The Roaring Girl, or Moll Cutpurse

My case is alter'd, I must work for my living.

Table of contents

- Dramatis Personæ

- To the Comic Play-Readers, Venery and Laughter

- Prologus

- I.i. [Sebastian's chambers in Sir Alexander's house]

- [I.ii. The parlour of Sir Alexander's house]

- [II.i.] The three shops open in a rank

- [II.ii. A street]

- [III.i. Gray's Inn Fields]

- [III.ii. Gallipot's house]

- [III.iii. Holborn Street]

- [IV.i. Sir Alexander's chamber]

- [IV.ii. Openwork's house]

- [V.i. A street]

- [V.ii. Sir Alexander's house]

- Epilogus

- NOTES

Dramatis Personæ

- SIR ALEXANDER Wengrave, and NEATFOOT his man

- SIR ADAM Appleton

- SIR DAVY Dapper

- SIR BEAUTEOUS Ganymede

- [SIR THOMAS Long]

- LORD NOLAND

- Young [SEBASTIAN] Wengrave

- JACK Dapper, [son to Sir Davy,] and GULL his page

- GOSHAWK

- GREENWIT

- LAXTON

- TILTYARD [a feather-seller]

- [MISTRESS TILTYARD]

- OPENWORK [a sempster]

- [MISTRESS Rosamond OPENWORK]

- [Hippocrates] GALLIPOT [an apothecary]

- [MISTRESS Prudence GALLIPOT]

- MOLL, the Roaring Girl

- [Ralph] TRAPDOOR

- [TEARCAT]

- SIR GUY Fitzallard

- MARY Fitzallard, his daughter

- CURTILAX, a sergeant, and

- HANGER, his yeoman

- MINISTRI

- [COACHMAN]

- [PORTER]

- [TAILOR]

- [Gentlemen]

- [CUTPURSES]

- [FELLOW]

To the Comic Play-Readers, Venery and Laughter

The fashion of play-making I can properly compare to nothing so naturally as the alteration in apparel: for in the time of the great crop-doublet, your huge bombasted plays, quilted with mighty words to lean purposes, was only then in fashion. And as the doublet fell, neater inventions began to set up. Now in the time of spruceness, our plays follow the niceness of our garments: single plots, quaint conceits, lecherous jests, dressed up in hanging sleeves, and those are fit for the times and the termers. Such a kind of light-colour summer stuff, mingled with diverse colours, you shall find this published comedy, good to keep you in an afternoon from dice, at home in your chambers; and for venery you shall find enough for sixpence, but well couched and you mark it, for Venus being a woman passes through the play in doublet in breeches, a brave disguise and a safe one if the statute untie not her codpiece point. The book I make no question but is fit for many of your companies, as well as the person itself, and may be allowed both galley room at the playhouse, and chamber room at your lodging. Worse things I must needs confess the world has taxed her for than has been written of her; but 'tis the excellency of a writer to leave things better than he finds 'em; though some obscene fellow (that cares not what he writes against others, yet keeps a mystical bawdy-house himself, and entertains drunkards to make use of their pockets and vent his private bottle-ale at midnight), though such a one would have ripped up the most nasty vice that ever hell belched forth and presented it to a modest assembly, yet we rather wish in such discoveries, where reputation lies bleeding, a slackness of truth than a fullness of slander.

Thomas Middleton

Prologus

A play expected long makes the audience look

For wonders, that each scene should be a book,

Compos'd to all perfection; each one comes

And brings a play in's head with him: up he sums

What he would of a roaring girl have writ;

If that he finds not here, he mews at it.

Only we entreat you think our scene

Cannot speak high, the subject being but mean:

A roaring girl whose notes till now never were

Shall fill with laughter our vast theatre;

That's all which I dare promise: tragic passion,

And such grave stuff, is this day out of fashion.

I see attention sets wide ope her gates

Of hearing, and with covetous list'ning waits,

To know what girl this roaring girl should be,

For of that tribe are many. One is she

That roars at midnight in deep tavern bowls,

That beats the watch, and constables controls;

Another roars i' th' daytime, swears, stabs, gives braves,

Yet sells her soul to the lust of fools and slaves.

