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n7026   ACT FOUR By Act 4, the double time scheme (see Introduction) is taking effect. For Dionysia and Rafe, Act 4 starts on the second day since Millicent's wedding: for Quicksands and Millicent, it starts on the thirty-first day since the wedding. The other characters are variously caught up in the inconsistencies that this produces. 4.1 and 4.2 each introduce one of the major female characters of the play in disguise. In 4.1 it is Dionysia, dressed as a man in order to inveigle her way into Theophilus's house; in 4.2, it is Millicent, seen for the first time with her completely blackened face. 4.3 explores the consequences of those two disguises on Theophilus, in mourning for Millicent and deceived by Dionysia.
In terms of style, various sections of this play are a little removed from the usual expectations of city comedy, being closer instead to the sophisticated sentimental tragicomedy exemplified by, for instance, Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster. Within The English Moor, 4.3 is perhaps the most sustained example of this register, at odds with the sharper and more satirical comedy of the other scenes. In 4.3, beautiful young people explore states of grief and hopeless love, with copious onstage weeping; and Dionysia is caught in a dilemma between honour (which, she thinks, should make her kill those present) and the love at first sight which she feels for Theophilus. The solemn music of the Page's song contributes, too, to this notable difference in register. Parts of 4.4 also pick up this register of sentimental tragicomedy, as Millicent puts herself at the mercy of her lover's enemy.
By contrast with 4.3, 4.5 uses music to more energetic and uproarious effect, as Quicksands' entertainment for the gallants goes spectacularly wrong. Particularly striking is the way that the scene is articulated, proceeding through what might be called a medley of three distinct musical items, each advancing the plot, each outdoing the one before in energy and transgressiveness. In the first of the three musical items, the hired impersonators of moors dance 'an antic in which they use actions of mockery and derision' to Nathaniel and the other gallants. The second arises from the first: in immediate response, Nathaniel asks Quicksands' permission to dance a dance of his own, and does so, dancing so vilely as to render Quicksands and Testy helpless with laughter, and enabling him to make off with Catalina. There is no break in the music - "the music continuing" - for the entrance of the third musical act, Buzzard/Timsy singing and dancing with his rock and spindle. All three of these dances are, in different senses, deliberately ugly violations of decorum. All three figure weaknesses in Quicksands - his love of the exotic; his unsuitability for marriage; and his bastard-getting past. If Buzzard's repeated 'toodle loodle loo' is mimetic of making noises like music; and since it overlaps with the music which is playing when he comes in; it is not too much to say that there is a musical continuo for almost a hundred speeches through the climactic section of Act Four. [go to text]

gg128   habit clothing [go to text]

n3678   pistol This pistol is obviously large and dangerous-looking. Dionysia takes it, and has difficulty concealing it about her, while Rafe makes crude phallic jokes about it. A director must decide how to handle this comic exchange without making Dionysia a mere figure of farce. [go to text]

n3421   ’Twould bear no charge, or carry nothing home The reference is to a pistol: it would not hold enough gunpowder to fire a shot, or else the shot it fired would not damage its target. Rafe, however, is thinking in terms not of a pistol but of a penis. [go to text]

gg2140   viragoes 'a man-like, vigorous, and heroic woman; a female warrior; an amazon' (OED n. 2) [go to text]

n9223   Penthesilea Queen of the Amazons, slain by Achilles at the siege of Troy. Rafe's praise of Dionysia here seems to be a displaced echo of Jonson's Epicoene, where Morose calls Epicoene 'a PENTHESILEA, a SEMIRAMIS' (3.4.56-7). On Epicoene as an influence elsewhere in this play, see the Introduction, and also Steen, Introduction 7-8. [go to text]

n11651   Semiramis Legendary Assyrian queen whose supposed lust, power-hungriness and refusal to conform to decorous female behaviour are invoked in a number of early modern texts: see, for instance, John Mason’s The Turk (King’s Revels, 1607-8; published London, 1610), in which Mulleasses advises Timoclea, ‘Discard the timorous pity of thy sex: / Be a Semiramis: let thy husband’s death / Give thy hopes life’ (sig. H1r). Richard Rainolde includes a concise history of Semiramis in his Foundation of Rhetoric (London, 1563), in which he describes how on the death of her husband she ‘kept her son from the government, and most of all she feared that they would not obey a woman; forthwith she feigned herself to be the son of Ninus, and because she would not be known to be a woman, this queen invented a new kind of tire, the which all the Babylonians that were men used by her commandment. By this strange disguised tire and apparel she, not known to be a woman, ruled as a man for the space of two and forty years: she did marvellous acts, for she enlarged the mighty kingdom of Babylon, and builded the same city. Many other regions subdued, and valiantly overthrown, she entered India, to the which never prince came, saving Alexander the Great: she passed not only men in virtue, counsel, and valiant stomach, but also the famous counsellors of Assyria might not contend with her in majesty, policy, and royalness. For, at what time as they knew her a woman, they envied not her state, but marvelled at her wisdom, policy, and moderation of life. At the last, she desiring the unnatural lust and love of her son Ninus, was murthered of him’ (sigs. C4v-D1r). In Greene’s Penelope’s Web, the exiled queen Barmenissa mentions Semiramis as an example to be avoided when she tries to warn the concubine Olynda (sig. E1r). [go to text]

n2515   strikers Two meanings obtain: a) one who strikes blows (OED n, 2b); b) a perjorative term for a sexually active woman (OED n, 2d). [go to text]

n3422   stroke Another form of attack; specifically, for Rafe, having sex with him. [go to text]

n3423   I dare not understand thee yet Dionysia creeps a little closer still to compromising herself with Rafe. [go to text]

n3424   geldings ] gueldings MS; guildings O. 'Guildings' are gold coins, so that the O reading would make sense by itself (and this line is listed in the OED under 'guilding'). However, in context 'guildings' is clearly an error for MS 'gueldings', especially since these geldings (castrated horses) are referred to again in the play at [EM 5.1.speech944]. [go to text]

n3425   Best stars attend you May you have the best of luck. [go to text]

