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n5039   3.1 Act 3 opens with an eruption of argument and vituperation, with Erasmus seeking to moderate the hostility between Matchil and Rachel, and Valentine beginning to see that the breakdown of trust between husband and wife offers him real opportunities. Rachel plays on Matchil's fears concerning her chastity with a wonderful set of references to card games, all of which seem to imply illicit sexual activity.
Once alone on the stage, Matchil speaks at length about his predicament, recognises his own responsibility for it, and reasons himself into the need to make peace with his new wife and, he hopes, persuade her to moderate her conduct. This she agrees to do, but only in show: out of the observation of others, she intends to rule the roost, and will covertly inflict physical pain on Matchil to keep him in line. This she proceeds to do when Erasmus and Valentine re-enter, appearing to have returned to a subservient role, but taking every opportunity to pinch her husband out of their sight. When husband and wife leave the stage, Erasmus and Valentine first marvel at the transformation and then shrewdly guess that this is all pretence.
It is striking that Matchil has his long speech at this point in the play and not closer to the resolution of all the plotlines towards the end. Brome to some degree rehabilitates his central character, making him unexpectedly sensitive to his own follies, and worse, and then showing him capable of a restrained attempt to restore some sort of harmony in his marriage. This gives the play an unexpected structure: rather than suggesting an onward rush towards disaster right to the end of the play, only for that to be averted in some sort of comic resolution, The New Academy seems to reassure the audience at its midpoint, meaning that the remainder of the play is far less tense and that we can concentrate much more on the representations of fashionable London life in the set-piece scenes to come. [go to text]

n5038   [Outside MATCHIL’s house] No location is printed in the original. [go to text]

n8914   [them to separate them] There are two possibilities here: that Matchil and Rachel are flanked by Erasmus and Valentine; or that Erasmus and Valentine are in the middle, keeping the warring couple apart. This edition imagines the latter. [go to text]

n4717   run my country Go into exile; fly abroad [go to text]

n5043   You Throughout this dispute, Matchil and Rachel address each other as 'you', rather than the more intimate 'thou'. [go to text]

n4718   fly Matchil means that he will make things so disagreeable that his new wife will run away; she reapplies the word, however, saying she will stay and spend all his money before she leaves. [go to text]

n4718   fly Matchil means that he will make things so disagreeable that his new wife will run away; she reapplies the word, however, saying she will stay and spend all his money before she leaves. [go to text]

n6160   Whoop, whow. These are typographical sings for the actor to express his fury and despair through inarticulate but loud noises. [go to text]

n5195   Nay, fie, be not so loud Erasmus expresses concern at the public display of their dispute, responding to the sense that reputation is crucial in the world of Stuart London. [go to text]

n8915   I know not what to say to her. Rachel's aggressive defence of her position reduces her husband to silence, just as she had done his sister Lady Nestlecock. No-one expects the previously silent servant to be so linguistically confident. [go to text]

n4719   find some good friend to know Rachel threatens to take a lover and thus cuckold Matchil, as he recognises in his next speech: 'She threatens horns'. [go to text]

n5040   first man Valentine's complacent assertion shows his confidence that he will seduce Rachel before anyone else; it also implies that her husband, Matchil, is too old to be his wife's 'first man'. [go to text]

n4719   threatens horns Rachel threatens to take a lover and thus cuckold Matchil, as he recognises in his next speech: 'She threatens horns'. [go to text]

n8916   She holds up that point stoutly. Valentine makes a cheap phallic joke, but it draws attention to the gender reversal that is shot through this scene. [go to text]

n4720   O for an expert surgeon now to cast her in a deep sleep, and geld her. Matchil's use of 'geld', to castrate, indicates how dominant Rachel has become, taking what her husband sees as the male role in their relationship. It recalls Camelion's term of affection for his wife Hannah: 'Cock'. Again the genders are reversed. [go to text]

n5063   surgeon chyrugion [go to text]

n6162   on her knees, to crave forgiveness at my foot. This is exactly what does happen in the play's final scene. [NA 5.2.speech1314] [go to text]

n4721   under spur-leather An under spur-leather is strap going under the heel of a boot to keep the spur in place. Hence the term is used for a subordinate or menial. OED records this figurative use only from 1685. [go to text]

gg3377   hurden a coarse fabric [go to text]

gg3378   smock a common shift or undergarment [go to text]

gg1819   lockram linen fabric used for apparel and household material [go to text]

gg3379   upper-bodies the clothing of the chest and shoulders [go to text]

gg3380   hempen sheets made of hemp, hence coarse or rustic material [go to text]

gg3381   Holland Holland-cloth, a fine linen fabric [go to text]

gg3382   dripping-pan a pan used to catch juices from roasting meat, a kitchen pan [go to text]

n5064   Hockleyhole Hockley Hole, or Hockley-in-the-Hole, in Clerkenwell, was notorious as a place of ill-repute and famous for bear-baitings. [go to text]

gg3383   gent a contraction of gentle [go to text]

n4722   Was ever such a crooked condition crept into a thing like woman? The abuse of women as having a 'crooked condition' seems common in the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but I have found no instances before Brome's phrase in this play. [go to text]

n4723   servant Rachel intensifies Matchil's discomfort by using the term 'servant' now in meanings drawn from the language of romance, courtship, and love. Where she had literally been Matchil's servant before, now her lovers will be 'servants' to their 'mistress'. As she says, 'gentlewomen use it'. [go to text]