Both these are suburb roarers. Then there's beside

A civil city roaring girl, whose pride,

Feasting, and riding, shakes her husband's state,

And leaves him roaring through an iron grate.

None of these roaring girls is ours: she flies

With wings more lofty. Thus her character lies;

Yet what need characters, when to give a guess

Is better than the person to express?

But would you know who 'tis? Would you hear her name?

She is call'd mad Moll; her life, our acts proclaim.

I.i. [Sebastian's chambers in Sir Alexander's house]

Enter Mary Fitzallard disguised like a sempster with a case for bands, and Neatfoot a serving-man with her, with a napkin on his shoulder and a trencher in his hand as from table.

NEATFOOT

The young gentleman our young master, Sir Alexander's son, is it into his ears, sweet damsel emblem of fragility, you desire to have a message transported, or to be transcendent?

MARY

A private word or two, sir, nothing else.

NEATFOOT

You shall fructify in that which you come for: your pleasure shall be satisfied to your full contentation. I will, fairest tree of generation, watch when our young master is erected, that is to say, up, and deliver him to this your most white hand.

MARY

Thanks, sir.

NEATFOOT

And withal certify him that I have culled out for him, now his belly is replenished, a daintier bit or modicum than any lay upon his trencher at dinner. Hath he notion of your name, I beseech your chastity?

MARY

One, sir, of whom he bespake falling bands.

NEATFOOT

Falling bands: it shall so be given him. If you please to venture your modesty in the hall amongst a curl-pated company of rude serving-men, and take such as they can set before you, you shall be most seriously and ingeniously welcome.

MARY

I have [dined] indeed already, sir.

NEATFOOT

Or will you vouchsafe to kiss the lip of a cup of rich Orleans in the buttery amongst our waiting-women?

MARY

Not now in truth, sir.

NEATFOOT

Our young master shall then have a feeling of your being here; presently it shall so be given him.

MARY

I humbly thank you, sir.

Exit Neatfoot.

But that my bosom

Is full of bitter sorrows, I could smile

To see this formal ape play antic tricks:

But in my breast a poisoned arrow sticks,

And smiles cannot become me. Love woven slightly,

Such as thy false heart makes, wears out as lightly,

But love being truly bred i' th' the soul like mine

Bleeds even to death at the least wound it takes:

The more we quench this [fire], the less it slakes.

Oh, me!

Enter Sebastian Wengrave with Neatfoot.

SEBASTIAN

A sempster speak with me, sayst thou?

NEATFOOT

Yes, sir, she's there,

viva voce

, to deliver her auricular confession.

SEBASTIAN

With me, sweet heart? What is't?

MARY

I have brought home your bands, sir.

SEBASTIAN

Bands? Neatfoot.

NEATFOOT

Sir.

SEBASTIAN

Prithee look in, for all the gentlemen are upon rising.

NEATFOOT

Yes, sir, a most methodical attendance shall be given.

SEBASTIAN

And dost hear? If my father call for me, say I am busy with a sempster.

NEATFOOT

Yes, sir, he shall know it that you are busied with a needlewoman.

SEBASTIAN

In's ear, good Neatfoot.

NEATFOOT

It shall be so given him.

Exit Neatfoot.

SEBASTIAN

Bands? Y'are mistaken, sweet heart, I bespake none. When, where? I prithee, what bands? Let me see them.

MARY

Yes, sir, a bond fast sealed with solemn oaths,

Subscribed unto as I thought with your soul,

Delivered as your deed in sight of heaven.

Is this bond cancell'd? Have you forgot me?

[She removes her disguise.]

SEBASTIAN

Ha! Life of my life: Sir Guy Fitzallard's daughter!

What has transform'd my love to this strange shape?

Stay, make all sure. So, now speak and be brief,

Because the wolf's at door that lies in wait

To prey upon us both. Albeit mine eyes

Are bless'd by thine, yet this so strange disguise

Holds me with fear and wonder.

MARY

Mine's a loathed sight.

Why from it are you banish'd else so long?

SEBASTIAN

I must cut short my speech. In broken language,

Thus much: sweet Moll, I must thy company shun;

I court another Moll. My thoughts must run

As a horse runs that's blind round in a mill,

Out every step yet keeping one path still.