n3426   Mars Two meanings of Mars are at play here: a) the planet, picking up on the astrological imagery of the previous line; b) the god of war, appropriate to Dionysia's violent purpose. [go to text]

n3427   Venus Again two meanings are at play here relating to Venus: a) the planet, picking up again on the astrological imagery; b) the goddess of love. [go to text]

n5247   [Enter] QUICKSANDS [and] MILLICENT, her face black ] O; Quicksands. Millicent. like a black Moore. MS's stage direction offers a slightly different phrasing to describe Millicent's appearance. [go to text]

gg2846   bear up play one's part in [go to text]

gg2847   enfranchisement liberation [go to text]

gg2848   sphere realm (referring to the Ptolemaic system in which the heavens were imagined as a series of concentric spheres) [go to text]

gg1761   quaint skilful, clever [go to text]

gg2849   complot plot or scheme [go to text]

gs990   name reputation [go to text]

gg2850   dearly very much [go to text]

n3429   in the vindication of thy name That is: at the moment when your reputation is vindicated (by the revelation that you have been faithful to me throughout). [go to text]

gg2851   discountenanced dismayed [go to text]

n3430   my jeerers The people who jeered me. [go to text]

n3431   Stillyard A tavern in what is now Upper Thames Street which specialized in imported food and wine. It is referred to in James Shirley's The Lady of Pleasure (1637) I1r, where Bomwell hopes that he and his friends will

whirl in coaches
To the Dutch magazine of sauce, the Stillyard,
Where deal, and back-rag, and what strange wine else
They dare but give a name to in the reckoning,
Shall flow into our room, and drown Westphalias [i.e. hams],
Tongues, and anchovies, like some little town
Endangered by a sluice.

Numerous other references to the tavern and its delicacies are collected by Sugden (1925), which show that it was particularly noted for its Rhenish wine and for its sale of dried neat's tongues. [go to text]

n3432   dried tongues Amusingly ambiguous: it could be the delicacy of a dried neat's tongue, for which the Stillyard was famous, or it could be the tongues of his wife and her lover, worn dry by excessive friction. [go to text]

n3433   Rhenish ] this edn; Rhemish O. 'Rhemish', from Rheims, is not otherwise attested as the name of a wine, whereas 'Rhenish', wine from the Rhine, is one of the major varieties of wine in Renaissance London, and particularly associated with the Stillyard (see the note above). [go to text]

n3434   deal 'Some unidentified kind of wine, supposed to be of Rhenish origin' (OED deal n.⁴). Associated with the Stillyard: see the note above. [go to text]

n3435   back-rag Another Rhenish wine, whose name is an Anglicised version of Bacharach, the town from which it came (OED bacharach n., and see note above). [go to text]

n3436   Bridgefoot Bear, the Tuns, the Cats, the Squirrels Four well-established taverns, three of them certainly and one probably in Southwark. All four are referred to elsewhere in Renaissance city comedy as places of ill repute. The Bear at the Bridgefoot stood at the southern end of London Bridge; 'the Tuns' refers to one of several London taverns which bore the name 'The Three Tuns', one of which, at least, was in Southwark; 'the Cats' is a nickname of the Catharine Wheel, 'an ancient tavern in Southwark, between Union St and Mint St.'; and the Three Squirrels was in Southwark. For fuller descriptions of all four places, see Sugden (1925). [go to text]

n3437   a light piece That is: even a promiscuous woman [go to text]

n3438   enchanted castle two miles west Evidently, a topical allusion, but one that remains unexplained. [go to text]

n3440   my safety The fact that I am safe (from being a cuckold). [go to text]

n3441   some way to make known unto the world This is still, in effect, free indirect speech: Quicksands is reporting the lies he has spread about himself, acccording to which, he will hold a memorial dinner for his dead wife, because it's the socially dutiful thing to do. [go to text]

n3443   Fail in the second, blame my housewifery 'I intend to use my womanly wiles to provide an unexpected second course to the banquet'. Unusually, marked explicitly as an aside in O. [go to text]

n5248   There is a knock at the door ] this edn; A side, one knocks. O; Knock. MS. I interpret the first part of O's SD as pertaining to Millicent's preceding speech (which the context confirms must indeed be an aside). [go to text]

gg2465   Trifles trivial things [go to text]

n3444   Three-score pound land of mine inheritance Land which I inherited, worth sixty pounds. [go to text]

n3445   And my annuity of a hundred marks An annuity is a guaranteed annual payment from a particular person. It could result from a benefaction, or from having sold your land to a purchaser who offers payment partly in ready money and partly in a promise of future annual income. Vincent, the recipient of such an annuity, has foolishly borrowed money from Quicksands using the annuity itself as his security for the loan. He has not yet been able to repay the money, and in the interim Quicksands is enjoying the profits of the annuity. One mark is 13s 4d, so that a hundred marks is £66 13s 4d, a significant amount of money. For comparison, Brome's own annual income from his first Salisbury Court contract should have been in the region of £54, in excess of that enjoyed by schoolmasters or curates (Bentley, 1971, 107). [go to text]

n3446   come roundly speak plainly [go to text]

n3447   offices Two meanings of "offices" are in play here: a) positions at court; b) services. The gallants claim they have an 'office' to sell, which seems at first to be a lucrative position connected with the court (and such offices would sometimes change hands for money); but in fact they are merely offering to do Quicksands a service. [go to text]

gg177   Marry a common intensifier or expletive, a contraction of 'By Mary', 'By Mary of God' [go to text]

gg1194   party an individual concerned in a proceeding (sometimes legal) [go to text]

n5249   NATHANIEL, EDMUND, and VINCENT all burst out laughing ] this edn. Neither MS or O mark a SD here, but the action is clearly implied and important to the rhythm of the scene. [go to text]

gg3752   coped met [go to text]

n3448   made even has paid all her debts to [go to text]

gg2853   Blubber weep [go to text]

n3449   To wring out of their fingers' ends and noses Quicksands imagines the widowers weeping with their hands constantly to their faces, and suggests the weeping might be insincere. [go to text]

