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n9458   ACT THREE The third act is conceived as one continuing flow of action and is quite remarkable, given the subtlety of its dramaturgical skill, for coming relatively early in Brome’s career as dramatist, since in one way absolutely nothing happens that develops the plot. Instead Brome chooses to bring to spectators’ attention a sequence of male characters, three of whom are held up to scrutiny and an audience’s scorn. The technique deployed is akin to that pursued by Jonson in such early plays as Every Man In His Humour, where the dramatist is less interested in complexities of plotting than in offering an exploration of his principal characters through a series of episodes which are thematically linked. In the case of the play mentioned, as I have argued elsewhere, the unity of action comes from Jonson’s investigation of what precisely constitutes a gentleman. One might argue the same of this act, except for a major difference: Brome presents each of his male characters in conference with the courtesan, Victoria, and explores the quality of the relation they each in turn establish with her, the nature of their several arts of loving, their fundamental attitudes to a woman. He also in part uses the sequence of episodes to satirise certain national stereotypes (Piso is but thinly disguised and appears as the Italian that he actually is; Horatio masquerades as a French chevalier; Don Pedro is a haughty Spaniard; and Swatzenburgh a Dutchman). But such satire quickly comes to have less importance than the ways the four men independently view a courtesan: Piso’s misogyny reaches levels that are sneeringly abusive when he cannot get his way with Victoria (from the first he dismisses courtship as “Mere noise and lip-labour with loss of time” [NV 3.1.speech267]); Horatio hopes to excite her interest by displaying his cultural attributes as poet, musician and dancer, but his is a self-regarding performance that pays scant attention to the woman who should be the focus of his efforts; Don Pedro expects subservience and, when he is challenged, attempts rape till forcibly expelled by Borgio and the Dutchman; Swatzenburg, though a man of bluster, shows himself at least gallant and protective and his care of her inclines Victoria to invite him at the close of the act to join her in a small collation or supper. In the final moments of the second scene from Act Two, Victoria laughed with Borgio about the various men champing at the bit to meet her; by the close of the third act she is altogether more circumspect.

What impresses throughout the sequences with the various men is Victoria’s strength of will, her courtesy (she never outwardly voices her distaste for any of the men who intrude so grossly on her sensibility) and her forceful intelligence, which enables her to parry the men’s lines of attack while always sustaining her integrity and a clear sense of her own worth as more than the price that has been publicly set on the granting of her favour and the loss of her maidenhead. Repeatedly she proves how aptly she has been named by her creator as Victoria. In social terms what increasingly impresses with this act is the insight the episodes bring audiences into the vulnerability and downright danger of women when they are being wooed, if they lack the sharpness of wit that is necessary to answer men in terms of their own rhetorical and emotional methods. With (at this stage) the one exception of Swatzenburgh, the men all assume that gratitude will be the substance of the woman’s response, failing to see that such an attitude is wholly patronising and reductive. The first three wooers are totally astonished by Victoria’s ability, morally and emotionally, to read their characters, assess the degree of their want of worth, and effectively dismiss them from the stage. The playing space is her possession and she brilliantly sustains her control over who shall stay and who be expelled from its expanse. The writing expects nothing less than a tour de force from the performer playing Victoria. [go to text]

n6975   Why not me, lady? Brome immediately creates dramatic tension by pitching spectators mid-way into a conversation that has clearly being continuing for some time, so that the audience join it at the climax. Already, as is implicit within the opening question, Victoria has been finding ways to refuse Piso's suit and is seeking to keep him at a distance. [go to text]

gg1932   try test [go to text]

gg3662   coyness shy reserve or unwillingness [go to text]

gg4647   amorists professed lovers; gallants (the tone of the usage here is ironic and superior) [go to text]

gg4648   cringe cower; behave obsequiously or with mean submissiveness; show base or servile deference [go to text]

gg4649   creep to move timidly or diffidently; to proceed humbly, abjectly, or servilely [go to text]

n9296   “O divine touch!” ] O Divine touch! [go to text]

gs1050   smirk smile in an affected, self-satisfied, or silly manner; to simper [go to text]

gg4650   nuzzle nestle on or close to (some part of) a person; push or thrust (one's nose, head, face, etc.) intimately against [go to text]

n6976   Elysium In classical mythology, Elysium referred to the supposed state or abode of the blessed after death; but here the word is used figuratively, signifying a "place or state of ideal or perfect happiness" (OED). Elysium is often invoked in love poetry as the height (as here) of a lover's bliss or ecstacy. Piso, of course, is being ironic and satirical, considering this as a feeble, overly sentimental expression of passion. [go to text]

gg2664   entranced insensible, in a trance [go to text]

gs1051   duller tedious, insensitive, overly conventional, lacking in vivacity or panache [go to text]

n6977   To gather heat and strength of appetite Piso's words suggest an individual lacking virility and sexual potency if he needs to work himself up into a passion by the means listed. Addressed to a woman, however, his words might be deemed lacking in insight and sensitivity. [go to text]

gg2432   dialect language, manner of speaking [go to text]

n9297   eyes enough ] eyes, enough [go to text]

n9569   I find you yielding. Director and cast must evolve some action at this moment that justifies Piso's assumption, even though Victoria quickly puts him right (that she finds him far from attractive). Piso's speech is increasingly insulting and maybe she could advance on him, making eye contact with eyes bright with anger, which in his characteristically smug manner he interprets as her succumbing to his charms. Whatever approach is chosen, there needs to be some motivation for Piso's line, if the drama of Victoria's furious self-reproach is to have maximum impact. [go to text]

gg4651   blame blameworthy, culpable (instances of this adjectival use are also to be found in Shakespeare, Jonson, Heywood) [go to text]

n9570   Let us retire then. Again, Piso woefully misjudges the import of Victoria's words and tone. He believes her to be apologising for not being as sexually forthcoming as he clearly would wish and moves towards her, intent on leading her to the privacy of a bedchamber. Such a movement is required to give a logic to Victoria's quick injunction: "Keep your distance". [go to text]

gg4652   signior a form of address of Italian usage (or with reference to Italians); the word is equivalent to "sir" or "sire" in English [go to text]

gs1052   overween presume, have unreasonably high expectations [go to text]

gg4653   immodesty impudence; the lack of a sense of decorum or decency [go to text]

gg4654   Persuade induce, entreat, urge (OED v. II 5b) [go to text]

gs594   construction the interpretation put upon conduct, action, facts, words, etc.; the way in which these are taken or viewed by onlookers; usually with qualification, as to put a good, bad, favourable, charitable (or other) construction upon (OED n. 8a) [go to text]

gg4655   sooth (in) truth, (in) all honesty [go to text]

n6978   smock-fair In modern parlance, the equivalent would be a phrase such as "the meat-market". That is, a place or market where women offer themselves for sex as a commodity. Numerous nouns were prefixed by the word "smock" as denigratory references to women throughout the early seventeenth century ("smock-agent", "smock-fees", "smock-council"). OED observes that "examples are very common in 17th cent. dramatists". In The Love-Sick Court Brome uses the term, "smock-secret" [LS 4.1.speech511], where Doris refers to a secret between Garrula and Thymele. [go to text]

n6979   these dressings, these perfumes and paintings The plural usage of the nouns here is vicious. Victoria is setting herself up as a Novella, a virgin novice; but this approach denigrates her by implying she is born or at least inured to the manner of the courtesan, since the plurals imply that matters to do with her appearance are everyday events to her. The matters in question are freshly adopted, as the audience witnessed in 2.2, where they watched her trying on her new attire and dressings for her hair and making up her face (painting). Piso is being highly insolent. [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]

gg4656   call attract, lure (used in the sense of attracting animals when hunting by a particular ‘call’) (OED v. 4b) [go to text]

gg4657   delude cheat, disappoint or mock (the hopes of someone) [go to text]

n9298   cold-seeming ] cold seeming [go to text]

n6980   cold-seeming Piso cannot believe that what he is experiencing might be a true reflection of Victoria's nature so he accuses her of acting a role, that her virtue is a sham, that her modesty is an assumed "art". "Cold" is an epithet traditionally linked to chastity, but here the familiar trope is subverted by the intrusive qualifier, "seeming". [go to text]

gs1053   art cunning; artfulness; trickery, pretence [go to text]

n6981   that’s less That is, less of an art; it requires less cunning. [go to text]