MARY

Umh! Must you shun my company? In one knot

Have both our hands by th' hands of heaven been tied,

Now to be broke? I thought me once your bride:

Our fathers did agree on the time when,

And must another bedfellow fill my room?

SEBASTIAN

Sweet maid, let's lose no time. 'Tis in heaven's book

Set down that I must have thee. An oath we took

To keep our vows, but when the knight your father

Was from mine parted, storms began to sit

Upon my covetous father's brow, which fell

From them on me. He reckon'd up what gold

This marriage would draw from him, at which he swore

To lose so much blood could not grieve him more.

He then dissuades me from thee, call'd thee not fair,

And ask'd what is she but a beggar's heir?

He scorn'd thy dowry of five thousand marks.

If such a sum of money could be found,

And I would match with that, he'd not undo it,

Provided his bags might add nothing to it,

But vow'd, if I took thee, nay, more, did swear it,

Save birth from him I nothing should inherit.

MARY

What follows then, my shipwreck?

SEBASTIAN

Dear'st, no:

Tho' wildly in a labyrinth I go,

My end is to meet thee; with a side wind

Must I now sail, else I no haven can find

But both must sink forever. There's a wench

Call'd Moll, mad Moll or merry Moll, a creature

So strange in quality a whole city takes

Note of her name and person. All that affection

I owe to thee on her in counterfeit passion

I spend to mad my father: he believes

I dote upon this roaring girl, and grieves

As it becomes a father for a son

That could be so bewitch'd. Yet I'll go on

This crooked way, sigh still for her, feign dreams

In which I'll talk only of her: these streams

Shall, I hope, force my father to consent

That here I anchor rather than be rent

Upon a rock so dangerous. Art thou pleas'd,

Because thou seest we are waylaid, that I take

A path that's safe, tho' it be far about?

MARY

My prayers with heaven guide thee.

SEBASTIAN

Then I will on.

My father is at hand: kiss and be gone.

Hours shall be watch'd for meetings; I must now,

As men for fear, to a strange idol bow.

MARY

Farewell.

SEBASTIAN

I'll guide thee forth; when next we meet

A story of Moll shall make our mirth more sweet.

Exeunt

[I.ii. The parlour of Sir Alexander's house]

Enter Sir Alexander Wengrave, Sir Davy Dapper, Sir Adam Appleton, Goshawk, Laxton, and gentlemen.

OMNES

Thanks, good Sir Alexander, for our bounteous cheer.

SIR ALEXANDER

Fie, fie, in giving thanks you pay too dear.

SIR DAVY

When bounty spreads the table, faith, 'twere sin,

At going off, if thanks should not step in.

SIR ALEXANDER

No more of thanks, no more. Ay, marry, sir,

Th' inner room was too close. How do you like

This parlour, gentlemen?

OMNES

Oh, passing well!

SIR ADAM

What a sweet breath the air casts here, so cool!

GOSHAWK

I like the prospect best.

LAXTON

See how 'tis furnish'd.

SIR DAVY

A very fair, sweet room.

SIR ALEXANDER

Sir Davy Dapper,

The furniture that doth adorn this room

Cost many a fair grey groat ere it came here,

But good things are most cheap when th' are most dear.

Nay, when you look into my galleries,

How bravely they are trimm'd up, you all shall swear

Y'are highly pleas'd to see what's set down there:

Stories of men and women mix'd together,

Fair ones with foul, like sunshine in wet weather;

Within one square a thousand heads are laid

So close that all of heads the room seems made.

As many faces there fill'd with blithe looks

Show like the promising titles of new books

Writ merrily, the readers being their own eyes,

Which seem to move and to give plaudities.

And here and there, whilst with obsequious ears

Throng'd heaps do listen, a cutpurse thrusts and leers

With hawk's eyes for his prey; I need not show him:

By a hanging villainous look yourselves may know him,

The face is drawn so rarely. Then, sir, below,

The very flower as 'twere waves to and fro,

And like a floating island seems to move

Upon a sea bound in with shores above.

Enter Sebastian and M[aster] Greenwit.

OMNES

These sights are excellent.

SIR ALEXANDER

I'll show you all.

Since we are met, make our parting comical.

SEBASTIAN

This gentleman, my friend, will take his leave, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER

Ha, take his leave, Sebastian? Who?

