---

n7217   ACT THREE This central act is all one flowing scene. There are a great many characters and small vignettes as the audience effectively sees different aspects and angles of The Asparagus Garden, its visitors, the tenant-managers, and their respective desires and issues. One of the best ways to think about Brome's dramaturgy here is in terms of dance: this is a carefully choreographed sequence involving different groupings of couples, trios, and quartets. That the scene embeds references to dance at its heart underscores this reading. In terms of staging it is very simple, as befits maintaining the flow between the different compositional moments in the social 'dance' it represents. The only props necessary to have onstage or bring onstage at some point would be the table with requisite drinks and food (not least asparagus) for the scene between Gilbert, Walter and Samuel in which they discuss Sir Arnold Cautious, whose arrival they are awaiting. Otherwise all the required properties would appear to be handheld, such as the gardener's tools, the money which changes hands at various points during the scene, and of course the aspragus spears being consumed at various times. The scene is also important for the ways in which it invites the audience to imagine the offstage space, just out of sight. The scenes onstage all take place outdoors in the garden and arbours of the 'hotel'; what the audience has to imagine as characters enter the stage is where they have been in the various bedrooms and chambers of the building, and what they have been up to while there. The act opens with new characters and a deal of exposition to manage. The Gardener and his Dutch wife Martha (who presumably speaks in a heavily accented way to make sense of these references to her nationality and her Dutch way of doing things, not least totting up the bills) are the tenant-managers of the Asparagus Garden. It is Martha, the named half of the couple, who appears to have the most agency in that it is she who greets guests and assigns them rooms and also she who reckons the totals and deals with the finances. The gardener appears to concentrate rather more on growing the produce to feed the guests - not only asparagus but also strawberries, presumably to sell later in the year when the asparagus season is over. He also indulges in growing cut flowers in particular tulips which were considered a major retail commodity in the 1630s. All of this is alluded to in the opening exchange between the couple. Then we begin to meet various guests or incomers to the Garden (which, as the introductory essay to this play examines, was based on real life pleasure gardens along the sides of the River Thames at this time). One Gentleman and his female companion complain about the price they have had to pay for room and food, railing against Martha's 'Dutch accounting' which refuses to provide an itemised bill, only a reckoned total which is usually reckoned in her favour. Brome had made comparable attacks on pricing regimes in taverns and inns in The Weeding of Covent Garden. Gilbert, Walter and Samuel (now in disguise as a poetical soldier) arrive. Martha seems disappointed that they do not have any women with them since that will limit what they spend. She therefore declares the hotel itself full and insists they eat outside. Gilbert and Walter are much put out by what they see as an insult to their status and there is much happenstance allusion to issues of rank in this scene. In some respects the Asparagus Garden acts as a social leveller akin to the forest of Arden in Shakespeare's As You Like it or perhaps even more pertinently, the innhouse in Jonson's The New Inn, a site where people of many social stations gather and temporarily intermingle. The serving boy has great fun being rude to Gilbert and Walter suggesting they must be French to challenge the price of wine and asparagus. A pleasurable exchange follows in which the three male friends playfully describe Walter's lecherous uncle, Sir Arnold Cautious, who is the main reason they have come here (we have already learned from Martha that Cautious likes to hang around the property and leer at the beautiful young women who visit). Cautious is allergic to marriage, convinced that all women are corrupt, sexually and morally. In an hilarious inset performance Gilbert performs the 'character' of Sir Arnold, which is fun for the audience who can then, when he finally appears onstage, measure the reality against the role-play. The scene also helps to establish the deep friendship and understanding between this particular male grouping. These are rather different to the usual 'roaring boys' of Brome's city comedies and, since they effectively drive the (very complicated) plot, it is important