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n9445   ACT TWO This act, another which is relatively short, again shifts the scene (like Act One but with more complexity) between public and private spaces. The first scene opens as if before the house or office of Chequino, Guadagni’s lawyer. The two fathers come there to finalise arrangements for the dowry and, while Guadagni enters, Pantaloni stays without to discuss with his servant, Nicolo, a plan to avenge what he considers an outrageous insult perpetrated by the Novella the previous evening. The precise nature of the insult and the intended mode of revenge are not yet revealed, only the considerable sum of gold to be awarded the doer of the deed, which suggests the insult was heinous. Nicolo agrees that revenge is necessary if old men are to consort with women in future without being the butt of ridicule. Alone, Nicolo is musing on Pantaloni’s want of charity or scruple when Fabritio, his younger master, approaches and draws him out of the street into what may be a room in Horatio’s house or a tavern, where the four young gallants last seen in 1.1 are carousing together; Nicolo joins them and is persuaded to become one in their plotting against the two old fathers. He reveals to Francisco Pantaloni’s instruction that the pedlar woman be employed to visit Flavia with gifts coming as from Fabritio, and indicates that the pedlar might be worth suborning. Nicolo next confesses he might reveal a further plot but will do so only to Fabritio. Walking apart from the others, Nicolo tells how a trick was played on Pantaloni when he attempted to bed the Novella the previous evening, and how in revenge Pantaloni plans to disgrace the courtesan in Venice by having her, unawares, converse with the public executioner and then exposed in the act to public ostracism. Since none but the Zaffi are allowed to speak with the executioner, Nicolo has acquired a Zaffi’s clothing at Pantaloni’s instruction to enable him to visit the executioner and set the scheme in motion. Fabritio takes the disguise to aid a plan forming in his own mind, bidding Nicolo acquire another uniform. Nicolo departs, as the three remaining gallants inform Fabritio that they have spent the time evolving plots of their own. Horatio alone reveals that he is setting off to visit the Novella. Though much of this scene is taken up with expository narrative about the past and with scheming for future activity, which will become clear to the audience only as the play advances, this information is rendered dynamic by the way it is conveyed to spectators in terms of social and familial relations. It is a significant aspect of the scene that, though Nicolo bears a notable grudge against Pantaloni, he devises a means to impart privately to Fabritio what happened between his father and the Novella and the consequences of that in terms of Pantaloni’s scheme for revenge rather than reveal all to the assembled company. Clearly Fabritio and Nicolo both find Pantaloni a fool and a disagreeable lecher, but they choose to protect him from universal derision and scorn. Brome’s depiction of servants, male and female, is always complex in its characterisation: like Astutta in the previous scene, Nicolo shows himself as quick-witted, spirited, understanding and not without sensitivity.

In the second scene the audience finally meet the Novella with her blackamoor maid, Jacconetta, and her bravo or pimp, Borgio. The possible inter-textual significance of the iconography of this strange trio is discussed in the General Introduction to the play. What immediately affects an audience is the uneasy, restlessly shifting tone of the dialogue. What spectators have so far been informed about the courtesan suggests that she is highly confident, but they encounter a woman decking herself the first time in the style traditional to one in her position and troubled by the self she views in her mirror. Her pimp, far from being brash and bawdy, seems privately riven with spleen, moral distaste for his mistress and himself and the lives they are pursuing, even while openly praising Victoria’s beauty: he has all the traits and extremes of temperamental moodiness of the malcontent. Victoria catches his tone and herself begins to question her trade as “lust’s instrument”, dismissing it as “vile” [NV 2.2.speech228]; she laughs when Borgio wishes they might “give o’er” and “change [their] function”[NV 2.2.speech229], but Brome does not indicate the precise quality of the laughter, which in the context could range over a gamut of tones. Victoria threatens to sack him if he does not cease his complaint and he is goaded into explaining why he has till now hindered her in pursuing her chosen career, pointing out at length the advantages, physical , social and financial, of delay. A friendlier atmosphere now prevails, in which the three of them joke about the trick played on Pantaloni and the reasons for it; and Victoria agrees not to choose a successful admirer without Borgio’s prior consent. The Novella calls for a lute and the intimate scene, which till now has been played out on the upper gallery of the playing space, opens out to embrace the whole stage as Victoria sings “above”, while numerous gallants circulate below her or approach Borgio seeking admission (at a price) to the courtesan’s private lodging. When this interlude ceases, Borgio returns “above” to inform Victoria of her success: she has attracted a wide range of foreign “visitants”, more than the house can hold. They joke comfortably together about how like their national stereotypes these would-be lovers are, though a darker tone is briefly intimated as Borgio talks of the men in terms of wild beasts on heat. Scene and act end with Victoria requesting music to “feast their ears” [NV 2.2.speech264]. This is a challenging and ambiguous scene in many ways and the ambiguities are not properly resolved, despite the seeming amity which prevails between courtesan and bravo at the close. It is not unusual in drama for the outer (usually splendid) appearance of a given character to be later exposed as a mask or disguise covering a far more disquieting inner self, but here spectators meet the characters’ underlying doubts and anxieties even as the courtesan’s attire is being assumed. This is perplexing and tension-provoking for an audience; and Brome keeps them creatively puzzled by not revealing the purpose of his dramaturgical strategy. [go to text]

n6889   ZAFFI’S These were the common law officers in Venice, who carried out the business of the various governing bodies within the republic. They could on occasion function as guards but were mainly deployed roughly in the manner of the modern police officer. [go to text]

gs1013   habit a costume appropriate to a particular function or office, a uniform expressing a particular rank or position in society [go to text]

gg958   advocate lawyer [go to text]

gg4565   counsel legal adviser, barrister (OED n. 8b) [go to text]

gs1014   apprehension seizure of a person, arrest (OED apprehension n, I 3) [go to text]

gg4566   discourteous void of or lacking in courtesy; rude, uncivil (OED) [go to text]

gg4567   dalliances amorous toying or caressing, flirtation (OED dalliance n, 2) [go to text]

gs1673   quick lively [go to text]

gg4568   refulgent radiant, resplendent, gleaming, brilliantly shining [go to text]

gg4488   chequins gold coins, a currency in Italy and Turkey (each was valued by Hakluyt c.1599 as the equivalent then of "seven shillings and two pence sterling" (OED), which in today's currency would equal roughly £36 [go to text]

n9272   exploit. ] exploy't [go to text]

gs1015   take (of a plan, scheme) to have the intended result; to succeed, be effective, take effect, ‘come off’ (OED v. 11a) [go to text]

gg4569   mortify inhibit the vitality or potency, deaden (OED v. 2) [go to text]

gs1016   concupiscence libidinous appetite, lust [go to text]

gg4570   lascivious lewd, wanton [go to text]

n6866   harlots A clear distinction was drawn in Venice in the renaissance period between harlots and whores on the one hand and courtesans on the other. The difference related to the status or social rank of their particular male clients: harlots, whores and prostitutes were generally available within the sex trade over a wide range of fees. Courtesans had a higher social standing, generally consorted with members of the patrician class and were most likely kept (housed and financially supported) by one or two very wealthy admirers. They often ran salons where they entertained on a lavish scale. Many of the legal cases explored by Guido Ruggiero show that courtesans had privileges denied to harlots and their like and that in an effort to defame a courtesan it was common practice for their enemies and rivals to refer to them as whores, as Pantaloni does here. (See Guido Ruggiero, The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice [New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985] and Binding Passions [New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993].) [go to text]

gg4571   itch an uneasy or restless desire or hankering after something; a restless propensity to do something: usually spoken contemptuously (OED n. 2) [go to text]

gs1017   wronging cheating, defrauding, tricking [go to text]

n6867   On years and gravity That is: (treat badly) elderly men of some authority and honour. [go to text]

gg576   ’Slid a common seventeenth-century oath derived from an abbreviation of ‘God’s eyelid’ and the idea of the deity’s all-seeing eye [go to text]

gg4572   bordello brothel (an Italianate form of the English word, bordel) [go to text]

gg4506   gondoliers one who rows a gondola about the canals of Venice, steering with a single oar from the rear of the boat [go to text]

n9273   Crying “Take ] Crying take [go to text]

n9274   Novella ] Movella (In the Eton copy of the 1653 edition of Five Plays the "M" of "Movella" has been inked over in black to make it appear more like "Novella", which is clearly the intended reading.) [go to text]

gs1018   fitted treated, punished [go to text]

n9275   Pantaloni”. ] Pantaloni. [go to text]

n6868   When age shall be ashamed to crawl to lechery That is: when old men shall be frightened (out of shame) to be seen frequenting brothels (or going in search of harlots when goaded on by lust). "Crawl" suggests men so ancient that they have to drag themselves through the streets in search of women. Nicolo, as the plot quickly reveals, has an ambiguous relationship with his master, partly subservient, partly critical. This whole speech develops a sustained irony of tone at Pantaloni's expense. [go to text]

gg4573   heartily zealously, earnestly [go to text]

gg4574   tie bond of union, obligation, hold (upon) (OED n. 8b) [go to text]

gg4575   youngling youth, juvenile [go to text]

gg4576   manumise to free from slavery [go to text]