gg2854   demure proper [go to text]

gg3753   dissemblers deceivers [go to text]

n3372   jew One of three examples (spread between O and MS) which refer to Quicksands as a 'Jew', a term seemingly used as a metaphorical description encapsulating his moneylending and general hatedness (OED n, 2). In no respect apart from these three references does Quicksands appear to be 'really' Jewish. For the wider picture of representations of Jewishness in England at this date see Shapiro (1996); for further discussion of Quicksands and Jewishness, see Steggle (2004). [go to text]

n6766   a funeral and a marriage feast An obviously indecent thing to do. The audience may have been reminded of Hamlet, 1.2.180-1, where Hamlet complains of his mother's hasty remarriage that 'the funeral baked meats / Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables'. [go to text]

gs482   hedge minimize, limit (a metaphorical application of the main sense) [go to text]

gg2856   hilding a vicious, worthless woman [go to text]

n3450   antic An entertainment (namely Buzzard, disguised as Timsy the changeling). [go to text]

gg2758   presentment presentation [go to text]

n5270   Where’s the Buzzard As noted previously, Buzzard's name is appropriate to him because he is a 'buzzard', a gullible fool: something further emphasized by Nathaniel's use of the definite article in referring to him here. [go to text]

n3451   foster father This is because Arnold will be playing John Hulverhead, Timsy's foster father, in the entertainment. [go to text]

n3452   If not unto our profit, our delight Video Nathaniel subverts the usual Renaissance formula in which literature or drama promises both profit and delight, that is, moral improvement and entertainment. This entertainment, he forecasts, will not bring them any profit, quite the reverse since it will completely antagonize the man to whom they owe money: on the other hand, it will be very entertaining to them. The exchange leading up to this line differs considerably in O and MS: the two passages are presented in parallel in the Textual Introduction to this edition, and the two versions were also workshopped: both octavo and MS . The workshopping was originally undertaken to investigate the thesis that the O version might be more theatrically slick than the manuscript version, but in fact both versions were found to be highly stageable, full of potential cues for movement and for inventive stage groupings. In the clipes the actors make short work of the task of conveying to the audience that the notional location of the scene had changed with Quicksands's exit, miming being faced with a slammed door. It was generally agreed that, in Nathaniel's first speech, the train of thought is a little clearer in the O version than in MS. The reassigment of lines in the second half of the passage seemed to have remarkably little effect on its overall tone, since the gallants work so much as a team (described by one of the actors off-camera as seeming like the "three stooges"). In the workshopping the actors naturally fell into having the three characters making a good deal of physical contact with one another - leaning on each other, slapping each other on the back, as part of the easy rapport that sees them finishing each other's sentences. This, one might observe, is in marked contrast to their enemy, the solitary, and physically isolated, Quicksands. [go to text]

n3456   They are not capable That is because his ears are not able to receive the sound of comfort. [go to text]

n3457   Give the conveyance Convey. [go to text]

n3458   that speak not That is: 'that speaks not'. 'Speak' is a subjunctive form, grammatically correct but now obsolete. [go to text]

n3459   as fruitless equally fruitless [go to text]

n3460   Take the same cause with me Weep, if you will weep, not for my misery but for Millicent's death. [go to text]

n3461   chemistry At this date, 'chemistry' has a meaning closer to modern 'alchemy' than modern 'chemistry'. Theophilus is making a vague, rather than a specific, threat that he will cause grief of some sort to Quicksands. [go to text]

n3463   all these tears Lucy is in fact weeping as a result of thinking of her secret beloved, Arthur. This detail is clearer in the MS, which makes the exchange more pointed, extending it by two more speeches, but is also implicit here. There are several performance options to convey to the audience the real reason for her weeping, of which the simplest and least subtle would be to have Lucy, while Theophilus's back is turned, look surreptitiously at a keepsake or letter from her beloved. [go to text]

n3462   Lucy ] MS; no change of speaker in O. The EEBO copy of O also has this obvious correction, made in what appears to be seventeenth-century handwriting. [go to text]

n5271   such as the heart weeps Renaissance theories of weeping held that tears were generally a sign of sorrow, but not of the most profound and awful of distresses: see Lange (1996). For the idea that a heart could weep, cf. Wint., 5.2.87-92: 'She did with an Alas! I would fain say, bleed tears, for I am sure my heart wept blood.' [go to text]

n3464   Song ] song lyrics not in O; supplied from MS. Songs were frequently omitted from printed versions of early modern plays, or else printed separately at the end: examples elsewhere in the Brome canon include QC [NOTE n3252], 'Here a new song'. It is not surprising, then, to find that O has omitted the lyrics of the song, even though they are overtly referred to in the succeeding dialogue and even though (as preserved in MS) they are so specifically pertinent to Theophilus's situation. As Steen concludes, the song was probably written specifically for this situation in the play.
Furthermore, there survives a variant text of the lyric accompanied by a musical setting. The setting is preserved in New York Public Library MS Drexel 4257, a manuscript which contains a large number of songs associated with early modern plays including Brome's own The Northern Lass. See Cutts (1986). This setting ascribes the lyric to "Rich. Broome" - further evidence that the text was written specially for the play - and contains numerous textual variants detailed in succeeding notes here, although none of them could be called improvements on the text as preserved in MS. As for the setting, Drexel 4257 (henceforth abbreviated simply to Drexel) ascribes it to John Withy (c.1600-1685). Withy is a somewhat shadowy figure. First recorded as a chorister at Worcester Cathedral in 1619, he went on to become a noted performer on the lyra viol, praised by John Playford and Anthony a Wood, who also observed that he was 'A Roman Catholic and sometime a teacher of music in the city of Worcester - father of Francis Withy of Oxon'. A number of part-books link Withy and his family to the musical circles of his contemporary Thomas Tomkins, and in particular to small-group music performance in Oxford and Worcester (Cutts, 1986; Irving, 1984; Bennett, 1987; Boden, 2005). Furthermore, various other musical compositions by Withy survive, all of them exclusively instrumental suites. One of them is 'A Mask by John Withy', scored for two instruments, which survives in a 1630s music manuscript now at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, UCLA (Charteris, 1978). This piece is adjacent, in the manuscript, to another duet identified as 'Mask Inner Temple'. Nothing, however, other than the 'mask' duet and the song under discussion, is known to link Withy to the world of the professional theatre, and Cutts speculates that some 'special request' or personal contact lies behind it. This is attractive, but remains a speculation given that so little is known about Withy's actual career.
The compiler of the Drexel manuscript, John Gamble, was apprentice to the theatrical musician Ambrose Beeland, and a close friend of Thomas Jordan, Brome's colleague in Queen Henrietta's Men. (Cutts, 1986; Bentley, 1941-68, 2.362-3). Indeed, Jordan's handwriting has been identified in parts of the Drexel manuscript, suggesting that he helped Gamble compile it (Hulse, 1996). These facts tend to imply that the setting Gamble records is probably indeed the one used in the play on its first performance. For a facsimile of the manuscript, see Cutts (1986); for a transcription, see [IMAGE EM_4_3], and for a MIDI transcription see http://purl.org/NET/msteggle/lovedeit6.MID). [go to text]