that the audience gets the measure of this in order to be able to read the tone of other scenes and exchanges accurately. Cautious enters and is quickly inveigled into a marriage plot. Told by Gilbert that Walter is anxious to marry someone, he is asked to intervene on his nephew's behalf (he will be told that the object of Walter's affection is Annabel Striker). The young men also stage a mock-fight between Walter and 'Bounce', the name rapidly assumed for Samuel's disguise as the poetical soldier, after Bounce takes physical umbrage at something Cautious has said. The audience knows the fight to be 'staged' because they have shared the friendly intimacies of this group only moments earlier. The staged fight makes Walter look heroic for saving his uncle and so Cautious agrees to act on his behalf to secure the match to Annabel Striker. These characters exit and the next vignette is of six courtiers (three male, three female) who are feasting on asparagus. They suggest a dance in the gardens, which creates for an intriguing little exchange. Brome is renowned for being a non-courtly writer, but several of his plays are clearly influenced by courtly theatrical culture not least the masque to which dancing was central. Here he seems to mock the courtly excesses of language in the structured exchanges between this group. The next set of charaters to appear includes Sir Hugh Moneylacks and his 'gull' Timothy Hoyden and his servant Coulter, as well as Rebecca and John Brittleware, whose reasons for coming to the Garden were made clear to the audience in the second act. Rebecca's cravings for sexual satisfaction and a resulting pregnancy seem greater than ever and she and John swiftly exit to their hired room to dine on asparagus and hope that its aphrodisiac qualities, as cited by Sir Hugh, work. Moneylacks has brought Timothy Hoyden here to enjoy a city diet of asparagus following his purging experiences, which have obviously happened offstage in the interim between the second and third acts. Tim, presumably looking pretty bedraggled and confused by this stage, explains what he has been put through and how he has been starved so that he is famished and ready to spend anything to get access to food (theatregoers might well compare him to Bartholomew Cokes in Jonson's 1614 play Bartholomew Fair who is steadily stripped of all his belongings and his dignity by the more savvy Londoners who work the fair at Smithfield). One hundred pound of his personal money has already gone on clothes and a further hundred on food. Coulter meanwhile is growing ever more suspicious and shares several cynical asides with the audience in this scene. As a result Moneylacks conpires to have him dismissed from Tim's company and Coulter leaves the stage with the typically biting dialect assertion of 'a vart for a varewell'. The Brittlewares return to the stage, with John in particular looking and sounding exhausted. Presumably there is also some comic mileage in performance in that he hasn't been gone that long - the sexual act is over all too quickly for Rebecca, as she makes clear in her statement 'you have not done your part, John'. We have a kind of stage forerunner here of the Restoration poetic subgenre of poems of sexual disappointment and premature ejaculation, examples of which were published by Lord Rochester and Aphra Behn among others. Rebecca declares that she will resort to adultery if necessary and torments John with descriptions of what she will do. The couple briefly stand aside to witness some other guests converse - this time, a Gentleman and a city wife, though not his wife it seems, who are altercating with a servant or employee of the Garden. The servant complains that they have underpaid (adding to the audience's sense that the underlying rhythms and themes of this central act are money, sex, and consumption). There is more dialogue on the price fixing tendencies of resorts such as the Asparagus Garden but it also becomes clear that the city wife is reluctant to complain lest her adulterous behaviour in coming here becomes public. This is why Martha can charge such high prices - she can rely on the wishes of her clients to keep their illicit practices private and therefore pay up rather than face the humiliations of the small claims court. Moneylacks and company now return with Martha as well. Rebecca stresses that she is still dissatisfied. Martha pays Sir Hugh for his good work in gathering guests for her and a kind of female bonding occurs between her and Rebecca to close the scene. It is interesting that the act ends as it began on a note of female agency, which is not insignificant in terms of an overall understanding of this play and where the real social dynamics are being created and fostered. [go to text]