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

gg4658   sufficiency competence [go to text]

n6982   trade That is: of prostitution. [go to text]

n9654   For the best carpenters make fewest chips; This proverb and the rest of this particular speech derive closely from a passage in Coryat's Crudities at the end of his section on Venetian courtesans. The full passage on which Brome draws heavily reads as follows: "If any of them [courtesans] happen to have any children (as indeed they have but few, for according to the old proverbe the best carpenters make the fewest chips) they are brought up either at their own charge, or in a certaine house of the citie appointed for no other use but onely for the bringing up of Cortezans bastards, which I saw Eastward above Saint Markes streete neare to the sea side. [...]Those that are brought up in this foresaid house, are removed therehence when they come to yeares of discretion, and many of the male children are employed in the warres, or to serve in the Arsenall, or Galleys at sea, or some other publique service for the Common weale. And many of the females if they bee faire doe matrizare, that is, imitate their mothers in their gainfull facultie, and get their living by prostituting their bodies to their favourites" (Thomas Coryat, Coryat's Crudities, 2 vols [Glasgow: James MacLehose for Glasgow University Press, 1905], Vol. 1, p. 407). The proverb about the carpenter and his chips (an early modern version of what today passes as "a chip off the old block") is listed by Tilley as C93, where both Coryat and Brome are given by way of examples, though the earliest version of the phrase is dated to 1555. (See Morris Palmer Tilley, A Dictionary of the Proverbs in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1950].) [go to text]

n6983   your function That is: as whores. [go to text]

n9299   public ] publique [go to text]

n6984   Arsenal The term is in general use meaning "a dock possessing naval stores, materials, and all appliances for the reception, construction, and repair of ships; a dockyard" (OED). That in Venice was famous for its size and efficiency. It was claimed that, as in the case of the modern conveyor belt system in factories, a galley-ship could be fully constructed and rigged within a single day, as it passed steadily through the waterways of the Arsenal. [go to text]

n6985   Succeed their active mothers This is a practice that is recorded, as Ruggiero shows (Binding Passions [New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993]), in numerous Venetian state documents concerning trials of prostitutes and courtesans for various misdeamours. Aretino's The School of Whoredom (1535) has a one-time Roman courtesan educating her daughter to the profession. She intends to act as her daughter's "keeper". [go to text]

n6986   all examples to That is: as has been the case with all precedents for (what you are doing in setting yourself up as a courtesan). [go to text]

gg4659   lavish unrestrained, effusive [go to text]

n6987   as I fear foul language This shows remarkable courage, veiled as politeness: Victoria is indicating that she is finding Piso's remarks increasingly offensive; she subtly reprimands him by insisting that he leave before he resorts to such bad manners as he is actually exhibiting. Throughout the scene she coolly remains in control of the moral high ground. [go to text]

n9300   t’avoid ] to'avoyd [go to text]

gg4660   overacted overdone; performed in an exaggerated manner [go to text]

gg4661   Clarissimo a Venetian grandee; a magnifico, a magnate [go to text]

gg4662   patrician a hereditary noble citizen of any of several Italian republics, such as Venice, Genoa, etc. [go to text]

n9301   piece ] pi ce (Either a letter "e" in font has been omitted by the compositor, though the space for one was left, or this particular piece of font failed to be properly inked before the page was printed.) [go to text]

gg508   piece a woman, usually with the connotation of being a sexual object (OED II 9b) [go to text]

gg4663   Affected artificial, stilted, ‘got up’, pretended [go to text]

gg4664   singularity peculiarity, eccentricity, oddity, strangeness [go to text]

gg4665   unsuitable unsuited, unfitting [go to text]

gs1054   strength aggregate resources, sum total [go to text]

gs186   carriage morally upright behaviour [go to text]

gg4666   out of countenance disconcert, discomfit [go to text]

n9457   O the knot’s dissolved! The reference is to the Gordian Knot and a legend associated with Alexander the Great who, faced in Phrygia with this giant knot that none could untie, sliced it through with his sword. The tale became a metaphor for finding a quick solution to a seemingly intractable problem. [go to text]

gg4667   dissolved disentangled [go to text]

n6988   O Oedipus! O Sphynx! Oedipus came to be made king of the Thebans by solving a riddle posed by a grotesque sphinx (a mythical creature that was part-woman and part-lion), who had destroyed anyone who previously failed to answer her question. The pride in his apparently superior intelligence was a point of hubris in the king, which eventually led to his downfall. This classical Greek legend was the source of Sophocles' tragedy, Oedipus, the King. [go to text]

n6989   Fishermen Piso means senior figures in the Roman Catholic Church. Because St. Peter and several of the other disciples were fishermen, and because (in the early years of the Christian faith) the fish was the emblem of Christ, Catholic clergymen were often figuratively called fishermen too. [go to text]

gs1055   pregnant (of an argument, proof, piece of evidence) compelling, cogent, convincing, clear, obvious [go to text]

n6990   claps a cardinal aboard "To clap aboard" is a nautical term generally meaning to capture another vessel or to go aboard another ship. Piso crudely imagines Victoria as like a pirate who sets out in the full sail of her courtesan's attire to capture a cardinal as her prey. Throughout the renaissance period, cardinals and indeed several popes kept courtesans as mistresses. [go to text]

gg4668   layman’s a man who is not a cleric [go to text]

gg3456   Or either [go to text]

gs1056   confute confound (in argument), disprove, refute [go to text]

n6991   privilege The privilege of the Novella, the details of which are set out again in the rest of this speech. [go to text]

gg4635   visitants visitors, suitors [go to text]

n6992   without control or least exception That is: Victoria will be subject to no man's influence or authority during the period of her "privilege", and there will be no exceptions to the rules as she has outlined them here. [go to text]

gg4669   secured protected, rendered safe [go to text]

gs1057   affront offence to one's dignity or modesty; a felt indignity; hostile attack; defiance [go to text]

n9302   grieve ] grive [go to text]

gg4670   grieve harass, trouble, vex, hurt (OED v. 2) [go to text]

n6993   unexacted That is: without you making demand of me; without you asking me. [go to text]

gg4671   promoved advanced to a higher grade or office; promoted [go to text]

gg4672   prefixed appointed, arranged (beforehand) [go to text]

n9303   sum ] Son [go to text]