n5318   In making of ] MS; by force to make Drexel. [go to text]

gg543   despite scorn, contempt [go to text]

n5319   has ] MS; hath Drexel. [go to text]

n5320   prize ] MS; price Drexel. [go to text]

n5321   the ] MS; thy Drexel. [go to text]

n5322   my revenger ] MS; and my reveng Drexel. [go to text]

n5323   has done ] MS; was made Drexel. [go to text]

n5324   In taking ] MS; haveing tane Drexel. [go to text]

n5325   carries yet a ] MS; still yet leaves this Drexel. [go to text]

n5326   For though ] MS; Although Drexel. [go to text]

n3466   wanton air Why does Theophilus react so angrily to the song? Ingram (1958), 233, speculates that the song might have been set to a bawdy tune 'for incongruous comic effect'; but Withy's tune is sad, and Steen correctly observes that the comic effect lies in the mismatch between the sad song and Theophilus's hasty reaction. [go to text]

n5272   PAGE exits ] MS; no SD in O. [go to text]

n5273   [THEOPHILUS] reads [the words] ] he reades MS; no SD in O. Presumably Lucy has the lyrics on a sheet of paper. The effect of this reading is to turn him back from anger to sadness, as he sees the personal relevance of the words. Like Buzzard in the tavern scene, Theophilus here undergoes a number of rapid transitions in mood which pose a virtuoso challenge for the comic actor. [go to text]

n5274   Enter PAGE, weeping ] MS; no SD in O. [go to text]

n3468   dost weep Do you weep? [go to text]

gg1432   without outside [go to text]

gs483   service position as servant [go to text]

n5275   Enter PAGE and DIONYSIA ] MS; Enter Dionisia O. The Page must re-enter, in order to be on stage to speak his line: hence O's SD is inadequate. [go to text]

gg2858   within inside the defence of (a metaphor from fencing: OED adv. 8b) [go to text]

n3469   keep true touch Maintain your consistent quality, like a sample of precious metal which passes the test of a touchstone (OED touch n, 5c). [go to text]

n3470   of a happy kindred Of a good family (by being a relative of Millicent). [go to text]

gg1460   mind (v) pay attention to [go to text]

n3472   Melts me Against her will, Dionysia is falling in love with Theophilus. The comedy of this scene lies in the registration of this process on Dionysia's face, while Theophilus obliviously administers manly hugs to her. [go to text]

n3471   This snare was not well laid. I fear myself 'My deception was not well thought out. I am in danger of falling in love myself'. [go to text]

n3473   bedfellow Although it was not exactly routine, male friends could share a bed without, necessarily, sexual intent in this period: but, again, the comedy lies in the effect of this idea upon Dionysia. [go to text]

gg2859   lakin 'By our Ladykin', i.e. the Virgin Mary (a mild oath) [go to text]

gs400   matter grounds, reason, cause (OED n1. 11) [go to text]

n3474   This my courage So much for my courage. [go to text]

n3475   She took from earth Since she has been taken from the earth... [go to text]

n5490   of you That is, of your family. [go to text]

n3476   What make I here What am I doing? [go to text]

n3679   [THEOPHILUS turns to LUCY.] This reconstructed SD is necessary to make sense of Dionysia's next speech, in which she contemplates shooting Lucy ('the mark my malice chiefly aims at') but now worries that she might also hit Theophilus. For what is implied about Dionysia's pistol, see [NOTE n3678]. [go to text]

gs484   mark target [go to text]

n3681   It knows not how to look, nor I, on them Malice doesn't know how to look on them, and neither do I. [go to text]

gg1470   gentle associated with the gentry [go to text]

gg3043   Ungentle discourteous [go to text]

n5491   Be bolder with us This line suggests (but does not quite require) stage business in which Theophilus seizes and firmly kisses the disguised Dionysia. [go to text]

gg3044   deathsman executioner; the person who causes someone's death [go to text]

gg3045   mire bog [go to text]

n3682   Within the ring Seventeenth-century gold coins were prone to 'clipping', when unscrupulous owners would shave off some of the gold from the edge of the coin. If this clipping infringed the rim stamped around the coin, the coin was no longer legal tender. (Cf. Hamlet, 2.2.420-4, where the phrase is used as a metaphor for a boy's breaking voice: 'Pray God your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not crack'd within the ring'). Phillis, though, compares her honour to a cracked coin, with an additional double entendre in which 'ring' suggests her hymen, broken by the loss of her virginity. [go to text]

n3683   soldered People sometimes tried to salvage damaged currency by repairing it with solder (OED soldered a.); but, as Phillis wryly notes, no such remedy is available for a lost virginity. [go to text]

n3684   That struck me into such a desperate hazard That is: put me into such a dangerous place. A metaphor from a winning shot at real tennis: Cf. Henry V, 1.2.263: 'We will in France, by God's grace, play a set, / Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard'. But here, Phillis is also thinking of the double meaning of 'to strike' as 'to have sex with', as at [EM 2.3.speech373]. [go to text]