SEBASTIAN

This gentleman.

SIR ALEXANDER

Your love, sir, has already given me some time,

And if you please to trust my age with more,

It shall pay double interest. Good sir, stay.

GREENWIT

I have been too bold.

SIR ALEXANDER

Not so, sir. A merry day

'Mongst friends being spent is better than gold sav'd.

Some wine, some wine. Where be these knaves I keep?

Enter three or four serving-men, and Neatfoot.

NEATFOOT

At your worshipful elbow, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER

You are kissing my maids, drinking, or fast asleep.

NEATFOOT

Your worship has given it us right.

SIR ALEXANDER

You varlets, stir:

Chairs, stools and cushions! Prithee, Sir Davy Dapper,

Make that chair thine.

SIR DAVY

'Tis but an easy gift,

And yet I thank you for it, sir; I'll take it.

SIR ALEXANDER

A chair for old Sir Adam Appleton.

NEATFOOT

A back friend to your worship.

SIR ADAM

Marry, good Neatfoot,

I thank thee for it: back friends sometimes are good.

SIR ALEXANDER

Pray make that stool your perch, good M[aster] Goshawk.

GOSHAWK

I stoop to your lure, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER

Son Sebastian,

Take Master Greenwit to you.

SEBASTIAN

Sit, dear friend.

SIR ALEXANDER

Nay, Master Laxton. Furnish Master Laxton

With what he wants, a stone: a stool I would say,

A stool.

LAXTON

I had rather stand, sir.

Exeunt servants.

SIR ALEXANDER

I know you had, good Master Laxton. So, so.

Now here's a mess of friends, and, gentlemen,

Because time's glass shall not be running long,

I'll quicken it with a pretty tale.

SIR DAVY

Good tales do well

In these bad days, where vice does so excel.

SIR ADAM

Begin, Sir Alexander.

SIR ALEXANDER

Last day I met

An aged man upon whose head was scor'd

A debt of just so many years as these

Which I owe to my grave: the man you all know.

OMNES

His name I pray you, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER

Nay, you shall pardon me;

But when he saw me, with a sigh that brake,

Or seem'd to break, his heartstrings, thus he spake:

"Oh, my good knight," says he, and then his eyes

Were richer even by that which made them poor,

They had spent so many tears they had no more.

"Oh, sir," says he, "you know it, for you ha' seen

Blessings to rain upon mine house and me:

Fortune, who slaves men, was my slave; her wheel

Hath spun me golden threads, for, I thank heaven,

I ne'er had but one cause to curse my stars."

I ask'd him then what that one cause might be.

OMNES

So, sir?

SIR ALEXANDER

He paus'd, and as we often see

A sea so much becalm'd there can be found

No wrinkle on his brow, his waves being drown'd

In their own rage, but when th' imperious wind[s]

Use strange invisible tyranny to shake

Both heaven's and earth's foundation at their noise,

The seas, swelling with wrath to part that fray,

Rise up and are more wild, more mad, than they:

Even so this good old man was by my question

Stirr'd up to roughness, you might see his gall

Flow even in's eyes. Then grew he fantastical.

SIR DAVY

Fantastical? Ha, ha!

SIR ALEXANDER

Yes, and talk['d] oddly.

SIR ADAM

Pray, sir, proceed:

How did this old man end?

SIR ALEXANDER

Marry, sir, thus:

He left his wild fit to read o'er his cards,

Yet then, though age cast snow on all his hairs,

He joy'd because, says he, "The god of gold

Has been to me no niggard: that disease

Of which all old men sicken, avarice,

Never infected me."

LAXTON

[

Aside

] He means not himself, I'm sure.

SIR ALEXANDER

"For, like a lamp

Fed with continual oil, I spend and throw

My light to all that need it, yet have still

Enough to serve myself. Oh, but," quoth he,

"Tho' heaven's dew fall thus on this aged tree,

I have a son that like a wedge doth cleave

My very heart-root."

SIR DAVY

Had he such a son?

SEBASTIAN

[Aside]

Now I do smell a fox strongly.

SIR ALEXANDER

Let's see: no, Master Greenwit is not yet

So mellow in years as he; but as like Sebastian,

Just like my son Sebastian, such another.

