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n2859   ACT FOUR Like Act 3, Act 4 is divided between two locations, focusing first on events in the countryside (4.1 and 4.2) and then on those at court (4.3 and 4.4). In the pastoral scenes, the local people attempt to execute Fabio and Strozzo on Eulalia’s behalf, but she prevents them; we see her pedagogical activities, and her powers of prophesy come into play when the Doctor and Midwife, last seen in the dumbshow at the start of Act 3, appear and try to assassinate her. The conspiracies of Alinda against Eulalia culminate in Flavello’s appearance with the forged letter that he and Alinda prepared in Act 3; again, Eulalia is altered by her powers of prophesy, and he is apprehended by the country people. In an important soliloquy in 3.2, Eulalia ponders whether she should allow the conspiracy suggested by Flavello’s letter (which she does not realise is forged) to restore her to power, or whether her loyalty to the King should lead her to reveal the conspiracy and save Alinda’s life. She decides that the latter is the proper course of action, but the country people refuse to provide her with funds to go to court. Moving to the court, 4.3 opens with Petruccio telling the King that Prince Gonzago has died suddenly in captivity. The King seems to begin to have doubts about his course of action, but he quickly suppresses them and vows to take violent action against the people of Palermo for supporting Eulalia. Horatio enters with the news that Alinda has gone mad; he is followed by Alinda, whose madness takes on a highly politicised tone. The political impact of the King’s action is also emphasised in the Act’s closing sequence, in which the King’s forces rebel against him and try to execute Petruccio, convinced that he has murdered Sforza. Sforza appears in disguise as a captain and the final revelation that he is still alive both quells the rebellion and sees his reconciliation with the King. At the end of the Act, the audience is aware that the King is wavering in his attitude towards Eulalia, but they must be unsure about what action he will take. Like Act 3, Act 4 juxtaposes large-cast scenes with relatively intimate ones. In particular the power of the rebellion, in which off-stage sound is manipulated effectively to create a sense of growing crisis, is amplified by the way in which it follows swiftly on the heels of Alinda’s deranged attack on the King. The ruler’s private and public actions are, as elsewhere, inseparably intertwined. [go to text]

n11344   4.1 ] ACT. IV. Scœn. I [go to text]

n2800   Enter two COUNTRYMEN with EULALIA. In the octavo text this stage direction reads ‘Enter Poggio, Lollio, two Countrey-men with Eulalia’, and the speech prefixes assign the speeches to Poggio and Lollio. However, as the play stands it is impossible for Poggio and Lollio to be talking to Eulalia at this point in time, because (as the following action makes clear) they are simultaneously attempting to hang Fabio and Strozzo offstage. I suspect that Brome originally assigned this sequence to Poggio and Lollio, but later re-wrote the play to give them a greater (and more comic) role in its presentation of justice. He therefore changed the stage direction at the head of Act 4 to indicate that ‘two Countrey-men’ were talking to Eulalia instead of Poggio and Lollio, but the compositor of the octavo text ignored the deletion and printed both the original direction and the correction. Either Brome did not revise the speech prefixes or the compositor ignored the corrections. See the Textual Introduction [ESSAY_QC_TEXT] and notes to speeches 544 [NOTE n2683] and 823 [NOTE n2851] for further discussion of revision in the extant text of The Queen and Concubine. [go to text]

n2801   [First Countryman] ] Pog. [go to text]

n2803   It boasts and borrows The country people view the court as showy but shallow, and think that its expensive festivities are paid for with borrowed money that is not returned; their genuine love for their ‘queen’ is worth more than any of the court’s public shows of affection. [go to text]

n2802   [First Countryman] ] Pogg. [go to text]

gg588   practice habit or exercise; carrying out of a profession (OED n, 1) [go to text]

n2804   To make as many sick as you make sound, A proverbial assumption about physicians; cf. Tilley P267A: ‘The PHYSICIAN is more dangerous than the disease’. [go to text]

gs336   sound, healthy [go to text]

n2805   works of several kinds, Some women in the seventeenth century supported themselves by working as spinners, lace-makers or embroiderers, and poor women were often set to work in these trades. Patient Griselda was often portrayed spinning; see, for instance, the image used on the title page of a translation of Boccaccio's story, The Pleasant and Sweet History of Patient Grissell [...] Translated out of Italian (London, c. 1640). For further discussion see the Introduction. [go to text]

n2542   wheel, i.e. spinning wheel. [go to text]

gg2382   frame, (n) loom (OED n, 13b) [go to text]

gg2383   net-pin, OED glosses as ‘a pin used in net making’ and cites The Queen and Concubine as its only example (OED net n1, C 1c) [go to text]

n2806   [Second Countryman] ] Lol. [go to text]

gg2384   bobbins this term is used of a variety of implements used in weaving and sewing: the article around which thread or yarn is wound so that it can be used in weaving, sewing, etc. (OED n1, 1); a small wooden pin, with a notch, around which the thread is wound in lace-making (OED n1, 1a); a wooden or metal cylinder around which thread is wound in spinning, weaving, etc. (OED n1, 1b) [go to text]

gg2385   statute-lace? lace of a size regulated by law (OED statute n, 8b) [go to text]

n2807   [First Countryman] ] Pogg. [go to text]

gg2386   tape-purls. loops or twists in narrow strips of material, a row of which were used to decorate the edge of lace, braid, ribbon, etc. (OED purl, n.) [go to text]

n2808   teach all your children works to live on. Teaching was a major area of paid employment for women, especially those of the middling and upper ranks. See Sara Mendelson and Patricia Crawford, Women in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 321-7. [go to text]

gg2381   sufficient enough [go to text]

gg2387   maintenance support, means of subsistence (OED n, 3a) [go to text]

n2809   [Second Countryman] ] Lol. [go to text]

n3316   bate borrowing. ] but (corrected in the octavo's list of errata) [go to text]

gs582   bate omit, lose, leave out (OED v2, 7); also means to lessen in force or intensity, to mitigate or diminish (OED bate, v2, 5) [go to text]

gg2388   book learning, scholarship (OED n, 7) [go to text]

gg2390   toil (v) tire [go to text]

gg2389   practise regularly exercise our skills in (OED v, 2); make use of our skills in (OED v, 4a) [go to text]

gg406   divers several (OED 3) [go to text]

gg2391   measures, tunes or melodies (OED measure n, 14); dances, especially grave or stately ones (OED measure n, 15a) [go to text]

n2810   of which we them beguile. That is: which we charm from them. [go to text]

gs338   beguile. charm from, draw (away) from [go to text]

n2811   [First Countryman] ] Pog. [go to text]

n2812   make your own rates i.e. decide your own rate of payment. [go to text]

gs339   gentle kind, courteous [go to text]

gs340   government. rule, the political system; authority [go to text]

n2813   [First Countryman] ] Pog. [go to text]

gs341   Posterity future generations [go to text]

n4014   Enter CURATE [followed by ANDREA]. ] Enter Curate. The octavo text gives no entrance for Andrea: the options are either to have him enter here, following the Curate, or to have him enter with Eulalia and the Countrymen at the start of the scene. [go to text]

n2814   Eho! Oh! Io! Look here! Oh! Oh! (Latin) [go to text]

n2816   Hei mihi qualis erat? Talis erat qualem nunquam vidi. Alas, what sort of man was he? / He was such as I have never seen (Latin). Quoted in as an example of ‘Nouns Interrogatives and Indefinites’ in the relative case in Lily’s Eight Parts of Speech, in A Short Introduction of Grammar Generally to be Used (1632; sig. D5v); Hei mihi qualis erat is a quotation from Virgil, Aeneid, 2: 274, where it is part of Aeneas’ description of the bloodied ghost of Hector. [go to text]

n2817   his scholars have over-mastered him, and whipped him out of his wits. A rod or cane was often used as a symbol of the teacher’s authority. See, for example, Grammaticus in Barten Holyday's Oxford University play Technogamia: or The Marriages of the Arts (printed London, 1618), who appears in the stereotypical clothing of the schoolmaster, 'In a pair of breeches close to his thigh, his stockings garter'd above knee: a sharpe-crown'd hat with the sides pinned up; a ruff-band; and a ferula [that is, a rod or cane] at his back, &c.' (sig. C2r). Here, the Curate's supposed lack of control is symbolised by the possibility that his students may have wrested his cane from him. [go to text]

n2818   Corpus inane animæ, body void of breath (Latin). A quotation from Ovid, Metamorphoses, 2.611, quoted as an example of the construction of adjectives in the ablative case in Lily’s Eight Parts of Speech, in A Short Introduction of Grammar Generally to be Used (1632; sig. D8r). [go to text]

n2819   hold thy peace. Be quiet. [go to text]

gg1405   chance falling out or happening of events; in this context, mischance [go to text]

n2820   Non est narrandi locus: It is not time nor place to tell it (Latin). A quotation from Terence, Andria, l. 354 (Barsby translates as ‘there’s no time to relate now’). The line is quoted as an example of the relative case in Lily’s Eight Parts of Speech, in A Short Introduction of Grammar Generally to be Used (1632; sig. D5v): ‘Quae nunc non est narrandi locus’, glossed as ‘Which thing at this present is no time to tell’. [go to text]

n2821   Hercules Furens, Title of a play by the Latin dramatist Seneca (The Madness of Hercules), based on Euripides’ Heracles (Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, ed. Howatson, s.v. Hercules furens); the Curate compares the country people to the maddened hero. [go to text]

n2822   formidabilis, formidandus hostis, The Curate means something like 'a horrible, terrifying enemy'; he is apparently adapting one of Lily's examples of constructions of adjectives in the dative case in Eight Parts of Speech, in A Short Introduction of Grammar Generally to be Used (1632; sig. D7v), ‘formidabilis, formidandus hosti’, glossed as 'To be feared of his enemy'. [go to text]

n2823   nostrum est injuriam non inferre, It is not for us to cause injury (Latin). Quoted as an example of the construction of verbs in the genitive case in Lily’s Eight Parts of Speech, in A Short Introduction of Grammar Generally to be Used (1632; sig. E1r), where it is glossed as ‘it is our parts not to do wrong’. [go to text]

n2824   to give your neck the check. i.e. to kill you. [go to text]

gs342   check. rebuke, reproof [go to text]

gs320   fly run, hasten [go to text]

gg385   short too late [go to text]

n3990   [They all exit.] ] Exeunt. [go to text]

n11345   4.2 ] Scœn. III. [go to text]