n5541   [RACHEL] looks in her watch Rachel's action with her watch and her references to the machinery of the kitchen (the 'jack') are clearly intended to display her newly-acquired wealth and status as wife to Matchil, but they also suggest a freedom - specifically sexual - that threatens her husband.
It seems likely that her assertion that the watch is broken, or needs winding, implies Matchil's impotence or inadequacy as a lover. Valentine picks up a few lines later on the suggestive euphemism: 'Pity the spring is broke, but I can get it mended.' [go to text]

n4724   wind up my jack for me Rachel is still using the terminology of the kitchen, a 'jack' being the mechanism for turning the meat before the fire, so called because it takes the place of 'Jack', the boy who would otherwise perform the task (also a general term for machines [GLOSS gg3206].
But 'jack' is also slang for 'penis' and Rachel's desire for someone to 'wind up my jack' again implies Matchil's inadequacy as a lover. Williams, Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery, quotes an instance when the kitchen-jack is invoked: 'a whore receiving a "Spanish Rogue into my French quarters, where he turn'd the Pig so long till one of his best members was lost in the dripping-pan, yet the Jack-weights are secure and hang fast still" (p. 727, quoting from 'Spenser', Strange and True Conference, [1660]). [go to text]

n5541   Pity the spring is broke, but I can get it mended. Rachel's action with her watch and her references to the machinery of the kitchen (the 'jack') are clearly intended to display her newly-acquired wealth and status as wife to Matchil, but they also suggest a freedom - specifically sexual - that threatens her husband.
It seems likely that her assertion that the watch is broken, or needs winding, implies Matchil's impotence or inadequacy as a lover. Valentine picks up a few lines later on the suggestive euphemism: 'Pity the spring is broke, but I can get it mended.' [go to text]

n4725   crash at cards Rachel's use of 'crash', which can mean simply a 'bout' or can refer to sexual intercourse, launches yet more double entendres to torment Matchil with the prospect of cuckoldry. Each of the names of card games she goes on to use has within it some term suggestive of sexual intercourse. [go to text]

gs600   crash a brief bout of activity [go to text]

n4726   One and thirty bone-ace A card game in which players try to get as close to 31 in points as possible without exceeding that number. However, 'bone-ache' is also a popular term for venereal disease (OED bone n1 17). [go to text]

n4727   tickle me quickly a card game, also used as a woman's name in Middleton's The Inner Temple Masque. [go to text]

n4728   my lady's hole a card game, also used as a woman's name in Middleton's The Inner Temple Masque. [go to text]

n5196   sichie No other use of this word has been found. It appears to be a colloquial version of 'such-like'. 'Sich' is a dialect form of 'such'. [go to text]

gg3407   gleek a card game involving 3 players and 44 cards [go to text]

gg3408   primero a variant name for Primiera, a card game related to poker [go to text]

gg3409   gresco saut a card game, mentioned but not described in early modern literature [go to text]

gg3410   primofistula one of the names of primo visto or primofisto, a card game (This version of the name is perhaps unique to The New Academy; a fistula is, anatomically, a pipe-like ulcer and Rachel's term perhaps shows her inexperience and is another mortification for Matchil) [go to text]

n5041   Exit [RACHEL, ERASMUS, and VALENTINE] Ex. three [go to text]

n6965   Affliction on affliction hourly finds me, Video Rachel, Erasmus, and Valentine exit, leaving Matchil alone. The New Academy, like others of Brome's plays, sometimes seems broad comedy but then contain moments of nearly shocking psychological subtlety and penetration.
Matchil's appalled realisation that his marriage has condemned him to a life of conflict, noise, and humiliation results in a long and complex speech. It comes surprisingly early in the play: the audience might expect such a crisis for the leading character to come in the final act. This positioning gives the speech unexpectedness, and that may be one of the ways it achieves its penetration of the audience's imagination.
Exploring the speech with different actors revealed its sophistication in manifesting Matchil's response and developing understanding. At first acknowledging questions concerning the appropriateness of finding such psychological mimesis in the play, the actors and the director, Brian Woolland, charted Matchil's movement from 'egotistical melancholia' (Woolland) through a wholly new reflectiveness, as a result of which the character recognises his responsibility for the accumulating disasters, and finally -- surprisingly -- to Matchil's resolution to subject himself to his new wife in the cause of peace. The moment ends in a brief but telling exchange with a servant, in which Matchil begins to adapt his peremptory verbal style to his new humility and conciliatory purpose.
The exploration of the scene involved two actors -- Robert Lister and Philip Cumbus -- alternating the roles of Matchil and the unnamed servant. Each reading built upon the previous ones, incorporating rhythms and actions found to be powerful and revealing.
After much exploration, Philip Cumbus as Matchil performed the complete speech for the editors and other actors, with Robert Lister as the servant. The relationship between master and new servant -- replacing Rachel, now Matchil's provoking wife -- had become crucial to defining Matchil's journey towards a wounded acceptance of his lot. [go to text]

gg1476   rack instrument of torture, on which a body is tied and stretched to prompt a confession of guilt; punning on the rack of a manger, at which a horse is tied [go to text]

n4792   tearing my heart Matchil imagines himself a tortured hero like Prometheus, who was chained to a rock while vultures tore out his liver. Appropriately, Matchil changes the organ to the heart, seat of romantic passion.
Performing this passage, the actors found a violent energy in Matchil. At this point in the speech, he perceives himself as the victim and his complaint seems almost premeditated and self-conscious. It is characterised by elevated diction and reference and rhetorical patterning.
Alone on stage, the actors found themselves drawn to use the audience, as though they were setting out a case. [go to text]