gg3164   shift an expedient, an ingenious device for effecting some purpose (OED n. III 3a) [go to text]

n3685   my deliverance Quicksands thinks she means the moment when Quicksands will throw off her disguise; the audience knows she is referring to her planned escape from the house. [go to text]

n5492   more of your mirth than cheer This sounds like it ought to be a compliment - implying that Meanwell has been drawn by the good company rather than the mere food - but, addressed to a miser, it is a calculated insult to the likely quality of the food. [go to text]

n3826   black coney-berry 'Coney', literally rabbit, is also used as a derogatory term for a sexually available woman. A 'coney-berry', or rabbit-burrow, is, by extension, a slang expression suggesting a collection of available women, or a brothel: cf. OED coney-berry. A 'black coney-berry' is perhaps best parsed as a warren full of black coneys, that is, black, sexually available women. [go to text]

gg3746   yond yonder: that one there [go to text]

gg3119   scutcheons ceremonial shields displayed at funerals [go to text]

n5493   would I were whipped now That is: 'I am taken with that face. May I be whipped if what I say is not true.' [go to text]

n3830   of with respect to [go to text]

n3831   deed of darkness A set expression for any wicked act, and in particular, as here, for sexual intercourse. It is, of course, an especially appropriate phrase given Catalina's blackness. [go to text]

gg3120   Tawny tanned or brownish [go to text]

gg3121   russet reddish-brown [go to text]

n3832   blackness Again, a double meaning: Catalina's black skin is equated with sin. [go to text]

gg343   brave splendid [go to text]

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

n3833   Barbary An ill-defined geographical term principally referring to North Africa. [go to text]

n3834   rye loaf A loaf of black bread, made from rye: hence, metaphorically, his black maid, imagined as a consumable sexual product. [go to text]

n5496   white tooth ] MS; white white tooth O. O's repetition serves no obvious purpose, and makes the line extra-metrical: the confusion appears to be caused by the turnover lines in this passage. [go to text]

n3835   whittle The primary meaning is a bread-knife; but here by lewd double-entendre, Nathaniel's penis. [go to text]

gg3123   streamers flags [go to text]

n3836   keel mourning The keel remains dull and black, like her face, while the flags catch fire and burn brightly, like her jewels. [go to text]

n3882   Stickbreech ] MS; stick breech O. Insulting, but the exact meaning is unclear. 'Breech' perhaps equals 'buttock' (OED n. 4a), so 'Stickbreech' could be contrasting the elderly Quicksands, with thin buttocks like sticks, against the plump-buttocked young Catalina. [go to text]

gs541   clap get hold of [go to text]

n3884   buttock Here, a sexually available woman (OED n, 5). [go to text]

gg41   bravery 'finery, fine clothes' (OED 3b); showy attire (worn with an air of bravado) [go to text]

gg3171   snatch a hasty sexual encounter (OED n. 6b) [go to text]

n3885   To mend your cheer Sarcastic: the food may be awful (because Quicksands is providing it), but Nathaniel will be compensated by seducing Catalina. [go to text]

gg3747   Hist 'a sibilant exclamation used to ... call on people to listen' (OED); the predecessor of the modern interjection 'psst!' [go to text]

n3887   see ] O; fee MS. O's reading is defensible, and is here given the benefit of the doubt, but in the light of frequent other corruptions it may well in fact be a corruption of MS 'fee', which Steen interprets as 'fie', a mild oath, pronounced in Catalina's accent. [go to text]

n3886   o no, I dare-a not-a Millicent and Phillis, as Catalina, speak with a generic foreign accent, adding -a to the end of many words and turning affricate consonants ("j" and "sh") into their fricative equivalents ("z" and "s" respectively). [go to text]

gg3224   Cadzooks a variant of 'gadzooks', a mild oath [go to text]

n9125   [MILLICENT] exits ] Ext MS; no SD in O, but Millicent clearly does leave the stage here. [go to text]

n4301   Come not away Do not come along (see OED away adv, 1 for this now archaic usage of 'away'). [go to text]

n4371   (whispers) ] (whisper) MS; no SD in O. Quicksands, wrapped up in his plot, is overdoing things as usual. [go to text]

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

gg63   Fie exclamation of disgust or reproach [go to text]

gs548   presumptions speculations [go to text]

gg3225   frowardness, ill temper [go to text]

n4302   ill-tied knot their marriage [go to text]

n4370   I have done ill Testy's conscience is pricked by Arthur's sharp criticisms. Presumably he and Arthur continue to converse apart during the subsequent dialogue between Quicksands and the gallants, since by [EM 4.4.speech754] below he is offering Arthur Millicent's hand in marriage. [go to text]

n4303   This devil's bird 'A name popularly given to various birds' (OED), including the stormy petrel. (Nathaniel is interested in birds; cf. his earlier comparison of Phillis to a 'wag-tail'). [go to text]

n4304   scene That is the act rehearsed by Buzzard and Arnold. [go to text]

gg1499   towards on the way [go to text]

gg3226   furies nightmarish goddesses of the underworld [go to text]

n4305   moor-hen Another ornithological pun from Nathaniel. [go to text]

gg2329   triumph public celebrations, pageants, processions [go to text]

gg3228   filch steal [go to text]

n4306   the best jewel she wears He means the pleasure of sleeping with her. Nathaniel imagines himself taking part in a lottery in which this is the prize. [go to text]

gg1683   mum be silent [go to text]

gg3229   my masters gentlemen (OED n. 20b) [go to text]

gg2805   penny costing a penny [go to text]

gg3237   custards 'A kind of open pie containing pieces of meat or fruit covered with a preparation of broth or milk, thickened with eggs, sweetened, and seasoned with spices' (OED). [go to text]

gg3238   pipkin a small pot [go to text]

gg75   groat coin valued at roughly fourpence (OED 2), which in today's currency would be worth about £1.43 [go to text]