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

gg2323   charge; (n) cost, expense [go to text]

n2826   a whole fortnight. This suggests the time-scale over which the events of Acts 3 and 4 have occurred. [go to text]

n2825   fortnight. ] for-night [go to text]

n2827   Dare we not do’t? That word’s an hanging matter here in our civil government. Dare not do’t, sir? We’ll do’t, and when ’tis done we’ll argue law with you. This speech is printed as verse in the octavo. [go to text]

gg2392   civil of the citizens (OED a, 2); orderly, well-governed (OED a, 7); civilised (OED a, 8) [go to text]

gs340   government. rule, the political system; authority [go to text]

gg2393   argue debate [go to text]

n2828   When you have ta’en our lives you’ll lay the law to us? You cannot be so barbarous. This speech is printed as verse in the octavo. [go to text]

gg2156   ta’en taken [go to text]

gg2394   lay (v) prescribe (OED v1, 51h); expound, demonstrate (OED lay, v1, 56g) [go to text]

n2829   on your lives. i.e. on peril of losing your lives [go to text]

gg733   lewd vile, evil; worthless; lascivious [go to text]

gg2395   offering presuming, daring [go to text]

n2830   Of most happy memory. most blessed: a phrase often applied to the deceased (Lollio probably means to say that Eulalia was the queen in former, happier times) [go to text]

n2831   That was. You shall not catch us tripping, sir, we are more than your match. This speech is printed as verse in the octavo. [go to text]

gg2396   tripping, stumbling, erring [go to text]

gg2397   pain effort, labour [go to text]

gg2398   bare mere, without addition (OED a, 11); paltry, insignificant, meagre (OED a, 10b) [go to text]

gg2244   hire, wages [go to text]

gg776   on’t of it [go to text]

gs343   e’en even now [go to text]

gg2399   argle argue (about), debate (OED v, 1); OED has one early citation: ‘Martin the Metropolitane’ (i.e. Martin Marprelate [pseud.]), Ha y’any Work for Cooper (London, 1589): ‘I will never stand argling the matter any more with you’ (sig. [A]3v) [go to text]

n2832   But brother Poggio, better ’tis they live a minute two or three than such a speech as I am now upon be lost. This speech is printed as verse in the octavo. [go to text]

gs344   upon engaged in; ‘at the point of; close on, touching on’ (OED upon prep, 6d) [go to text]

n2833   If she prevent not now the good we meant her, I dare hang for ’em. That is: if she doesn’t stop us from doing her a good turn, I’ll undertake to be hanged instead of them. [go to text]

n2834   In tempore venimus with a reprieve, quod omnium rerum est primum. we came at the right moment with a reprieve, which is the most important thing. The Latin sections are taken from Terence, Heauton Timorumenos (in Terence, ed. Barsby, vol. 1), ll. 364-5. Barsby renders the full line as ‘in tempore ad eam veni, quod rerum omniumst primum’, but it is quoted in Lily’s Eight Parts of Speech, part of A Short Introduction of Grammar Generally to be Used, as ‘In tempore veni, quod omnium rerum est primum’ and translated as ‘I came in fashion, which is the chiefest thing of all’ (1632; sig. D4v). The same phrase is quoted three more times in the Brevissima Institutio, also part of A Short Introduction of Grammar (sigs. K8r, L2v and M8v), and it can also be found in Abraham Fraunce’s Latin academic play Victoria (1583). [go to text]

gs345   Blast bring infamy upon, discredit, ruin (OED v, 8b) [go to text]

n2835   There now, there – they deserve hanging for that! They call you Queen, against the proclamation. Dare you maintain ’em in’t, and now speak for ’em? This speech is printed as verse in the octavo. [go to text]

gs346   maintain support, incite, protect [go to text]

n2543   nor power nor neither power nor [go to text]

gg1970   will in an early modern context: desire, longing, liking, inclination [go to text]

gs347   prevailed. succeeded [go to text]

n2836   an hair An iota, the tiniest bit. [go to text]

gg2400   all and some: the sum total (OED all, 12b) [go to text]

n2837   women’s wisdom, which is wilfulness— Women were proverbially thought to be wilful; cf. Dent W723: ‘WOMEN will have their wills’. [go to text]

gg2401   figure! figure of speech, piece of rhetoric [go to text]

n2838   [Lollio] This speech prefix is omitted in the octavo. [go to text]

n2839   and please you, That is: if it is agreeable to you. This is a mark of politeness often used by someone of lower social status to his or her social superior, but Lollio may use it sarcastically. [go to text]

gg2402   outright. openly, blatantly (OED adv, 1); immediately, without delay (OED adv, 2); to ‘kill outright’ is ‘to kill in such a manner that the victim dies on the spot’ (OED adv, 4a) [go to text]

gg2403   Oraculously like an oracle; i.e. wisely [go to text]

gg2404   sages wise men [go to text]

n3317   could have said ] could said (corrected in the octavo's list of errata) [go to text]

n2840   one of the sages of our precinct here for the laity, I have not been able to trace a direct source for the political system used by the country people. See the Introduction for further discussion. [go to text]

gg2405   precinct area of government, parish [go to text]

n2841   that wise woman, which is as much to say as a fool for her labour— This is related to the proverb ‘A Wise WOMAN is twice a fool’ (Tilley W643). [go to text]

gg2401   figure! figure of speech, piece of rhetoric [go to text]

gg2406   gainsaid opposed, spoken against, refused [go to text]

gg2407   heads: leaders [go to text]

n2842   but we have many powers under us. These now are powers that execute our commands; there is as much difference between a sage and a power as between a judge and a hangman. These lines are printed as verse in the octavo. [go to text]

gg666   temporal secular [go to text]

gg2408   misericordially mercifully, compassionately (this is OED’s only citation; from misericord: compassion, pity, mercy) [go to text]

gg2409   feminine (n) woman [go to text]

n2843   Ex ore lupi, from the wolf’s mouth (Latin). A proverbial expression included in, among other texts, John Clarke’s Paroemiologia Anglo-Latina in Usum Scholarum Concinnata: Or Proverbs English and Latin (London, 1639), 250, and late editions of Erasmus’ Adages. See Adagiorum D. Erasmi Roterodami Epitome (London, 1666), 163, where it is credited to Diogenes. [go to text]

gg2410   dangerous perilous; hurtful, injurious [go to text]

gs348   desperate hopeless; hazardous; reckless [go to text]

gg2411   merited deserved [go to text]

gg2412   graceless, wicked, ungodly [go to text]

gg2413   ’gainst against [go to text]

gs349   black wicked, atrocious [go to text]

gg2414   crystal bright, clear [go to text]

gg2293   doom sentence [go to text]

gg276   satisfaction penance, compensation, atonement [go to text]

n2845   [Fabio and Strozzo] ] Amb. [go to text]

n2844   Quick devour us. The idea that the ground might open up and swallow a liar or faithless person is found in many early modern texts. It has biblical and classical precedent: sinners are swallowed by the earth in Numbers 16:30-3 (‘if the LORD make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit; then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the LORD’), and Agamemnon in Chapman’s translation of Homer’s Iliad (London, [?1615]) pledges: ‘When this brave breaks in their hated breath; / Then let the broad earth swallow me, and take me quick to death’ (54). The idea is also used by the Third Countryman in 3.1, speech 543. [go to text]

gg1416   discover reveal the truth about, report or give evidence against [go to text]

n2846   All, we’ll discover all, Though justly then we pay our lives to law. This speech is printed as prose in the octavo. [go to text]

n2847   Good neighbours, Lollio, Poggio, and Andrea, Conduct them to my house. This speech is printed as prose in the octavo. [go to text]

gs308   presume take upon ourselves; dare, take the liberty [go to text]

n2848   halter strain. i.e. with the pull of ropes (in hanging). [go to text]

n2849   Come more, i.e. if more come. [go to text]

gg2415   sessions, series of sittings or meetings of a court (OED session n, 3a); judicial sittings (OED n, 4) [go to text]

n2850   LOLLIO, POGGIO, and CURATE exit with FABIO and STROZZO.] The dialogue suggests that the country people must exit with Fabio and Strozzo at this point, but if the additional passage is included this stage direction would have to be omitted. [go to text]

gg2416   at large in full, thoroughly [go to text]

gs350   passage event [go to text]

gg2417   Against contrary to, without [go to text]

n2851   It is your heavenly mind that sweetens all things. At this point the octavo text introduces an entrance direction for ‘one of the Countreymen’ [QC 4.2.line2672], and discussion ensues between him and Poggio and Lollio about Eulalia’s arrival and the attack of Fabio and Strozzo. This passage is problematic for a number of reasons: (1) Lollio and Poggio seem to have forgotten that they already know that Eulalia is the exiled queen, despite having been on stage in Act 3, Scene 1, when her identity was revealed [QC 3.1.speech578] and when they actually comment on the danger that her presence might bring them [QC 3.1.speeches580-582]; (2) the details given here about Fabio and Strozzo contradict what we have seen on the stage in Act 3, Scene 1: they did not fall ‘palsy-struck’ to the ground, and did not accuse Eulalia of witchcraft; instead, they were disarmed by the country people, who included Lollio and Poggio themselves; (3) the dialogue above has suggested that Lollio and Poggio should exit with Fabio and Strozzo [QC 4.2.speech813]; (4) Eulalia, Lodovico and Andrea are required in the octavo text to re-enter without having exited (see [QC 4.3.line2899]); (5) at [QC 4.3.speech834.1], Poggio refers back to a statement made at 3.1, a sequence which also seems to have undergone revision (see [NOTE n2684]).

Brome seems to have drafted this sequence - in which the attack of Fabio and Strozzo is narrated rather than dramatised - before deciding to rework the earlier sequence. It is, of course, impossible to know what shape the final performance text took, but the sequence is clearly inconsistent with the play in its extant form. I suspect, therefore, that this passage was marked for omission in the manuscript used by the compositors, or that it was written on a loose sheet that had been misplaced in the manuscript. The simplest solution, which I have followed here, is to cut the anomalous passage and to resume the scene on the entrance of ‘three Countrymen more’ [QC 4.1.speech862]. Alternatively, the scene could be resumed at the shout ‘Heaven bless our holy woman!’ [QC 4.2.speech836], but this would make it necessary either to delete the octavo’s entrance direction for Lodovico, Andrea and Eulalia [QC 4.3.line2899], or to start a new scene. Both of these are problematic; in particular, starting a new scene would lead to Eulalia, Lodovico, and Andrea exiting and immediately reappearing, something that happens very rarely in early modern drama. For further discussion of revision in the play see the notes to speech 544 [NOTE n2683], the stage direction at the head of Act 4 [NOTE n2800] and the Textual Introduction. [go to text]

gg2418   weather-headed light-headed, foolish (OED ppl. a.) [go to text]

n2852   [Third Countryman] ] Pog. Poggio is unlikely to be on stage at this point because he must enter, following Flavello, later in the scene, after [QC 4.2.speech931]. [go to text]

n2853   First Countryman ] 1. [go to text]

n2854   Second Countryman ] 2. [go to text]

gg2419   homage acknowledgement of superiority (esp. in terms of rank) (OED n, 3); respectful tribute [go to text]

n2853   First Countryman ] 1. [go to text]

gg2420   succouring helping, assisting [go to text]

n2854   Second Countryman ] 2. [go to text]

n2890   All Countrymen ] Omn. [go to text]

gg2421   pronounced spoken; proclaimed [go to text]

gg141   bravely. worthily; fearlessly; splendidly, handsomely (OED) [go to text]

gg343   brave splendid [go to text]

n2853   First Countryman ] 1. [go to text]

n4103   Aye, ] I [go to text]

n2854   Second Countryman ] 2. [go to text]

gg2422   lawful. permitted by law (OED a, 1); justifiable (OED a, 1b); faithful, loyal (OED a, 3) [go to text]