n6966   Let me here consider, Video The actors found this to be the moment of crisis in the speech, when Matchil turns from complaint about the cruelty of his situation and realises his own responsibility. It is all the more striking because the character comes to an abrupt halt after a sentence of five and a half lines, the halt being in the middle of the line. The actors paused long enough for the audience to register an internal struggle and change in Matchil; thereafter the speech becomes less 'public', more intimate.
The pause was all the more effective given that Matchil ends his previous sentence with 'rashness'. He enacts a new reflectiveness, the reverse of his previously impetuous and wilful manner.
Matchil says 'Let me here consider'; and the director, Brian Woolland, suggested the positioning of a chair in the front centre of the stage, as a place to which Matchil might return -- 'here' becomes literal. The actors then used the chair to create greater stillness in the latter parts of the speech, as Matchil faces up to his predicament. [go to text]

n4793   moving cause In keeping with Matchil's inflated sense of the singularity and epic sweep of his torments, he now makes a cosmic connection. The root cause of his predicament is composed of his uncontrolled passions, failure to heed example and experience, and refusal to listen to advice. These are the 'moving cause', the primum mobile, that sets in motion all the other 'spheres' of his destructive conduct and resultant unhappiness. [go to text]

n6967   I cannot but observe Video The first half of the speech seems pre-meditated and designed, consciously or not, to enable Matchil to cast himself as a victim; but as he proceeds he finds himself forced to admit his own errors. The director and actors registered the sense that Matchil seems almost surprised to hear what he has just said; despite his determination not to admit fault, he cannot stop himself observing (in all senses) that his own actions and behaviour have created the various disasters.
Robert Lister found it best to engage the audience directly and intensely only after Matchil had reconciled himself to admission of his own faults. Conversely, Philip Cumbus used Matchil's tendency to list grievances and other formal linguistic techniques to portray Matchil as something of an advocate, asserting the justice of his case to the audience, ranging round the stage, only to come to a point of stillness when self-knowledge becomes inescapable: 'I cannot but observe'. [go to text]

n6974   how just A judgement follows mine own wilful acts, In the same kind, of doing ills for ills. Matchil's name primarily refers to his disastrous marriage choices; ironically, he here draws attention to the fact that the punishment fits the crime, matching well. [go to text]

n5542   noise Matchil here most clearly reveals his descent from Ben Jonson's Morose, in Epicoene, echoing Morose's abhorrence of the noise that his new wife will make. It is almost as though, at this moment, Matchil is relying on the audience's consciousness of this descent to make the point about the greater intensity of his misery: 'not alone [like Morose] with noise but ...'. See the Introduction for a discussion of the relationship between these plays. [go to text]

n6968   a fear of unchaste purposes Video Though Matchil alludes to his new wife's forthcoming infidelities, he does so in a phrase that is almost euphemistic, seeming still to try to defend himself from the knowledge even while expressing it. In the workshop exploration of the speech, the fear was manifest, but actors and editors registered the abstraction and lack of immediate clarity as Matchil uses a distanced abstraction to both say and not speak his dreaded fate. [go to text]

n6969   my purse must pay for. Again, this is relatively clear on the page: Matchil will have to support financially his new wife's bastards. But in the theatre the audience found it hard to determine exactly what he meant, even though the sense of sexual horror was clear: was it to do with the scrotum as a purse, and so venereal disease? The larger point appears to be, once again, that Matchil has to express his fears but cannot do so without distancing and concealing through euphemism and allusiveness. [go to text]

n6970   I see my faults, and feel the punishments. By this point in the speech, modifiers have fallen away and we are left with phrases in which the energy is all in the verbs. Here, Matchil stresses the parallelism-with-difference of seeing and feeling. The pairing is a commonplace: see Shakespeare's Sonnet 2: 'This were to be new made when thou art old, / And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold' (lines 13-14). S.T. Coleridge uses the same pairing in 'The Dejection Ode': 'I see, not feel, how beautiful they [the stars and moon] are'. Matchil's condition is the reverse of Coleridge's speaker: for perhaps the first time, pain has penetrated his arrogant and privileged alienation from the rest of the world -- he feels the punishments. [go to text]

n7359   T’enjoy some peace I will endure some sorrow, Video Matchil's self-conscious patterning -- 'some peace' ... 'some sorrow' -- emphasises the trade he is making, but its unadorned bluntness allows the actor to decide whether to play Matchil as shrinking into acceptance or, once more, erupting into bitterness, anger, and frustration. Philip Cumbus chose the latter , Robert Lister tended towards the former . [go to text]

n6971   Enter SERVANT Video As elsewhere in Brome, the entrance of a servant plays a surprisingly large role in establishing the nature of a psychological crisis. The actors and editors discussed the surprising prominence of this interchange, which looks so nondescript on the page. This instance may be compared with the arrival of the servant Belt at the end of Crosswill's soliloquy that opens Act 5 of The Weeding of Covent Garden [CG 5.1speeches1010-1012].
Here in The New Academy, Matchil moves from resolving to acting, and does so in front of a nameless character appearing for the first time. Hitherto the servant who would have answered is Rachel, the woman he has married; now Matchil has to plead with her to speak with him. [go to text]