n5503   NATHANIEL, VINCENT, and EDMUND exit. ] Ext Nat. Vinc. Edm. MS; Ext. 3 O. [go to text]

n4364   bears me in hand (As he) maintains to me (OED bear v, 3e). [go to text]

n4368   bodily and ghostly Literally, 'bodily and spiritual', in which sense the phrase is very common in Renaissance English. Testy is using it metaphorically to indicate that he will invoke, both secular law, and the church court system, in his attempts to get Millicent back. [go to text]

n4369   all the conscience too If, to get Millicent back, it is necessary to bribe someone to bring false witness in a court of law, Testy is happy to do that. [go to text]

n4372   Enter MILLICENT, white-faced and in her own habit ] O; Ent. Millicent White, as at first MS. [go to text]

n4379   What makes What is it doing? [go to text]

gg4526   makes to advances towards [go to text]

gg3240   own acknowledge [go to text]

n4380   To all mens thoughts at rest All men think that I am dead. [go to text]

n4381   why do you stoop Evidently Millicent's posture changes here: to 'stoop' is to hang down the head. She is distressed because she is not sure she dares ask her lover's enemy to convey her to her lover. [go to text]

n4382   your service, not mine own Arthur means: helping you, not helping myself. [go to text]

n4383   How I'll return them; and remarried be Getting into the spirit of the masque he has laid on, Quicksands has lapsed into tetrameter rhyming couplets. [go to text]

n4384   I'll give her something with her ] O; I'll give him something with her MS. Nathaniel's 'something with her' refers, in either case, to his ambition to leave Catalina pregnant. The O reading makes sense in its own right, and is retained here, although it may well be a corruption rather than a revision of the slightly more idiomatic MS reading. [go to text]

n4388   And’t be but in the coal-house 'I'll have sex with her, even if the only place I can manage it is in the coal-house' (a building or room used for the storage of coal). The moral and practical implications of sexual liaisons in coal-houses are illustrated by a passage from Thomas Heywood's Gunaikeion (1624), 459, where a man asks a prostitute to bring him into the darkest room in the house: 'At length she brought him into a close narrow room, with nothing but a loophole for light, and told him, Sir, unless you purpose to go into the coal-house, this is the darkest place in the house.' A coal-house, then, is proverbially dark, which feeds into the play's continuing blackness imagery, as well as serving the requirements of the plot: it is almost the only suitable place for Phillis to have sex with Nathaniel, since, for obvious reasons, she cannot let him see her naked. [go to text]

n5504   Enter INDUCTOR like a moor leading PHILLIS [black and] gorgeously decked with jewels ] Enter Inductor like a Moor leading Phillis gorgeously decked with jewels O; Ent: Actor like a Moor leading in Phillis, black, & bravely deckt MS. [go to text]

n4389   gentlemen ] MS; That which we can all at once O. O's reading can be made to yield some sense - 'I will do the one thing we can do to hurt Quicksands, and I will do it immediately' - but it is clearly an inferior reading to MS's sly circumlocution for the sexual act. [go to text]

n4390   Black womb! Evidently, Edmund finds the phrase amusing, but there is no obvious textual reason why. [go to text]

gg3241   whoreson literally, 'son of a whore', but in practice a rather milder epithet of disdain, something like 'wretched' or 'bloody' [go to text]

n4391   He puts the blockheads on 'em 'He confers on them the title of blockheads.' [go to text]

gg882   grossly palpably; excessively [go to text]

n4392   Before my Lord Marquess of Fleet Conduit Fleet Conduit was a public water-fountain in Fleet Street, frequently used as a location for brief staged entertainments in the course of processional events around the City of London: see, for instance, Withington (1918), and for a discussion of one of the entertainments, Steggle (2006). Quicksands is describing an annual event, which must therefore be the Lord Mayor of London's annual procession, and this mock-honorific title, then, is a periphrasis for the Mayor. Brome also refers to the procession in CG: see [NOTE n469]. [go to text]

n5505   fears ] MS; fear O. The point is that he is repeating his previous line. [go to text]

gg3242   made away killed [go to text]

n4394   Her face shall be white as his conscience That is, not very white at all. [go to text]

gs88   careful concerned, anxious [go to text]

gg3243   conclusion result [go to text]

gg1932   try test [go to text]

gg3244   charily carefully [go to text]

n4397   fairest nation The idea that 'fair England' can transform black women into white ones is an imitation of Jonson's Masque of Blackness (perf. 1605), also referred to in this play at [EM 3.1.speech435]. [go to text]

gs553   draw select from a flock or heap (OED v. 35) [go to text]

n4395   Draw me Punning on the Inductor's use of 'draw', and on the phrase 'hanging, drawing, and quartering' (OED draw v, 4). [go to text]

n4396   [The INDUCTOR] looks in EDMUND's hand Chiromancy, or palm-reading, was a flourishing pseudo-science in early modern England. See Camden (1947) for numerous references to the practice. In particular, it was associated with gypsies, themselves falsely believed to be Egyptian in origin: hence this 'Egyptian prophet' is a link between exotic Africa and England. Brome is looking back to the palm-reading gypsy 'patrico' of Jonson's Gypsies Metamorphosed; and forward to the gypsies of his own JC. [go to text]

gg3245   palmistry hand-reading [go to text]

n4398   The devil take him made thee a soothsayer Whoever he was who made you a soothsayer, I hope the devil gets hold of him. [go to text]

n4412   rub This carries obvious sexual implications. [go to text]

n4413   'The Labour in Vain' Because washing a black man symbolized wasted effort. This was both proverbial, and also a pictorial emblem which persisted for centuries through European history, 'from Greek proverb to soap advert' (Massing, 1995, 180). Jean Michel Massing documents dozens of verbal and pictorial versions of the image, but particularly relevant for Brome might be the appearances of it in emblem books such as Alciato, online at http://www.mun.ca/alciato, or Geoffrey Whitney's Choice of Emblems (1586), 57. Steen notes that the black maid Zanthia in Fletcher, Field, and Massinger's The Knight of Malta is called 'my little labour in vain': Beaumont and Fletcher, Comedies and Tragedies (1647), 73. But in particular, Nathaniel is thinking of a sign for an inn, and numerous seventeenth-century references attest to the existence of inns bearing the name (as some still do today). As he appears to be thinking of a specific tavern, perhaps the best candidate is one of that name which was in business for a period before 1656 and which was located on Old Fish Street Hill near St Paul's Cathedral. See Burn (1855), 98. [go to text]