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

gg2423   instantly at once, immediately [go to text]

n2853   First Countryman ] 1. [go to text]

n2855   [Third Countryman] Lol. Lollio is unlikely to be on stage at this point because he must enter, following Flavello, later in the scene, after [QC 4.2.speech931]. [go to text]

gs351   sound factually true; free from error or logical defect; good, strong, valid (OED a, 8a) [go to text]

gg2424   point, conclusion [go to text]

gg2425   besworn i.e. I’ll be sworn [go to text]

gg2427   blades. good fellows, gallants [go to text]

gs352   fair virtuous; legitimate [go to text]

n2854   Second Countryman ] 2. [go to text]

gs353   late former [go to text]

gg2428   abiding dwelling-place, home [go to text]

n2856   Third Countryman ] 3. [go to text]

gg2780   madam! ‘a form of respectful or polite address (substituted for the name) originally used by servants in speaking to their mistress, and by people generally in speaking to a woman of high rank’ (OED n, 1a) [go to text]

gg2429   Take heed, be careful [go to text]

gg296   dignity position, honour, rank (OED n, 2) [go to text]

gg2430   title, right, claim; ‘an appellation of honour pertaining to a person of high rank’ (OED n, 5a) [go to text]

n4015   Beware how you give dignity or title, Therein you may transgress. This is printed as one line in the octavo. [go to text]

gg1879   transgress. offend, disobey (a rule of conduct) [go to text]

n2854   Second Countryman ] 2. [go to text]

gg2431   No whit, not at all [go to text]

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

gs354   addition, something added to a person’s name to show their rank; style of address (OED n, 4) [go to text]

gg290   grace (v) show favour to; confer honours on [go to text]

n4016   Greatness of the person dignifies the Titles, not it the person. I have re-lineated these lines: in the octavo the line-break comes at 'of / The'. [go to text]

n2853   First Countryman ] 1. [go to text]

gg2433   content satisfaction, contentedness [go to text]

gg1344   Above superior; higher in rank or position [go to text]

gg794   proper exclusive, special, private (OED a, 2a); appropriate [go to text]

n2857   how thrive your scholars? i.e. how do your scholars progress [go to text]

gg2434   thrive fare, prosper [go to text]

n2860   FIRST GIRL. ] 1. Girl. [go to text]

gs355   hitherto, thus far, up to this point [go to text]

gs356   hither, to this place (i.e. to the place where lessons take place) [go to text]

n2860   First Girl ] 1. Girl. [go to text]

gs357   forsooth, certainly [go to text]

n2861   SECOND GIRL. ] 2. Girl. [go to text]

gs358   sampler; a small piece of fabric embroidered with different stitches and patterns, which could be used for practice or reference [go to text]

n4017   Good girl, well said. Nay, nay, hold up your head. So, so, ’tis very well.[To SECOND GIRL]Let’s see your sampler; What an heartsease is here! This speech is printed as prose in the octavo. [go to text]

gs359   heartsease a kind of flower; in the sixteenth century could refer to the pansy or the wallflower (OED 2); in context, the name of the flower has obvious relevance to Eulalia’s situation [go to text]

gg2436   Right correct [go to text]

n2862   take me out In Early Modern English, a pronoun could appear straight after the verb, without a preposition such as ‘to’, ‘by’ or ‘for’: in Present-day English this might read ‘take out for me’. The construction is used in contexts where the action implied in the verb could have some effect on the speaker (i.e. here the girl is being asked to carry out a task for Eulalia). It is used frequently in early modern drama to give speech an informal quality, and may be particularly likely to be used in scenes of instruction. The Bawd in Shakespeare and Wilkins's Pericles (King's Men, c.1607) uses a similar construction, saying of Marina, ‘When she should do for clients her fitment and do me the kindness of our profession, she has me her quirks’ (18.14-17). [go to text]

n4018   Nay, she’ll do well.[To SECOND GIRL]Now take me out this flower. Keep your work clean and you shall be a good maid. [To THIRD GIRL]Now, where’s your writing-book? This speech is printed as prose in the octavo. [go to text]

gg2437   clean neat [go to text]

n2863   Enter THIRD GIRL.] ] 3. Girl. [go to text]

n4018   Nay, she’ll do well.[To SECOND GIRL]Now take me out this flower. Keep your work clean and you shall be a good maid. [To THIRD GIRL]Now, where’s your writing-book? This speech is printed as prose in the octavo. [go to text]

gg2438   writing-book? exercise book used to practice handwriting [go to text]

n2863   Third Girl ] 3. Girl. [go to text]

n4019   ’Tis here, forsooth. Pray, shall I have a join-hand copy next? This speech is printed as prose in the octavo. [go to text]

gg2439   join-hand cursive handwriting: ‘Written with a running hand, so that the characters are rapidly formed without raising the pen, and in consequence have their angles rounded, and separate strokes joined, and at length become slanted’ (OED cursive a.) [go to text]

gs360   copy specimen of handwriting/penmanship for a pupil to copy [go to text]

n2864   you must ] must your [go to text]

n2864   Make ] must your [go to text]

gg2440   minims ‘single downstroke[s] of the pen; esp. the short downstroke used in the letters m, n, u, etc., in court hand or secretary hand’ (OED minim n, 2) [go to text]

gg2441   Mar spoil, damage [go to text]

gs361   forward. eager; precocious; premature [go to text]

n4022   [Enter FOURTH GIRL.] The octavo has a direction 'Enter 4 Girls' at the end of the speech, after the direction '[Song]'. Since three girls are already on stage, I have instead inserted an entry direction for the Fourth Girl at the point at which the text suggests she needs to enter. [go to text]

n2865   take your lute, Songs were frequently sung to the lute in the early modern playhouse. One surviving version of the song that follows, ‘What if a day’, is a simple arrangement of the melody for lute (British Library, MS Egerton 2046 [Jane Pickering’s Lute Book], f. 19; see David Greer, ‘What if a day’: An Examination of the Words and Music’, Music and Letters 43.4 [Oct. 1962], 304-19 [307]). [go to text]

n4020   No, child, you must not join-hand yet; you must Make your letters and your minims better first. Take heed, you may join-hand too soon and so Mar all. Still youth desires to be too forward. Go take your lute, And let me hear you sing the last I taught you. This speech is printed as prose in the octavo. [go to text]

n2866   the last i.e. the last song. [go to text]

n4021   [Singing] The octavo has a direction for '[Song]'. [go to text]

n2867   What if a day, As C.R. Baskervill appears to have been the first to point out (in a review of The Cambridge History of English Literature, ed. A.W. Ward and A.R. Waller, vols. 5-6, ‘The Drama to 1642’, in Journal of English and Germanic Philology 11 [1912], 476-87 [485]), this is the first stanza of a song by Thomas Campion (in fact it is attributed to Campion only in Alexander Gil’s Logonomia Anglica [London, 1619], 140, but no serious objections to his authorship have been raised). For detailed accounts of the song, on which I have drawn here, see Greer, ‘What if a day’: An Examination of the Words and Music’; Edward Doughtie, ed., Liber Lilliati: Elizabethan Verse and Song (Bodleian MS Rawlinson Poetry 148) (London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1985), 195-200.

This song was extremely popular in both England and the Netherlands. The first appearance of the lyric is in manuscripts dated to the early 1590s, and it is first accompanied by a tune in the ‘Commonplace Book of John Lilliat’, Bodleian Library MS Rawl. poet. 148, fo. 109v (an adjacent item is dated 1599, suggesting that it was copied c. 1599-1600). (See Greer, 305, and Doughtie, 126-7, for transcriptions.) This tune appears repeatedly in manuscript and print throughout the seventeenth century. There are also two other variant tunes, each found in only one text: the five-voice setting in Richard Alison, An Hour’s Recreation (London, 1606), nos. 17-18 (Doughtie comments, ‘although the music shares some rhythmic features with the more popular tune found in L[illiat], it is not the same’ [197]), and another setting in Christ Church, Oxford, MS 439, p. 115 (Doughtie, 197). Two of the many manuscript versions (Christ Church, Oxford, MS 439, p. 115, and Paris Conservatoire, MS. Res. 1186, fo. 15-15v) date from the 1630s, and a ballad version of the lyric with ten stanzas, to be sung ‘To a pleasant new tune’, appearing under the title ‘A Friend’s Advice In an Excellent Ditty, Concerning the Variable Changes in this World’, survives in editions of around 1625 (STC 4541.5), 1628-9 (STC 4541.7), 1650-58 (Wing 408E) and 1663-74 (Wing 409). The ballad may have been first issued in the 1590s, since one of the earliest manuscript witness for the text describes it as ‘The fickle estate of our uncertain life to a pleasant new tune’ (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawl. poet. fo. 10v-11). The lyric also appears in another dramatic work, the anonymous Scottish play Philotus (published Edinburgh, 1603); Doughtie writes, ‘Apparently the play was older, and the two-stanza poem was inserted as a filler’ (196).

It seems likely that initial productions of The Queen and Concubine would have used the tune first presented in Lilliat’s commonplace book, with which the lyric is repeatedly associated. The tune was still being included in manuscript collections in the 1630s and, as Greer notes, ‘Unlike many ballad tunes, "What if a day" ... is not simply a convenient and well-known channel for the transmission of the words, but a melody closely corresponding to the forms and inflections of its text’ (312). In the first part of Hudibras (London, 1663), Samuel Butler alludes to ‘What if a day’ in a way that suggests the song’s affective power and its associations for audiences:

For though Dame Fortune seem to smile
And leer upon him for a while;
She’ll after show him, in the nick
Of all his Glories, a Dog-trick.
This any man may sing or say
I’th’ ditty call’d What if a Day.
(Canto III, 5-10; p. 77)

For a rendition of a lute arrangement possibly by John Dowland (see Doughtie, 199) see this performance by Valéry Sauvage available on You Tube. If the Elizabethan tune was still being used in the 1630s, it may have been updated with a new arrangement, but it may have been deliberately intended to evoke a by-gone age; at any rate, an alert spectator may well have recognised the lyrics and/or tune and realised that this was an old song. Steggle remarks that the inclusion of this song ‘evokes the Elizabethan, not by accident but quite deliberately’ (Richard Brome, 85).

The lyrics to this and one of the play’s other songs, ‘How blessed are they that waste their wearied hours’ are printed at the head of the octavo playtext rather than in their proper places in the play itself. This, and the fact that the lyrics to the third song are lost, may suggest that the lyrics to all the songs were on separate sheets.