gg4673   tendered laid down (in payment), proffered [go to text]

n6998   less That is, for less than the required fee. [go to text]

gg4674   merchantable marketable, saleable [go to text]

gg2781   ware goods; specifically, women, imagined as a commodity (OED n3. 4b) [go to text]

n9304   overslip ] oversl p (The "i" was either omitted by the compositor or the piece of font was not properly inked before the page was printed.) [go to text]

gg4675   overslip pass over without notice; let slip; let pass [go to text]

gg4676   fulsome abundant, plentiful, copious (but tending towards the overgrown, rank) [go to text]

n9305   fowl ] Foule [go to text]

gg4677   virtue’s quintessence, excellence [go to text]

gg2078   Indued archaic form of 'endowed' [go to text]

gg4679   delicates dainties, delights, sensual pleasures [go to text]

n7002   seasonable taking Piso is continuing his extended metaphor of ripening fruit, which must be picked in due season: at the right moment of perfect fruition. His intent is, of course, wholly sexual. [go to text]

gg817   counsel advice, direction [go to text]

n7003   day that is: all day [go to text]

gg4680   largely at length, fully [go to text]

n9571   Enter HORATIO This stage direction is placed in the 1653 text after the end of Victoria's speech. However she and the audience need to notice Horatio's arrival before she speaks about him to make the lines the funnier (perhaps spectators should have the time to recognise the Frenchman as none other than Horatio in disguise). This edition has consequently moved the direction back two lines to the midpoint of Victoria's speech where her line of thought changes direction. [go to text]

n7035   a French cavalier Given the satire on national types that prevails throughout this act, it is tempting to emend this entrance to read "like a French chevalier", from which the English term is derived. At this date the English word did not yet carry the royalist significance that accrued to it as the country moved rapidly towards civil war in the later 1630s. [go to text]

gg3829   cavalier gentlemen trained to arms, gallants [go to text]

n9572   [Aside] No such direction occurs in the 1653 text, but is required as a logical consequence of moving Horatio's entrance before these lines of Victoria's. It is the actress's choice whether to deliver the words as inward musing at the sight of the supposed Frenchman or to share the joke about French "spirit" directly with the audience. [go to text]

gg2139   sprightly spirited [go to text]

n7004   a hot onset now, though a short skirmish That is: a vigorous attack but one of brief duration (one might in the context interpret the phrase as meaning a lusty assault ending in premature ejaculation). "Onset" carries the meaning "assault, a military attack or onslaught", while "skirmish" means "a petty fight or encounter". Both words could also be applied to modes of argument, so a series of puns may be at play here. Victoria establishes however her absolute confidence in being able to control the situation, whatever it offers. [go to text]

n10138   Let me in my approach admire that object Video The workshop on this short extract (speeches 293 to 308) from Victoria’s encounter with Horatio in his disguise as “a French cavalier” set out to explore where exactly the focus of this scene should be. Is he the centre of an audience’s interest or is she? The audience have seen Horatio earlier in the play and know that he plans to visit the Novella. The printed text makes it clear that he is playing a role here; but should that be made evident to an audience? How overt should his performance of a Frenchman be? How seriously are we to take Horatio’s assumed style and wit? Should there be a lot of comic play with a cod French accent? What is Victoria’s role and function in the scene, and what are we to read into her expert ability to parry words with this suitor? Victoria is an enigmatic character whose moral worth is as yet undetermined by the play’s action. There are in this act overall and in its dominant situation intertextual resonances of Shakespeare’s Marina in Pericles who, when sold into a brothel, gets the better of all the men who try to take her maidenhead. How important is that sense of referencing Marina? We have seen Victoria in Act Two advertise herself as a courtesan; in this act we see her alone in a room with a series of men but she emasculates each in turn; she ends the various encounters psychologically on top and physically untouched. Whatever the prevailing atmosphere of the scenes in which Victoria appears, the writing seems to endow her with a manifest presence, which tends to transcend the farcical situations into which in this Act she is precipitated. Victoria’s self-possession affords a marked contrast in this scene with the deception being practised by Horatio. What is this power that she owns? We wished to explore the effect of this contrast in performance. In sum, the questions we posed were about character, tone and focus in the scene. How much of what one might hypothesize from a reading of the scene is realisable in performance?

An initial read-through established how quickly Victoria suspects Horatio is posing and not the real thing in the way she challenges his assertion of courtliness. In teasing out the meaning of the lines, it became clear what a formidable intelligence she has, given the wit with which she enters into debate and gets the better of him. The density of the writing and the complexity of the syntax appeared to the actors to be used by Brome to establish Victoria’s intellectual supremacy. Brian Woolland in directing the actors recommended that they admit the difficulty and compactness of the verse and suggested this might best be accomplished if Joseph Thompson (Horatio) showed himself staggered by the force of Victoria’s replies. He arrives expecting all he need do to win the prize of Victoria’s affections is to indulge in a little exaggerated praise and then is repeatedly knocked off his feet by her first accusing him of not being what he claimed to be socially and culturally and then showing how penetrating her mind and perceptions are. What adds to the tension of the scene is Victoria’s aside which reveals a crack in her armour: Horatio’s words incline her to suppose he has the requisite fee to possess her and she fears that. To establish Horatio’s shock, Brian suggested that Joseph start the episode by gazing at and appraising Victoria. As Liz Schafer observed, Horatio has no money but he nonetheless goes to the brothel thinking that he will give the courtesan such a good time sexually that she will waive all question of a fee; and she deflates his expectations, his self-image and his cockiness at the first look. It was the first moments of the encounter that were attempted next.

Joseph here readily caught the deflated bombast of Horatio and his uncertainty how to proceed. By directing his aside to the audience, he revealed both his duplicity and the collapse of his confidence. A point noted by Brian and the actors was how Victoria further discomfits him with her line, “Sir, your further pleasure?” which she intrudes into his attempt at collecting his thoughts. That she uses the word “pleasure” in the context is profoundly ironic, particularly coming in the wake of his decision to “come closer to her”. Before attempting the scene again, Brian instructed Joseph to step up the detail of the opening appraisal and asked Olivia to take the gaze and surprise us by having the power to return the evaluation on Horatio in a manner that humiliates him; he suggested that she enjoy the exercise of control here. This would stress the nastiness of his privately considering her just a whore who is acting above her station and point up the contrast of her inviting him to voice what would best please him. This was the actors’ next exploration, following from this discussion.

Richard Cave felt that there was not yet a level of conscious performance in the rendering such as seems present in the situation. It was agreed next to attempt the scene with Joseph adopting a French accent but speaking his aside when discommoded in his own voice (so that, if any spectators had not yet realised that the Frenchman is actually Horatio in disguise, they would now be enlightened). The blatant exposure of his role-play throws into sharp relief for spectators the question of Victoria’s integrity too. To what degree is her aside less a sudden intimation of a loss of power than an indication that her whole initial reception of Horatio is also a consciously wrought performance? The use of the French accent helps to isolate the aside, which reveals what a total sham morally and well as culturally Horatio’s persona is. Joseph found that the accent caused him to place stresses in the poetry differently from when speaking the verse in received pronunciation. The effect of this was to place certain of the nouns almost in quotation marks so that the flattery did seem overstated (unEnglish and therefore questionable): the character took on a pomposity and tone of insistence he had not shown before, which made his humiliation the funnier. The aside now revealed a far from courtly reality behind all the display. Olivia’s impromptu curtsy on Horatio’s entrance established a polite formality, against which Horatio’s verbal and rhetorical excesses seemed immediately crass and ill-judged. Here was a man setting himself up as the acme of civilised behaviour but demonstrating a distinct want of taste. The aside confirmed what spectators had already begun to suspect. Victoria cast him only rare glances in return for his gazing at her from all sides, but they were clearly enough for her to form a critical opinion of him. Her aside (“He brings the money sure”) carried far more weight in consequence of all this: it was now the heartfelt cry of a woman who despaired lest Horatio have the fee to hand and she be forced into a relationship with a man she despised.