n6972   Go call your mistress, pray her to come alone. Video Matchil's line is composed of two balanced phrases; it is as though previous instances in the speech have been teaching the audience to attend to the similarities and the differences. Matchil here begins with an imperative (in his experience hitherto, he addresses everyone thus), then softens to a request when he remembers his new reality.
In the workshop exploration of the scene, having used the chair to establish a despairing stillness when Matchil confronts his own responsibility, the actors were then able to signal this new humility by sitting and standing at the end of the speech. Matchil calls in his servant, perhaps half expecting Rachel, who has hitherto occupied this role. A stranger enters, and Matchil, imagining already the abasement he must go through, pauses, then stands to issue a command that morphs into a request.
Working with the actors also led to heightened emphasis on the verbs Matchil uses. [go to text]

n6973   Men that are born to serve, must seek to please. Video Again phrasal parallelism drives home Matchil's predicament and his intense emotional struggle to resolve it. Hitherto he has never served and never sought to please; but in order to try to achieve even a modicum of peace in his life, he now commits to abase himself.
The actors exploring the speech experimented with different emotions in these final lines (all intense). The unadorned verbs could express a resurgence of anger and bitterness; or the lines could be spoken with a quieter sense of understanding and resolution.
Developing routes through the speech and Matchil's internal struggle resulted in discussion among actors, the director, and the editors about the energies that drive Matchil and how one achieves a kind of verisimilitude in performance. [go to text]

gg3411   Sawing competing against each other [go to text]

n4794   Corn the Caster In the context this is likely to be either another card game or a popular phrase for playful combat. However, no other uses of the term have been found. [go to text]

n4795   all three to in and in The vagueness of this phrase makes it seem all the more euphemistic and so obscene. [go to text]

n4796   My plough goes there Rachel's metaphor suggests that, though she is absent, her part in the game goes on and therefore her money is being put to use. This is the meaning taken up by Matchil in his response ('Your plough makes vile baulks of my money'), meaning that she is wasting his money by making it unproductive ('baulk': [GLOSS gg3412]). But there is also, as in virtually everything else she says here, a hint of the 'unchaste purposes' Matchil fears in his new wife's relationships with Erasmus and Valentine, drawing on the metaphorical use of ploughing for sexual intercourse. [go to text]

gg3412   baulks a piece of ground missed in ploughing, and therefore unproductive [go to text]

n5246   housewife huswife. Rachel accepts the role of housewife as a woman with authority and responsibility for household affairs, without the pejorative associations of 'hussy' so prominent when the word is spoken by Lady Nestlecock. [go to text]

n6586   wow! Rachel's excitement is expressed in this exclamation. [go to text]

n263   Hyde Park Hyde Park was a new, fashionable leisure resort consisting of pleasure gardens, open in the spring and summer seasons and used for walking, horse-racing, and coach races. See James Shirley's play from 1632, Hyde Park. [go to text]

n4797   see and to show all Rachel's 'see and show all' suggests a promiscuity of gazing and display that strongly hints at sexual promiscuity to follow. [go to text]

gs606   gallant characteristic of the fashionable and sophisticated [go to text]

n4798   Academy Rachel's introduction of the new Academy in this context draws on the negative connotations of the schools of manners of the period. Though recognised as teaching sophisticated social conduct, that positive function was frequently and fearfully associated with their being sites of sexual corruption and debauchery. See Introduction. [go to text]

n4729   to try mastery As with the naming of Whimlby's dead wife, Grissel, Matchil's phrase here suggests a connection to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the so-called 'marriage group', and especially the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale. See Introduction. [go to text]

n5042   O, are you coming? Rachel's interjections in this conversation may be asides or may be heard by Matchil. [go to text]

gg1611   cozened beguiled, deceived [go to text]

n5042   I have found the man. Rachel's interjections in this conversation may be asides or may be heard by Matchil. [go to text]

n4800   a reputation Matchil asks that, even though his new wife may dominate the marriage in private, he be allowed the appearance of authority. It is ironic that he uses the word 'reputation', defence of which (meaning sexual honesty) is usually the province of females in fiction. [go to text]

gg3384   rap a slight but sharp blow [go to text]

gg3385   nip a pinch [go to text]

n5065   and you strike me Rachel threatens that, if Matchil retaliates to her physical attacks, she will cuckold him. [go to text]

gg982   carriage deportment, bearing [go to text]

gg3386   fetched her about to turn something to face a different way, to change how something is perceived [go to text]

n8917   bind it with a kiss Although this is an act only, Matchil uses the kiss to seal a bargain in a way reminiscent of Camelion's use of the kiss to try to shut down Hannah's arguments against his conduct in Act 2, Scene 1. In her conversation with Valentine, Hannah taunts him with a reference to 'thirty pieces' of silver, Judas's reward for the betrayal of Christ; these kisses may also allude to the 'Judas kiss'. [go to text]

gg3387   haytie twaytie no other instances of this compound have been found; the meaning is perhaps akin to the modern hoity-toity (giddy, flighty or haughty behaviour) [go to text]

n4731   the devil Matchil represents his new wife's former mutiny as demoniacal possession, but asks if the young men do not believe that he, the husband, has superior powers. [go to text]

n4801   power Matchil asserts that he has the power to defeat the devil, imagining himself as a magician or exorcist. But the combination 'power and virtue' conflates the idea of husband as dominant in the relationship and as sexually potent. He is bragging on several levels to the young men who, he fears, wish to supplant him. [go to text]

n4802   conjure him out Matchil continues his fantasy of the powerful husband as a powerful magician who can expel the devil prompting his wife to disobey. [go to text]