SEBASTIAN
[Aside]

How finely like a fencer my father fetches his by-blows to hit me, but if I beat you not at your own weapon of subtlety--

SIR ALEXANDER

"This son," saith he, "that should be

The column and main arch unto my house,

The crutch unto my age, becomes a whirlwind

Shaking the firm foundation."

SIR ADAM

'Tis some prodigal.

SEBASTIAN

[Aside]

Well shot, old Adam Bell!

SIR ALEXANDER

"No city monster neither, no prodigal,

But sparing, wary, civil, and, tho' wifeless,

An excellent husband, and such a traveller,

He has more tongues in his head than some have teeth."

SIR DAVY

I have but two in mine.

GOSHAWK

So sparing and so wary?

What then could vex his father so?

SIR ALEXANDER

Oh, a woman!

SEBASTIAN

A flesh-fly, that can vex any man.

SIR ALEXANDER

A scurvy woman,

On whom the passionate old man swore he doted;

A creature, saith he, nature hath brought forth

To mock the sex of woman. It is a thing

One knows not how to name; her birth began

Ere she was all made. 'Tis woman more than man,

Man more than woman, and, which to none can hap,

The sun gives her two shadows to one shape;

Nay, more, let this strange thing walk, stand or sit,

No blazing star draws more eyes after it.

SIR DAVY

A monster, 'tis some monster.

SIR ALEXANDER

She's a varlet.

SEBASTIAN

[Aside]

Now is my cue to bristle.

SIR ALEXANDER

A naughty pack.

SEBASTIAN

'Tis false.

SIR ALEXANDER

Ha, boy?

SEBASTIAN

'Tis false.

SIR ALEXANDER

What's false? I say she's naught.

SEBASTIAN

I say that tongue

That dares speak so but yours sticks in the throat

Of a rank villain; set yourself aside--

SIR ALEXANDER

So, sir, what then?

SEBASTIAN

Any here else had lied.

(

Aside

) I think I shall fit you!

SIR ALEXANDER

Lie?

SEBASTIAN

Yes.

SIR DAVY

Doth this concern him?

SIR ALEXANDER

[Aside]

Ah, sirrah boy!

Is your blood heated? Boils it? Are you stung?

I'll pierce you deeper yet.--Oh, my dear friends,

I am that wretched father, this that son

That sees his ruin yet headlong on doth run!

SIR ADAM

Will you love such a poison?

SIR DAVY

Fie, fie!

SEBASTIAN

Y'are all mad!

SIR ALEXANDER

Th' art sick at heart, yet feel'st it not. Of all these,

What gentleman but thou, knowing his disease

Mortal, would shun the cure? Oh, Master Greenwit,

Would you to such an idol bow?

GREENWIT

Not I, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER

Here's Master Laxton: has he mind to a woman

As thou hast?

LAXTON

No, not I, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER

Sir, I know it.

LAXTON

Their good parts are so rare, their bad so common,

I will have nought to do with any woman.

SIR DAVY

'Tis well done, Master Laxton.

SIR ALEXANDER

Oh, thou cruel boy,

Thou wouldst with lust an old man's life destroy;

Because thou seest I'm half-way in my grave,

Thou shovel'st dust upon me: would thou mightest have

Thy wish, most wicked, most unnatural!

SIR DAVY

Why, sir, 'tis thought Sir Guy Fitzallard's daughter

Shall wed your son Sebastian.

SIR ALEXANDER

Sir Davy Dapper,

I have upon my knees woo'd this fond boy

To take that virtuous maiden.

SEBASTIAN

Hark you, a word, sir.

You on your knees have curs'd that virtuous maiden

And me for loving her, yet do you now

Thus baffle me to my face? [Wear] not your knees

In such entreats; give me Fitzallard's daughter.

SIR ALEXANDER

I'll give thee rats-bane rather!

SEBASTIAN

Well, then you know

What dish I mean to feed upon.

SIR ALEXANDER

Hark, gentlemen, he swears

To have this cutpurse drab to spite my gall.

OMNES

Master Sebastian!

SEBASTIAN

I am deaf to you all.

I'm so bewitch'd, so bound to my desires,

Tears, prayers, threats, nothing can quench out those fires

That burn within me.

Exit Sebastian.