n6869   galley This was a low, flat-built, sea-going vessel with one deck, propelled by sails and oars. Galleys were formerly in common use in the Mediterranean and the means by which for centuries Venetian trade flourished in the area. They could be deployed in naval warfare. The rowers were mostly slaves or condemned criminals, which indicates that Nicolo's father's background was one centred on the Venetian underworld. [go to text]

n9276   [Aside] The 1653 text does not assign these lines as an aside. But Nicolo is never openly critical of his master and knows his place discreetly, so these lines must be a private expression of distaste (though the actor may chose to share their import with the audience). [go to text]

gg92   urge push forward; urgently remind of [go to text]

n6870   with effect and speed That is: quickly and successfully. [go to text]

n6871   And bind me as a father to thy need That is: oblige me to treat you personally and honour your every need as if you were my own son. [go to text]

gs1269   even a common formulation in Early Modern English, meaning something like ‘just’, ‘nothing else but’, or ‘to be sure’, ‘forsooth’ (OED adv. 8b) [go to text]

gg4573   heartily zealously, earnestly [go to text]

n9277   devil that ] Devil, that [go to text]

n9278   master could ] master, could [go to text]

gg4577   o’er-doing excessive, intrusive [go to text]

gs1668   out (out of) countenance, but also with the sense of put out of one's intended role (just as an actor is "out", who forgets his lines) [go to text]

gg2445   cross (v) thwart, forestall; contradict; afflict, go against [go to text]

gg4578   upbraidings reproaches; censure [go to text]

gg1619   smart (n) sharp physical pain [go to text]

n6872   clash of’s care That is: (his father's) relentless suffering, trouble. "Clash" is frequently deployed in respect of the sound made by the action of many oars on a galley, as they together in rhythm engage with the waves. [go to text]

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

gg2343   stripes strokes from a whip (they left long red weals like stripes across the body) [go to text]

gg4579   babbler’s foolish, repetitive talker [go to text]

gg4580   wreaks harms, affects adversely, afflicts [go to text]

gs1019   spleen a punning usage referring to both the organ in the body and to the ill-temper, anger, resentment that abuse of the organ might provoke [go to text]

gg1821   courtesy favour, good deed [go to text]

gg4581   injury insult, affront [go to text]

n6873   house The sense of this is clear: that Nicolo was observed by Fabritio accompanying Pantaloni as far as Guadagni's house, staying with him until he was received and entered. But Fabritio is at odds with his parent over the proposed marriage and "house" does to some degree carry pejorative associations relating to putting a dog in its kennel or a horse in its stable. [go to text]

gs1020   near close (often in the sense of loosely related by blood or kindred); affectionately dear (to one) [go to text]

n9279   lodging. ] Lodging [go to text]

n6874   (PISO, FRANCISCO, HORATIO at a table. Wine, etc.) This direction suggests that Fabritio moves with Nicolo a short distance and joins his friends gathered together drinking. There is no indication of a scene-break, and the dialogue flows so rapidly that the shift from the street to the interior of Horatio's house needs to be accomplished just as quickly. There is much argument about how such effects were achieved in the early seventeenth-century theatre. Possibly the men who participated in the scene "indoors" carried in their table with the "wine etc." upon it as the scene commenced. Or maybe Fabritio revealed them in "a discovery space" by drawing back a curtain to show a tableau that speedily became animated, as the drinkers were drawn into converse with the two new arrivals. See too the opening stage direction of the second scene of Act One where Guadagni is similarly found at a table that acts as his desk [NV 1.2.speech62]. A modern director has a choice of ways of presenting this nearly instantaneous change of location here. [go to text]

n9468   etc. This "etc." suggests either that there was a conventional arrangement of props on a table to signify an indoor drinking scene or that as many props should be deployed here as was practical. [go to text]

gg4582   special exceptional; employed for specific purposes [go to text]

gg4583   potation drink (usually alcoholic) [go to text]

gg4584   liatico a red wine from Tuscany (it is the first in Coryat's list of fine wines to be found in Venice (see Coryat's Crudities Vol 1, pp.424-425) which he describes as "singular good" and "a very cordiall and generose liquor" [go to text]

n6875   I’ll be your taster to quit fear of danger It was customary (out of fear of being poisoned) for aristocratic or regal persons to employ a "taster" whose job it was to sample a small quantity of each dish of food or glass of wine presented for consumption, to ensure that it had not secretly been tampered with in pursuit of a lethal intent. Presumably in this sequence Nicolo at first holds back from drinking with men who are his social superiors, which Piso characteristically turns into a joke by sipping his wine to show that it has not been adulterated or poisoned. [go to text]

n6876   this nimble master of invention As the next line indicates, what is referred to here is the wine as a means to make the brain and the imagination nimble in their activities. [go to text]

n9473   sprightly There seems to be a punning use of the word here: the wine provokes the drinkers' good spirits and well-being, bringing vivacity and cheerfulness of outlook. But in the period the epithet was (according to the OED) regularly applied to liquors of various kinds which were thought to be beneficial in their effects. The OED cites a use in 1605 in Sir Hugh Plat's Delights for Ladies (III. xxvii): "You shall finde the same most excellent and sprightly drinke". [go to text]

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

n6877   grow in one with us That is: unite with us in our project. [go to text]

n6878   end you That is: bring about your end, kill you (as the accompanying gesture of unsheathing their daggers makes clear). [go to text]

gg4585   stilettoes a short dagger with a blade that is thick in proportion to its breadth (OED cites a use of the term in 1611 in Thomas Coryat's Crudities (p. 275): "They [Venetian ‘Bravi’] wander abroad very late in the night...armed with a privy coat of mail...and a little sharp dagger called a stiletto" [go to text]

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

gg4032   apt given, inclined, prone (OED adj. 4b) [go to text]

gg4586   soothsayer one who has the power of foretelling future events, a prognosticator [go to text]

n6879   deep lyatic oath That is an oath sworn and pledged while drinking liatic (Tuscan) wine. [go to text]

gg1873   thrice three times (in succession) [go to text]

n6880   try the bottom of’t That is: drink to the very bottom of the goblet, drain the glass. [go to text]

gs1022   complot (as verb) to combine (with others) in planning or plotting, to plan a concerted action (OED indicates that the word usually carries the implication that the plan is likely to be criminal) [go to text]

gg4587   indifferently to some degree or extent (OED adv. 5) [go to text]

gg4588   disparagement dishonour, disgrace, discredit [go to text]

n6881   To stake my head with yours There is a neat pun involved in this use of the word "stake". In gambling terms this can mean "to place a bet, take a risk on a chancy outcome". But in this instance, if some threat to Pantaloni's life were involved in their plot and that plot discovered, then the risk might involve the loss of their own heads by way of punishment. In Venice criminals were sometimes decapitated and their heads placed not on stakes but hung between two pillars in St. Mark's Square. [go to text]

gg4589   fall (when used in conjunction with "to" or "upon") to begin upon, take up, set about (OED v. 70d) [go to text]

gs1023   roundly two meanings are relevant here: "promptly" and "unsparingly" (OED adv. 7 and 5) [go to text]

n6882   intergatories The OED defines this word as "a syncopated form of INTERROGATORY", meaning a questioning, an interrogation; and cites instances from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and Jonson's Sejanus alongside this example from Brome's The Novella. No uses are cited beyond the late 1680s. Pronunciation would work best in relation to the metrics and rhythm of the line, if the second syllable "-ter" were stressed and the final two syllables were elided "-gat'ries". [go to text]

gs1024   hold continue in, persist with [go to text]

n9280   tomorrow ] to morrow (Throughout the 1653 text, "tomorrow" and "tonight" are rendered thus: "to morrow", "to night". All future examples will be silently corrected.) [go to text]

n9281   lawyers’ ] Lawyers (The failure of the 1653 to provide any possessive leaves one in doubt whether this should be singular or plural. Since the play has two lawyers who are within the house we are to imagine as backing the stage space, I have chosen to render the possessive in the plural.) [go to text]

gs1025   covenant a mutual agreement between two or more persons, a contract, a legal undertaking, pledge [go to text]

n6883   under hand and seal This means that the legal documents would be signed by both parties involved and their personal seals attached or impressed into wax beside their names. [go to text]

n9282   endear ] indeare [go to text]

gg4590   endear to win the affection of; to attract [go to text]

gs1026   service the devotion or suit of a lover [go to text]

gg4510   Merceria generally the Italian term for a market, but to English ears this aptly suggests also "mercery" a market or shops given over to the sale of fine haberdashery and quality ornamental materials and wear [go to text]

gg4591   deck array, adorn, decorate [go to text]

n6884   to plough now with that heifer The phrase is figurative and derives, according to OED, from a Hebrew proverb meaning "to work with, use, concern one's self with (another), proceed (with another's help)". To modern ears the use of the word "heifer" to describe the pedlar-woman seems highly derogatory and insensitive, which may be interpreted as in character with Nicolo (an actor must decide on this). The word is, however, part and parcel of the proverbial phrase: to "plough with another's heifer". The phrase may carry sexual intimations, but such would not be relevant here. Tilley, who lists the proverb as H395 in his Dictionary of the Proverbs in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1950), notes how it derives from the Old Testament story of Samson's riddle to the men of Ashkelon, as given in Judges 14:18. He cites a further contemporary usage in Massinger's The City-Madam, another play that became part of the King's Men's repertoire in 1632 (but one likely, according to Dr. Lucy Munro, to have been performed earlier than Brome's The Novella). [go to text]