n6114   Enter GARDENER and MARTHA, his wife. The gardener is never given a name in the play and we were intrigued in the workshops at the power dynamic this creates. Martha, his named Dutch wife, is clearly in control of the happenings, financial and otherwise, in the Asparagus Garden resort. [go to text]

n7243   Pray, let’s agree upon’t, good wife – you are my wife Video What we explored in the workshopping of this section Act 3 was the way in which exposition might be played. Jeremy Lopez has recently argued that such heightened exposition scenes were such a common convention on the early modern stage that it behoves us to consider the audience pleasure involved in recognising the dramatist's tricks in this way (esp. 2003, Chapter 4, pp. 78-81). We played around with the lines here seeing how far we could ask the actors to go in being explicit about the expostory nature of certain lines which give details of Martha's Dutch origins and the nature of their joint employment at the Asparagus Garden itself . [go to text]

n6115   I should have the command Following on from the power dynamic created by the decision only to give Martha a first name, the Gardener draws attention to the fact that his wife is very much in control of the business and the marriage, against assumed conventions. [go to text]

n7222   entreat deal with you. The gardener is making the point that in a traditional marriage he should have the command but instead he treats his wife equally, if not allowing her control. This is another example of marriage in the play, one that contrasts sharply in some ways with the dysfunctional and sometimes painful exchanges between Rebecca and John Brittleware. In that respect we could see this as a model of a Protestant companionate marriage - Martha's Low Countries origins would signify that she was a Protestant exile to early modern audiences. Yet in another sense this is another version of a marriage in which the female partner has all the agency and this may explain the bonding that takes place between Martha and Rebecca when they meet onstage at the end of the scene. As the workshopping of this section with actors Philip Cumbus and Olivia Darnley as the Gardener and Martha respectively indicated there are a number of ways of playing this scene. [go to text]

n6116   Martha Video Several references are made in this act to Martha's Dutch provenance. Unusually for Brome who tended to indicate linguistic difference phonetically in his playtexts, there is no textual marker of how Martha's lines might be delivered differently as a result. Nevertheless we were fortunate enough to have a performer in the workshops, Olivia Darnley, who, after a period in a play called Vincent in Brixton, had experience of delivering lines in a Dutch accent, and it became clear after a morning working in accent how that helped both to differentiate Martha from the Londoners in the scene as the dialogue dictates but also how it gave a particular rhythm to the distinct vocabulary and idiom of her lines (several terms, for example, I have been unable to locate in the OED; these may be Brome coinages to suggest linguistic difference or indicators of Dutch loan-words in early modern English at this time) . [go to text]

n6117   dirty ’sparagus, Asparagus was often regarded as a 'dirty' vegetable because it thrived in manure patches and indeed was traditionally grown in the Lambeth Marshes region of London in this period where it benefitted from the barrowloads of human manure that was brought out of the city each morning on handcarts. Steggle notes that Gerard made reference to this in his Herbal where he describes 'manured or garden Sperage' (Steggle, 2004: 79). This all serves t create a strange blend between the sexual and the excretory in the associations of asparagus in the play. [go to text]

n6118   tulips Tulips had obviously Dutch connotations as do many of the other things grown or produced in the Gardener's plot - carp were a mainstay of the Dutch diet at this time, for example, and strawberries, then as now, grew well in the Low Countries. Ironically though tulips could well have been as big a money-spinner for the couple as asparagus in the 1630s when 'Tulipomania' had hold and bulbs were being sold for the equivalent of thousands of pounds on the European market. Eventually this bubble would burst with spectacular financial results and the ruin of many investors but in 1635-6 when this play was first performed the frenzy to collect tulips was still gathering momentum (Steggle, 2004: p. 76; Pavord, 1999: 114-16). The best-known English gardener at this time was John Tradescant and it is possible that audiences would have seen a link between this onstage couple and Tradescant and his wife whose Lambeth property was a place of resort partly due to the museum they had established there. He was also strongly linked to the interest in rare tulips species at this time. [go to text]

n6119   will make us purchasers i.e. will make us property owners ourselves. The implication is that they are only tenants of the Asparagus Garden rather than owners of the plot. Interestingly, this adds to the community of tenants and lodgers that seems to populate this play and suggests the codependency of many living arrangements in the fast growing London of the 1630s. An alternative reading might be that the fashion for asparagus and tulips will bring in buyers but in view of the play's emphases elsewhere on tenants and lodgers as a key aspect of London living at this time, my instinct leans towards the former reading. [go to text]

n6120   manor of marshland This reference gives us the clear indication that the Asparagus Garden is located somewhere such as Lambeth or Deptford Marshes where asparagus was grown in the 1630s. It also links this landscape to the East Angliah fens where much land was being reclaimed for farming crops and for London property owners such as the Earl of Bedford by the controversial process of fen drainage. That much of this work was carried out by Dutch engineers adds to the layered references here and accounts for the topical edge of the presence of Dutch people in London and the southeast at this time. [go to text]

n6121   the Low Country soil you came from Video A reference to Martha's Dutch origins, which may also have been signified in the accent of the boy actor delivering her lines. The Low Countries are, as their name suggests, low lying and in large part land reclaimed from the sea. The Gardener compares the Thamesside marshlands to this geography. In the clip you can see an attempt to play up this double meaning although, as the subsequent discussion reveals, in the end both actors and spectators felt the scene worked better when not heavily emphasised in this way . [go to text]

n6122   to ha’made you a Bankside lady The surface meaning of this is that, by purchasing land, in the Bankside area of London the gardener hoped to make a lady of his wife. There is a double meaning to the phrase 'Bankside lady', however, which early modern theatre audiences would have recognised, which was 'prostitute'. There is a sense in which the couple have had to prostitute themselves and others for financial gain in the operations of the Asparagus Garden. [go to text]