Much had been achieved in a short while in this workshop, which concisely demonstrates how in rehearsal a scene such as this is steadily built up in layers as a consequence of shifting the perspective from blocking, though experiments with eye-contact and handling of asides, to use of accent. More might still be accomplished with further exploration, but dramatic tension had now entered the performance; the tone was decidedly more intricate in its shifts between farce (much of Horatio’s part) and a high moral seriousness (Victoria’s position); Victoria’s resilience in the face of rudeness and apparent defeat were rendering her portrayal enigmatic while simultaneously investing her with a credible dignity; Horatio was established as a buffoon but a dangerous one, given what an audience learns of the extent of his duplicity. The richness of Brome’s dramaturgy was patent. [go to text]

gs1059   vindicates clears from criticism or doubt by means of demonstration; justifies or upholds by evidence or argument; endorses [go to text]

n9306   liar ] Lyer [go to text]

gs1060   blazed proclaimed, published at large, divulged, made known [go to text]

gs712   forbear cease, refrain (from) [go to text]

gs641   wonted customary, usual [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]

gg921   Wants is without, lacks, is lacking (something) [go to text]

gg212   due proper, rightful, fitting [go to text]

gs1061   tender offer, proffer [go to text]

gg4704   rusticity (showing) a lack of breeding, culture, or refinement; clownishness, awkwardness [go to text]

gg4705   prophanation desecration, sacrilege [go to text]

n9307   Yet let ] Yet. Let [go to text]

gs1062   stay halt, stop (someone's speech) [go to text]

gg4706   worded phrased, expressed [go to text]

n9308   conceit ] conceipt [go to text]

gs1063   conceit conception, notion, idea [go to text]

gg4707   courtier’s a wooer; also one of high social standing (in this instance both senses are relevant) [go to text]

gg4708   fall to come to be, come about that, occur (but with additional sense of a decline in that coming to be) (OED v. 40d) [go to text]

n9309   its ] it's [go to text]

n7036   It breeds but less respect The sense of this and the following two lines is relatively clear, despite the rather compressed expression: Victoria argues that people ambitious of adoration are frequently disposed to despise the people who actually worship them. [go to text]

n9455   Aside In the 1653 text this direction is placed in the right-hand margin beside the closing words of Horatio's line "...she'll forget". This edition has sited the direction where it would more usually be placed in current playtexts, namely at the start of the words to be delivered as an aside. [go to text]

gs122   else otherwise [go to text]

n7037   business That is: the sexual union that Horatio is hoping to achieve, but he is too polite in his role as cavalier to be so direct. [go to text]

gg1085   tax censure, accuse [go to text]

gg4709   fitly appropriately, fittingly [go to text]

n9752   It is the chapman’s rule to discommend. This sounds proverbial but Tilley offers no parallel English example. However, there is an Italian proverb that would appear to lie behind this wording. Fynes Moryson in his An Itinerary gives it in Italian and then in English translation: "For I remembered the Italian Proverbe, La bellezza di putana, la forza del' fachino, &c nulla vagliano, that is, the beauty of a Harlot, the strength of the Porter, and (to omit many like) Musicke it selfe, and all vertues, become less prized in them, who set them out to sale" (An Itinerary [Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons for the University of Glasgow, 1907], pp.426-427). It is not clear whether Brome read Moryson's account of his trip to Venice, which was printed in 1617, in addition to Coryat's Crudities. This is one of only two passages which suggest that Brome might have read Moryson's work. Brome could as easily have recalled a line from Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida: "...you do as chapmen do, /Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy" (4.1.76-77). There are other intertextual echoes of Shakespeare's play in The Novella. [go to text]

gg4710   chapman’s merchant, trader, dealer [go to text]

gg4711   discommend express disapproval (disapprobation) of; speak dissuasively about; cause (anything) to be unfavourably viewed [go to text]

gg4372   propounded intended, suggested [go to text]

n9456   Aside In the 1653 text this direction has been placed in the right-hand margin beside the final words of Victoria's speech ("...the money sure"). In this edition the direction has been sited where it is nowadays customary to place such directions, namely at the start of the words to be delivered as an aside. [go to text]

gg4712   salary reward or remuneration for services rendered; fee (OED n. 2) [go to text]

n7038   Fraught This word puns on various meanings of "fraught": "laden" (as of a ship carrying freight); "stored, supplied, furnished, equipped with"; "‘big’ with the promise of". The complexity of resonance somewhat undermines Horatio's confident stance. [go to text]

gg4713   unvaluable of inestimable value, of incalculable worth [go to text]

n7039   a thousand double ducats That is: a thousand coins each worth twice the value of a ducat. As a ducat was valued at this period of the 1630s as worth the equivalent in contemporaneous English currency of 3s and 6d, a double ducat would be worth around 7s or a third of a guinea. The modern equivalent of the total sum (£350) would be in excess of £30,000. [go to text]

n7040   Perceive them in a taste of my endowments What Horatio means here is that, if Victoria really judges by only material terms (as her previous speech leads him to suppose), then she should observe and learn his real worth by experiencing an example of his true, gentlemanly quality. [go to text]

gg3789   endowments ‘gift’, power, capacity, or other advantage with which a person is endowed by nature or fortune (OED 4) [go to text]

gg4714   composure literary, musical, or artistic composition [go to text]

gg4715   poesy poetry [go to text]

gs1064   light (v) enlighten, illumine spiritually or intellectually (also with the punning sense of "to lighten in weight", thus allowing Victoria to rise above mercenary considerations) [go to text]

n7041   You’ll say my soul is noble Victoria parodies what she supposes Horatio's song will say about her and argues that, however strongly she may demure at such claims, thinking herself unworthy of them, the words are written, available to whoever will read them and so are unchangeable. [go to text]

gg4716   professors exponents (of) [go to text]

gs1065   set Two meanings elide in this usage: "fixed, definite, not subject to uncertainty or alteration"; and "provided with a musical setting". (OED ppl. a, 2 and 1d) [go to text]

gs1049   requital recompense, reward [go to text]

n9573   Enter JACCONETTA Director and cast must devise some means to make Jacconetta's arrival into the scene plausible. There has been no advance planning on the part of Victoria with Borgio and her maid whereby one or both would be within earshot in case Victoria should have need of their assistance. It is noticeable that later in the act in the scene with Don Pedro both Borgio and Jacconetta arrive immediately onstage the instant Victoria summons them [NV 3.1. speech 362]. It would be possible for the actress playing Victoria in this sequence to slightly raise her voice as a summons to Jacconetta without losing the actual direction of the speech to Horatio. [go to text]