n9283   heifer ] Heyfer [go to text]

gs1027   fit (v) supply, furnish, or provide [go to text]

gs1028   renown celebrate, honour [go to text]

gg4592   reverend honoured, honorable, worthy [go to text]

gs1029   doubtful uncertain, indistinct [go to text]

gg4593   gloring gleaming, glittering (OED cites this as a possible invention of Brome's) [go to text]

gg4594   mutton-mongership a man who is sexually promiscuous or who has dealings with prostitutes (the ironic inclusion of "-ship" gives the term the sound of a quasi-honorific title) [go to text]

gg288   leave (v) cease (leave off) [go to text]

gg4595   sufficiently widely, substantially, generally [go to text]

gs1674   affects loves (not); has (no) feelings for [go to text]

gg1954   drift purpose, meaning [go to text]

gg4596   licentiousness moral laxity, lewdness [go to text]

gg4597   unshale disclose, reveal [go to text]

n9284   senate Nicolo's request here carries many resonances that the actor could explore in performance. First there is his reluctance publicly to expose his master's absurd lusts and anxiety for revenge, preferring to keep the news within the family rather than expose Pantaloni to general ridicule. Reference to the Venetian senate carries a darker implication: their use of the rack for torturing defendants on trial while they were undergoing interrogation was common knowledge. Nicolo is asking not to be subject to a general enquiry from all the party of gentlemen in the manner that suspected criminals were treated by the infamous Ten (an inner council of the senate reponsible for the security of the state). He will happily confess all to the one in the group who needs to know Pantaloni's situation and schemes. [go to text]

n9286   [Aside to FRANCISCO] There is no such stage direction in the 1653 text, though clearly the two young men, master and servant, stand apart from the rest of the group of friends. A director must here provide some business that is not overly distracting but at least establishes that the other gallants pass the time, while Francisco and Nicolo are talking together, in plotting how they will severally endeavour to gain entrance to Victoria's house and presence so the final lines of the scene carry conviction. Though Brome creates a double focus within the stage space at this point, there is not that meta-theatrical element in the dramaturgy that usually accompanies such a situation. [go to text]

gg4598   wildness unruliness, insubordination; excessive liveliness or frolicsomeness (OED 4) [go to text]

gs1030   loose lustful, lewd [go to text]

gg825   affront insult, indignity [go to text]

gg825   affront insult, indignity [go to text]

gg4599   conditioned settled on conditions; stipulated; bargained (for); according to the agreed terms (OED cites only The Novella as an instance of this sense [adj, 4] but it also occurs in The Court Beggar) [go to text]

gg5958   blackamoor a black-skinned African or (often in seventeenth-century usage) any very dark-skinned person (Coryat in 1611, for example, refers to Greek men and boys as "very blacke") [go to text]

n6885   to please his eye That is: to gaze fondly at his sexual partner. [go to text]

n6886   motives The usual sense of the word, namely "intention(s)", seems less applicable here than "stimuli to sexual activity". [go to text]

gg5959   Discovered found out, revealed [go to text]

gg5960   forsook abandoned, quitted; avoided, shunned [go to text]

n6887   to ask his coin again That is: to demand his money back, since the Novella has not kept her side of their bargain. [go to text]

n6888   common disrepute That is, general disfavour, discredit, dishonour, ill repute; complete social ostracism. [go to text]

gg4600   allowed permitted [go to text]

gg4601   negotiate communicate official orders (concerning forms of punishment or execution) [go to text]

gs1031   sort such a manner [go to text]

gs889   fly flee, escape [go to text]

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

n9285   politic ] politique [go to text]

gs1013   habit a costume appropriate to a particular function or office, a uniform expressing a particular rank or position in society [go to text]

n6889   Zaffi These were the common law officers in Venice, who carried out the business of the various governing bodies within the republic. They could on occasion function as guards but were mainly deployed roughly in the manner of the modern police officer. [go to text]

gg4602   executioner one who executes or carries into effect (a command or order) [go to text]

n6890   shroud The word embraces punningly in itself many meanings which are relevant in the context: "clothe"; "afford protection to"; "conceal, hide"; "envelop, veil". [go to text]

n9287   hangman thither The 1653 text places the line-break after "hangman" and does not give "thither" an initial capital letter, thereby rendering as prose what are rhythmically two fine decasyllabic verses, as rendered here. [go to text]

gs1013   habit a costume appropriate to a particular function or office, a uniform expressing a particular rank or position in society [go to text]

n6891   Which That is: for which. [go to text]

gs1033   credit reputation, personal honour [go to text]

n9288   fame ] same (There is definitely a long "s" at the start of this word in the 1653 text but it requires some forcing of the meaning to interpret this as justifiably the word "same". One could interpret this as reducing Victoria to the "same disgrace" that shall befall Pantaloni in devising such a scheme, but it would be difficult for an actor to point the sentence such that that meaning was immediately clear to a listener.) [go to text]

n6892   fame Here used in the sense of "infamy". [go to text]

gg4603   accost approach, address, greet [go to text]

gg4604   dismission permission to go [go to text]

gg5728   but only [go to text]

gg4605   subscribe confess; acknowledge; admit the truth that [go to text]

n9289   friend. ] Friend, [go to text]

n6893   We have been plotting too At this point we are not informed what this plotting entails; nor is the substance of it actually described by one of the plotters. Instead the audience will view the plot in action as each of the men in turn presents himself throughout Act 3 to the Novella. With the exception of Piso, they will adopt disguises; and each will then attempt to trick Victoria into allowing him to have sex with her. [go to text]

n6894   I am for the Novella This is the only (teasing) indication the audience is offered at this point about the recent plot devised by the group of friends. At this stage no reason is proffered as to why Horatio is going to Victoria's house. [go to text]

n9290   above This suggests that the whole scene was played out in the intimate space of the upper playing level or gallery. It is a scene of subtle interrogations of identity and intent and it would therefore be appropriate, if such a confined space were used. There would be further dramatic surprise as the scene opens out at its end when Victoria elects to present herself in public, singing and in all her trappings as a courtesan, while potential clients pass over the main stage subjecting her to their gaze. [go to text]

n6895   JACCONETTA; and BORGIO ] Jacomo, Paulo, by-named Burgio (A modern editor is faced with a dilemma here. This is the first scene in which we meet Victoria, the Novella of the title, and her entourage, which comprises her black maid, Jacconetta, and her pandar or bravo, Borgio. However, the last two are masquerading in these roles: Jacconetta is in fact a boy-page, Jacomo, who perhaps is heavily made-up, while Borgio has adopted an assumed role and name, being in reality Victoria's brother, Paulo. The true identities of both maid and pandar will not be revealed until the closing moments of the play as far as spectators in the theatre are concerned; but readers are let into the secret immediately by the way the printed text presents them. Jacconetta is introduced in the opening stage direction as Jacomo, though in the ensuing dialogue, "she" is continually referred to as Jacconetta, while the pandar's double-identity is shown by the reference to Paulo as being "bi-named". Consequently readers have a different relation to the text and the action from that offered to an audience: the former are privileged to know from the start that all is not as it seems regarding at least two of the characters appearing here, while for the latter the revelation as to these characters' actual names, natures, backgrounds and, in the maid's case, gender, is deliberately withheld by Brome for a calculated dramatic effect. An audience may come to suspect that Borgio is other than he seems from a variety of pointers within the dialogue, but their suspicions are not endorsed until the last act and Borgio's confession that he is really Paulo. To complicate matters Jacconetta is named as such in the list of characters at the opening of the 1653 text, though Paulo is at that point introduced to readers as having an alias: "PAULO (bi-named Burgio)". Following the precedent set by numerous editors of Jacobean and Caroline texts who have similarly been faced with the issue of disguise and hidden identity, this edition has chosen for the sake of clarity to call both these characters by their assumed names, Jacconetta and Borgio, in all speech-prefixes and stage directions. A further point to note is that Brome or his compositor seems for some way into the play to be uncertain what Paulo's alias is to be. In the list of characters he appears as "bi-named Burgio" as in this stage direction in the 1653 text. As that text develops, this name is steadily replaced by Borgio, which prevails till the end of the play. For consistency's sake this edition deploys the alias, Borgio, throughout. In all subsequent stage directions Jacconetta's name is given in full rather than the abbreviated "Jac." of the 1653 text. After this initial textual note explaining the reasons for these major changes, no further notes will indicate every last emendation in this category.) [go to text]

n10229   So, I am ready: Video Tonally this scene, which introduces Victoria and her household to the audience, is difficult to gauge from the printed text. News of her arrival and of her beauty has made such an impact on Venetian men that they have begun avidly milling around her house, as the audience saw in the opening scene. Brome delays giving the audience a view of her until a third of the way into the play, and this builds expectation. She appears in the full panoply of a courtesan, having been newly dressed in the fashion by her blackamoor maid, Jacconetta, and she looks resplendent. What is unexpected is the nervous energy that permeates the dialogue, particularly when her pimp, Borgio, arrives to see if she is prepared to face potential clients. That Victoria should be anxious at this first appearance in public is not explained only registered: that she should be suffering from “first night nerves” is not surprising, though she needs to get the better of them if she is to succeed in her chosen career. What is surprising is the moral questioning that colours her speech and in time that of her pimp. What these two characters say is decidedly at odds with how they appear (their clothes are indicative of their social roles; their words have a troubled sobriety). As is argued at length in the Introduction, the scene visually carries distinct intertextual resonances of Webster’s The White Devil, which similarly includes scenes involving a courtesan (significantly called Vittoria) , her pimp or go-between (Flamineo, who is also her brother) and a black servant (Zanche). Like Flamineo’s, Borgio’s speech is dark, brooding and satirically caustic and one objective of the workshop was to explore what the effect would be of emphasizing these links with Webster’s tragedy. There is little in this scene that fully embraces comedy, which places it in stark contrast to the deceptions, duplicities, plotting and counter-plotting of the previous three scenes, which are full of the kind of business to do with amatory frustrations that fuels the plot of many comedies and the scenarios of commedia dell’arte.. All the characters in those earlier scenes were readily placed as recognisable comic types, even if Brome works the material with considerable freedom. The three characters onstage before spectators now would seem all too easy to place; but they do not play up to our expectations. If Brome has a strategy in this, should it be made clear to the audience or should the performance augment the ambiguities?