n4414   limbo lavender Nathaniel has pawned all his other clothes, which are stored by Quicksands in a chest, in a limbo-like state, until Nathaniel is able to repay his debts. Lavender was used to protect stored clothes from damage by moths. [go to text]

n4415   Would his brains were in thy belly that keeps the key on't Not clear: perhaps Nathaniel is wishing that Quicksands (the person who holds the key to the chest with the clothes in) might be eaten by the Inductor. [go to text]

n4416   black mark Terminology from archery: black is the colour for the centre of an archery target, or 'mark', and if Quicksands hits the black mark, by marrying Catalina, she will turn white. [go to text]

n5506   Enter the rest of the MOORS. They dance an antic in which they use action of mockery and derision to the three gentlemen ] O; Enter 6. Blackamores. Daunce. MS. An 'antic' is a grotesque dance. [go to text]

n5507   The INDUCTOR and MOORS exit ] Ext Actor, & the rest of Moores MS; no equivalent SD in O. Something like MS's SD is required, in any case, so that the Inductor and Moors can re-enter later in the scene. [go to text]

n6929   bride Nathaniel half-jokingly picks up on the earlier suggestions [EM 4.5.speech779], [EM 4.5.speech791], [EM 4.5.speech804], that Quicksands may be intending to marry Catalina. [go to text]

n5508   Music! With a characteristically relaxed handling of verisimilitude, the music Nathaniel calls for is surely provided, like that for the dance of the moors, by the (offstage) theatre orchestra. [go to text]

gg3257   galliard a lively dance in triple time [go to text]

n4417   bullace ] Bullis O; Bullis MS; bullies conj. Deighton; Bull's conj. Ingram. As Steen correctly notes, Nathaniel is here addressing the black Phillis as 'bullace', a term for a black plum, used figuratively to indicate her black beauty (see OED bullace n.). Ingram's conjecture that it refers to music by the organist John Bull is invalid. [go to text]

n4419   NATHANIEL dances vilely. QUICKSANDS and TESTY laugh and look off ] O; He daunces vily MS. Nathaniel's plan is to render Quicksands helpless with laughter, so that he will not notice Nathaniel and Catalina leaving the room together. The vile dancing, then, is a calculated act. To 'look off' is to turn one's eyes away (OED look v. 38), and we should imagine Quicksands and Testy almost weeping with laughter, perhaps holding on to one another for support. [go to text]

n4421   Do you laugh at me Perhaps best construed as a sardonic comment, rather than actually spoken to Quicksands: as he takes Catalina away to seduce her, Nathaniel thinks he has the last laugh. The MS stage direction specifies that 'he dances her quite away': evidently, the two are dancing together as they leave the stage. [go to text]

n5509   Enter ARNOLD like a countryman, and BUZZARD like a changeling, and as they enter, NATHANIEL [exits] with PHILLIS, the music still playing ] O; He daunces her quite away & sodainly Enter Arnold like an old countrey man And Buzzard like a Changling, the Musick Continuing MS. [go to text]

n4422   rock and spindle For rocks and spindles, see [NOTE n2795]. It seems a reasonable supposition that the dancing routine would dwell on the lewd phallic possibilities of the rock. [go to text]

n4425   Hack ye there, hack ye there One of the catchphrases of Buzzard-as-changeling. 'Hack' can refer to carding fibres with a hackle, or comb, one of the stages of spinning (OED v4). Steen suggests it indicates 'the chopping motion associated with a rock and spindle', but it is hard to find lexical support for this meaning. [go to text]

n4426   Hey toodle loodle loodle loo Imitative of the sound of a flute or pipe: see OED toodle v. Perhaps best interpreted, like 'ha ha ha', as an instruction to make noise rather than a set of words to be spoken. [go to text]

n4427   You are advised enough, sir, if you please ] You are advis'd enough: Sir, if you please O; You are advised enough Sr and you please MS. O's punctuation is mistaken. The meaning is, 'You ask if we are men or devils, but, if I may say so, you should be able to recognize devils (since I imagine you are personally acquainted with them)'. One of a number of jokes linking Quicksands to Hell. [go to text]

n4428   You cannot hear o’that side Proverbial: 'you'd rather not listen to this unwelcome news' (Tilley, E11). [go to text]

gs569   simple mentally impaired [go to text]

n4429   -folk That is, not in any county: a neologism, which also sounds like an obscenity. [go to text]

gg113   charge trouble, expense, responsibility (OED n. 11) [go to text]

n4430   natural father A pun: the first 'natural' refers to Timsy's mental impairment [GLOSS gg2813], and the second to Quicksands' fathering of a 'natural child', or bastard, out of wedlock. [go to text]

gg1531   got begotten, conceived [go to text]

n4431   Here’s good stuff Already angry at Quicksands for his treatment of Millicent, Testy starts to become incandescent at the news of Quicksands' earlier behaviour. [go to text]

gg1499   towards on the way [go to text]

n5511   Etcetera O uses '&c' at the end of these speeches: in effect, the printed script gives the actor playing Buzzard an instruction to make continuous noises. Modernizing editions have tended to tidy away details like this, but they seem worth preserving, as important to the overall effect of the scene. [go to text]

gg3261   bastard-getter one who fathers children out of wedlock: seemingly a Brome coinage [go to text]

n4432   it works That is: our plot takes effect. In particular, 'it works' might suggest a drug starting to act (OED v, 23 with quotations dating from 1585 and 1651). [go to text]