n9310   ditty ] Dity [go to text]

gg4719   ditty the words of a song, as distinguished from the music or tune (OED n. 3) [go to text]

gg4720   invective's a violent attack in words; a denunciatory or railing speech, writing, or expression [go to text]

n7047   invective's ] invective (The emendation seems required for grammatical sense to avoid the juxtaposition of two otherwise unrelated nouns. An alternative reading would be to see "breach" as a verb offered as an initial alternative of two actions of which the second "blaspheme" is the stronger.) [go to text]

gs1067   breach injurious assault, violation [go to text]

gg4721   blaspheme speak evil of, revile, calumniate, abuse [go to text]

gg4722   artful ingenious, clever, cunning, skilled [go to text]

gg4723   lay paint (in the context of make-up) [go to text]

gg3654   Ceruse white lead, used in make-up [go to text]

gg4724   vermillion cinnabar or red crystalline mercuric sulphide, much valued on account of its brilliant scarlet colour, used from Roman times onwards as a cosmetic or for painting the body [go to text]

gg4725   aptly fittingly [go to text]

n7048   parts That is: of the body. Sharpe in his study of the sources of the play (Robert Boies Sharpe, 'The Sources of Richard Brome's The Novella', Studies in Philology, 30 [January 1933], 69-85) suggests that the song is a deliberate riposte to Coryat's prudishness in describing the fondness of Venetian women and particularly courtesans for a noticeably heavy form of makeup involving "stibium, cerussa, and purpurissum". Coryat in fact continues from this observation: "For few of the Cortezans are so much beholding to nature, but that they adulterate their faces, and supply the defect with one of these three. A thing so common amongst them, that many of them which have an elegant naturall beauty, doe varnish their faces (the observation whereof made me not a little pitty their vanities) with these kind of sordid trumperies" (Thomas Coryat, Coryat's Crudities, [Glasgow: James Maclehouse for the University of Glasgow Press, 1905], p.404). [go to text]

n7049   seek to That is: look to, expect. [go to text]

gg4727   rector one exercising supreme or directive control [go to text]

n7050   Us That is: to us. [go to text]

gg4728   boast display proudly, possess as a thing to be proud of [go to text]

gs1068   bounty wealth, munificence [go to text]

gg4729   purling stimulating so as to flow smoothly (like a running stream) [go to text]

n9311   unperceived ] unperceav'd [go to text]

gg4730   strokes marks (the image is drawn from whipping or lashing) [go to text]

gg4731   casualty chance, accident [go to text]

n7080   JACCONETTA sings ] Jac. Sings. (The abbreviation, Jac., here again leaves it open to question which of the character's names is being referred to: Jacomo or Jacconetta. This edition has opted for the latter as the name associated with the individual in question by everyone involved in the action at this point .) [go to text]

gg1900   slight (v) disregard, treat with disrespect [go to text]

gs1049   requital recompense, reward [go to text]

gg4763   esteem favourable opinion; regard; respect [go to text]

gg4764   requited rewarded [go to text]

n7081   command your music give order to your musicians to play [go to text]

n7082   latest practice Two interpretations are possible here: both "what most recently you have been practising" but also "whatever is the latest fashion" (that is a dance that is most practised because most in favour). The condensed syntax used leaves it open whether this has a particular reference to Victoria or a more generalised application. [go to text]

gs1071   endowments (in plural) cultural abilities or pursuits [go to text]

gg4765   weakly poorly, to only a slight degree [go to text]

gs1072   qualities abilities, accomplishments, cultual and aesthetic gifts [go to text]

gg4766   schooling education, training in the arts of dancing, music etc. [go to text]

n7086   in the same coin again What Horatio means is that he cannot impress Victoria, since every endowment he displays before her she can match with equal proficiency. [go to text]

n7087   I’m in That is: (since) I have begun on a particular line of proceeding or mode of behaviour. [go to text]

gg593   on proceed, continue [go to text]

n10137   Dance I consulted with Barbara Ravelhofer, an authority on dance and drama in the seventeenth century, about this particular dance and how it might be performed in a production today. I quote with considerable gratitude from her detailed reply [further information of mine which extends comments in her response are enclosed in square brackets]. “It was a common Venetian / central Italian practice around 1600, and probably for some decades after, for aspiring dancing masters to think of themselves as “authors”. As such they occasionally revised well-known dances of their own making or by another master or added a new variation of their own; and they tended to name such products in a manner that emphasized their newness, giving the dances such titles as Contrapasso nuovo or Barriera nuova. [The dance that Horatio refers to as the "Novella" might well allude to this practice.] Every dancing master worth his salt would boast new dances in his repertoire and advertise them in this manner. [Over 180 dances are listed as "new" in Robert Meller's The Dancing Master, 1651-1728 which, while it surveys an era later than the date of Brome's play, is nonetheless indicative of how common the practice was even in England that Dr. Ravelhofer describes.]

“It was also common to dedicate a dance to a person of consequence, in the same way as poets addressed their works to potential patrons. Sometimes these dances are named after the dedicatee. [In this context, perhaps a new dance is being named after the new courtesan whom Horatio covets.]

“However, Fabritio Caroso’s Il Ballarino (Venice: Ziletti, 1581) includes an example of courtly dancing entitled, Alba Novella (“The New Dawn”); it is the first dance in the collection, dedicated to Bianca Cappello de Medici, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, who is also the dedicatee of the book as a whole. It has five parts: the first four grave, the last more easygoing. It is not the most demanding of dances: the choreography is quite basic, and is probably to be seen as a beginner’s dance, one that is meant to ease the reader/practitioner into the more demanding choreographies, which follow. In the last part there are a few trabuchetti (small jumps ending with the legs closed, one foot lifted and at a ninety-degree angle from the other foot, which is on tiptoe and supports the dancer). The melody is pleasing and vaguely reminiscent of that for Caroso’s later dance Cortesia. (Melodies like dance steps were endlessly recycled). It is possible that Caroso’s book was available in England in Brome’s time, but there is no conclusive evidence for this.”

Barbara Ravelhofer expressed doubts whether the play alludes to this particular dance. However, Bianca Cappello de Medici was from Venice and deemed by many to have been a courtesan, even though she rose to a position of eminence in marrying into the Medici family. She is the subject of Middleton’s Women Beware Women (which has been convincingly dated by John Jowett in Thomas Middleton: The Collected Works as c. July, 1621) where she is so portrayed; and she may have been known to Brome in this context. Speculation all too quickly slips into hypothetical surmise beyond this point: was the name, Fabritio that Brome uses in his play culled from Caroso? did Brome have contact through Jonson with some of the choreographers deployed for the court masques, who might have known or had access to Caroso's volume? The most plausible explanation for the title of Horatio’s proposed dance is that he wishes to cut a dash and create a new choreographic figure extempore, just to prove his skill, and that he is dedicating the work to the woman he wishes to honour. Perhaps in performance the actor playing Horatio led the boy actor in the role of Victoria through a series of simple steps, before he proceeded to dance round her with more complex and impressive figures. There would be potential for considerable comic invention in this and, if Horatio became more interested in his dancing than in his partner, it would explain the sudden access of scorn and sarcasm that Victoria directs at Horatio immediately afterwards, before tiring of his arrogance and quitting his presence. Clearly a scenario of this kind that motivates Victoria's dismissal of Horatio is necessary in production. [go to text]