A read-through brought from the actors comment on the convoluted syntax of their speeches, which seems indicative of a profound inner wrestling with conscience in both Victoria and Borgio, and conscience would seem out of place in the particular setting and situation. Given the length and complexity of the scene, it was agreed that we should work on small sections at a time. The opening (from 2.2. speech 218) because it is about being dressed and made ready for an event, needed, we thought, to create a sense of something imminent. The first surprise comes with the revelation of what Victoria terms Borgio’s “misery”: the terms she uses then show her adopting a similar moral perspective to his on what they are all doing, as she dismisses the profession she is on the point of adopting as one “that makes nature vile /In her own shame”. Victoria actually voices what spectators may well be thinking by now when she questions Borgio: “dost think by preaching modesty /To quit thee of the baseness of thy trade?” Brian Woolland in directing the actors suggested that Victoria and Jacconetta need to establish a complicity between them and that Olivia should play Victoria in the opening sequence as bubbling with nervous energy, which Borgio’s dark brooding voice can contrast with. To effect this contrast he chose to place Sam Alexander (Borgio) downstage and close to the audience so that he could impart directly to them his distaste with what is happening and to do so with a cynicism that has its own acerbic energy. Brian wished to point up the contrast between the women’s intimacy together and Borgio’s being excluded from that and made to seem an outsider. He instructed Olivia Darnley (Victoria) to enter and play with the space, try what it feels like to be wearing such alien attire, so there is a “sense of trying on the role as well as trying on new clothes” (his words).

Richard Cave felt that Olivia was getting a suitable distance as Victoria from her role as courtesan; that that distance was being conveyed to spectators in a manner that was suitably discomfiting; and that Sam was beginning to achieve a similar complexity of performance with Borgio as critiquing the role he was being required to play. No one is happy in the role she or he is playing. Sam confessed at this stage: “I do feel in the dark with this one [meaning Borgio]” and Richard argued that this is precisely the situation the audience should be in at this point. (The actors had quite deliberately not been told yet what would be revealed at the end of the play about the relation of Borgio and Victoria. They were informed only about the working relationship between the two.) It was decided to move on from where the last recording ended and start at 2.2. speech 225. Brian suggested that Victoria here expects Borgio to sing her praises but instead he launches into analogies with sacrificial animals, which impels her to seek more comfort from Jacconetta. This would more easily motivate the maid’s defence of her mistress (speech 231) on the grounds that her appearance is the product of Borgio’s advice. Spectators of this version sensed in the action as it was now rendered that Borgio was testing Victoria through his criticism of her being a courtesan to see how far prepared she was to go along with that idea or whether she would succumb to his moral line and give up her chosen career. This was the final section of Sam’s first attempt at Borgio’s long speech (237) extolling the advantages to be gained from Victoria’s holding out as a courtesan and not giving in to the first likely suitor. Confident of the syntax, which had been the subject of much discussion, Sam presents a Borgio, who forcefully and genially espouses amorality and calculation in preference to conscience and moral scruple. In Sam’s handling, the complexities of the syntax become the correlatives of Borgio’s control of the situation and of a grand, worldly-wise strategy for success.

It was at this point that the actors were informed of the end of the play and the revelation that Borgio is really Victoria’s brother, which is why he is anxious to ensure she abides by the plan that she awards herself only to a man who can produce the fabulously high fee that has been placed on her maidenhead. This is his means of ensuring she stays a virgin; Victoria capitulates to the scheme because she wishes to preserve her honour for Fabritio, the lover she is in quest of; Jacconetta (being in reality Jacomo, Fabritio’s pageboy) is presumably also concerned that she remains a virgin for his master’s sake. Given that knowledge, the actors appreciated that the strange quality of the scene derives from the fact that visually the action is a depiction of a courtesan at work but everyone involved in the scene is determined that the would-be courtesan’s chastity is safeguarded. If the whole “show” is really an elaborate game, then everyone has to play true to role rather than to self for it to succeed. (More than in any other workshop we attempted with the actors, a considerable length of time needed to be taken up discussing points of detail, meanings, relationships, possible ironies, the significance of the mirror as a prop, the range of reference to other drama and particularly The White Devil. Richard Cave deemed this necessary to get tentatively some sense of how the original audience may have responded to the play in performance, how they read what they viewed. Some intimation here of what the final scene was to reveal should ideally be given to spectators so that the actual revelations would seem at least plausible when they came, and not just a convenient way of ending an intricate plot.) With all this information at their command, the actors played the scene anew.

The argument between Victoria and Borgio now had shape and purpose and Brian Woolland noted how actually this sequence ends where it begins with Victoria facing up to her first public appearance in the role of courtesan (from “So, I am ready” to “So now about our business”) but in the interim the audience have been made a party to all the doubts, fears, anxieties that lie behind her decision to pursue her intended purpose and the fears of her accomplice that she lacks that strength of purpose. From the moment that Borgio here voiced his acquiescence and commitment to Victoria’s command (“I’m now your creature”), there was a growing accord between them (they could even afford to share a joke about old Pantaloni’s visit the previous evening); and Victoria chose to understand his concern as dictated by his wish to achieve the best for them both. This gave considerable weight to Victoria’s line (“And therefore, doubt not, careful Borgio”) in speech 244, which Olivia articulated with a steady emphasis on each of the last four words to denote her giving him an absolute assurance of her faith in the enterprise they had planned. This in turn met with his echoing her words on his exit: “You need not doubt me”. Pledges had been given on both sides and unity achieved. (When next we see them together in this act (at speech 250) after Borgio has accepted fees from a number of hopeful clients, they are far more relaxed and companionable together.) After dissonance, a harmony obtains. In the subsequent discussion, Olivia made an observation that the director chose to work with: Brian suggested that the three used the kind of opening Olivia envisaged to establish a rather different tone that was closer to comedy than they had yet played, and that Victoria should be giddy with excitement and fear and “right on the edge of being out of control”. He instructed Sam to show more of the monk (Borgio’s alter ego, Paulo) trying to play a bravo, so that the element of performance was foregrounded through his tonal shifts.

The pace was faster in this reading, pushed on by the near-hysteria that never quite subsided in Victoria. The tone had a comic dimension but was fraught with unease: much was at stake when this Victoria went public and the quarrel now seemed almost a tactic to delay the inevitable appearance she must soon make. What seemed lost in this version were the Websterian echoes especially in Borgio’s dialogue (Flamineo in The White Devil is an absolute malcontent; Borgio is assuming that persona, and the stress on the role-play was at the expense of that parallel). Brian Woolland seized on one particular moment to investigate further. He saw the potential in developing what had been done on impulse by Sam to stage a significant break in social decorum. The actors were instructed to try and pitch the final moments of the sequence between the strained jokiness of the previous reading and the threatening tonal quality that had prevailed in earlier attempts. This was the result. Here the brother embraced the sister but she, knowing him only as a bravo, was wholly shocked by the intimacy, the sudden intrusion on her personal space; Jacconetta became quizzical of what exactly was happening; and the subsequent tone of the exchanges between Victoria and Borgio was embarrassed, business-like, intent on restoring their earlier formality; and this gave more logic to her questioning whether Borgio is to be trusted or feared. This performance was (despite its various textual slips) far more nuanced than earlier attempts. It was beginning to resolve the dilemma the scene poses about how to realise the particularly enigmatic tone of the action and dialogue, and showed ways of situating the sequence within the larger context of the play overall. Surprises were being effected which registered as significant that it would take more of the action fully and credibly to explain. The tensions here were organic and potentially far-reaching within the large-scale narrative strategies that Brome is setting up. Actors and director noted what help to them the mirror had become as a prop through which to point the dialogue significantly; and they considered that what they needed next was Victoria’s elaborate dress, if the many levels of irony in the scene were to be fully realised, and too a suitably raffish set of clothes for Borgio. What had seemed at first glance a highly wordy scene had begun to reveal the need for a varied set of visual signifiers to realise the complexities of meaning inherent in the dramaturgy. [go to text]

gg4606   moor originally deployed with reference to a native or inhabitant of ancient Mauretania, a region of North Africa corresponding to parts of present-day Morocco and Algeria (in the Middle Ages, and as late as the seventeenth century, Moors were widely supposed to be mostly black or very dark-skinned, hence the recurrent reference to such peoples as "blackamoors") [go to text]