The lyric as it is printed in The Queen and Concubine varies somewhat from other manuscript and print versions. See below for notes on major textual variations between The Queen and Concubine lyric and three other early sources. A more full collation can be found in Doughtie, 198-9. [go to text]

n2868   month, ] night (Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS 148, fo. 109v [Greer, 305]) [go to text]

gg2442   Crown (v) bless, amplify, give honour to (OED v1, 11); bring to a happy conclusion (OED crown v1, 10) [go to text]

n2869   delights ] desire (Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS 148, fo. 109v [Greer, 305]) [go to text]

gg2443   wished wished for, longed for [go to text]

n2870   wished ] sweet (Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS 148, fo. 109v [Greer, 305]; Alison, An Hour’s Recreation) [go to text]

gg2444   contentings? satisfactions, delights (OED contenting vbl. n, 1) [go to text]

n2871   May not the ] Cannot the (Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS 148, fo. 109v [Greer, 305]; ‘A Friend’s Advice’ [London, c. 1625]); Cannot a (Alison, An Hour’s Recreation) [go to text]

gg1405   chance falling out or happening of events; in this context, mischance [go to text]

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

n2872   delights ] delight (Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS 148, fo. 109v [Greer, 305]); desires (Alison, An Hour’s Recreation) [go to text]

n2873   as many ] a thousand (Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS 148, fo. 109v [Greer, 305]) [go to text]

gg2446   tormentings? instances of torment (OED tormenting, vbl. n.) [go to text]

n2874   Fortune, honour, beauty, birth, ] Fortunes in their fairest birth (‘A Friend’s Advice’) [go to text]

n2875   birth, ] youth (Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS 148, fo. 109v [Greer, 305]; Alison, An Hour’s Recreation) [go to text]

gs362   Wanton carefree; lascivious; irresponsible [go to text]

gg2447   doting foolish [go to text]

n2876   mirth, ] love (Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS 148, fo. 109v [Greer, 305]; Alison, An Hour’s Recreation) [go to text]

gg2448   shadows ghosts; delusions [go to text]

gg2449   toys, foolish things, fancies, nonsense [go to text]

n2877   In our lives’ bereaving That is: in the vanishing of our lives. See Thomas Kyd, Cornelia (London, 1594): ‘Now as for happy thee, to whom sweet Death, / Hath given blessed rest for life’s bereaving’ (sig. L1v). [go to text]

n2878   our ] y^eir (Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS 148, fo. 109v [Greer, 305]); their (Alison, An Hour’s Recreation) [go to text]

gg1313   Whither (to whatever) place; where [go to text]

gg1910   press? push insistently, advance with eagerness, intrude [go to text]

gs363   withal? substituted for ‘with’ (OED prep.) [go to text]

n2879   for charity sake i.e. for charity’s sake [go to text]

n2880   [Aside]How divine justice throws my enemies Into my hands![To DOCTOR and MIDWIFE]What are your griefs? This speech is printed as prose in the octavo. [go to text]

n2881   That’s the greatest grief a woman can endure. The misogynistic stereotype holding that women were more talkative than men is the source of many proverbs; cf. Tilley W701 (‘WOMEN are great talkers’), W675 (‘A WOMAN’S strength is in [A woman’s weapon is] her tongue’), W676 (‘A WOMAN’S tongue is the last thing abut her that dies’), W677 (‘A WOMAN’S tongue, like an aspen leaf, is always in motion’), W678 (‘A WOMAN’S tongue wags like a lamb’s tail’), and W686 (‘Many WOMEN, many words’). [go to text]

gg203   change (v) exchange [go to text]

gg2450   boot. profit [go to text]

gg2451   counterfeits. impostors [go to text]

gs583   search investigate, examine (OED v, 5a) [go to text]

n2883   [LODOVICO grasps the DOCTOR’S hand and a knife falls out of it.] I have added the stage direction which is implied in the text. [go to text]

gg2452   unmuffled. stripped of her disguise [go to text]

n2884   [The DOCTOR and MIDWIFE’S disguises are removed.] I have added the stage direction which is implied in the text. [go to text]

n2885   the last couple that came out of hell! Andrea probably alludes to the game of Barley-Break, which is played by three couples, hand-in-hand. One couple stands in a centre circle called ‘hell’ and attempts to catch the others as they run past them; if any participant is caught they have to take their turn in the centre circle. Cf. George Wilde, Love’s Hospital (John’s College, Oxford, 1636; ed. Jay Louis Funston [Salzburg: Institut für Englische Sprache und Literatur, Universität Salzburg, 1973]) ‘A fine game at Barley-break; and the first couple in hell’ (l. 1103). [go to text]

n2886   the pen Andrea refers to the dagger that the Doctor has just dropped. [go to text]

n2887   This might soon write that might cure all diseases. i.e. the ‘writing’ of the dagger on a human body would (by ending its life) cure all its diseases. [go to text]

gs364   labours exersions; puns on labour: childbirth [go to text]

n2888   Mistress Midnight? Refers to the night-time activities of midwives and of bawds, with whom midwives were often associated. [go to text]

n2889   bed childbed; the bed on which sexual activity takes place; deathbed. [go to text]

n2890   All ] Omn. [go to text]

gg2454   salves healing ointments for wounds or sores; remedies [go to text]

n2853   First Countryman ] 1. [go to text]

gg1963   Fough, an exclamation of abhorrence or disgust (OED) [go to text]

n2854   Second Countryman ] 2. [go to text]

n2544   hang ’m? Hang them. [go to text]

n2853   First Countryman ] 1. [go to text]

n2854   Second Countryman ] 2. [go to text]

n2900   Aye, ] I [go to text]

n2901   without peradventure. This phrase is often given to Poggio elsewhere in the play; it therefore is possible that he was originally intended to be part of this scene and that Brome did not fully rewrite the dialogue when he reassigned the speech to the Second Countryman. The same is true in 3.1, where an appearance by a group of countryman, in which the Second Countryman has the phrase ‘without all adventure’ [QC 3.1.speech549], is followed by the entrance of Poggio a few lines later. For further discussion of signs of revision in the extant text of The Queen and Concubine see the notes to speech 834 [NOTE n2851], the stage direction at the head of Act 4 [NOTE n2800] and the Textual Introduction [QC_ESSAY_TEXT]. [go to text]

n2856   Third Countryman ] 3. [go to text]

n2853   First Countryman ] 1. [go to text]

gg2455   spittle a kind of hospital generally occupied by those of low status or suffering from infectious diseases (OED n1, 1) [go to text]

gg2456   top full, full to the brim [go to text]

n2902   Send your children. This statement seems to be something of a non sequitur. It is possible that Eulalia intends to reassure the country people that they are to continue in their normal routine and that no harm will come to them as a result of the attacks on her. However, the country people have shown little sign of such worries since Act 3, Scene 1. Given that the text of Act 4 seems to be muddled in places, and shows signs of uncompleted revision, it is possible that this might have been a phrase marked for deletion in the manuscript, which nonetheless made it into the printed text. [go to text]

n2903   [All Countrymen] ] 2. Omn. [go to text]

n2904   [All Countrymen] ] Omn. [go to text]

gg2457   secure safe, free from anxiety [go to text]

n3318   our ] out [go to text]

gs365   state condition, circumstances; status, rank [go to text]

gg2458   advanced promoted, preferred, favoured [go to text]

gg2459   ’bove above [go to text]

n4023   alias ALPHONSO, Stage directions, speech prefixes and the dramatis personae specify that Flavello uses the alias Alphonso when he is disguised in Acts 4 and 5, but the name is used only once on stage, in [QC 5.1.speech1238], when the Curate tells Eulalia his name. [go to text]

n2905   I would she had a council. She shall have a council, and we will be the heads thereof, though I be put to the pains to be president myself. This speech is printed as verse in the octavo. [go to text]

gg2407   heads leaders [go to text]

gs366   pains effort, trouble [go to text]

gg2460   president head (OED n, 2b) [go to text]

n2906   It is most requisite for her safety: her danger may be great, a good guard, then, in my opinion were more requirable. This speech is printed as verse in the octavo. [go to text]

gg2461   requisite needful, necessary [go to text]

gs367   considered thought of, recommended [go to text]

gg2462   limbs members [go to text]

gg2463   count consider [go to text]

gg2397   pain effort, labour [go to text]

n2907   court of conscience, The 'Court of Conscience or of Requests' was a 'small debt court', but 'court of conscience' is used figuratively to refer to the 'conscience as a moral tribunal' (OED court n1, 11c). Lollio means that the country people will hold a court which has a proper consciousness of right and wrong, in contrast with the king's justice and that of the royal court. [go to text]

gg2464   profit personal advantage; financial gain [go to text]

gg1119   list, wish, please [go to text]

n2908   Semiramis. Legendary Assyrian queen whose supposed lust, power-hungriness and refusal to conform to decorous female behaviour are invoked in a number of early modern texts: see, for instance, John Mason’s The Turk (King’s Revels, 1607-8; published London, 1610), in which Mulleasses advises Timoclea, ‘Discard the timorous pity of thy sex: / Be a Semiramis: let thy husband’s death / Give thy hopes life’ (sig. H1r). Richard Rainolde includes a concise history of Semiramis in his Foundation of Rhetoric (London, 1563), in which he describes how on the death of her husband she ‘kept her son from the government, and most of all she feared that they would not obey a woman; forthwith she feigned herself to be the son of Ninus, and because she would not be known to be a woman, this queen invented a new kind of tire, the which all the Babylonians that were men used by her commandment. By this strange disguised tire and apparel she, not known to be a woman, ruled as a man for the space of two and forty years: she did marvellous acts, for she enlarged the mighty kingdom of Babylon, and builded the same city. Many other regions subdued, and valiantly overthrown, she entered India, to the which never prince came, saving Alexander the Great: she passed not only men in virtue, counsel, and valiant stomach, but also the famous counsellors of Assyria might not contend with her in majesty, policy, and royalness. For, at what time as they knew her a woman, they envied not her state, but marvelled at her wisdom, policy, and moderation of life. At the last, she desiring the unnatural lust and love of her son Ninus, was murthered of him’ (sigs. C4v-D1r). In Greene’s Penelope’s Web, the exiled queen Barmenissa mentions Semiramis as an example to be avoided when she tries to warn the concubine Olynda (sig. E1r). [go to text]

gg2465   trifles trivial things [go to text]

gg2220   mark (v) pay attention to, observe [go to text]

gs368   care protection; concern, attention [go to text]

n2909   Statute of Relief i.e. the proclamation read by the Crier [QC 3.1.speeches578-582] [go to text]

n2910   he smells ill-favouredly. i.e. I can perceive (as if by smell) that he is up to no good; it is possible Flavello smells unpleasant to the country people because he is wearing perfume [go to text]

gg2466   ill-favouredly. badly, offensively [go to text]

gg2467   dog follow closely, pursue his scent like a dog [go to text]

n2911   He shall not have her out of sight, i.e. we will not allow him to consult with her alone. [go to text]

gg2350   superscription, address or direction (OED 3) [go to text]

n2912   ‘Most royal and most wronged sovereign mistress’ The way in which the letter is marked out in the octavo text is similar to that used in its earlier appearance in 3.2 [NOTE n2751], except that in this case Eulalia’s interruptions to her own reading are distinguished from the italic text of the letter by being placed in brackets, in roman type [IMAGEQC_4_2]. Intriguingly, the text of the letter does not quite match Alinda’s ‘copy’: either Flavello has written it carelessly, Eualia reads it inattentively, or Brome was not concerned with whether it matched. [go to text]

n4100   by no ] byno [go to text]

gs369   plain evident, obvious (OED a1, 7); unmistakeable, absolute (OED a1, 8) [go to text]

n2913   [Flavello] ] Alph. [go to text]

gs370   respect favour; esteem [go to text]

n2913   [Flavello] ] Alph. [go to text]

gg2468   in charge entrusted to me [go to text]

gg2469   crave ask, beg [go to text]

gs371   leave. permission to depart [go to text]

n4024   [Aside] The octavo has a bracket before 'Indeed', and the direction '[aside]' in the margin at the end of the speech. [go to text]

gs372   Opportunity, favourable circumstances (OED n. 1.b.; if this is meant Flavello is being sarcastic); time when there is need for something (OED n. 3: OED cites two examples, one from 1526 and the other from 1683); timeliness (OED n. 5) [go to text]

gg2471   countenances expressions, faces, emotions [go to text]

gg2472   hobnols. yokels, rustics (from Hobbinoll, the name of a shepherd in Spenser’s The Shepherd’s Calendar) [go to text]

n2914   To part so slightly. i.e. that you should leave so abruptly. [go to text]