gg4133   broken bankrupt (OED 7) [go to text]

gg4134   broken fragments (usually of leftover food, OED 1b) [go to text]

n6285   Everything would live Proverbial (Dent). [go to text]

gg2898   reckoning account, computed sum owing or due to someone; used especially of a bill at a tavern, but here implying a paying-back or settling of differences between parties (OED vbl. n, 3a and 5) [go to text]

n6123   hutchingly grudgingly (though there is no record of this term in the OED). This may be an example of a loan-word from Dutch included to indicate Martha's status as an incomer to the city to the audience. [go to text]

n6124   your wife is too dear The very personal terms in which people describe their debts to Martha does appear to continue the association of her trade with a form of prostitution begun with the gardener's own 'Bankside lady' reference earlier. For actors there is a question as to how knowingly to point up all this innuendo. We found the scene played well in different tones, but was completely different in effect. [go to text]

gg2898   reckoning account, computed sum owing or due to someone; used especially of a bill at a tavern, but here implying a paying-back or settling of differences between parties (OED vbl. n, 3a and 5) [go to text]

n6131   we make no account of particulars This system of refusing to itemise bills and only offering an overall reckoning is heavily criticized throughout the act that takes place in the Asparagus Garden. Brome also attacked unduly heavy prices in ordinaries and taverns in the The Weeding of Covent Garden so it was clearly a popular concern at the time of these plays. See Kaufmann, 1961: 71-2. [go to text]

n6125   all to mall all in one overall sum; a version of the Dutch 'allermaal' meaning 'all at one' (the phrase appears to link to a German or Low Countries term for a general assembly, so here the general assembly of sums owed). In February 1634 a royal proclamation had attempted to set limits on the prices that could be charged in taverns and alehouses (CSPD CCXX, Charles I, 1633-4, p. 462), but by not presenting an itemised bill Martha can circumvent the law. Brome made similar attacks on the high prices being charged in taverns and ordinaries in The Weeding of Covent Garden (McClure, 1980: 409; Kaufmann, 1961: 71-2). [go to text]

n6287   Dutch account Quite literally the Dutch way of reckoning bills, but there is a latent xenophobia that should not be ignored. The heavy presence of Dutch engineers in London in the 1630s due to the fen drainage schemes that characterised the decade was the subject of ballads and social satire. [go to text]

gg4135   pinching mean, niggardly (OED adj.) [go to text]

n7223   Sir Arnold Cautious We will see this character later in the scene but not until after a second narrative portrait has been painted of him by his own nephew Walter which confirms his reputation for lechery and spying on women. [go to text]

n7224   gather-guest This phrase was also used in Act One and describes how Sir Hugh Moneylacks has effectively been hired by Martha to bring clients to the Garden. She pays him in return for the increase in profits he helps to deliver. This whole scene is punctuated by the rhythms of monetary transactions. [go to text]

n6126   new ordinary Also the subtitle of Brome's play The Demoiselle. Along with earlier allusions in Act 1 to Jonson's play The New Inn Brome seems to be interested in other plays from this period that use a central inn or gathering place for guests as their focal setting. [go to text]

gg4137   ordinary an inn or tavern at which a meal (usually also called an ordinary) was served [go to text]

gg4136   tribute tax, usually paid by one state to another [go to text]

n6127   These are not the courtiers we look for. Martha is only interested in those who will pay for rooms at a high price to service their sexual encounters with women. Three men alone represent poor takings to her. [go to text]

n6128   the new plantation Gilbert's language here creates a sense of the Asparagus Garden as a new colony or settlement. It also continues the notion of confused ownership begun by the Gardener and his wife's earlier discussions about their desire to become landowners and 'purchasers' (for a useful discussion of the confused issues of landrights raised in this exchange, see Steggle, 2004: 76-7). [go to text]

n6129   province This term would conjure up further Dutch associations with the United Provinces. [go to text]

n6130   The island of two acres here more profitable than twice two thousand in the fens till the drainers have done there. A direct allusion to the Dutch engineers currently draining the fens in accordance with Caroline land policies. Cornelius Vermuyden, who led the drainage projects in Cambridgeshire on behalf of Charles I and the Earl of Bedford (who was also responsible for property in the Covent Garden region of London) was also involved in schemes to drain London marshland so the topic would have resonances very close to home for some members of the audience. Fen drainage would become one of the major grievances around questions of common rights and local privileges as the decade progressed. Some critics have extrapolated from this that the Asparagus Garden was situated across the Thames from Whitehall on boggy or marshy land that resembled the East Anglian fens or the Somerset Levels. [go to text]