n6896   thy dear master’s sake that gave thee to me That is, the "maid" was a gift from Fabritio to Victoria. This is a first indication to a theatre audience that these two characters might not be quite what they appear to be. The gift of a servant to a loved one was a mark of particular intimacy, which indicates that Victoria's past history may be more complex than her title as Novella might suggest. Though by this stage of the action we know that Fabritio formerly had a lover in Rome whom he has been forced by his father to abandon, we have not been alerted to that lover's name. Moreover servants introduced into a household might prove to be placed there as spies for the donor. This is a plot device that recurs with variations particularly in Webster's tragedies. [go to text]

gs1034   quaint elaborate, elegant, of an artfully designed fashion [go to text]

gg2159   attires clothing [go to text]

n6897   So lately unacquainted with my wearing That is: a fashion that until very recently I neither knew of nor consequently wore. This indicates that Victoria is a new arrival in Venice and a novice, as her title of Novella supposes, in the profession of courtesan that she has chosen to pursue. [go to text]

gs1035   ripe fully informed; thoroughly qualified (to execute) [go to text]

n9446   Aside In the 1653 text, this direction is placed in the right-hand margin alongside the end of this line of Borgio's. It has been moved in this edition to what is a more conventional placing within modernised texts. [go to text]

n6898   And by that knowledge, you yourself soon rotten Borgio is playing with the idea of the relation of "ripe" with "rotten" with regard to fruit. This may carry a resonance of the story of the Fall (Borgio-as-Paulo is, we will later discover, in holy orders) where Eve tempted Adam to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, which quickly destroyed their innocence and their life of bliss in the Garden of Eden. [go to text]

gg410   still always; continually; ever; on every occasion [go to text]

gg4607   abide remain, stay [go to text]

n6899   no further That is: fail to mature or age to the point of becoming rotten, but rather remain at an ideal point of ripeness. [go to text]

n6900   Borgio Victoria establishes for the audience what she understands her pandar's name to be. For the reader of the 1653 text the moment establishes which of his personae this man is adopting with the courtesan. [go to text]

n6901   courtesans In Rome and Venice, but especially in the latter, courtesans were mistresses of high-ranking persons; they ran luxurious households where they frequently entertained groups of men with their singing, dancing and lively intellectual discussion (they were often far better educated than aristocratic wives, as is evident from the career of the most famous courtesan of the sixteenth century, Veronica Franco). It would be wrong to categorise them as prostitutes or whores (though their enemies sought to do so on occasion), since their relationships were centred on far more than sexual encounters, and they did not sustain a constantly changing sequence of partners. Though paid lavishly for their companionship, this was rarely in the form of a straight fee in return for the sexual favours granted. (See Margaret F. Rosenthal, The Honest Courtesan: Veronica Franco, Citizen and Writer in Sixteenth-Century Venice [Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992].) [go to text]

n6903   The dressing or the habit Courtesans were usually recognisable from their particular dress (for its costliness and splendour) and from their highly elaborate hairstyles. Their clothes or habits often displayed an extreme decolletage and consequently an exposure of breasts and cleavage. Coryat devotes a long section in his Crudities ([Glasgow: James MacLehose for Glasgow University Press, 1905], Vol 1, pp. 400-404) to courtesans, their ways of dressing, their make-up and treatment of their hair (oiled, dyed, washed and shaped usually with two front coils being arranged like horns over their temples). An etching of one such courtesan, labelled "Margarita Emiliana bella Courtesana di Venetia", whom Coryat visited is included in his volume of travel writings. The image (inserted in volume 1 opposite p.408)[IMAGE NV_2_1] is notable for what it reveals about a courtesan's attire: Margarita is wearing a heavy brocade dress with a fringed hem to the skirt; ornately embroidered sleeves with elaborate capped shoulder sections frame her breasts; these are but thinly disguised with veiling, which is caught up into a high, starched collar behind; this beautifully frames her head, her long neck encircled with pearls and a thick gold chain with one vast, central jewel and her extensively curled hair with a positive coronet of "horns" surrounding her forehead. Courtesans' other notable feature (to be seen when walking the streets of Venice) were their high chopines. These were delicate slipper-like upper shoes, which were under-supported by high and thick soles of substances such as cork that raised the wearers from the ground as if on short stilts and made walking a matter for careful balance and difficult degrees of poise. The style had evolved from the fashion for ornately decorated, raised clogs. Riello and McNeil devote a whole chapter of their monograph on the history of shoes to this form of footwear, which was a popular fashion developing over several centuries. (See Giorgio Riello and Peter McNeil, Shoes: A History from Sandals to Sneakers [Oxford and New York: Berg, 2006], especially chapter 3.) The progress through the streets of women wearing chopines was therefore slow and, if they were sufficiently practised in the art, extremely stately: they would appear to glide along rather than walk. Coryat, who called them "chapineys", disliked the style, which he deemed "frivolous and ridiculous" (p.400) since wearers were required to go in the streets supported by a man or woman servant "to the end they would not fall". Examples of chopines may be found in the Museo Correr in Venice, while a coloured etching of 1589 by Pietro Bertelli in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich shows a courtesan with a long red gown, which by means of a hinged flap may be lifted to reveal that below she is wearing chopines (of a height that equals the distance between her feet and her knees), stockings and knee-length trousers in blue silk by way of an undergarment. [go to text]

gg4608   dressing the getting dressed (particularly in finery) or an elaborate arrangement of the hair (often employing jewels and hair extensions, wired shapes or veiling) [go to text]

gs1013   habit a costume appropriate to a particular function or office, a uniform expressing a particular rank or position in society [go to text]

n6904   unparalleled self That is: unequalled for her exquisite beauty, unique. The epithet is famously applied by Shakespeare to the dying Cleopatra when she is described by her attendant, Charmian, as "a lass unparalleled" (Antony and Cleopatra, 5.2.310). But its application recurs in Tudor and Stuart literature when a woman's beauty is the subject (OED cites Gervase Markham and Lewis Machin's The Dumb Knight of 1608: "Dost thou not think, /She is the mirror of her beauteous sex, /Unparallel'd, and uncompanioned?" (1.1), which neatly encapsulates the meaning within the actual usage. [go to text]

n9469   Why not it my person? That is: why should the dress not endow me with beauty and dignity? A similar idea to that expressed in this exchange is to be found in Thomas Randolph's The Muses' Looking-Glass (1630). A deformed man who catches sight of himself in a looking-glass cannot believe it is himself that he is viewing until informed: "Tis not the glasse but thy deformity /That makes this ugly shape" (1.3. A4v). [go to text]

n9652   These tires, these chains, these paintings, and these gauds Brome could have obtained details of these aspects of a courtesan's appearance from Coryat, who describes their use of fine silk veiling covering the head (falling short before but almost to the ground behind); their delight in "many chains of gold and oriente pearle" to rival Cleopatra; their use "to varnish their faces" of "stibium [a black powder for blackening the eyebrows], cerussa [white face-paint], and purpurissum [a red cosmetic for use like modern-day rouge on lips and cheeks]"; and their decorating their dresses with gold fringes and laces "two inches broade", their delight in "stockings of carnation silk" and in heavy perfumes. (See Coryat's Crudities, [Glasgow: James MacLehose for Glasgow University Press, 1905], Vol. 1, pp.404-405.) [go to text]

gg4609   tires (derived from attire): coverings, modes of dressing, or ornaments for a woman's head; head-dresses [go to text]

gg4610   chains a series of interconnecting links of gold or silver creating a necklace [go to text]

gg568   paintings facial make-up [go to text]

gg4611   gauds something gaudy; showy ornaments, pieces of finery; gewgaws (OED n2. 2) [go to text]

n6905   sprigs and leaves Usually parsley or bay; but any of the herbs traditionally used in dressing meat when cooked, such as rosemary, sage, thyme or savoury have traditionally been deployed by butchers in their shop-displays to scent and make their produce appear of the freshest. [go to text]

n6906   sacrifice That is in classical or pagan times; many carvings on Roman monuments or sarcophagi show this custom. [go to text]

gg4612   vainglorious excessively and ostentatiously vain [go to text]

gg4613   gaiety lighthearted and thoughtless merriment; levity [go to text]

gg4614   chips fragments of wood often used as kindling for a fire [go to text]

n9291   lewd ] lew'd [go to text]

n6907   Sinks (with Troy’s buildings) The reference is to the Battle of Troy, which resulted in the complete destruction of the ancient city and its civilisation by the Greeks. It is the subject of Homer's great epic, The Iliad. Traditionally the cause of the war was claimed to be the abduction of Helen, wife to the king of Sparta, by Paris, one of the princes of the Trojan court: hence the recall of Troy here in the context of the fires of lust. [go to text]

n6908   fame ] flame. (As it stands in the 1653 text, the sentence here, despite its convoluted syntax, does not make much sense. It is wholly uncharacteristic of Brome to indulge in repetitions of a word ("flame") in this way, except when he is punning, which he clearly is not doing here. Given the context of references to The Iliad, the conjectural emendation is justified in terms of the fact that, as Homer and other writers on the subject of the Trojan War including Shakespeare in Troilus and Cressida have shown, it resulted in the deaths of the finest ("choicest") soldiers in both camps, including Hector and Achilles. The mistake on the part of the compositor is feasible, given the near-repetition involved. It should be noted that the 1653 reading was used throughout the workshop on this scene. A final decision about a possible emendation had not been made at that point in time. [go to text]