gs373   slightly. easily; neglectfully [go to text]

n2913   [Flavello] ] Alph. [go to text]

gg2473   honeyed sweetened, made receptive [go to text]

n2913   [Flavello] ] Alph. [go to text]

n2890   All ] Omn. [go to text]

n2915   You wrong yourself, sir, and we charge you stay. Massed speeches are used at various points of the play, most of them moments of heightened tension. Although such speeches are relatively common in early modern plays, there is little evidence to suggest how they might have been delivered. It is possible to deliver them in unison, which creates a powerful moment but is difficult to integrate if a production’s performance style is otherwise relatively naturalistic; longer speeches can be divided between several actors or the delivery can be staggered. In The Queen and Concubine, which rarely demands a naturalistic style, it seems likely that at least some of these speeches would have been delivered in unison. For workshop experiments with the massed speeches in Act 5, Scene 2, see the relevant commentary notes. [go to text]

n2913   [Flavello] ] Alph. [go to text]

gg2474   choplogical argumentative, disputatious (OED chop-logic 3); OED cites only one other example, William Tindale, The Obedience of a Christen Man (London, 1528): ‘Where he sayeth the letter killeth but the spirit giveth life, "lo", say they, "the literal sense killeth and the spiritual sense giveth life". We must therefore say they seek out some choplogical sense’ (sig. Cxxxiii) [go to text]

gg2475   rascal, (n) wretch, villain [go to text]

n4025   No violence, good friends, but if you will Detain him till I give order for his Liberty you do the state good service. I have re-lineated this speech: in the octavo text the line-breaks come at 'him / Till' and 'libertie, / You'. [go to text]

gg2476   finely perfectly, completely [go to text]

n2913   [Flavello] ] Alph. [go to text]

n2916   Mad ass, hold your prating till she calls you. Meantime you are fast.[To POGGIO]’Twas time we were a council or a guard. This speech is printed as verse in the octavo. [go to text]

gg2477   prating prattling, chattering [go to text]

gg255   fast. secure [go to text]

n4026   [They exit with FLAVELLO.] ] Exeunt with Alphonso. [go to text]

n2917   I thank thee Providence, Eulalia’s speech is modelled on that of Barmenissa in Greene’s Penelope’s Web, which it follows closely at certain points (see below for closer comparisons). The speech in full reads:

Now Barmenissa, thou seest that delay in revenge is the best physic: that the Gods are just and have taken thy quarrel as advocates of thine injury. Now shalt thou see wrong overruled with patience, and the ruin of thine enemy with the safety of thine own honour. Time is the discoverer of mishap, and Fortune never ceaseth to stretch her strings till they crack; shame is the end of treachery, and dishonour ever foreruns repentance. Olynda hath soared with Icarus, and is like to fall with Phaeton; sooner are bruises caught by reaching too high, than by stooping too low. Fortune grudgeth not at them which fall, but envy bites them which climbs; now shall the lords of Egypt by revenging thine enemy work thy content. And why thy content Barmenissa? Doth content hang in revenge, or doth the quiet of the mind proceed by the fall of an enemy? Seest thou not (fond woman) that the prosperity of Olynda is the preserving of thy glory? That it is princely as well to be faithful as patient? That it is thine honour to put up causeless injury, and her shame to hear of thy unhappiness? Nay, what would Egypt, yea, the whole world say (if by treachery her bane be procured) but that it was thy trothless endeavour? So shalt thou lose more fame in a minute, than thou shalt recover in many years. Then here lies the doubt: either must I have mine honour by her mishap, or else seek the ruin of my friends by discovering their pretence. Treachery thou knowest, Barmenissa, is not to be concealed; friends have no privilege to be false; amity stretcheth no further then the altar. Saladyne is thy sovereign, she his wife and therefore thy superior; rather reveal their falsehood then ruinate thine own honour. The wife of Manlius Torquatus caused her son’s head to be smite off for killing his enemy cowardly. Sempronia slew her son for uttering speeches against the senate. Kings are gods, against whom unreverent thoughts are treachery. The head that is impasted with a crown must be prayed for, not revenged. Then, Barmenissa, be rather ingrateful to thy friends than treacherous to thy prince: rather see them die then Olynda fall into such fatal danger (sigs. D3r-v)

[go to text]

gg2478   ready eager; vigilant [go to text]

gg2479   think’t think it [go to text]

n2918   my willingness to such an act, i.e. my readiness to condone such a conspiracy. [go to text]

gg2480   gullery trickery [go to text]

gg2481   relater, narrator, the one who told me [go to text]

gs374   high grave, serious (OED a, 6b); proud, arrogant, angry (OED a, 14a) [go to text]

gg2482   gather infer, guess that [go to text]

gg2483   weighed judged [go to text]

gs375   above, in heaven [go to text]

n2920   my wrong, i.e. the wrong done to me. [go to text]

n2919   And my foes ruined with mine honour’s safety. This paraphrases Greene, Penelope’s Web: ‘the Gods are just and have taken thy quarrel as advocates of thine injury: now shalt thou see wrong overruled with patience, and the ruin of thine enemy with the safety of thine own honour’ (sig. D3r) [go to text]

n2921   mine honour’s safety. i.e. with no danger to my reputation/virtue. [go to text]

gg2484   weigh consider [go to text]

gg1030   suffer allow, tolerate [go to text]

n2922   And ’tis her shame to hear of my mishap. This paraphrases Greene, Penelope’s Web: ‘it is thine honour to put up causeless injury, and her shame to hear of thy unhappiness’ (sig. D3v) [go to text]

gg2485   shame disgrace, dishonour [go to text]

gg2486   foreknowledge knowledge in advance [go to text]

gg2487   doubt, apprehension; hesitation [go to text]

gg2488   pretence. intention, aim, design (OED n, 6) [go to text]

n2924   Friends have no privilege to be treacherous: This paraphrases Greene, Penelope’s Web: ‘Then here lies the doubt, either must I have mine honour by her mishap, or else seek the ruin of my friends by discovering their pretence. Treachery thou knowest, Barmenissa, is not to be concealed; friends have no privilege to be false’ (sig. D3v) [go to text]

gg2489   privilege licence, authority [go to text]

gg2490   chief principal [go to text]

n2925   act of horror a terrible deed [go to text]

gs376   prince ruler, monarch (i.e. the King) [go to text]

gg2492   patrons, protectors; supporters [go to text]

gs377   Means resources (especially financial) [go to text]

gg2493   discovery disclosure, revelation [go to text]

n2545   for the i.e. to ensure the [go to text]

gs378   present immediate, current [go to text]

gg2494   newsbringer deliverer of news [go to text]

n2926   we’ll ] will [go to text]

n2927   short That is: confined under strict discipline. The word can mean to keep a horse tightly reined in (OED a, 6b). [go to text]

gs379   matter quantity, amount [go to text]

gs380   well, in good fortune; in a state of prosperity (OED a, 3a) [go to text]

n3319   industry ] Iudustry [go to text]

gg2495   keep maintain [go to text]

n2928   be ] he [go to text]

gg2289   idle foolish, trivial [go to text]

gg2496   state-matters? affairs of state [go to text]

n2929   [Lollio] ] Pog. [go to text]

n2930   Exeunt. This stage direction is omitted in the octavo, but is added in the list of errata. [go to text]

n2931   4.3 Video This scene subjects the King to a series of shocks which begin to reveal to him just how mistaken his treatment of several characters has been. At the start of the scene, Petruccio tells him that Gonzago, his son, has died in prison; Horatio then enters and tells the King that Alinda ‘has a moonflaw in her brains’ [QC 4.3.speech958]. This fear is then confirmed as Alinda enters and harangues the King for neglecting his duty to pursue Eulalia. The King only has time for a short soliloquy, in which he acknowledges his fear that he may have made mistakes in his treatment of Sforza and Gonzago, before Sforza enters, disguised as a soldier, and tells the King that Petruccio is under attack from the army, who believe him to have murdered Sforza. In dramaturgical terms, this sequence of events produces rapid shifts in tone and focus. For overlapping extracts which provide the sequence up to [QC 4.3.speech949], see these four clips from the workshop. See notes below for further discussion of each extract. [go to text]

n11346   4.3 ] Scœn. VI. [go to text]

n2932   the boy? Petruccio attempts to correct the King, who continues to denigrate Gonzago in an attempt to distance himself from the boy that he fears may not be his son. [go to text]

n2932   Gonzago, sir, your son? Petruccio attempts to correct the King, who continues to denigrate Gonzago in an attempt to distance himself from the boy that he fears may not be his son. [go to text]

gs381   work bring about; stir; urge; manipulate [go to text]

n2932   that bastard boy, Petruccio attempts to correct the King, who continues to denigrate Gonzago in an attempt to distance himself from the boy that he fears may not be his son. [go to text]

gg2497   second support [go to text]

gg2498   depopulation. reduction of population (OED 2); the term had a political charge in the early seventeenth century because it was often used to describe the effects of the enclosure of commmon land. See, for instance, Francis Trigg, To the Kings Most Excellent Majesty. The Humble Petition of Two Sisters the Church and Commonwealth: For the Restoring of their Ancient Commons and Liberties, which Late Enclosure with Depopulation, Uncharitably hath Taken Away (London, 1604) and the petitions and proclamations surrounding the Midlands anti-enclosure riots of 1607. This debate was still alive in the 1630s; see Robert Powell, Depopulation Arraigned, Convicted and Condemned, by the Laws of God and Man a Treatise Necessary in These Times (London, 1636) [go to text]

gg711   wrath anger, fury [go to text]

gg2499   habitual inherent, native (OED a, 1); customary (OED a, 2) [go to text]

gs382   hence away from here (i.e. to heaven) [go to text]

n4027   This boy yet might be mine, Though Sforza might have wronged me by the by. This speech is printed as prose in the octavo. [go to text]

gg2501   by the by. ‘as a matter of secondary or subsidiary importance’ (OED, by n2, 2b) [go to text]

n4028   This done, he prayed me leave the room. I wept, In sooth I could not choose. This speech is printed as prose in the octavo. [go to text]

n2934   Well, well. Video As this clip from the workshop on this sequence demonstrates, Brome contrasts Petruccio’s smooth narration of events that he knows are untrue, and we might suspect are untrue, with the King’s growing agitation, signalled in his rough syntax and abrupt utterances. In his final speech, the King first wrestles with his growing guilt about his treatment of Gonzago (albeit while still refusing to believe that Gonzago is truly his son), before finding greater certainty in a renewed hostility towards Eulalia (something that is reflected in the smoother syntax and metre of the last four lines). [go to text]

n2933   Well, well. You wept, Returned, and found him dead in’s bed, you say. This speech is printed as prose in the octavo. [go to text]

gg2502   in’s in his [go to text]

gg2503   posture, demeanour; position [go to text]

n2935   as no statuary As Matthew Steggle notes, ‘Whether or not such a description is a relic of an abandoned plot twist in which young Gonzago was "really" replaced with a statue, in a play already full of references to The Winter’s Tale such a visual description cannot avoid evoking the statue of Hermione’ (Richard Brome, 86). For further discussion of the relationship between The Winter's Tale and The Queen and Concubine see the Introduction. [go to text]

gg2504   statuary sculptor [go to text]

gg233   fashion (v) mould (OED v, 1); transform (OED v, 4) [go to text]

gg2505   slighter. more smooth/glossy/sleek (OED slight a, 1) [go to text]