n6132   Yes, we expect some gentlemen. Not the answer Martha was looking for since it reduces the likelihood in their case of making lots of money from men anxious to pursue illicit sexual affairs in her hired rooms. [go to text]

n6133   these that respect profit merely have not the wit and less the virtue to distinguish betwixt the best and the worst Walter and the others are clearly offended at Martha's lack of interest in their business and scorn her capitalist approach to relationships. There is, however, a pomposity in their attitude that is equally apparent to any audience. [go to text]

gg3227   collation light meal [go to text]

n6134   Plaist ill, monsieur. A parodic version of the French 'S'il vous plait, monsiuer'. The boy explains why he mockingly speaks French in the lines immediately following. [go to text]

n6135   You shall know anon ,sir. i.e. you will be told the price at the end, sir. This is another example of the unfair pricing regime in the Asparagus Garden (although it should be added that few are dissuaded from being seen in this ultra-fashionable place as a result and Brome makes his own social commentary in this also). [go to text]

n7225   prodigal fools i.e. individuals who are excessive or wasteful with their wit (Gilbert is in a slightly oblique manner trying to insult the boy for his presumption in mocking him - as with the exchange earlier with Martha in this scene, he seems acutely sensitive to his sense of status being challenged in any way). [go to text]

n6136   Hans in Kelder i.e. the child that Annabel is purported to be expecting. The phrase is a version of the Dutch 'Jack in the cellar' (a modern equivalent would be a phrase such as 'bun in the oven'). [go to text]

n6137   Allemagne Germany [go to text]

n6138   I’ll but give ye his character and he comes I warrant thee What might easily be passed over on the page as a brief description of a character just prior to their entrance onstage became in the workshopping process a wonderful opportunity to play out the dynamic between these young male friends as Gilbert 'performed' his description to the others, who in turn provided a willing and responsive audience. There are obvious influences here from Jonson's fondness for playacting young gallants in plays such as Epicoene. [go to text]

n6139   character Video There was a trend for publishing collections of 'characters' such as these; see, for example, Wye Saltonstall, Picturae loquentes; or Pictures drawne forth in characters (London, 1635). What was brilliant in the workshopping was the way that the actors brought this 'character' to life through performance and interaction, helping in the process to establish the close-knit friendship between this young male grouping . [go to text]

n7226   follows pretty feet and insteps like a hare tracker Video A hare tracker would have tracked the object of his prey via his pawprints; Cautious pursues his female prey in a similar manner . [go to text]

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

n6289   have a wench put upon McLure (1980) glosses this as 'be taken in by a low woman'. [go to text]

n6140   as in every instrument are all tunes to him that has the skill to find out the stops Compare Hamlet, 3.2.356-7: 'You would seem to know my stops'. [go to text]

gg478   roarer a noisy, riotous bully or reveller; a wild roisterer; the term was particularly associated with tavern culture in the Caroline period (OED, 1b) [go to text]

gg1343   clinquant glittering with gold or silver (OED a and n) [go to text]

n7227   at his old game Bo-peep i’the tail of’em i.e. pursuing women from behind. The image is oddly sexual and oddly comic. Cautious is like a shepherd who follows behind his sheep but this also suggests that he is leering at the women's backsides in the process. [go to text]

n6141   three Graces Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia who were meant to be the personification of grace and beauty. [go to text]

n7228   supplies i.e. financial support [go to text]

n7229   value of a token A token was a small object sometimes given in personal exchange as a pledge. Gilbert's meaning here is that walter expects not even this from his uncle. [go to text]

gg941   motion formal proposal or request (OED n. 13b) [go to text]

n6142   You have hit upon his name: his name is Bounce Gilbert improvises this in the moment. [go to text]

n6290   services i.e. military services [go to text]

gg4848   jeer (n) disparaging remark [go to text]

n6292   ningle Cf. Ben Jonson's Epicoene, 1.1.22-3: 'What between his mistress abroad and his ingle at home . . .'. [go to text]

gg4188   ningle close male friend, confidant (but also used in derogatory way to suggest a subservient homosexual lover) [go to text]

gg4138   reckoning reputation [go to text]

