 4.3.speech843]) to Swain-wit, but he does not appear in this scene, which is almost finished. In the next scene, however, the initial stage direction begins with his name, and the opening speech is his, so the mistake, whether by scribe or by compositor, appears to be understandable. See [CB 4.3.line2336] and [CB 5.1.2341]. [go to text]

gg3266   forecast prearranged [go to text]

gg6055   way and means method and resources (OED 1a) [go to text]

gg6054   succeed. follow (OED v. 4b) [go to text]

n9444   [STRANGELOVE, GABRIEL, DOCTOR, FREDERICKand FERDINAND all exit.] Octavo of 1653 reads `Exeunt omnes.' [go to text]

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