n2936   on his either cheek i.e. on both of his cheeks [go to text]

gg262   Prithee (I) pray thee: (I) ask you; please [go to text]

gg2506   threat’nings threatenings: threats [go to text]

gs383   sharp. severe [go to text]

gg2507   levy muster, enlist [go to text]

gg1597   succour help [go to text]

gg2508   mischiefs, misfortunes [go to text]

gg2509   ill-lived wicked, immoral [go to text]

n2937   O my dread liege! Horatio’s entrance breaks the mood, and may initially seem to provide some comic relief. A general problem in this scene is the extent to which Horatio’s words and actions are intended to have a comic effect, despite their generally serious content. If they are comic, one effect is to emphasise, through contrast, just how seriously Alinda’s madness should be treated, and to manipulate the degree of threat and tension conveyed in the scene. [go to text]

gg2510   dread honoured, held in awe; fearful [go to text]

gg2511   liege! lord, sovereign [go to text]

n3320   Speak, ] speaks [go to text]

gg2512   moonflaw disability attributed to the moon’s influence (this is OED’s only citation); flaw can also mean fragment or detached piece, so it could mean that Alinda has a piece of the moon in her brain (the moon was often associated with madness) [go to text]

gg2513   chides scolds; fights; rebukes [go to text]

n2546   that i.e. to the extent that [go to text]

n3321   ghost is in ] Ghost, in (corrected in the octavo's list of errata) [go to text]

n2938   [Enter ALINDA.] Although the octavo text has no entry direction for Alinda, Horatio’s ‘here she comes’ suggests that he sees her approaching. [go to text]

n2939   Where’s this King? Video Alinda has an immediate impact on the scene, which she dominates until her exit nearly 100 lines later. For two overlapping extracts covering this sequence, see videos,. In these clips, Hannah Watkins, reading Alinda, moves quickly around the stage area to suggest Alinda’s agitation and aggression, circling the King (Adam Kay), and reacting aggressively to Horatio (Beth Vyse) and Petruccio (Michael Leslie) when they get in her way. It is noticeable that Alinda consistently invades the King’s personal space - see, for example, the way that she spits the line ‘and for yourself, you’re past it’ [QC 4.3.speech970] into his face. On occasion she touches him - for instance when she says that she will ‘writhe ... off’ the King’s cuckold’s horns [QC 4.3.speech986] - but she refuses to let the King touch her. The King attempts to make physical contact when he calls her ‘gentle love’ [QC 4.3.speech967] and ‘sweet’ [QC 4.3.speech985] and [QC 4.3.speech992]); he thus attempts to placate her through word and gesture and Alinda rejects both overtures.

Alternatively, in this extract from an earlier point in the workshop, Alinda is less mobile, forcing the King to come to her: this gives her a different kind of power over him, and her physical stillness creates a disturbing contrast with her verbal aggression.

We also experimented with seating the King, making him more immobile. In this extract Alinda actually sits on the King’s lap as she berates him, moving off when he attempts to gesture towards Petruccio. The King remains seated until Alinda actually pushes him from his chair on the line ‘I’ll take thee by the horns, and writhe thine own off’ [QC 4.3.speech986]. Later in the extract, Alinda does not shy away from the King’s touch as she does in the earlier extract. Instead, she allows the King to make physical contact on ‘Sweet, thou shalt have his head’ [QC 4.3.speech992], leading in her next long speech to a more controlled aggression which is maintained into her exit line. For further discussion of the representation of Alinda’s madness see the Introduction. [go to text]

n2940   King of clouts? Proverbial (Dent, C447.11: ‘A husband [lord, etc.] of CLOUTS’), and often used as a synonym for beggar; see, for instance, John Taylor’s Taylor's Motto (London, 1621): ‘I am full of fears and dangerous doubts, / And poorer far than is a King of Clouts’ (sig. C6v). This phrase is also used in the first quarto of Hamlet, in which Hamlet describes Claudius as ‘a king of clouts, of very shreds’ (G2v), and in George Chapman’s An Humorous Day’s Mirth (Admiral’s Men, 1598), scene 7:

They mock me boldly,
And every other thing that makes me known,
Not telling what I am, but what I seem:
A king of clouts, a scarecrow, full of cobwebs,
Spiders and earwigs, that sets jackdaw’s long tongue
In my bosom and upon my head.
(7.4-9)

The image of the cobweb and the spider also appear in this scene when Alinda calls the King ‘A cobweb’ [QC 4.3.speech977] and Horatio comments ‘And she the spider in’t, I fear’ [QC 4.3.speech978], suggesting that Brome was familiar with Chapman’s play. As Eleanor Lowe notes, the concern in all three plays is with ‘the false outside show of kingship’ (‘A Critical Edition of George Chapman’s The Comedy of Humours, Later Printed as An Humorous Day’s Mirth’ [unpublished PhD thesis, Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, 2005], 221). The quotation above is also taken from this edition, and I am very grateful to Dr Lowe for sharing her work with me. [go to text]

gg2514   clouts? rags, patches [go to text]

n2941   Fearful effect of pride! Video This line, and Petruccio’s later comment in [QC 4.3.speech993], could be delivered in various ways: as an aside to the audience (as it is in this extract from the workshop on this scene), as Petruccio’s self-directed comment, or as a comment to the King or Horatio. [go to text]

gs384   effect result, consequence; sign, mark [go to text]

n2942   This shadow of a King, Alinda recalls, unconsciously, the King’s fear in [QC 1.1.speech36], that he was merely Sforza’s ‘shadow’. [go to text]

gg2515   shadow imitation (and thus actor); ghost [go to text]

n2943   As in a press among the rags and visors Alinda imagines the King as an empty suit of clothes hanging in a cupboard along with his equally flimsy and hollow forebears. The image is similar to Chapman’s description of a king as a scarecrow, cited in [NOTE n2940]. [go to text]

gg2516   press (n) large cupboard, usually with shelves, often used for clothes (OED n, 15) [go to text]

gg2517   visors front parts of helmets, covering the face; masks [go to text]

gg252   strength a body (of men); military strength [go to text]

n2547   That lives i.e. that lives to be [go to text]

gg840   vexation? trouble, harassment, affliction [go to text]

gg2518   load burden, weight [go to text]

n2944   your delays To my desires i.e. your delays in fulfilling my desires. [go to text]

n2946   HORATIO holds up his hands. Video Horatio’s gesture can indicate both his sense of helplessness in the face of Alinda’s madness, and his desire to disassociate herself from her. In the workshop on this scene we experimented with various ways of performing it. In this version Horatio’s withdrawal is caused by the anxiety that watching Alinda insult the King provokes in him. In this version Alinda’s movements towards and away from the King mean that she is in danger of backing into him. Another alternative, discussed in this extract is to have the King look pointedly at Horatio, who then holds up his hands and withdraws. It is also possible, as in this version for Alinda, expecting an immediate answer to her question ‘Are these your promises?’ and not receiving it from the King, to wheel around to Horatio, who holds up his hands to signal his inability to answer on the King’s behalf.

It is possible that the stage direction is misplaced, and that it may originally have belong to an earlier or later line, but this position seems to hold more possibilities than placing it within Alinda’s speech (which is, after all, directed squarely at the King) or after the King’s next line, ‘I have given order with all speed I could’. I have therefore left it in its original position. [go to text]

gg2519   speed (n) quickness, promptness, dispatch [go to text]

gg2520   cut off put to death [go to text]

gg301   Vex trouble, irritate, torment [go to text]

gs385   show display, appearance [go to text]

n2548   to maintain i.e. who are maintaining. [go to text]

gg762   strumpet debauched woman, whore [go to text]

gg2521   coward (a.) cowardly [go to text]

n2947   tyrannous ambition Implies that Alinda’s ambition leads her to tyrannous behaviour and also that her ambition behaves like a tyrant towards her, controlling her behaviour. [go to text]

n2948   puffed up this bladder Compare Cardinal Wolsey’s comment in Shakespeare and Fletcher’s Henry VIII or All is True (King's Men, 1613): ‘I have ventured, / Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders’ (3.2.359-60). As elsewhere in The Queen and Concubine, ambition is described in terms of inflation. [go to text]

gg2522   bladder prepared bladder of an animal, inflated and used as a float, or as the wind-bag of a simple bagpipe (OED n, 3); anything inflated and hollow [go to text]

n2949   gentle love. The King’s attempts to placate Alinda lead him to address her in this incongruous fashion – Alinda in this scene is anything but gentle. [go to text]

n2950   As I am true to the crown, I know not what to say to this. She’s falling mad, sure. Video With this line, Horatio takes over Petruccio’s role in commenting on Alinda’s behaviour. Like Petruccio’s lines, they might be delivered as asides (either directed to the audience or self-directed), or as comments to another character on stage. In this extract from the workshop, Horatio’s lines are directed to the audience; having withdrawn on the stage direction ‘Horatio holds up his hands’ (after [QC 4.3.speech963]), he takes up a position down stage right, enabling him to communicate directly with them. In this extract from an earlier part of the workshop, Horatio is positioned at the back of the stage, making it harder for him to articulate the comments clearly. [go to text]

gg2523   falling becoming (OED v, 40); also used in The New Academy, Act 1: ‘He’s falling mad. / Stark staring mad’ [NA 1.1.speech137]; compare also John Harington’s comment in his translation of Orlando Furioso (London, 1591): ‘But in the manner of [Orlando's] falling mad, my author hath (in mine opinion) showed himself his craft’s master’ (185) [go to text]

gs316   sure. certainly, doubtlessly [go to text]

gs386   action campaign, military action [go to text]

gg2524   voiced) said, rumoured [go to text]

n2951   a Mars or cuckold-making general Alinda’s comparison of Sforza to Mars recalls that of Horatio in [QC 1.4.speech 191], when he asks Eulalia ‘do you know / What Mars and Venus meant, when injured Vulcan / Had ’em in’s net?’. [go to text]

gs387   past incapable of (the implication is that the King is impotent in military and sexual terms) [go to text]

n2952   His t’other wife would not have used him thus. Quiet cuckoldry is better than scolding chastity all the world over. This speech appears as verse in the octavo. [go to text]

gg2526   used treated [go to text]

n2953   Quiet cuckoldry is better than scolding chastity all the world over. That is: it is better to have a decorous wife, even if she is unfaithful to you, than a raucous but faithfu one. [go to text]

gg2527   cuckoldry adultery: the act of making a man a cuckold [go to text]

n2954   I see distraction in her face. Video This line might be delivered as an aside, or it might be delivered to Petruccio. If the latter is adopted, it has the effect of preparing for Petruccio’s intervention on ‘By the King’s favour’. In this extract the King gestures to Petruccio when Alinda first suggests that his current general is inadequate, then reinforces his involvement of Petruccio in the quarrel by delivering ‘I see distraction in her face’ as an aside to him. [go to text]

gs388   distraction agitation, frenzy; madness, insanity, derangement [go to text]

n2955   in Sforza? i.e. in the person of Sforza. [go to text]

gs389   favour, pardon, leave [go to text]

n2956   to lead i.e. how to lead [go to text]

gg2528   execute fulfil, discharge (an office or duty) (OED v, 4a) [go to text]