gg4768   deservings deserts, merits [go to text]

n7088   I come to you That is: I'll be open with you, come to the point, come to a conclusion, conclude with (you). [go to text]

gs1073   esteem (v) value, respect [go to text]

gg4769   Sorting corresponding to, agreeing with, suiting, befitting [go to text]

gg4770   mixture union, synthesis, integration [go to text]

n7089   sum ] Son [go to text]

n7090   those That is: his abilities, qualities and qualifications as a gentleman. [go to text]

gg2175   meed reward, wages (OED n. 1a) [go to text]

n7091   Those excellencies cost That is: the money spent in being taught the qualities of a gentleman. [go to text]

gg4771   flout mock, jeer, insult; express contempt for (someone) [go to text]

n7092   thriving stage and lucky legs That is: if you were an actor performing in a popular and successful theatre and were possessed of a good pair of legs that, in attracting the attention of spectators there, could make your fortune. [go to text]

gg4772   stirring up provoking, stimulating (erotically) [go to text]

gg1038   certes certainly [go to text]

gs1074   ready money cash or funds immediately available for use [go to text]

gs1075   courtesy graceful politeness or considerateness in dealings with others; polite and courtly behaviour [go to text]

gg885   leave permission [go to text]

gg4773   leave depart from, quit (someone's presence) [go to text]

n9312   Be handed. This is a curious phrase to the modern reader. It is perhaps best interpreted as a courteous gesture (and Horatio has been vaunting the excellence of his manners) in which Horatio offers Victoria his hand as a formal farewell or to assist her in leaving the space (to hand her out, even as in other circumstances one might helpfully hand a woman into a carriage). However, the Eton College Library copy of the 1653 edition of Five Plays is inked over here to read more like an expletive: "Be dann'd" or perhaps "Be damn'd". This copy contains a number of handwritten emendations of uncertain date; most are highly intelligent and sensitive corrections, and two have been incorporated into this edition. In this instance, however, heavy inking on the initial "d" and second "n" makes it difficult to be certain that this is the intended reading. An expression of rage and frustration would be logical at this point in the action, which Borgio's ensuing insinuations would considerably augment to an audience's amusement. I have chosen to retain "Be handed" in this edition, but in performance a cast might prefer to take the reading made in the Eton copy. [go to text]

gs45   Pox pox on/of (it): a plague on (an expletive) [go to text]

gg859   warrant assure, promise [go to text]

gs1076   moving arousing (but here used with sexual overtones) [go to text]

n7094   struck it home That is: played vigorously to the finish (usually on a keyboard). But the phrase is used here with obvious implications of sexual penetration. The music was designed to give Horatio a rhythm for his erotic activity. The comment makes it clear that offstage music is required to accompany the dance (and possibly the song). Perhaps the accompaniment continues after Victoria breaks off the dancing. [go to text]

gs1077   jeers (v) deride, mock, scoff at [go to text]

gs251   do the sexual act [go to text]

gg4776   hardly with difficulty, trouble or hardship [go to text]

gs973   travail effort, exertion [go to text]

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

gs1078   shifts (in plural) strategies, schemes, expedients [go to text]

gg4777   with hazard involving risk, chancy, dangerous [go to text]

n7095   past the reach of your expenses That is: with more income than expenditure; wealth that exceeds what is spent. [go to text]

n7096   exercises bring you to That is: heated sexual activity. [go to text]

n7097   feign ] faine ("Fain", meaning "gladly, willingly" would seem out of place in the context, hence the emendation.) [go to text]

n7098   charge That is: the fee of two thousand ducats that is the price of taking Victoria's maidenhead. [go to text]

gg4778   ducatoon a silver coin formerly current in Italian and some other European states, worth in the 1600s from 5 to 6 shillings sterling (currently in 2009 the value would be between £22.00 and £26.00) [go to text]

n7101   ’less That is: lest, unless [go to text]

n7102   again! And all ] againe and all! [go to text]

gs1079   precious fastidious (but used here also maybe with the force of an intensifier, meaning "out-and-out", "downright") [go to text]

gg4779   craft cunning, ingenuity [go to text]

gg4694   humour whim, caprice (OED n. 6) [go to text]

gg4783   abusing insulting, playing games with [go to text]

gg349   work (v) influence, prevail upon [go to text]

gs1080   Against in anticipation of, in preparation for, in time for (OED 19) [go to text]

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

gs1081   art skill in persuasion [go to text]

gg349   work (v) influence, prevail upon [go to text]

gg4785   pricks drives or urges (as with a spur) (OED prick v, II 9a) [go to text]

gg4787   Respect heed, pay attention to (OED v. 2b) [go to text]

gg4132   Adieu goodbye [go to text]

n7106   Serviteur, Monsieur That is: your servant, sire. This was a formal mode of address within polite French society especially with reference to a person of superior social status. It is possible that in performance Borgio's remark might be accompanied by a particular posturing of the body, which Coryat describes as characteristic of polite male society in the city: "when they [men of good standing] meet and not talke, they give a low congie [a ceremonial bow at leave-taking] to each other by very civill and courteous gestures, as by bending of their bodies, and clapping their right hand upon their breastes, without uncovering of their heads, which sometimes they use, but very seldome". (See Thomas Coryat, Coryat's Crudities, 2 vols [Glasgow: James MacLehose for Glasgow University Press, 1905], p.399). [go to text]

n7107   The fear of thee is past. Borgio (Paulo) admits his fear that the affable Frenchman would prevail with Victoria, who would allow him to take her virginity out of sheer love or passion for him. This whole speech within the theatre where spectators are not informed of the fact that Paulo is playing a role is enigmatic in its effect. Is he admitting to this fear out of concern lest Victoria should give herself away, showing that all his advice outlined in 2.2 concerning the advantage to be gained by delaying tactics has gone unregarded? Or there may be some deeper preoccupation with Victoria's honour, which spectators may register without fully understanding. [go to text]

gg4789   Don a Spanish title, prefixed to a man's Christian name (still in the 1600s confined to men of high rank) [go to text]

gs1082   hot sexually excited, rampant [go to text]

n7109   goat-livered The liver was in the 1600s believed to be the seat of love and all passionate emotions. Goats were at that date considered extremely lascivious, a trope that may derive from the goat-like satyrs of classical Greek and Roman legend, who were notoriously lusty and licentious. [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]

n7111   Discharge his pistols on her The phrase invites a sexual interpretation. [go to text]

gg4790   forcible violent (in its consequences), destructive [go to text]

gg4791   cannon-shot ammunition shot from a cannon; cannon-balls [go to text]

n9313   [DON] PEDRO This character is omitted from the list of "persons in the play". Piso and Horatio, who though they visit Victoria in disguise, are given their own names by way of speech prefixes. Don Pedro, however, is not another disguised identity. This character is a wholly new acquaintance to spectators and one seen very briefly. One might suppose that he is introduced merely to allow for the pointed political comment about the relations between Spain and Holland when, later, he is confronted by Swatzenburgh. However, his violent mood adds to an audience's appreciation of the dangers to which Victoria is exposed in her role as courtesan. [go to text]

gs1083   Faith trust (that is, in Victoria's remaining true to her pact with Borgio) [go to text]

gg218   repulse (n) rejection [go to text]

n9655   And set them by the ears for our Low Countries. Spain and the Netherlands were old enemies, after Holland became part of the Spanish empire and anti-Protestant purges were brutally pursued, particularly during the reign of Philip II. But the line is equally capable of yielding a bawdy interpretation: the "Low Countries" has a long history in English drama as referencing the female genitalia. [go to text]

n7112   crowns ] crowne [go to text]

gs1084   prerogative a superiority, a pre-eminence, precedence [go to text]