n6143   in the reckoning in the business, part of the business. Brome is playing throughout this scene with the multiple meanings of 'reckoning' and its cognate words and phrases. [go to text]

n7230   Homer Greek author classical texts of love and war such as The Iliad. Samuel is using some fairly hyperbolic comparisons for his situation befitting the kind of Petrarchan lover he is playing at this moment. [go to text]

n6144   Helen had been a hag and Troy had stood Helen of Troy was, of course, reckoned to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Troy and the wars raged over it was the setting for Homer's epic The Iliad. [go to text]

n6293   physiognomy Q (visnomy) [go to text]

n6253   Have doomed thee. In a modernised text this slightly odd lurch by Samuel (and subsequently Walter) into versification could be smoothed out by turning it into prose, but here it seems an indicator of the performative nature of their quarrel so I have retained it to suggest a slightly hyperbolic mode of delivery. [go to text]

n6145   WALTER throws SAMUEL and offers to stab him. This is all a very carefully managed stage fight, of course. [go to text]

gg4281   right avenge [go to text]

n7231   Now it works The resemblance to the Careless scam in A Mad Couple Well Matched is noticeable here. [go to text]

gg2898   reckoning account, computed sum owing or due to someone; used especially of a bill at a tavern, but here implying a paying-back or settling of differences between parties (OED vbl. n, 3a and 5) [go to text]

n6294   Poetry, though it be of a quite contrary nature, is as pretty a jewel as plain dealing Proverbial (as Gilbert goes on to suggest). [go to text]

n7233   numerous That is: many. This is why I have amended 'madam' to 'madams' here, since the references appear to be plural. [go to text]

gg4845   tread (v) step (as in a dance or measure) [go to text]

n7232   A curious knot Dance movements were often modelled on geometric patterns at this time and the knot was a recognised formation. There is a double reference here however in that small courtly gardens were often set out in intricate knot patterns too. [go to text]

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

gg2814   compound (v) strike a deal [go to text]

n6146   hedge in reduce, place boundaries on [go to text]

gg2898   reckoning account, computed sum owing or due to someone; used especially of a bill at a tavern, but here implying a paying-back or settling of differences between parties (OED vbl. n, 3a and 5) [go to text]

gg2149   providence foresight, preparation for the future (OED n. 2); divine care or guidance (OED n. 3) [go to text]

n6147   They dance This interlude in which three male courtiers dance with three female courtiers has been seen by some, such as McClure (1980) as mere theatrical ornamentation, yet it does deliberately bring courtly conventions into the heart of the Asparagus Garden by reproducing elements of a masque in this way. In Brome's play all sections of society fall prey to the magnetic allure of the fashionable resort. On the symbolism of early modern courtly dance steps, see Ravelhofer (2006). Jonson's plays share this understanding of the courtly aesthetics and symbolic practice of dance and may well be the direct influence for Brome's treatment of the topic here. [go to text]

n6255   And civil recreation purge the place The excesses of courtly discourse are gently parodied in the hyperboles of this exchange where the mere act of dancing it is suggested will 'purge' the ground of its (presumably lower-class) associations. This is an interesting variation on the earlier uses of 'purge' in scenes involving Tim Hoyden. [go to text]

n7235   weed no gardens Brome had of course himself used this imagery and idea as the title for his play The Weeding of Covent Garden punning on the place-name and the site's former existence as a convent garden. [go to text]

gg2489   privilege licence, authority [go to text]

n6295   belly full Both in the sense of having a full stomach from eating and being pregnant. [go to text]

n6256   Would I were at it [at] once. Literally 'I wish I could be eating asparagus immediately' but with an obvious double entendre on the sexual act. This kind of layered joke continues throughout the scene and characterises Rebecca's discourse throughout the play. [go to text]

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

gg4177   spare abstinent, self-denying (OED, adj.) [go to text]

gg4846   sippings mere tastes of something [go to text]

n6258   bite Pearson; bit (Q) [go to text]

gg80   pieces of gold or silver, i.e. money (OED n. 1b) [go to text]

n6259   wit hundred pound i.e the hundred pound you invested in purchasing 'wit' [go to text]

gg1611   cozened beguiled, deceived [go to text]

n7237   and if [go to text]

gg4847   roundlier thoroughly [go to text]

gg4178   repine to feel or manifest discontent or dissatisfaction (OED, v.) [go to text]

gg4179   paunch stomach (OED, n.) [go to text]