n2958   Sirrah! Video Alinda’s attention is consistently focused on the King; it is only when Petruccio attempts to intervene that he makes himself a target. In this version from the workshop on this sequence, Alinda is placed between the King and Petruccio, allowing her to swing round to turn her attention on Petruccio. Petruccio then moves to appeal to the King, leaving Alinda free to return to the King. Petruccio has presumably been bridling since Alinda’s comment that the King has ‘never a Mars [...] left’ [QC 4.3.speech970], and her question ‘Did all your brave commanders die in Sforza?’ [QC 4.3.speech973] is too much of an insult for him to take. [go to text]

gs390   Sirrah! sir (authoratively or contemptuously) [go to text]

n2957   Sirrah! You have stirred more than his dust; you Have moved his blood in me unto a justice That claims thy traitorous head. This speech is printed as prose in the octavo. [go to text]

n3322   thy ] they (corrected in the octavo's list of errata) [go to text]

n4029   My head? And traitorous? I do appeal unto the King. This speech is printed as prose in the octavo. [go to text]

n4030   A King? A cobweb. This is printed as one line in the octavo. [go to text]

n2959   thou Video This is the first point at which Alinda addresses the King by the familiar pronoun ‘thou’. Brome modulates the forms of address to suggest Alinda’s instability - this line might either be delivered with a greater degree of intimacy, as it is in this version from the workshops on this sequence, or with greater aggression. [go to text]

n2960   Gonzago, Alinda’s progressive loss of control and/or departure from a properly wifely submissiveness is also signalled in her use of the King’s forename. [go to text]

n2961   Life by inheritance: That is: I own your life because I have inherited it. [go to text]

n2962   and so ’tis mine. Alinda claims that she owns the King’s life because her father saved his life: the King’s life belonged to Sforza; she has now inherited it from him on his death. [go to text]

n2963   In i.e. in the shape of. [go to text]

n2964   Alinda doth command it? Alinda’s reference to herself in the third person again suggests her derangement. [go to text]

gs391   articles heads or points of an agreement or treaty (OED article n, 6a); terms, conditions (OED article n,6b); concerns, matters of business (OED article n,10a); items coming under a particular heading (OED article n, 10.b) [go to text]

gg2484   weigh consider [go to text]

n2549   offence, i.e. the thing that offends me [go to text]

n2965   by i.e. with [go to text]

n2966   by the horns, i.e. by the cuckold’s imaginary horns, worn by the King as a symbol of his former wife’s supposed infidelity [go to text]

n2967   thine own i.e. the King’s own head [go to text]

gg2529   embowelled disembowelled [go to text]

gg668   forerunner harbinger sent before to prepare the way and herald the approach of great men (OED 1a) [go to text]

n2968   Was ever woman barred her will as I am? Video It is possible to deliver this line as an aside, as in this extract from the workshop on this scene. Depending on the delivery, it might provoke laughter in the middle of a very tense, angry scene, but this would be in keeping with the uneasily comic quality of Horatio’s comments, such as ‘His t’other wife would not have used him thus’ [QC 4.3.speech971]. [go to text]

n2969   barred her will denied her wishes/desires [go to text]

gg2530   cherishing fostering, sustaining; nourishing [go to text]

gs392   silly helpless; foolish; humble; trivial [go to text]

gg2531   bind hold [go to text]

gs393   sweetly. pleasurably (OED adv. 3); delightfully (OED adv. 4); smoothly, easily (OED adv. 5); lovingly (OED adv. 6) [go to text]

gg2532   feats deeds, actions (i.e. sexual acts) [go to text]

gg2533   t’other other [go to text]

gs394   sport fun (OED n1, 1a) sexual play (OED n1, 1b) [go to text]

gs395   dry barren; withered; lacking sexual potency (see Williams, 1: 421-2: the majority of examples refer to men, but Thomas Dekker in The Owl’s Almanac [London, 1618] refers to ‘frozen-blooded bawds and dried up pandresses’ [33]) [go to text]

n2970   Take this, take all. i.e. if you tolerate this, you will tolerate anything [go to text]

n2972   and so I leave you. Video Alinda’s exit lines might be delivered in a variety of ways. In this version from the workshop on this sequence, she maintains a high level of hostility, leading out of the final sexual threat to the King in her previous speech. Another way to handle it would be to have her switch abruptly to a more friendly tone. The line ‘and so I leave you’ could even be accompanied by a curtsy. [go to text]

n4031   [ALINDA] exit[s]. ] Exit. [go to text]

n2974   What wild affections Video Although he has often communicated with the audience in asides, this is the first, and only, time in the play when the King is given an extended soliloquy. After his humiliation at Alinda’s hands, the King is given a chance to express his doubts about the situation that he has created, preparing the audience for his actions in Act 5. The speech may pose a challenge for an actor playing the King, depending on the production's approach to dramatic character, as around 100 lines previously he was demanding that Petruccio have Gonzago’s body disembowelled and sent to Eulalia in a vindictive and threatening gesture. In dramaturgical terms, it thus has a function much like that of Claudius’s soliloquy in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: a previously unsympathetic character is given the chance to complicate the audience’s view of them. In particular, the appeal to heaven at the end of the speech seems deliberately to recall Claudius’s guilty attempt at prayer.

Horatio’s question, ‘How fares your majesty’ [QC 4.3.speech999] suggests that he does not hear the speech and that it might be delivered either directly to the audience, or as an interior monologue (depending on the conventions established elsewhere in a production). In this extract from the workshop on this sequence, the speech is delivered to the audience, and the King retreats to the safety of his ‘throne’ to deliver the speech. In a full production this could create a productive irony, as the tyrannous monarch begins to question his actions while seated on a symbol of the authority that he has misused. The sound of the rebellious soldiers which breaks in not long after would heighten this irony. Here Adam Kay (reading the King) conveys the agitation of the first lines of the speech, and the shift of tone on the final lines as the King makes his plea to heaven. [go to text]

gs396   wild savage; uncontrolled, unrestrained; reckless; unruly, wayward; wanton, dissolute; savage, violent; passionate; furious; demented [go to text]

gg2534   affections mental states, emotions; inclinations [go to text]

gg2535   passion suffering, affliction, disorder; overpowering emotion; fit of madness or anger [go to text]

n2975   past all precedent! surpassing all previous examples [go to text]

gs397   mere pure, complete [go to text]

gg2508   mischiefs. misfortunes [go to text]

n2976   dotage The King probably means that he was infatuated with Alinda, but the remark also implies his folly and possibly his senility; he also repeats Alinda’s judgement of him in 1.5, speech 196 [QC 1.5.speech197], when she remarked on his ‘raging dotage to obtain [her] love’. [go to text]

gg337   dotage folly; excessive love, infatuation; senility [go to text]

n2978   that tender boy. This indicates the shift in the King’s feelings towards Gonzago, despite his command to Petruchio only twenty lines earlier. [go to text]

gs398   tender young; meek; mild [go to text]

gg2536   stupefies deadens, deprives of feeling, makes insensible (OED stupefy v, 1); stuns with amazement or fear, etc. (OED stupefy v, 2) [go to text]

n2979   How fares your majesty? Video Horatio’s interruption signals a further shift of tone in the scene. As the workshop clip of this sequence shows, the courtier provides some comic relief before Brome renews the tension with the approach of the rebel soldiers. [go to text]

n4032   I would my wife were with her then: and so would any good subject say, I think. This speech is printed as verse in the octavo. [go to text]

n2980   my wife Horatio’s wife never appears in the play and seems to be mentioned here only as the butt of his misogynistic comment. [go to text]

n2981   I think. Horatio echoes the insistence in qualifying his words which he displayed at the start of the sequence when he told the King that Alinda’s ‘father’s ghost is in her, I think’ [QC 4.3.speech958]. [go to text]

gs399   warrantable assured, guaranteed [go to text]

n2983   The Queen is now out of my catalogue, Video Throughout the play, Horatio has been periodically forced to reformulate his list of those he believes to be loyal to the King. The comic effect of these lines is evident even in the workshop version of the scene; in a full production the cumulative effect of the constantly shifting lists would make him seem increasingly ludicrous. [go to text]

gg2537   catalogue, list, register [go to text]

gg2538   creed, set of articles of belief (compare to OED n, 1: ‘A form of words setting forth authoritatively and concisely the general belief of the Christian Church, or those articles of belief which are regarded as essential’) [go to text]

n4033   [A Shout Within Crying]Kill him, kill him! For Sforza, Sforza! Kill him for the blood of Sforza, Sforza! Etc. This speech is printed as a stage direction in the octavo: '[A shout within] crying, Kill him, kill him: for Sforza, Sforza: kill him for the blood of Sforza, Sforza, &c.', preceding [QC 4.8.line3225]. [go to text]

n2984   Kill him, kill him! For Sforza, Sforza! Kill him for the blood of Sforza, Sforza! Etc. The off-stage sound here contrasts with the off-stage shouts of victory and praise for the King and Sforza at the beginning of the play, and with the shouts of praise for Eulalia in the additional passage in 4.2. For further discussion of Brome’s use of off-stage sound in the play, see the Introduction. [go to text]

gg2539   hideous terrifying, horrible [go to text]

n4034   [Soldiers] The octavo text uses 'Within' as the speech prefix. [go to text]

gg776   on’t. of it [go to text]

n2986   distractedly, That is: looking agitated. [go to text]

n2987   Furies [go to text]

n2988   [Sforza] ] Capt. [go to text]

n2988   [Sforza] ] Capt. [go to text]

n2989   to speak i.e. to speak of [go to text]

n2990   Speak ] Speaks [go to text]

gg2540   animates encourages, inspirits (OED animate v, 5); stirs up, incites (OED animate v, 6) [go to text]

gg2541   discontent feeling of dissatisfaction (OED n1, 1c); cause of discontent, grievance (OED n1, 2) [go to text]