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

gg400   weighty serious, grave, important [go to text]

gs1085   tendered offered or presented formally for acceptance [go to text]

gs974   blood family line, lineage [go to text]

n7113   change a word more ] charge a word more (There is no OED definition of "charge" that would clearly justify its use here; the syntactical context culminating in the phrase "with a mouth" suggests the need for the emendation offered, where the meaning is "to exchange words with another" in argument. An angry exchange is what is happening here from the very onset of the sequence.) [go to text]

gg203   change (v) exchange [go to text]

gg1677   mechanic belonging to or characteristic of the lower part of the social scale or the lower classes; vulgar, coarse; among the exemplifying quotations in the OED is this from John Donne’s 'Satire 4': "He smacked, and cried, / He’s base, mechanic, coarse."(OED a and n, 3) [go to text]

gg4792   submission yielding, deference [go to text]

gg1799   move persuade, convince [go to text]

gg4793   expiate make amends or reparation for [go to text]

gg319   trespass (n) offence (OED n. 1); minor violation of the law (OED n. 2); crime [go to text]

gg4739   tender (n) offer [go to text]

gs1086   freedom the state of being able to act without hindrance or restraint; liberty of act (also with sense of "magnanimity", "generosity") (OED n. 4a and 2) [go to text]

n7114   sum ] some [go to text]

gg4673   tendered laid down (in payment), proffered [go to text]

gg491   want lack [go to text]

gg1675   tell count [go to text]

gg4794   griped grasped or clutched; grappled with; seized or gripped [go to text]

gg3219   gripe grasp [go to text]

n7115   Under the sum prefixed That is: for less than the ordained fee. [go to text]

gg4796   pistolets a Spanish gold escudo; also a Spanish double-escudo was termed a pistole; occasionally used of any of various other gold coins of the 16th and 17th centuries (an escudo was a gold or silver Portuguese coin to the value of an English crown, the value of which in the currency of 2009 would be £22.30) [go to text]

gg4797   pieces of eight each of these was a Spanish silver dollar, or peso, worth eight reals and marked with the figure 8 [go to text]

gg4798   reals small Spanish silver coins (eight of these made up the more famous "pieces of eight") [go to text]

gg4799   abated brought down in value; haggled over as to the price [go to text]

n7116   I have seen one in your shape so well presented This would appear to be an intertextual reference to Jonson's The Alchemist (1610) and the character of Surly, who dresses as a Spanish grandee in an attempt to discover what exactly is the scam that Face, Doll and Subtle are carrying out in Lovewit's house. Face sets the puritan, Ananias, to attack him on the grounds of the lewd ostentation of his clothes, even as Swatzenburgh is soon to be set at Don Pedro by Borgio. "Shape" here means "appearance" (though it can also refer to costuming or dress) and "represented" means "enacted" or "performed". The intertextual reference must have alerted the knowing spectator that a farcical squabble was about to occur. [go to text]

n7117   whipped Whipping was a common punishment for a range of crimes in seventeenth-century London, particularly for prostitution and pimping. [go to text]

gs1057   affront offence to one's dignity or modesty; a felt indignity; hostile attack; defiance [go to text]

n7118   Tarquin The reference is to the last of the kings of ancient Rome, who raped Lucretia, believing all women were his for the taking. Tarquin was hounded out of the city and defeated in battle; Rome became a republic; Lucretia committed suicide. [go to text]

n9753   [Pedro] draws [a] pistol According to Fynes Moryson, foreigners were forbidden to carry guns of any kind in Venice in the early seventeenth century, though unlike the situation in most other Italian cities they were permitted to wear swords. Moryson writes: "It is unlawfull to weare a sword without licence of the Magistrate, either at Milan, Cremona, Mantua, or almost in any Citie in Italy; onely at Venice and Paduoa, and the Cities of that State, strangers may weare Swords, and onely the wearing of Pistols or short gunnes is forbidden" (Fynes Moryson, An Itinerary [Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons for the University of Glasgow, 1907], p. 372). It is arguable whether Brome was familiar with Moryson's work; but, if he had read An Itinerary, then it is wholly in line with his caricatured portrayal of Don Pedro that he should use this information to show the Spaniard as flouting the law in this imperious way. [go to text]

n9314   Not at this distance, sir. Besides, here’s aid. The 1653 text sets what is clearly a single pentameter as two lines, thus making it appear like prose. This is caused partly by the compositor's decision to set the stage direction ("He draws /Pistoll") as a block of two lines in the right-hand margin alongside Pedro's "Villain, die." and the first of Borgio's sentences that make up his cool reply. [go to text]

n9574   mosquito ] musquitta (the term does not occur in the OED with this period spelling) [go to text]

n7119   wings The word continues the idea of a mosquito but it was also used to denote an aspect of male attire: "a pair of lateral projecting pieces of a garment on or near the shoulder, as of a doublet" (OED wing n, 8a). [go to text]

gg4801   Borne down overwhelmed, overthrown, vanquished [go to text]

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

n7120   speak in thunder That is: like Zeus or Jupiter in classical myth, who directed thunder bolts against their enemies. Don Pedro here may be referring more literally to the noise that the use of his pistols will make. [go to text]

gg4802   rodomontadoes extravagant boasting or bragging; vainglorious rhetoric (more hot air than real words) [go to text]

n7121   politic ] politique [go to text]

gg514   politic expedient, sagacious [go to text]

n7122   Hans A common generic nickname for a Dutchman. [go to text]

gg4803   snapped snatched, made a quick or eager catch at a thing, bore off [go to text]

n7123   ominous portent That is: a bad or evil omen foretelling the future. This idea and indeed the whole of this speech relates directly to the prolonged (Protestant) Dutch resistance to the (Catholic) Spanish occupation of their lands. Though trade rivalry with the Dutch had intensified during the 1620s, English soldiers were often recruited successfully into the Dutch forces, particularly in the later years of that decade. In the very year when Brome composed this play, the Dutch commander, Prince Frederik Hendrik of Orange, marched on Maastricht after successfully capturing S'Hertogenbosch in 1629. He laid siege to the city and, though various Spanish attempts were made to end the strategy by their commanders, Don Gonzalez and Pappenheim, the Dutch eventually breached Maastricht and expelled the Spaniards. The repossession of the city took place on August 23rd, 1632. This was a major victory and one much celebrated in England (though King Charles resisted subsequent overtures to establish an Anglo-Dutch alliance). There was a substantial English presence among the regiments engaged on the siege, and the Earl of Oxford, Robert de Vere, was killed there. The image of the Dutchman carrying a prize off from the Spaniard's "great claim" may be interpreted as indicating that the play was completed and staged after the successful siege (this would support Lucy Munro's contention that The Novella was most likely staged during the 1632-1633 season). If this were indeed so, then these lines express a wish for the entire freeing of Dutch soil from Spanish colonisation, and that the one military victory at Maastricht ("this small assay") might be prophetic of a total expulsion of Spaniards from the Netherlands ("the great work"). I am indebted to Michael Leslie and to Lucy Munro for help with research on this note. [go to text]