n4732   [Aside]Would I had you within to perform covenants. Rachel wishes to have Matchil in private so that she can torment him, according to their agreement. [go to text]

n5044   [RACHEL curtseys and secretly pinches MATCHIL] [Curtsy
Matchil's next line -- 'Aha' -- indicates that he is responding to her infliction of pain. [go to text]

n5045   [RACHEL curtseys and secretly pinches MATCHIL] [Curtsy, Pinch. [go to text]

n4803   lobster-claws Rachel gives Matchil a severe pinch. [go to text]

n4733   waanip No other use of this word has been found. It probably represents Matchil's pained exclamation at being pinched again. [go to text]

n8918   womanish fear Matchil associates being afraid with being female, but there is an obvious irony: he is afraid of a woman. [go to text]

n6163   knew know [go to text]

n5046   [RACHEL curtseys] [curtsy. [go to text]

n4734   lantern-horns The meaning is clear: Matchil needs some sort of protective layer to prevent Rachel from pinching his arms. However, the use of 'lantern-horns' is not entirely obvious. Horn cut very thin was used as an alternative to glass in windows, and the term 'lantern-horn' usually has this meaning. A lantern is a way of protecting a light from wind, etc., and this may give Matchil's sense of protection for his arms. [go to text]

n6164   Where is it? Erasmus offers no answer to this question. The original audience probably provided its own knowledge of the locations of the academies being satirised. [go to text]

n4735   love-sound The description makes the Academy sound like a brothel. Erasmus uses a more decorous term. [go to text]

n4736   And no drabbing? Though Erasmus is using elevated diction, even circumlocution, Valentine cuts to the most basic and vulgar: 'no sex for sale'? [go to text]

gg3755   drabbing engaging in prostitution [go to text]

gs601   I doubt (as a verb) to dread, fear, be afraid of (OED v. II 5 trans.) [go to text]

n5048   3.2 At the heart of the play Brome takes the audience to the New Academy itself, established in Camelion's house with Hannah as its landlady and principal hostess, with Strigood as its regent or director, and with Joyce and Gabriela as the performers and bait for, in particular, young males who wish to become students of the Academy. It is clear that the academy is operating just on the fringes of being a high-class brothel.
Strigood is joined by Cash, who is dressed in his finery, and together with Camelion they perform a dance. As will be the case in the rest of the play, the audience experiences two somewhat different responses: we see that this dance is performed by three characters of, at best, dubious morality; but we also see a dance well performed. The action is both reprehensible and admirable, simultaneously.
The Academy's residents and staff are joined by two new characters, apparently the young French men Papillion and Galliard, but actually the lost sons of Matchil and old Lafoy; Matchil's son has been living in France throughout his boyhood. Old Lafoy's son in particular seems to want to view the Academy as a brothel and to engage in sexual activity with the young woman who will turn out to be his sister, whom he has not seen for many years and does not recognize. Cash now becomes a moral interpreter for the audience, speaking in asides to confirm Strigood's intentions and declare his own role as, to some degree, the young women's protector.
Again, those on the stage perform dances, displaying to each other their skills, but also performing for the audience in the theatre. [go to text]

n5047   [Inside CAMELION’s house] No location is given in the original printed edition. [go to text]

n4737   Guests o’th’ game men come for entertainment, customers, sexual or otherwise. See Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair: 'Hang your vapours, they are stale, and stink like you. Are these the guests of the game you promised to fill my pit withal, today?' (3.2.107-109) (Herford and Simpson, vol. 6, p. 65). 'Game' could be neutral, but it often means illicit sexual activity. [GLOSS gs602] [go to text]

gs602   game sexual activity, particularly prostitution (as in the modern 'on the game') [go to text]

n4804   Exchange Camelion's invocation of the New Exchange and its profits once more associates social practices with commerce. [go to text]

n8919   pish Camelion once more denigrates Hannah's arguments. [go to text]

n4738   what’s what, And that our house is no better than it should be. Much used phrases, meaning of questionable morals. [go to text]

n4739   And though you are a gentlewoman born, Camelion makes a heavy joke: his wife comes from a higher social stratum, one in which her family might have had the right to heraldic display, to 'bear arms'. Camelion did not, but claims to have attracted his wife by his dancing, by his legs.
Hannah, the daughter of a gentleman, Captain Hardyman, has descended in social class by marrying Camelion. Her husband trivialises this by attributing her choice to her being attracted by his legs and his dancing. [go to text]

n5052   disguised in bravery Cash is dressed in his costume as a gallant; Strigood has also disguised himself, as he proudly says and Cash confirms. He has shaved his head and beard, put on a fashionable wig, and dresses modishly. [go to text]

gg3389   maugre despite [go to text]

n5198   can express at least Love to the quality Camelion appears to mean that, though he is married and beyond the courting days associated with dancing, he can still dance sufficiently well to show that he enjoyed and admired the activity. [go to text]

n6587   Tres-bon Clearly the name of a fashionable dance, imported from France, the name of which puns on 'tres' as 'very', an intensitive (hence a very good dance) and 'tres' meaning 'three', for three dancers, as here. [go to text]

n5199   passed Cash's costume is so good that he might have escaped detection, had Strigood not already known him. The play is full of disguise but also full of instances where members of this society attempt to 'pass' as something other than they are. [go to text]

n4740   Jesuit The Jesuits, much feared and hated by English protestants, were thought to be infiltrating England, disguised. Ephraim has already suggested to Lady Nestlecock that Strigood is 'adverse in religion', a closet Catholic. [go to text]