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

gg1607   withal, along with the rest [go to text]

gg2542   knew’t. knew it [go to text]

n2992   Shout [within]. The soldiers within presumably again shout things such as ‘Kill him for Sforza, Sforza! Kill him, kill him’. [go to text]

n2991   Shout [within]. ] Shout. [go to text]

n2993   comes nearer still. The King’s comment suggests that the company were expect to increase the volume of their off-stage shouts to give the illusion that the army are closing in. Compare the manipulation of sound in Fletcher’s Bonduca (King’s Men, 1610), which includes directions for ‘Drums within at one place afar off’, ‘Drums in another place afar off’ and ‘Alarms, drums and trumpets in several places afar off, as at a main battle’ (Bowers, gen. ed., Dramatic Works in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon, vol. 4, 3.3.22SD, 3.3.25SD, 3.4.14SD). [go to text]

n2988   [Sforza] ] Capt. [go to text]

gg2510   Dread honoured, held in awe; fearful [go to text]

n2994   vouchsafe attention. That is: deign to pay attention to me. [go to text]

gg2543   sincere genuine, pure; real, true [go to text]

gg2544   ruin destruction, downfall [go to text]

gg2545   awful awe-inspiring [go to text]

n2550   make prevention. Make it impossible, keep it from happening (OED prevention n 1). [go to text]

n2988   [Sforza] ] Capt. [go to text]

gg162   late recent [go to text]

gg2546   death-doomed sentenced to death [go to text]

n2995   the soldier i.e the soldiers in general [go to text]

n2997   looking on your justice, Paying regard to, holding in esteem (OED look v, 17). [go to text]

n2998   cut him off. put to him death [go to text]

n2999   turn head upon turn to face, show a bold face to (OED turn v, 57) [go to text]

gs330   blood. murder, death (OED n, 3a) [go to text]

n2988   [Sforza] ] Capt. [go to text]

gs401   dear precious [go to text]

gg2547   timeless untimely, premature [go to text]

n2988   [Sforza] ] Capt. [go to text]

gg2548   advised, warned [go to text]

gs402   how in what manner [go to text]

gg2549   wildfire furious or destructive fire (OED 1), used figuratively to refer to a destructive force (OED 5a); also used for a mixture of highly inflammable substances set on fire and used in warfare (OED 3) [go to text]

gg2550   beset set upon, besieged [go to text]

gg2551   circled in encircled, surrounded [go to text]

gg2552   Waylaid impeded (OED waylay v, 3); blockaded (OED waylay v, 4) [go to text]

gg2553   heaps multitudes, hosts (OED heap n, 3) [go to text]

gs39   fetch him off, deliver him, rescue him [go to text]

gg2554   readily promptly, eagerly, willingly [go to text]

gg2555   misprision misconception, misunderstanding (OED n1, 2b); mistaken or unjust suspicion (OED misprision n1, 3: the earliest citation is John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition Upon the Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job and Psalms (London, 1657): ‘neither did he command her to the block, as Henry the Eighth did his Anne Bullen, upon a mere misprision of disloyalty’ [147]) [go to text]

gg2556   false? disloyal, treacherous [go to text]

gs39   fetch him off. deliver him, rescue him [go to text]

n3000   tenfold worth Worth ten times. [go to text]

n4035   4.4 The octavo text has no scene division here, but I have inserted one as the stage is cleared and the notional location changed. [go to text]

gg2557   rabble crowd, mob [go to text]

n4036   Enter PETRUCCIO with a rabble of SOLDIERS and two CAPTAINS. Come, come, away with him, away with him! ] Enter Petruccio with a Rabble of Souldiers, and two Captains, crying, Come, come, away with him, away with him. [go to text]

gg2151   faith, confidence, trust (OED n, 1a); (religious) belief (OED n, 3); assurance, promise (OED n, 8); fidelity, loyalty (OED n, 10) [go to text]

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

gg2559   outrage violent injury, indignity, affront (OED n, 2a); excessively proud, foolish or presumptuous action (OED n, 3b) [go to text]

gg2560   lives more more lives [go to text]

gs403   sufficient enough, adequate [go to text]

gg276   satisfaction penance, compensation, atonement [go to text]

gg2558   limited appointed, designated [go to text]

gg2561   hour hour of death [go to text]

gg158   apace: quickly [go to text]

gs404   abuse transgress; scorn [go to text]

gg2562   forfeit (n) loss, penalty [go to text]

gg2563   sounds, resounds (OED sound v1, 1b); conveys a certain impression or idea by the sound (OED sound v1, 4a); used frequently by Brome: see The Novella: ‘This sounds yet well’; ‘This sounds most strangely!’ [NV 5.1.speech721]; The English Moor: ‘This sounds well.’ [EM 2.2.speech321]; The Late Lancashire Witches: ‘This sounds well.’ [LW 5.5.speech999] [go to text]

gs405   well good, appropriately [go to text]

n11347   [Within] ] [Within] [go to text]

gg141   bravely worthily; fearlessly; splendidly, handsomely (OED) [go to text]

gg2564   person the king’s self as opposed to his rank; also used as a way of referring respectfully to a monarch, as in the use of ‘the king’s person’ for ‘the king’ (OED n, 3a) [go to text]

n3323   give ] gives [go to text]

gg885   leave permission [go to text]

gg828   election choice, preference [go to text]

gg2502   in’s in his [go to text]

gs406   waive cast aside, reject, disregard [go to text]

gs407   care duty, responsibility [go to text]

gg2397   pain effort, labour [go to text]

gg2565   affirms maintains, claims [go to text]

gg2566   honour glory, renown; positions of dignity (i.e. further advancement) [go to text]

gg2567   disengaged, set free from obligation, at liberty (OED ppl. a, a) [go to text]

gs408   temper constitution, character (OED n, 4a); prevailing weather conditions; condition of the atmosphere in terms of heat, cold, etc. (OED n, 6) [go to text]

gs409   high great [go to text]

gg2568   Blow (v) storm, rage [go to text]

n4037   [Captains and Soldiers] ] All. [go to text]

n2551   A Sforza, A supportive war-cry. [go to text]

gs187   wonder. amazement [go to text]

gg2569   mansion dwelling-place, home [go to text]

gg2499   habitual inherent, native (OED a, 1); customary (OED a, 2) [go to text]

gg2570   seat estate; habitat [go to text]

gg922   angle nook, corner [go to text]

gg315   lodge harbour [go to text]

gg2571   inmate fellow inhabitant (OED n, 1a); stranger (OED n, 1b) [go to text]

gs410   false? sexually disloyal, treacherous [go to text]

gs388   distraction. agitation, frenzy; madness, insanity, derangement [go to text]

gs411   truth, 'true religious belief or doctrine' (OED n, 10a); 'That which is true, real, or actual (in a general or abstract sense); reality; specifically in religious use, spiritual reality as the subject of revelation or object of faith (often not distinguishable from 10)' (OED n, 11a); 'The fact or facts; the actual state of the case; the matter or circumstance as it really is' (OED n, 12a) [go to text]

gg2572   erred, gone astray [go to text]

n4038   Show me, show me yet the face of glorious truth, Where I may read, if I have erred, which way I was misled. I have changed the lineation in these lines: in the octavo text the line-break comes at 'read / if. [go to text]

gg2510   dread honoured, held in awe; fearful [go to text]

gg2573   distracted maddened, deranged [go to text]

gg2574   like (adv) likely [go to text]

gg2575   conjurer exorcist [go to text]

gg2576   prerogative royal privilege [go to text]

gg2577   listed. liked, desired [go to text]

n4039   Or else Petruccio’s first, or if he would Forgive her this time, she’d do so no more. I have amended the lineation in these lines: in the octavo text the line-break comes at 'her / This'. [go to text]

gs412   abusèd misused, ill-treated [go to text]

gg2578   refer commit, entrust [go to text]

gg2579   apparition, spirit [go to text]

gg2580   foresaid aforesaid [go to text]

gg2581   Avoid, be gone, go away [go to text]

gs413   conjure command, constrain [go to text]

n4040   I defy thee, Beelzebub. This is printed as one line in the octavo. [go to text]

n4041   and loyal i.e. and is loyal. [go to text]

n4103   Aye, ] I [go to text]

gg2582   touch act or action of touching (OED n, 1a); ‘an impression upon the mind or soul; a feeling, sense’ (OED n, 13b) [go to text]

gg2583   credulity belief, faith; naivety, readiness to believe [go to text]

gs414   nature character, disposition [go to text]

gg2584   equity. justice, impartiality [go to text]

n4042   CAPT[AINS] and SOLDIERS [exit]. ] Exeunt Capt. and Souldiers. [go to text]

gg2585   soul-frighting terrifying [go to text]

gg2586   objects persons or things to which something has been done, or towards which particular thoughts are directed (OED object n, 3); cf. Robert Johnson, The Second Part of the Famous History of the Seven Champions of Christendom (London, 1597): ‘My daughter, whose perfect image lyeth here carved in fine crystal as the continual object of my grief’ (sig. H1r) [go to text]

gg2587   affect love, like (OED v1, 2); also means ‘to show ostentatiously a liking for' (OED v1, 5) [go to text]

gs415   mischance misfortune, mishap [go to text]

gg2588   propitiously graciously, mercifully (if God will grant a favourable outcome) [go to text]

gg2589   light (n) source of illumination or enlightenment (OED n, 6); a beacon-light (as in a lighthouse, etc.) that could be followed (OED n, 5d) [go to text]

gg2274   mischievous vicious, wicked [go to text]

gg2590   drunk intoxicated [go to text]

gg2591   brain-confounding destroying or overthrowing the brain; confusing the brain [go to text]

gg2592   strong powerful; severe [go to text]

gs416   examination. judicial inquiry; inspection, scrutiny; formal interrogation [go to text]

n4043   Not seen in court These ten days. This is printed as one line in the octavo. [go to text]

gg2593   fetch out find the origin of [go to text]

gs417   practice, conspiracy, plot; treachery [go to text]

n4044   Post-Horn. The sound of a brass horn, used to announce the arrival of a messenger. OED cites The Queen and Concubine as its earliest recorded usage, and I have not been able to trace an earlier example. [go to text]

gg2594   subjected abased, submitted, obedient [go to text]

gg776   on’t? of it [go to text]

gg2595   true-hearted loyal [go to text]

gs418   trussed. tied up [go to text]

n4103   Aye, ] I [go to text]

gs419   passages? remarks or observations made in speaking or writing (OED passage n, 13b); episodes, events (OED passage n, 14); interchange of communications or negotiations (OED passage n, 16) [go to text]

gg2596   regard: attention [go to text]

gg2597   way. course of action [go to text]

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

gg2598   comfort; happiness, joy [go to text]

gg2599   ne’er never [go to text]

gs420   fit suitable, proper [go to text]

gg2600   distilling trickling; gently falling [go to text]

n4045   [They all exit.] ] Exeunt Omnes. [go to text]

n4077   [All except POGGIO and LOLLIO exit] If the additional passage is to be performed everyone except Poggio and Lollio needs to exit before the Countryman enters. [go to text]

n4073   two brave men at arms i.e. Fabio and Strozzo [go to text]

n4075   fell ] fall [go to text]

n4076   And The octavo text has an extra speech prefix, 'Countr' here. [go to text]

n4074   To be short, they found her out, and naked swords they drew: But as they thought to have thrust her through and through, They both dead palsy-struck fell to the ground And had no strength but of their tongues to wound The fame she had. This description is at odds with the encounter staged in 3.1, in which Fabio and Strozzo are disarmed by the country people and show no signs of supernaturally inspired malady. [go to text]

n4078   Virtue can want no foes. [go to text]

n4079   the miller’s wife. Millers’ wives may have had a reputation for loose sexual behaviour. In the famous story of Henry II and the Miller of Mansfield, which was the subject of a ballad extant in editions of 1595 and 1640, the King cuckolds the miller but gives him lands and favour in recompense. A similar story, but with King John as the cuckolding monarch, provided the myth of origin for Cuckold’s Haven, a point on the southern side of the Thames about a mile below Rotherhithe Church, which was supposed to be the furthest extent of the land given to the miller by the King. See Sugden, Topographical Dictionary, 140; Walter Thornbury, Old and New London: A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places (London and New York: Cassell, Peter & Galpin, 1872-8), 6: 142. [go to text]

n4080   Aye, ] I [go to text]

n4081   [Countryman] ] Lol. [go to text]

n4082   our two new neighbours i.e. Lodovico and Andrea. [go to text]

n4083   mortal people i.e. living souls? [go to text]

n4084   turpentine and tar Traditionally used to treat diseases and parasites in sheep. [go to text]

n4085   [Shout within]Heaven bless our holy woman! ] [Shout within] / All. Heaven bless our Holy woman. [go to text]

n4086   [Within]Heaven bless our holy woman! ] Within. Heaven bless our Holy woman. [go to text]

n4087   [Within]Heaven bless our holy woman! ] [All within.] Heaven bless our Holy woman. [go to text]

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