gs1036   freely openly [go to text]

n6909   In her own shame? Lust’s instrument! Surprisingly in the context of a courtesan's dressing-room, first Borgio and now Victoria herself are voicing a critical, moral stance against the very profession they are engaged in pursuing. Though she criticises him in these terms as being overly Christian in his moralising, she also sees their profession as corrupt, a perversion for material gain of a natural function. When she exclaims in consequence ("Lust's instrument!"), it is not immediately clear whether she is referring to him or to herself. This is a first indication that Victoria also, like Borgio and Jacconetta, is not all she seems. [go to text]

n6910   it That is: lust as a commodity for sale at his own hands. [go to text]

n6911   its dregs and fragments Given the recent references in the text to the Trojan War, it is tempting to read into this phrase an echo of one of the most powerful denunciations of lust framed by Shakespeare in Troilus and Cressida, when Troilus cries out against his one-time lover whom he has watched prostitute herself to his rival, Diomede: "The fragments, scraps, the bits and greasy relics /Of her o'er-eaten faith are bound to Diomed" (5.2.157-158). [go to text]

gs1037   quit to free or rid (one's self) of something undesirable or troublesome; to find release from an obligation (OED v. 6b) [go to text]

gg4616   necessitous impoverished, needy; obliged to do something out of need [go to text]

gg4615   bravo (in the singular) a reckless desperado; daring villain; an agent of the criminal underworld; (in the plural) desperadoes, criminals [go to text]

gg4617   ruffiano a ruffian (OED cites a usage in Thomas Coryat's Crudities of 1611: "Shee will either cause thy throate to be cut by her Ruffiano...or procure thee to be arrested" (268).) [go to text]

n9292   I would give o’er, Would you; and change my function. ] I would give o're, would you; and change my /Function. (The 1653 text prints this whole speech as prose by failing to recognise that the first phrase is a half-line that completes the iambic pentameter initiated by the final words of Victoria's speech.) [go to text]

gs1038   function employment, profession, calling, trade (OED n. 4a) [go to text]

n10230   (As most of my books’ titles are) This is a curious remark. As Marion O'Connor observed (when the actor playing the part of Jacconetta in the workshop asked for insight into what the words meant): the previous line has used the epithets "pleasant" and "profitable", which often were appended to the titles of printed treatises in the seventeenth century("A discourse no less pleasant than profitable on..."). What is of note is that for the wary spectator, this is perhaps an indication that Jacconetta like Victoria and Borgio is not what she seems, that "she" too is playing a role as they are. At the end of the play the audience learn that Jacconetta is actually Fabritio's pageboy, Jacomo, whom he gave to Victoria as a love-token, when in Rome they were forced to separate. Few girls of the servant class in the Caroline era or earlier would be literate, educated or the possessors of books; and the likelihood of a blackamoor girl being so "informed" and well-read was a near impossibility. It was customary only for boys to receive the kind of education that would enable them to read books such as those referred to here. This is a sly hint that Jacconetta may well be a boy in disguise. [go to text]

n6912   sweepstake The reference is to a betting or gambling transaction in which each person involved contributes a stake but where the whole of the stakes are taken by one winner (who thus sweeps the board). Brome was clearly interested in the sexual possibilities of this, since he stages such a "sweepstake" as a raffle in his comedy The Demoiselle (?1638), where the indigent Dryground in the persona of a kind of innkeeper, Osbright, takes bets of £20 from numerous "gentlemen", where the winner will take as prize the virginity his (Dryground's) supposed daughter. The terms of the "contest" are discussed by Dryground and the louche Wat in a manner that explains how the raffle will be conducted [DM 3.1.speeches468-489]. The implication is that Borgio might similarly be making a sweepstake for Victoria's maidenhead. Brome takes up the theme again in his final act when Piso intimates to Victoria that he and his friends would willingly go "shares" in her favours [NV 5.1.speech670]. [go to text]

n6913   Are you there Is that your game? Is that what you are planning? (Jacconetta is disturbed to discover that Borgio may be plotting to undermine Victoria's scheme whereby she herself will decide to whom to award her virginity.) [go to text]

n6914   turn you off That is: dismiss you, give you the sack. [go to text]

n6915   ruffianos Properly in Italian, this should be "ruffiani" but Brome has anglicised the plural form of "ruffiano". Victoria has already accused Borgio of being a denizen of the criminal underworld; now she warns him that, if he is not careful, she will force him to join his like. Brome, like Coryat in his Crudities, uses the terms "bravo" and "ruffiano" indiscriminately; both deem such men sinister and criminal in intent. Interestingly this and the following two-and-a-half lines are one of several instances in the play where Brome closely paraphrases Coryat's prose. The latter devotes the following paragraph to describing what his marginal note terms "desperate villains": "There are certaine desperate and resolute villaines in Venice, called Braves, who at some unlawfull times do commit great villainy. They wander abroad very late in the night to and fro for their prey, like hungry Lyons, being armed with a privy coate of maile, a gauntlet upon their right hand, and a little sharpe dagger called a stiletto. They lurke commonly by the water side, and if at their time of the night, which is betwixt eleven of the clocke and two, they happen to meete any man that is worth the rifling, they will presently stabbe him, take away all about him that is of any worth, and when they have throughly pulled his plumes, they will throw him into one of the channels: but they buy this booty very deare if they are after apprehended. For they are presently executed" (Thomas Coryat, Coryat's Crudities, 2 vols. [Glasgow: James MacLehose for Glasgow University Press, 1905], Vol. 1, p.413). [go to text]

gg4618   lurch to remain in or about a place furtively or secretly (lurk, loiter) with evil intent [go to text]

n6916   To rob and drown for prey The bravo, a term which Victoria has used of Borgio earlier in the scene, was an assassin, a man who murders for hire. The OED cites a usage in Massinger's The Maid of Honour (?1621), which neatly encapsulates the meaning within the context: "Setting-on your desperate bravo /To murder him" (4.5). [go to text]

gs1039   creature one who owes his fortune and position to a patron; one who is actuated by the will of another, or is ready to do his or her bidding; one who is the instrument of another (OED 5) [go to text]

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

gs1040   fair just (but with a punning reference in this instance to the delicacy and beauty of the judge involved, that is: Victoria) [go to text]

gg1497   yet still [go to text]

gg4619   preferred recommended [go to text]

n6917   bravo In this context, the word means "the man who arranges a courtesan's (sexual) business affairs". The Italian word "cicerone" (normally meaning a learned guide) was often deployed figuratively for a sexual mentor and protector. In less polite terms, a bravo was a pandar or pimp. Coryat considered them "desperate villains" of a violent temperament (see his description in Coryat's Crudities, [Glasgow: James MacLehose for Glasgow University Press, 1905], Vol, 1, p.413). [go to text]

gs1041   dear the usage here embraces a pun on the meanings "costly" and "hard-won" (dear-bought experience) [go to text]

n6918   Six, the most famous dames That is: "the six most famous dames..." [go to text]

n9470   By which That is: with the help of (my advice and their own efforts) [go to text]

gs1042   and together with, along with [go to text]

gs1043   purse as verb: to amass (wealth); to pocket [go to text]

gs1044   providences two meanings are relevant in the context: "financial resources, supplies, provision of wealth", but also there is present in the usage the sense of "having the wealthy means to act providentially or beneficently (to others)" [go to text]

gg4620   canonization sainthood (admission in the Roman Catholic faith to the calendar of saints) [go to text]

n6919   Margarita Emiliana Venice did boast a courtesan of this name (Margarita Emiliani) who was visited by Thomas Coryat in 1608 with a view, apparently in vain, of persuading her to adopt a more virtuous and Christian lifestyle. Far from seeking to demonstrate his sexual athleticism, Coryat proposed to give her a display of his rhetorical and oratorical skills. He several times refers to this woman in his writing on Venice and an image of her welcoming Coryat (oddly referred to in the title to the etching as "Il Signior Tomaso Odcambiano) into her presence was included in his printed text. (See Thomas Coryat, Coyrat's Crudities, Vol. 1, pp. 387-388 and p.406 [IMAGE NV_2_1].) The reference here is presumably ironic and satirical, since Coryat far from approved of the woman or her morals. She generally calls out his misogyny and typical English prudery. [go to text]

n9646   Founded the Augustinian Monastery This localising detail is copied from Coryat (Thomas Coryat, Coryat's Crudities [Glasgow: James MacLehose for Glasgow University Press, 1905], Vol. 1, pp.387-388): "By the way betwixt Venice and Murano I observed a most notable thing [...] a faire Monastery of Augustinian Monkes built by [...] a rich Cortezan of Venice, whose name was Margarita Aemiliana. I have not heard of so religious a worke done by so irreligious a founder in any place of Christendome: belike she hoped to make expiation unto God by this holy deede for the lascivious dalliances of her youth." Brome omits the moralising commentary. [go to text]

gg4621   Augustinian of the order of Augustines (poor religious Friars) [go to text]

gs83   late in the adverbial phrase, "of late": recently [go to text]

n6920   where she has daily prayers Two meanings are possible here: either "where she goes daily to pray" or "where daily she has masses said in her memory". The second is the more likely interpretation, given the fact that Coryat's account of the founding of the monastery refers to Margarita in the past tense. However the image of the courtesan included in Coryat's text gives her the same name, even though Coryat himself does not give a name to the courtesan he actually visited and which the etching is supposed to illustrate. Maybe this was licence on the part of the artist. [go to text]