gg3390   perrule a skull-cap wig, periwig, false hair-piece [go to text]

gg3391   Hannibal eye a blind eye (OED cites this instance only) [go to text]

n4741   of wit, sleight and activity, Strigood stresses the irony: he has done as his brother Matchil contemptuously advised him, but to achieve this has exposed Matchil's own daughter to moral and social dangers. He caps his self-praise with Matchil's own characteristic exclamation: 'Ha!'. [go to text]

n6588   He could not think you would have stolen his daughter to ha’ set up withal. As so often with Brome, the editor -- and thus actors -- have to make a decision as to whether this line is verse or prose. It is 17 or 18 syllables, and so not two complete lines of iambic pentameter; but Brome is strikingly loose in syllable counts even when speeches are clearly verse. Here the line is set at prose because it interrupts a long verse speech by Strigood. Strigood's half-lines immediately before and after Cash's interjection are each five syllables. Shakespeare similarly uses the completion of a verse line to emphasise a prose interjection in Cymbeline 3.2.33-44, where Cloten's crude threats to the Roman emperor's ambassador Lucius interrupt the Queen's more dignified utterance, which ended with a seven-syllable line. Cymbeline ineffectually interrupts his step-son ('Son, let your mother end.'), but then steers the interchange back to diplomacy and verse with a three-syllable line ('You must know'), completing the Queen's pentameter. [go to text]

n4742   forty pieces Again, the number forty is stressed. [go to text]

gg3392   little-ease a place in which there is little ease for him who occupies it; a narrow place of confinement; specifically, the name of a dungeon in the Tower of London, and of an ancient place of punishment for unruly apprentices at the Guildhall, London; also, the pillory or stocks [go to text]

n5049   [STRIGOOD, CASH, and CAMELION] dance. Dance [go to text]

n4743   my trull Camelion lets the cat out of the bag: he is with a prostitute at the 'ducking pond'. Questioned immediately by Strigood, he tries to recover: 'I mean, my bitch, sir.' [go to text]

gg1701   trull a low prostitute or concubine; a drab, strumpet, trollop (OED) [go to text]

gs607   ravish captivate, perhaps in a sexual sense [go to text]

n4744   'Tree Fransh crown for two English kiss' Young Lafoy's heavily accented English is so represented in the text. It has been left thus in this modern edition; the caricature of the libidinous young Frenchman requires it. [go to text]

n4745   what we suffer in our reputation Joyce's recognition of the danger of their being perceived as prostitutes, for sale, connects her with Hannah's sense that her husband is exposing her to social and moral peril. [go to text]

n4746   common sale Gabriella makes clear the connection between their exposure and the commercial activity of the New Exchange. [go to text]

n4747   weigh their thoughts? Their gold is weight; let that be all we look to, While our deserving arts and qualities Require it from ’em. If they think us wicked, And hope to get virginities for salary, And pay for their deluded hopes beforehand, What is our act but justice on their follies, In taking of their prodigal coin? Strigood seeks to reassure the young women that what others conceive their activities to be is of no account: so long as they are virtuous, no-one else's opinion matters. But his diction is all commercial: 'weigh', 'gold', 'salary', 'coin'. [go to text]

gg2651   gypsy cunning, deceitful; also used as a derogatory term for a woman, similar to 'hussy' or 'baggage' (OED n. 2b), so could refer to the actions of such a woman [go to text]

gg2124   trench upon infringe upon (OED v. 7b) [go to text]

n8921   And that’s the way to do it Cash's aside echoes that of Ephraim earlier in the scene, when he observed Sir Swithin wooing Lady Nestlecock: 'And that's the way to win her'. [go to text]

gg3413   metamophosis change, but drawing on the connection to Ovid's epic poem, Metamorphosis [go to text]

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

n4772   four famous prentices This is probably a reference to the famous and popular play by Thomas Heywood, The Four Prentices of London (performed c. 1592; printed 1600), a naive romance of the crusading exploits of four heroic apprentices, the sons of the earl of Boloigne. The play was one of the main targets of Francis Beaumont's The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607). It was reprinted in 1632. Strigood is enhancing Cash's status by the comparison, but also maybe mocking his unsophisticated pretensions. [go to text]

n4748   cream and cake-boys This sounds like a well-known phrase, but I have found no other instance. It appears to mean, pejoratively, country-people, rustics. [go to text]

gg3393   stool-balls an old country game somewhat resembling cricket, played chiefly by young women or, as an Easter game, between young men and women for a 'tansy' (OED tansy 3) as the stake [go to text]

gg3352   catsticks a bat or stick used in games of tip-cat and trap-ball (see [NOTE n5066]) [go to text]

gg3208   white-pots dishes from the Devonshire and Cornwall region, made of milk or cream boiled with eggs, flour, raisins, sugar, spices etc. [go to text]

gg3394   tansies a pudding, omelette, or the like, flavoured with juice of tansy, a bitter-tasting but aromatic garden herb (tansy n, 3a) [go to text]

gg3348   tits a girl or young woman: often qualified as little: cf. chit; also applied indiscriminately to women of any age:(a) usually in depreciation or disapproval: esp. one of loose character, a hussy, a minx; or (b) sometimes in affection or admiration, or playful meiosis (common in 17th and 18th c.; now low slang) (OED n. 3 and 2a) [go to text]

n4773   Islington An area to the north of the City of London, Islington contained the springs that supplied fresh water to the city. It also had many pleasure gardens and grounds and was a semi-rural resort just beyond the dense urban town. As ever, the resort was a place where some frowned-upon activities took place, including illicit sexual liaisons. [go to text]