gg4805   assay an attack, an assault, trial of strength [go to text]

gs1088   jeered insulted, derided [go to text]

gs1089   Nor and if, since [go to text]

gg5953   signor usually a polite form of address in Spanish or Italian to a man of superior degree (the equivalent of "Sir") but here used contemptuously (Brome is not consistent in his spelling of the term but tends to use "signior" when referring to Italian and "signor" with regard to Spanish men) [go to text]

n7137   Alemannic ] Alenanie (It is difficult to read the final letter in copies consulted: it may be an "e" or a "c". OED, however, does not list a use of this word before the mid 1700s.) [go to text]

gg4809   Alemannic Traditionally the term was applied to German speaking peoples from Alsace, Swabia and Switzerland. There is a problem here in that elsewhere Swatzenburgh is referred to as coming from the Netherlands. Perhaps Brome is aiming to sound exotic and is creating an adjectival noun from the French word for Germany ("Allemagne"); or maybe he just means to infer that Swatzenburgh is German-speaking. [go to text]

gg4810   younker a young nobleman or gentleman of high rank (originally Dutch or German); often spelt "junker" [go to text]

gg219   durst dared [go to text]

gs1090   bear uphold, profess, claim [go to text]

n7139   us). When ] us) when [go to text]

gs1091   piece coin [go to text]

n7141   gazetts OED defines the word "gazett" as "a Venetian coin of small value" and, besides citing this and the following line from Brome, also quotes from the Mountebank scene in Ben Jonson's Volpone, where "some three or four gazetts" are again as here valued at "threepence" (2.2.174-176). Coryat in his Crudities (1611) alleges that the entrance fee to the tower of St. Mark's in Venice "will cost thee but a gazet, which is not fully an English penny" (Thomas Coryat, Coryat's Crudities, 2 vols. [Glasgow: James MacLehose for Glasgow University Press, 1905], vol. 1, p. 327). [go to text]

n7143   my short story The telling of this, we are to suppose, occupies Victoria and Swatzenburgh for the duration of Borgio's dialogue with Don Pedro. They stand intimately apart and the narrative seems highly engrossing, given Borgio's comments about how he is not likely to be overheard by the pair as he tantalises the Spaniard with talk of the Dutchman's prowess. [go to text]

n7144   seeming This is another indication to the alert spectator that Victoria's courtesanship is all a front, a role, a facade, which is quite different from her inner, quintessential self. [go to text]

gg4813   levity frivolity, "light" or undignified behaviour [go to text]

n7145   centre Victoria means her constancy is like the still point at the heart of the circle, around which it is described. Or as OED (centre n, 4) defines it: "the point, pivot, axis, or line round which a body turns or revolves; the fixed or unmoving centre of rotation or revolution". All without is giddy movement; all within is an absolute stillness. [go to text]

gg4814   Reserved restrained (Interestingly Cawdrey in his Table Alphabetical of 1604 defines the word as kept safe "for the time to come", which has a subtle bearing on the plot.) [go to text]

gs1092   free unrestricted (as opposed in the context to "reserved"); but also with the sense of private [go to text]

gg4816   flesh-flies (literally) flies which deposit their eggs (or larvæ) in dead flesh, blow-flies; (figuratively of persons) lewd reprobates, whore-mongers, lechers [go to text]

n7146   my aim It is becoming clearer as this act advances that Victoria has a particular goal in view in pursuing her career as a courtesan, but its precise terms are still withheld from the audience. [go to text]

n7147   a breach upon your honour "Breach" here means a sexual violation, but also it calls metaphorically on the battle and fortification imagery that has permeated the previous would-be suitors' rhetoric, which has caused Victoria much discomfort. This has all culminated in Don Pedro's attempted rape. Victoria's virginity has been seen by Piso, Horatio and Pedro as a fort to which they see themselves as laying siege with a view to breaching her defences and taking possession of her. Swatzenburgh admits that this was his initial reason for visiting her, but now finds her nobility requires of him a more honourable and civilised response. [go to text]

gs1067   breach injurious assault, violation [go to text]

gs1093   slight (of a meal) light, insubstantial [go to text]

gs1094   staying waiting (already prepared and laid at table) [go to text]

n7148   frolic OED cites no meaning that relates directly to a specific drink. Normally the word means "gaiety", "fun" or an entertainment that produces such responses. However the OED cites two usages, one of 1616 from Ben Jonson's The Devil Is An Ass (2.8.73) with reference to Dick Robinson acting in drag at a gossips' feast: "To see him [...]drink vnto 'em; /And then talk bawdy: and send frolics! O!"; and the other of 1631 from a text by "R. H." Arraignment Whole Creature xiv. §2. 244: "Moveable as Shittlecockes..or as Frolicks at Feasts, sent from man to man, returning againe at last, to the first man". In both these instances drink or a filled glass or goblet seems to be being passed around a table between diners. In both contexts there seems to be an erotic or amatory connection between those indulging in the game. [go to text]

gs1030   loose lustful, lewd [go to text]

n7149   Vesta’s fire Vesta was a Roman female divinity, the daughter of Saturn, goddess of the hearth and household. Her emblem was a fire, which was kept permanently alight and guarded in a special temple in Rome by a group of celebate women, known as the Vestal Virgins. [go to text]

n7150   [SWATZENBURGH and VICTORIA] exit ] Exit (The 1653 text simply gives the direction in the singular, which implies that only Swatzenburgh leaves the stage at this point. At the close of Borgio's final speech, the direction "Exeunt omnes" implies that more characters than Borgio leave the stage at the end of the act and scene. But Borgio's final speech is clearly a soliloquy addressed to the audience about how he interprets what he has just witnessed, and it would be perverse to have Victoria remain behind and either overhear it or pretend not to be listening; and his words are certainly not directed at her in the form of a dialogue. In consequence this edition gives Victoria an exit direction in company with Swatzenburgh, which would seem logical, since she has just invited him to partake with her of a small collation as her private guest. Borgio leaves the stage alone on the final line of the scene. [go to text]

gg4817   forge fabricate, invent [go to text]

gg4818   rid get rid or free of (OED v. 3c) [go to text]

n7151   he That is, Swatzenburgh. [go to text]

gs1095   prevent outstrips, anticipates, acts in advance (OED v. 1 and 5a) [go to text]

gs1096   Presumption overly forward behaviour [go to text]

gg4819   sway influence, divert or cause to swerve from a decision, path or line of conduct, make one vacillate in one's judgement [go to text]

gg4820   wiles cunning tricks, strategems, deceits [go to text]

gg4821   prevention the hindering, frustrating or forestalling of a scheme [go to text]

gg4822   catch apprehend, intuit [go to text]

gg4462   prevent hinder, thwart, forestall, frustrate (OED v. II 8) [go to text]

gg3041   watch (keep) watch, be on the look out, stay awake or alert [go to text]

n7152   [BORGIO] exit[s] ] exeunt omnes (By following the logic implicit in the dialogue and taking Victoria from the stage along with Swatzenburgh before Borgio begins this speech, that leaves Borgio only to depart at the close of the scene: hence the emendation here.) [go to text]

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