n6262   bacon and bag-pudding Foodstuffs meant to indicate a rural diet as opposed to the fine dining of a city gentleman on which Hoyden is being encouraged to spend his savings. [go to text]

gg4180   bag-pudding a pudding boiled in a bag and often served with bacon (usually made from sausage meat stuffed into a bag made from intestines, as is the case with haggis) [go to text]

n6262   bacon and bag-pudding Foodstuffs meant to indicate a rural diet as opposed to the fine dining of a city gentleman on which Hoyden is being encouraged to spend his savings. [go to text]

gg4181   daintrel a dainty or delicacy (now obsolete) [go to text]

n6263   daintrel Daintrill (Q) [go to text]

n6264   sparrowbills This is Hoyden's confused version of 'asparagus' though it should be noted that a popular name for the vegetable was 'sparrowgrass', a kind of Englishing of the term, so his linguistic confusion is less extreme than it might at first seem to modern ears. It just suggests that Hoyden is more used to speaking in a colloquial idiom than the fashionable city discourse that Moneylacks is presumably seeking to 'train' him in (for a fee!). [go to text]

n6265   a boy no bigger than a monkey Aristocratic women in the 1630s were apt to hire and be painted with dwarfs in imitation of Queen Henrietta Maria who employed her own court dwarf, Sir Jeffrey Hudson. Hudson features in several Caroline court masques and was painted alongside Henrietta Maria in a Van Dyck portrait of 1633 when he was just fourteen years old. In the same portrait (now held in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC) Hudson holds his pet monkey Pug. Some interpretations of the image suggest that Henrietta Maria's visible stroking of the pet is symbolic of erotic passions. Certainly this kind of portraiture created a vogue both for keeping monkeys as pets and the presence of dwarfs and children in households and there are several related references in plays by James Shirley and others to the fashions of female portraiture. [go to text]

n6296   clog A weight or hindrance, but with an allusion to wooden rustic shoes, traditionally worn by agricultural workers. [go to text]

n6266   con you thanks That is: give you thanks too (dialect) (OED con v, 1). [go to text]

n7238   incurable even get you to him i.e. incurable even were you to get to him and try to train him as a gentleman. This is very unusual phrasing probably idiomatic to suggest Tim Hoyden's provincial discourse. [go to text]

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

gg4182   cursen Christian (dialect) [go to text]

n7239   don’t your errand to your brother i.e. don't take news of what you are doing to your brother. Again the unusual phrasing here is suggestive of idiomatic provincial discourse. [go to text]

n6267   Brentford Now part of West London, in the 1630s Brentford was a suburb to the west of the city, eight miles from Charing Cross. It stood at the confluence of the Rivers Thames and Brent and was best known as a site of leisure trips and sexual assignations in this period. [go to text]

gg1747   congees ceremonial bow (usually as a leavetaking) [go to text]

n6268   and come wiping their lips already Presumably this is an implied stage direction that the Brittlewards should be wiping their mouths as they re-enter the stage. [go to text]

n7244   With the asparagus I am; and yet but half pleased neither as my husband shall very well know. Video In workshopping this scene (with Olivia Darnley as Rebecca and Philip Cumbus as Brittleware) we explored the cruelty embedded in her taunting of her husband's sexual failures and apparent impotency here . [go to text]

n6269   you have not done your part, John The implication is that John has suffered a bout of impotency in the highly public arena of the Asparagus Garden and been unable to perform the sexual act that Rebecca his wife so craves. [go to text]

n6271   pompeons are as good meat for such a hoggish thing as thou art As with the bacon and bag-pudding that Hoyden is associated with in this scene, Rebecca invokes a whole class system or hierarchy of food in this statement. Whereas asparagus is considered rare fine dining and carries an appropriate pricetag, pumpkins and squashes are regarded more as food for pigs. [go to text]

n6270   pompeons pumpkins [go to text]

n6272   that will be kind to me That is: that will sleep with me and impregnate me. [go to text]

n6273   his horns i.e the devil's horns - picking up on Brittleware's preceding line, though Rebecca's line also conjures the image of the cuckold's horns (supposedly visible on the forehead of men who had been sexually deceived by their wives) which her described actions would effectively label Brittleware as wearing. [go to text]

n6274   if nothing hang i’your sight That is: if nothing obscures your view (with the implication that his 'cuckold's horns' might do just that). [go to text]

gg4183   featly fitly, aptly, elegantly (OED adv. and a.) [go to text]