gg4622   successively in succession, in turn [go to text]

n6921   Fell not by rash adventure That is: did not lose their virginity through thoughtless escapades (as the fancy took them for a particular man). [go to text]

n6922   Great Fortune’s offers That is: any man that chance brought in the way of these women. The OED defines Fortune as Chance or Luck which was "often (after Latin) personified as a goddess" with the power supposedly "to distribute the lots of life according to her own humour"; her emblem was a wheel (OED 1). [go to text]

gs336   sound healthy [go to text]

gg4623   riched enriched (filled their coffers with wealth) [go to text]

gg4624   coffers treasure chests; strong boxes in which money or valuables are kept [go to text]

gg1781   ere before [go to text]

gg4625   unneglected not ignored [go to text]

n6923   long suspense and tedious expectation That is: on the part of his mistresses' lovers (who are each hoping to be the one selected as the favourite to take her maidenhead). [go to text]

gg4629   where whereas [go to text]

gg4626   fell began (but also with the sense of falling from the state of grace which accrues around a woman's virginity) [go to text]

gg4627   falls fallings from grace and so from popularity [go to text]

gg214   pox disease characterised by pustules on the skin (OED 1a); syphilis (OED 1b) [go to text]

gg4628   flame vitality; passion [go to text]

gg2965   spent exhausted, worn out [go to text]

n9471   they rejected That is: they were rejected. [go to text]

n6924   sisterhood The seemingly comic use of the term here implies that Venice had a civic guild of prostitutes and courtesans. In a sense this was true. Dr. Federica Ambrosini informs me by private correspondence that "there was a Catalogo di tutte le principali et piu honorate cortigiane di Venezia, which Margaret Rosenthal in her biography of Veronica Franco [The Honest Courtesan: Veronica Franco, Citizen and Writer in Sixteenth-Century Venice (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992), p.274] wittily describes as 'a kind of sixteenth-century telephone book' in that it recorded names, prices and addresses. A rare 1575 edition of one such exists in the Museo Civico Correr. Another such catalogue written in the form of a satirical dialogue, La tarrifa delle puttane di Venezia (The Price List of the Whores of Venice) was printed there in 1535". Dr. Ambrosini adds, however, that "such catalogues were by no means a peculiarity of Venice" and the corrective: "I have found no mention of any such book being printed in the seventeenth century." In the context of this and the ensuing line, there is a neat connection made between courtesans and nuns, which again has a historical basis as many nuns plied a trade as courtesans or prostitutes over many centuries (see Mary Lavin's study of the phenomenon in Virgins of Venice: Enclosed Lives and Broken Vows in the Renaissance Convent [London: Penguin, 2002], especially chapters 7-11). I am indebted to Dr. Ambrosini for this information and to Professor Dario Calimani for kindly putting me in touch with her. [go to text]

gg4630   embraced accepted gladly or eagerly; welcomed [go to text]

gg2190   wholesome healthy, free from corruption [go to text]

gg4631   particular individual, specific [go to text]

gg4632   winding (of a narrative) circuitous, rambling, roundabout [go to text]

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

n6925   in yielding to their common use That is: by becoming generally available as a prostitute. Borgio is advising Victoria how to be a courtesan rather than a whore; and possibly Brome may be drawing on a famous source here and earlier in this character's speeches: Pietro Aretino's The School of Whoredom (1535). In this satire a seasoned Roman prostitute advises her daughter on how to take up the profession and succeed: "So, you see, becoming a whore is no career for fools, well I know it, and I won't be hurried in your case; it calls for more than lifting up your skirts and saying 'Come - I'm coming'; if you don't want to close up shop the day it opens" (Pietro Aretino, The School of Whoredom [London: Hesperus Press, 2003], p. 5). [go to text]

gg1931   cloyed satisfied, satiated (OED v1. 8a) [go to text]

gg4634   hoisting raising, lifting, elevating (often used in the seventeenth century, according to the OED, in relation to overtaxing, overpricing) [go to text]

n6926   the old youth That is, Pantaloni. [go to text]

gs1045   grave sombre, (but also with the sense of "marked for the grave"), elderly [go to text]

gs1016   concupiscence libidinous appetite, lust [go to text]

n6927   stoop That is: knowingly "fall" in the sense of losing her virginity. Continually Brome plants in spectators' minds the idea that Victoria is more moral than her appearance and her intended career might lead one to suppose. Her language is repeatedly that of Eve's Fall through carnal knowledge, which is part of the traditional Christian rhetoric directed against sexual experience outside wedlock. [go to text]

n9293   [Aside] The 1653 text offers no stage direction here. Jacconetta would scarcely use the third person "He", if she were addressing Borgio directly. This brief interjection is more likely addressed to the audience to clarify the significance of Borgio's previous lines. Jacconetta returns to contributing to the dialogue when she begins to refer to Borgio as "sir". [go to text]

gs953   I’faith in faith; truly [go to text]

n6928   The mark’s grown out of your old chaps This may be proverbial, though Tilley provides no example on which the line might be based. The "mark" here means a characteristic trait, manner, sign (as in the "mark of Cain" or the "mark of the beast") and the usage is usually pejorative, implying infamy in the person so referred to. "Chaps" relates to the jaws and so is used metaphorically here for "mode of talking". Overall Jacconetta's phrase means that she supposes that Borgio has abandoned his characteristic way of lewd speaking. If "chaps", however is taken to mean the "cheeks", to which the words may also refer, then the words may be paraphrased as meaning: your look has brightened, the scowls and frowns have fallen from your cheeks or features. [go to text]

gg4635   visitants visitors, suitors [go to text]

gg4636   circumspectly cautiously, warily [go to text]

n9294   [BORGIO] exit[s] The 1653 text gives no direction as to when Borgio departs, but the actor would need time to descend and appear, as required by his next printed direction, in the playing space below, watching for clients. [go to text]

n6931   but whether, let it be This leaves the enigmatic nature of Borgio's characterisation wide open to interpretation as this intimate sequence ends. Victoria's refusal to let the issue overly trouble her at this juncture serves to leave spectators pondering on the pander's nature. Borgio is a disturbing individual as presented: somewhat threatening, yet decidedly clear-eyed; aloof, yet anxious on Victoria's behalf; a pander, yet a man with a developed moral conscience. The key to the many riddles continues to be withheld, provoking a deepening dramatic tension and a developing curiosity in the audience. [go to text]

gs877   whether whichever (of two) [go to text]

n6932   As was my birth, my purpose shall be free. This is an indication that Victoria is of a noble family, which for a courtesan in Venice in the seventeenth century is not without historical precedent; and it accounts for her wish to assert her independence of Borgio. Whether such self-assertion is a mark of tragic hubris or a fundamental premise of the comic plotting, the remaining acts of the play must reveal. [go to text]

n6933   the sign It was customary certainly in Caroline London for tradesmen to have a pictorial sign outside their establishments indicating the precise nature of the goods they had on sale. The image of an enticingly dressed female seated at a window while playing a lute or guitar was a pervasive icon signifying that the woman was a courtesan or prostitute (the image of her fingers strumming across an instrument placed in her lap was considered suggestively erotic). Brome used the device again in his later (arguably his next) comedy, The Weeding of Covent Garden, where in the opening act Dorcas, who like Victoria is setting herself up as a lady of pleasure, seeks to establish her reputation and attract custom by appearing on the balcony of a house in Covent Garden while singing and accompanying herself with a lute. Significantly Brome describes her in a stage direction as "habited like a Curtizan of Venice" [CG 1.1.speech69]. [go to text]

n6934   Whilst she plays and sings above, BORGIO waits below. This direction shows how Brome delighted in exploiting the spatial resources of the stages for which he was working. Here we move from a highly intimate scene situated "above" to a more open public sequence where the room or gallery above now becomes a window towards which a host of men gaze as they pass over the main playing space below. The scene mirrors the sequence in Act I, where Piso and Fabritio watch groups of men by night circling about Victoria's lodging. As was the case with that mimed episode, so here the movement patterns are accompanied by music: there the music was occasioned by a number of the men offering serenades to Victoria; here the men seem to be drawn to the entrance to her lodging by Victoria's siren-like voice. As often in Brome's dramaturgy, there is a divided focus for the audience's attention: on the performance of the song, and on the mimed action as each of the men on entering her house proffers a fee to Borgio. [go to text]

n9414   a French cavalier This is Horatio in disguise and should be played by that actor in this sequence. [go to text]

n9415   Spaniard This, we will later discover, is Don Pedro. [go to text]

n9416   German This is Swatzenburgh, who is variously described as Dutch and German in the play. In [NV 2.2.speech261] Borgio actually refers to him as both in the course of a single sentence. [go to text]

gg4637   muster roll an official list of the soldiers in an army or some particular division of it, from which the roll call was made to know if all the men were present on parade [go to text]

gg4638   army royal in various military and related uses, denoting something on a grand scale, or of great size or strength [go to text]

n6943   princely spirits That is: spirited men of princely rank or bearing. Most of the suitors whom we will see in the following act lay claim to a high social status but most of them prove bogus (making a passable attempt to assume the manner of a prince but not having in fact the blood, upbringing or wealth). [go to text]

n6944   encounter The OED offers as primary meaning of this word, "a meeting face to face; a meeting (of adversaries or opposing forces) in conflict; hence, a battle, skirmish, duel". From Victoria's mention of a "muster roll", military metaphors recur throughout her dialogue with Borgio. All are suggestive of an antagonistic rather than an erotic encounter, a veritable battle of the sexes. This proves intellectually to be the case: rather than being wooed, Victoria seems more to be laid seige to by her various suitors. [go to text]

n9472   one at once That is: one at a time. [go to text]

n6945   encamped Another military metaphor. What Borgio is referring to is how he has housed the suitors severally in rooms about the house. [go to text]

gg1695   several different, separate [go to text]

gg3628   quarter lodging, room (now usually plural) (OED 16a) [go to text]