n4774   Hogsden A variant form of Hoxton. This village, like Islington, was to the north of the wall of the City of London, was semi-rural, and had a number of pleasure grounds. Like many such areas, it was suspected of being a place for dubious moral activities, including illicit sexual liaisons. [go to text]

gs693   ordinaries an inn, public house, tavern, etc., where meals are provided at a fixed price; also the room in such a building where this type of meal is provided (OED ordinary n, 12c, which notes that these had their own hierarchy: 'In the 17th-18th centuries the more expensive ordinaries were frequented by men of fashion, and the dinner was usually followed by gambling; hence the term was often used as synonymous with "gambling-house"') [go to text]

n4776   Bowling Green Henry VIII's Whitehall Palace had a recreation complex including 'four tennis courts, a bowling alley, a cockpit and tiltyard and gardens' on the site of King Street (see Simon Thurley, 'The Lost Palace of Whitehall'). In 1604 James VI and I converted part of the site into lodgings for his daughter and the later Stuarts expanded the lodgings until only one tennis court remained. Cash is consorting with the fashionable and court-connected. [go to text]

n4776   Tennis-Court Henry VIII's Whitehall Palace had a recreation complex including 'four tennis courts, a bowling alley, a cockpit and tiltyard and gardens' on the site of King Street (see Simon Thurley, 'The Lost Palace of Whitehall'). In 1604 James VI and I converted part of the site into lodgings for his daughter and the later Stuarts expanded the lodgings until only one tennis court remained. Cash is consorting with the fashionable and court-connected. [go to text]

n5543   Thy father’s money Would rust else, girl Strigood cynically alludes to Matthew 6. 19-21: 'Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also'; and also perhaps the Parable of the Talents, Matthew 25. 14-30, especially verse 25: 'and I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth'. [go to text]

gg3398   rust figuratively, deteriorate [go to text]

gg2902   crowns a coin (once gold, subsequently silver) to the value of five shillings (its spending power in terms of the currency of 2009 would be £21.45p) [go to text]

gg3395   mart market, commercial gathering [go to text]

n4749   Ne comprenez-vous pas la langue française, Monsieur? Parlez. 1659 rendering: 'N'entendes vous la langue Francais, monsieur? Dittes.' Papillion means 'Don't you understand French, sir? Speak.' Brome's French is presumably intended to be accurate (even though Papillion is not a native speaker, he has lived in France throughout his boyhood) and so it has been corrected here. [go to text]

gs603   spark a lively young man [go to text]

n4750   put Fransh into you Young Lafoy's obscene meanings are clear. [go to text]

gg3396   waggish mischievous [go to text]

n4752   Il est vrai, Monsieur Papillion It's true, Monsieur Papillion [go to text]

n4751   I kiss before, then you mose kiss behind. Young Lafoy is ribald again. [go to text]

n5050   [Papillion] This line is set as part of Galliard's previous speech, but is clearly Papillion's. The manuscript annotators of Folger Shakespeare Library B4872 and Newberry Library Y135.B779 make this emendation. [go to text]

n5147   [PAPILLION kisses JOYCE] [Salute Papillion's action, represented by the stage direction Salute in the 1659 text, is in response to Galliard's teasing injunction 'you mose kiss behind'. [go to text]

gg3399   Retracts draw or pull back [go to text]

n4805   Through all parts of our country, France, with an Addition of all Italy affords, The image of France as more socially sophisticated, and especially as the home of the most elevated and courtly dance culture of Europe, was well established in the 1630s. The young men say that they have also learnt from the culture of Italy. By this time the principal elements of the Grand Tour as a means of acquiring social accomplishments were becoming fixed, meaning a progress through France and Italy in particular. This is different from the continental tour for political and literary education, such as that experienced by Philip Sidney in the previous century, which included Paris and (when safe) Italian cities, but placed an equal, and often greater, emphasis on the Low Countries, the cities of the Rhine, and Vienna and Prague as the capitals of the Holy Roman Empire. [go to text]

n4778   Doe is de ting Galliard's use of 'do' draws on its sexual meaning. [go to text]

n4777   I understand you not. Joyce appears deliberately to fail to understand Galliard, whose obscene suggestions are too obvious for delicacy. She resembles the Princess in Love's Labours Lost, who claims not to comprehend the King's insensitivities after she has heard of her father's death: 'I understand you not. My griefs are double' (5.2.734). [go to text]

n4779   lie Galliard plays obscenely on the various meanings of 'lie'. [go to text]

n4780   hot-reined The 'reins' (kidneys) are the seat of sexual desire and performance; Galliard's kidneys are excited and importunate. [go to text]

gg2824   hot-reined kidneys (the seat of lust) [go to text]

n4753   Allons, à l’Egremont, allons 1659: 'Alloun al Egremant Alloun / Monsieur Papillion pour l’honour de France'. 'Onwards with the Egremont! Onwards, Monsieur Papillion, for the honour of France!' Brome's French has again been regularised for the modern text. [go to text]

gg3397   corants a dance, using fluent, gliding footwork [go to text]