n4434   I'll teach you to get a bastard, sirrah I'll punish you for getting a bastard (OED teach v, 6b), although, in the next line, Arnold takes Testy's comment more literally. Presumably Testy is physically menacing Quicksands here, perhaps even starting to pursue him around a crowded stage full of ensemble comic action. [go to text]

n4435   I will lay truth before you I will tell you the truth. Of course, Quicksands does no such thing. His claim that it was Buzzard who fathered the child is particularly amusing because we know, and Quicksands does not, that Buzzard is on stage to hear himself wrongly accused. [go to text]

gg952   man manservant, but in the seventeenth century taking on the more specific meaning of servant who takes care of horses [go to text]

gs570   like (a) likely [go to text]

gg3258   articled agreed (generally in the context of a formal contract) [go to text]

n4436   thrip among the mawthers To spin yarn among the unmarried women: two pieces of Norfolk dialect discussed at more length at [NOTE n2796] and [NOTE n2588]. [go to text]

n4437   And twirling of his spindle on the thrip-skins A 'trip-skin' is a 'A piece of leather, worn on the right hand side of the petticoat, by spinners with the rock, on which the spindle plays, and the yarn is pressed by the hand of the spinner' (OED, quoting Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia [1825]). For the sake of consistency in the joke, this edition retains O's spelling, 'thrip-skins'. This is then a correct piece of spinning terminology, but there is also a double entendre whereby it suggests, in titillatingly imprecise terms, the act of sex. [go to text]

n4438   fetched up the bellies He made pregnant. [go to text]

gg3259   thrip-sisters fellow-spinners (seemingly a Brome coinage, and otherwise unattested) [go to text]

gg1008   hirelings hired servants or workers, particularly used of rural employment [go to text]

gg3260   knavish rascally: here used as a term of praise implying 'shrewd' or 'cunning' [go to text]

gs571   put away dismiss [go to text]

n4439   laughed him out of countenance You shamed him with your laughter (OED countenance n, 6b) [go to text]

gg2607   frantic violently or ragingly mad (OED adj. 1) [go to text]

n4440   I must have wits and fits, my fancies and fegaries All terms meaning 'clever conceit' or 'witty idea'. [go to text]

n4441   Timsy In Caroline England, children were expected to kneel to their fathers, and ask their blessing. Timsy is a diminutive of 'Timothy', inappropriate for a grown man, and particularly funny for the audience because the character is being played by the clown Timothy Read. See Introduction for two contemporary allusions to his performance as the changeling. [go to text]

n4443   Upon all my knees Nonsensical, and clearly funny. [go to text]

n4445   Enter NATHANIEL and PHILLIS, pulled in by the [INDUCTOR and the other] MOORS ] pulled in by the Moors O; pulld in by the Moore-actor MS. [go to text]

n6764   What was’t to you What business was it of yours? [go to text]

n4444   Inductor This character, who speaks three speeches here, is identified only as 'Moor' in the speech-prefixes of O. But the SD in the MS identifies him as 'the Moor-actor', that is, the Inductor. [go to text]

n6765   lightness A pun: a 'light' woman is one who is sexually promiscuous. [go to text]

n4464   I love her, and will justify my act I will marry her (OED justify v, 7c). A coup de théâtre, and, from the point of view of character criticism, one of the major cruces of the play, since it is so inexplicably out of character with Nathaniel's professed allergy to marriage up to this point. There are two main possibilities for a production attempting to make sense of this moment. On the one hand, Nathaniel could be saying this out of some cynical calculation, hoping for instance that Quicksands will buy him off (although there is yet little obvious reason to suppose that Quicksands would), or while physically under duress of some sort (such as being menaced by the Moors). The other, and perhaps preferable, possibility is that Nathaniel, transported with sexual pleasure, surprises himself by blurting out an intention to marry. This opens the way to seeing Nathaniel as a more complex character with a little interiority, and to seeing him as ultimately redeemable by Phillis. [go to text]

n4465   And I thee, best of any man on earth ] And I thee best of any living man MS; And I the best of any man on earth O. I love you (and, implicitly, I accept your proposal of marriage). This line cements, in effect, a handfasting, a semi-formal engagement. It, too, is something of a character crux. Either it is touchingly sincere; or it is a grudging acceptance that men are horrible, and Nathaniel is the best of a bad lot; or, even, it is an alarming admission that she has now tried out many male lovers. Given the sympathetic treatment of Phillis elsewhere in the play, the third of these seems unlikely, and perhaps it might be played as a blend of the first and second options. O and MS differ in two ways: O's 'the' yields some sense, but is much weaker than MS's idiomatic 'thee'. It is most likely a transmissional error and is corrected here from MS. On the other hand, the last words of the line are different but not evidently corrupt, and O's reading is retained for them. Here MS's version of these last words is in some ways richer in its implications, inviting consideration of who Phillis might have loved who is now dead (such as her missing father), but perhaps this very richness led Brome to consider it over-complicating in this critical, and very busy, moment in the play. [go to text]

n4466   Thou speakest good English now That is because in her previous line she has dropped the 'blackface' dialect. Yet a third character crux: how much does Nathaniel realize when he speaks this line? There are at least three possibilities: blithe and slightly puzzled at the improvement in Catalina's English; suddenly aware Catalina might be a white woman, and therefore horrified; or suddenly aware that Catalina might be Millicent, and therefore delighted. All three possibilities are defensible, and all three produce different comic progressions through the dialogue that follows. [go to text]

n4467   Why take you on so, for an ugly fiend Why are you so upset over him seducing an ugly fiend like Catalina? [go to text]

gg3262   In conceit in your imagination [go to text]

gg3263   skill carries a meaning closer to 'expert knowledge' than to the modern idea of 'practised action' [go to text]

n4469   [The INDUCTOR and MOORS exit.] ] ext actors MS; no SD in O. They are the 'friends' referred to in Testy's speech, and this is a convenient way of getting them off stage. [go to text]

gs573   charge a person in one's care [go to text]

gg3264   smoked detected [go to text]

gg1940   huswife a pejorative term for a hussy or worthless woman (OED housewife n. 2) [go to text]

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