gg4184   neb beak or bill of a bird (also used figuratively therefore for the mouth) [go to text]

n6275   Hollyhock A hollyhock is a tall, often brightly coloured garden flower which may give some indication as to how the boy actor in this role might appear. [go to text]

gg2870   precise puritanical (from being scrupulous in religious observance) [go to text]

gg4185   draper one who made woolen cloth [go to text]

gg3794   shift movement (sometimes with a sexual meaning) [go to text]

n6276   there wants two shillings i.e. there are two shillings owing in payment of the bill. [go to text]

n6277   is my piece too light 'Light' coinage (i.e. in terms of weight) could be a sign of forgery or counterfeit. [go to text]

gg2873   piece coin, usually gold, and at this date the equal of twenty-two shillings (the spending worth in today's currency would be £94.38p.) [go to text]

gg2898   reckoning account, computed sum owing or due to someone; used especially of a bill at a tavern, but here implying a paying-back or settling of differences between parties (OED vbl. n, 3a and 5) [go to text]

n6278   and we make no bills Another reference to the Asparagus Garden's refusal to provide itemised bills to guests, only Martha's (often exorbitant) overall 'reckoning'. [go to text]

gg1611   cozened beguiled, deceived [go to text]

n7240   would down with it one way or other and their Jacks go again i.e. would make money one way or another. This is another reference to the current scandal of price fixing in taverns and alehouses that Brome comments on not only in this play but also The Weeding of Covent Garden. [go to text]

n6279   Countess of Copthall McClure suggests in his edition that this was a reference to a notorious prostitute of the day. The Gentleman is suggesting Martha will lose business due to her underhand dealing with customers such as himself (she, of course, relies on the wish of those engaging in illicit sexual affairs not to make a fuss and so keep their activities private). Certainly Copthall is in Barnet, a then suburb of North London that had been the setting for Ben Jonson's 1629 play The New Inn. It featured a tailor's wife, Pinnacia Stuff, who performed the role of a countess in order to enjoy fetishistic sexual intercourse with her husband, a London tailor, at the Barnet inn which forms the centre of the play. [go to text]

n6280   she may decline her trade very dangerously i.e. the loss of income from this person could prove fatal to the business. [go to text]

n6281   make no uproar for my reputation’s sake This proves Martha's assumption correct that her guests would rather settle exorbitant bills than have their sexual assignations made public by entering any form of legal disputation. [go to text]

n9777   [The CITY WIFE and Servant] exit together. Ex. ambo. (Q). Compare 1.1.13 where a speech prefix suggested 'Ambo' meant characters spoke together. Here they exit together. I have indicated that only the city wife and the servant exit at this point since there is a further exit at 3.648 and this cannot refer to either Rebecca or Brittleware since they appear in the dialogue in the sequence immediately following. [go to text]

gg2898   reckoning account, computed sum owing or due to someone; used especially of a bill at a tavern, but here implying a paying-back or settling of differences between parties (OED vbl. n, 3a and 5) [go to text]

n6282   he has been kind to her another way That is: he has satisfied her sexually. [go to text]

gg4186   rudiments first principles of a branch of knowledge or art [go to text]

gg1747   congees ceremonial bow (usually as a leavetaking) [go to text]

gg2898   reckoning account, computed sum owing or due to someone; used especially of a bill at a tavern, but here implying a paying-back or settling of differences between parties (OED vbl. n, 3a and 5) [go to text]

gg4191   cuckoo-pintles penises (of men or animals) [go to text]

gg174   derogate detract from [go to text]

gg2873   pieces coin, usually gold, and at this date the equal of twenty-two shillings (the spending worth in today's currency would be £94.38p.) [go to text]

gg4187   kicksey-winsey a whim or erratic fantasy; a fantastic device (OED n. a and adv.) [go to text]

n6283   Windsor Town in South-East England close to London, long associated with royal progresses and sojourns. [go to text]

gg1331   cuckolds man with an unfaithful wife, traditionally thought of as having horns on his head [go to text]

n6284   It seems you are not proscribed by the prophecy then? i.e. Brittleware seems to discover at this point that his wife was not a virgin when he married her. [go to text]

© University of Sheffield, 2010
The transcribed text is made freely available for non-commercial usage. Copyright, of the design and content, remains with the Royal Holloway, University of London and the University of Sheffield. Commercial exploitation of this material is prohibited without licence from the Royal Holloway, University of London and the University of Sheffield.