n4754   La Migniarde A dance. Though listed here as a 'corant' or 'courante' 'La Mignard' or 'La Mignarde' appears in most texts as a galliard. The name probably derives from French, 'mignard' (elegant or affected) or 'mignardise' (elegance, affectedness). The music for one version, by John Dowland, is given in Gary Taylor et al, 'Middleton, Music, and Dance', Thomas Middleton and Early Modern Culture: A Companion to the Collected Works eds. Gary Taylor et al, p. 166. Other dances with this name occur elsewhere, making one less confident than the Middleton editors that Dowland's version is certainly the one referred to in Middleton, William Rowley, and Thomas Heywood, The Old Law.
I am grateful to Dr. Barbara Ravelhofer for her assistance in tracing this dance. [go to text]

n4755   La Vemimde No dance with this name has been traced. Dances could be named to refer to different styles or individuals; they also seem to have changed names depending on fashion and circumstances.
I am grateful to Dr. Barbara Ravelhofer for advice on dance names. [go to text]

n4756   Le Marquess This dance appears to be named in association with an aristocrat, 'The Marquis'. The French lutenist and composer Jacques Gallot (1625-c.1690) has a dance tune named 'La marquise'. Though too late for Brome's play, this illustrates the naming culture. [go to text]

n4757   Le Holland A dance named in all probability for Henry Rich, Earl of Holland (1590-1649). I am grateful to Dr. Barbara Ravelhofer for assisting me with the identification of dances. [go to text]

n4758   La Brittaine This dance appears to be named patriotically, as is the case with the two succeeding: 'Le Roy' and 'Le Prince'. [go to text]

n4759   Le Roy No dance with this exact name has been found, but like 'Le Brittaine' and 'Le Prince' it appears to be named patriotically. [go to text]

n4760   Le Prince No dance with exactly this name has been identified, but like 'Le Brittaine' and 'Le Roi' it appears to be named patriotically. [go to text]

n4761   Le Montague This dance is probably named for one of the most prominent French dancing masters working in England at the time, Barthelemy de Montagut. Montagut was a member of Henrietta Maria's household and had been accused of plagiarism by his colleague, Francois de Lauze. I am grateful to Dr. Barbara Ravelhofer for her assistance with this dance name. [go to text]

n4762   Saraband Sarabands were considered a more risque kind of dance, supposedly of Spanish origin, lively and accompanied by castagnettes. In the course of the seventeenth century, slower courtly versions became common. I am grateful to Dr. Barbara Ravelhofer for assistance with the description of this dance. [go to text]

n4763   Canaries Following on from the saraband, 'The Canaries' is another foreign, exotic dance, with a characteristic stamping step. Current from the late sixteenth century, it appears in Thoinot Arbeau, Orchesographie (1589). I am grateful to Dr. Barbara Ravelhofer for assistance with the identification of these dances. [go to text]

n4764   La Reverie The name could allude to reveries or dreams, or could be punning on the formal gesture of obeisance, the 'reverence'. Courtly dancing was closely connected with deportment, both subjects being treated in the most widely used books of instruction, such as Francois de Lauze, Apologie de la danse (1625). I am grateful to Dr. Barbara Ravelhofer for her help in identifying these dances. [go to text]

n4765   galliards A fast, energetic, triple-time dance with jumps. I am grateful to Dr. Barbara Ravelhofer for her assistance in defining and identifying dances. [go to text]

n4766   Sellibrand No dance of this name has been found. It is perhaps a variant on or misreading of 'saraband', described in the OED as 'a slow and stately Spanish dance in triple time' (saraband 1). However, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the 'sarabande' was reputed a livelier, sometimes lewd, dance. No precise choreography has survived to confirm this.
I am grateful to Dr. Barbara Ravelhofer for advice on the possible types of dances meant in this reference. [go to text]

n4767   Dolphine An unidentified dance, probably named for the French dauphin. [go to text]

n4768   New Galliard According to Dr. Barbara Ravelhofer (private communication), galliards could be highly improvisatory. This name could refer to a recently-invented version of this lively dance type. [go to text]

n4769   Valette Galliard A courant, not a galliard, of this name composed by Robert Ballard is found in Ballard's Deuxiesme livre du luth (1614), p. 21 and in Adrianus Valerius, Nederlandtsche Gedenck-Clanck (1626), p. 43. Dance names could be swapped easily in this period and it is well within the bounds of possibility that the name of a courante should be transferred to a galliard (both courantes and galliards are in triple-time). I am grateful to Dr. Barbara Ravelhofer for her advice on this matter. [go to text]

n4770   L'Epee No dance of this name has been traced, but it is probably named for the rapier. I am grateful to Dr. Barbara Ravelhofer for assistance in identifying the names of dances. [go to text]

n4771   Monsieur Papillion, essayons, 1659: 'Monsieur Papillica Essontes Mon Ami'. The compositor appears to have struggled with the French in the manuscript here; it may be that Brome's command of the French language was also shaky. This rendering in the modernised text means, 'Monsieur Papillion, let's try, my friend'. [go to text]

gs692   flashes a display or show, often superficially brilliant and often brief (see OED flash n, 2 3, 4a, 4b, and 5) [go to text]

n8922   our wenches can Strigood appears to have a bawdy meaning: even if he and Cash cannot dance the young men to exhaustion, causing them to lie down, the young women will get them to do so in bed. [go to text]

n5051   [PAPILLION directs the dance] 1659 stage direction: Phil tells what, etc. [go to text]

n6166   [Galliard] Fran.
In this Speech Prefix the 1659 edition uses a contraction of Galliard's real name, Frances [Lafoy]. It is the only such occurrence in the play. It is difficult to make sense of this unless the manuscript being used in the print shop was the author's. No-one else would think of 'Galliard' or 'Young Lafoy' as 'Frances'. [go to text]

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