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

gg175   stout valiant, resolute [go to text]

gg2139   sprightly spirited [go to text]

n9653   Here the brave Spaniard; there the German bold; Soon Brome is to develop these particular characters in the persons of Don Pedro and Swatzenburgh (though he cannot absolutely fix on the precise nationality of the latter, who is variously described as German and Dutch). Brome's singling these two out for dramatic development may be to allow him to make some passing satirical comment about the political relations between these two countries; but his choice may have been influenced (as in so much of the detail in this particular act and scene) by Coryat, who frequently refers to the presence of men of both nations in Venice. Most notably Coryat observes that, though many foreign currencies were available in the city, the most readily so were Dutch or German dollars and Spanish pistolets (both such coins are referred to elsewhere in the text). [go to text]

gg4639   Polonian a native or inhabitant of Poland, a Pole [go to text]

gg4640   Sclavonian a person of Slavonic origin; a Slav (interestingly Coryat in his Crudities, whom Brome was copying in this instance, accurately spelt the word as "Slavonians") [go to text]

n9648   Here the Polonian; and Sclavonian there; Persian and Grecian This is an instance where Brome cribs from Coryat's Crudities outright. The latter, referring to the "concourse of nations" daily to be noted in St. Mark's Square, observes: "There you may see many Polonians, Slavonians, Persians, Grecians, Turks, Jewes, Christians of all the famousest regions of Christendome, and each nation distinguished ffrom another by their proper and perculiar habits" (Thomas Coryat, Coryat's Crudities 2 vols [Glasgow: James MacLehose for Glasgow University Press, 1905], Vol 1, p. 318). Even Brome's ordering of nationalities exactly imitates Coryat's. It is interesting, since so much is to be made in farcical terms of clothing in later scenes of the comedy, that Coryat takes care to mention how the nations are distinguished by virtue of their particular "habits" (fashions in clothing). [go to text]

gs1046   several individual [go to text]

gg2885   battery charge for assault [go to text]

n6946   your virgin fort The concept of virginity as being like a stronghold to be keenly defended is a recurring trope in renaissance love poetry. Tournament drama in the later Elizabethan period often enacted the trope with Elizabeth herself as the objective of a battle royal between knightly contestants. Accession Day tilts particularly took this as a theme. [go to text]

gg4641   piazza a public square or marketplace in an Italian town; any similar open public space surrounded by buildings [go to text]

gg3395   mart market, commercial gathering [go to text]

n6947   St. Mark One of the four evangelists, who is usually represented as accompanied by a lion, which may in part refer to his being considered the founder of Christianity in Africa and of the Coptic faith. [go to text]

n9650   The understanding of more languages This is a curious phrase. St. Mark was renowned for his travels and with bringing Christianity into North Africa, which implies some mastery of languages (though one must not forget the story of the gift of tongues induced by the Pentecostal fire as described in the Acts of the Apostles). More likely this is an overly compressed reference to Coryat's description of the many nations to be found in St. Mark's Square: "Here you may both see all manner of fashions of attire, and heare all the languages of Christendome, besides those that are spoken by the barbarous Ethnickes" (Thomas Coryat, Coryat's Crudities, 2 vols [Glasgow: James MacLehose for Glasgow University Press, 1905], Vol. 1, p.314). Moryson makes a similar but briefer comment in his account of visiting Venice: "That in no place is to be found in one market place such variety of apparell, languages, and manners" (Fynes Moryson, An Itinerary [Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons for the University of Glasgow, 1907], p.196). [go to text]

n6948   To be made one by your interpretation To be united (made as if one) by the construction you put (on their coming to your house): that is, their common quest of your sexual favour. [go to text]

gg4642   glass mirror [go to text]

gg4643   Fetching irresistibly attracting [go to text]

gg331   pitch height; summit (OED n2. 19a); height to which a bird rises in its flight (OED n2. 21) [go to text]

n6949   glance There is a pun here: "glance" can mean the flash or gleam produced by a mirror catching the light or a ray of the sun; it can also mean the quick look of the eyes with which a woman draws a man's attention to her. [go to text]

n6950   the nets of love The imagery that underlies this and the previous three lines relates to a practice common throughout Europe even into the twentieth century of capturing birds (usually of the smaller game varieties such as plover, dottrels, quails; but even larger birds such as the buzzard might be so caught) by first rousing their curiosity and then blinding them with flashes of light from a mirror causing them to run innocently into waiting nets. [go to text]

n6951   speak nearer home That is: please avoid complex rhetoric and speak more plainly. [go to text]

gg4644   culled chosen, selected, picked (OED cull v1, 1) [go to text]

n6952   the pack A highly derogatory term, implying that the men are like hunting dogs or wolves in pursuit of prey. [go to text]

gg4628   flame vitality; passion [go to text]

gs1047   spirit animation, impulse [go to text]

gs1048   meddle a punning instance, where meddle means both "to have dealings with", "engage or associate with (someone)" and "to have sex with" (OED v. 1b and 4) [go to text]

n6953   glory Maybe a pun or joke is intended here, since glory could mean "splendour, magnificence" but in French (as gloire) could refer to personal honour, esteem, reputation. It is the first meaning here that is continued into the imagery of the ensuing line and the reference to Semele. [go to text]

n6954   Semele In classical myth, Semele was seduced by Jupiter. When he revealed to her his actual identity as a god, she begged him to visit her in all his divine radiance. He did this and his appearance burned her to death. The god Dionysus was conceived of this fatal union. [go to text]

n6955   an epitome of both the Indies Borgio means that the Spaniard's clothes are an advertisement or index of his nation's colonial ambitions, in that he is wearing materials and jewels brought back to Europe from both the East and West Indies. Coryat in his Crudities offers a usage of the word, epitome, when at the end of his section describing his travels to Venice he gives a summary of its highpoints rather in the manner of a modern index or digest (Thomas Coryat, Coryat's Crudities 2 vols [Glasgow: James MacLehose for Glasgow University Press, 1905], Vol. 1, pp. 426-427). [go to text]

gg4645   punctuality scrupulousness in regard to matters of conduct or etiquette; formality, ceremoniousness; precision in niceties of behaviour [go to text]

gs253   for for fear of [go to text]

n9417   cargo lustig The 1653 text offers "Cargo lustick!". "Lustick" has here been modernised to "lustig", meaning virile, lusty, lively, aimiable (Swatzenburgh will prove to possess all these qualities). "Cargo" is not a known German word. Jennie Clark, a bilingual speaker, suggested to me that the word perhaps implies a traveller with pent-up sexual energy. This is feasible, if somewhat strained. The OED offers two potential English meanings that are relevant in the context: first "a contemptuous term applied to a person (n2, 1)", citing a usage of 1602 in Ben Jonson's Poetaster (V. iii): "A couple of condemned, caitive, calumnious cargoes"; secondly, "as an exclamation or imprecation (OED n2, 2)" where a quotation from Wilkins' The Miseries of Enforced Marriage of 1607 is cited: "But cargo! my fiddlestick cannot play without rosin." Either of these two meanings would be relevant to this context in Brome, though the compositor ought not to have rendered "cargo" in italics as in either instance it is an English not a German usage. Whichever possibility is chosen, the general inference is clear: that Borgio somewhat despises the man as offering Victoria little more than a macho virility (all sex; no cash, no culture). [go to text]

gg4646   Landsgrave In Germany, a count having jurisdiction over a territory, and having under him several inferior counts (later it became the title of certain German princes). The current spelling is "landgrave" but in the seventeenth century it was often spelt "lantsgrave" or "landsgrave" as here. [go to text]

gg611   doughty intrepid, fearless; hardy, valorous [go to text]

n6956   Diego A contemptuous term in the period for any Spanish man (much like Taffy for a Welshman or Taig for an Irishman). Diego was a version of the equally pejorative word, "Dago". The character's actual name is Don Pedro. [go to text]

gg1695   several different, separate [go to text]

n6958   from scent of one another The idea is that by placing the visitors in separate rooms Borgio is preventing their rivalries from developing into vicious fights. The image, like most of Borgio's ways of referring to the men coming to pay court to Victoria, is highly disparaging (particularly since he hopes to make money by them all). "Scent" here is especially cruel in its satire, implying that the men are all on heat. [go to text]

n9295   scent ] sent [go to text]

gs1049   requital recompense, reward [go to text]

gg1781   ere before [go to text]

n6957   let music feast their ears As these are the final words of the act, a short intermission in an indoor theatre would follow the actors' exit from the stage when there would indeed be music to feast the ears of the audience. [go to text]

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