SIR ALEXANDER

[Aside]

Her blood shall quench it then.--

Lose him not, oh, dissuade him, gentlemen!

SIR DAVY

He shall be wean'd, I warrant you.

SIR ALEXANDER

Before his eyes

Lay down his shame, my grief, his miseries.

OMNES

No more, no more, away!

Exeunt all but Sir Alexander.

SIR ALEXANDER

I wash a negro,

Losing both pains and cost; but take thy flight:

I'll be most near thee when I'm least in sight.

Wild buck, I'll hunt thee breathless; thou shalt run on,

But I will turn thee when I'm not thought upon.

Enter Ralph Trapdoor.

Now, sirrah, what are you? Leave your ape's tricks and speak!

TRAPDOOR

A letter from my captain to your worship.

SIR ALEXANDER

Oh, oh, now I remember: 'tis to prefer thee into my service.

TRAPDOOR

To be a shifter under your worship's nose of a clean trencher when there's a good bit upon't.

SIR ALEXANDER

Troth, honest fellow.

[Aside]

Humh, ha, let me see.

This knave shall be the axe to hew that down

At which I stumble; h'as a face that promiseth

Much of a villain. I will grind his wit,

And if the edge prove fine make use of it.--

Come hither, sirrah. Canst thou be secret, ha?

TRAPDOOR

As two crafty attorneys plotting the undoing of their clients.

SIR ALEXANDER

Didst never, as thou hast walk'd about this town,

Hear of a wench call'd Moll, mad, merry Moll?

TRAPDOOR

Moll Cutpurse, sir?

SIR ALEXANDER

The same. Dost thou know her then?

TRAPDOOR
As well as I know 'twill rain upon Simon and Jude's day next. I will sift all the taverns i' th' city and drink half-pots with all the watermen a' th' Bankside, but if you will, sir, I'll find her out.

SIR ALEXANDER

That task is easy; do 't then. Hold thy hand up.

What's this? Is't burnt?

TRAPDOOR

No, sir, no, a little sing'd with making fireworks.

SIR ALEXANDER

[Giving him money]

There's money, spend it; that being spent, fetch more.

TRAPDOOR

Oh, sir, that all the poor soldiers in England had such a leader! For fetching, no water-spaniel is like me.

SIR ALEXANDER

This wench we speak of strays so from her kind

Nature repents she made her. 'Tis a mermaid

Has toll'd my son to shipwreck.

TRAPDOOR

I'll cut her comb for you.

SIR ALEXANDER

I'll tell out gold for thee then; hunt her forth,

Cast out a line hung full of silver hooks

To catch her to thy company: deep spendings

May draw her that's most chaste to a man's bosom.

TRAPDOOR

The jingling of golden bells and a good fool with a hobbyhorse will draw all the whores i' th' town to dance in a morris.

SIR ALEXANDER

Or rather--for that's best, they say sometimes

She goes in breeches--follow her as her man.

TRAPDOOR

And when her breeches are off, she shall follow me.

SIR ALEXANDER

Beat all thy brains to serve her.

TRAPDOOR

Zounds, sir, as country wenches beat cream till butter comes.

SIR ALEXANDER

Play thou the subtle spider, weave fine nets

To ensnare her very life.

TRAPDOOR

Her life?

SIR ALEXANDER

Yes, suck

Her heart-blood if thou canst; twist thou but cords

To catch her, I'll find law to hang her up.

TRAPDOOR

Spoke like a worshipful bencher.

SIR ALEXANDER

Trace all her steps; at this she-fox's den

Watch what lambs enter: let me play the shepherd

To save their throats from bleeding and cut hers.

TRAPDOOR

This is the goll shall do't.

SIR ALEXANDER

Be firm and gain me

Ever thine own. This done, I entertain thee:

How is thy name?

TRAPDOOR

My name sir is Ralph Trapdoor, honest Ralph.

SIR ALEXANDER

Trapdoor, be like thy name, a dangerous step

For her to venture on, but unto me--

TRAPDOOR

As fast as your sole to your boot or shoe, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER

Hence then, be little seen here as thou canst.

I'll still be at thine elbow.

TRAPDOOR

The trapdoor's set.

Moll, if you budge y'are gone; this me shall crown:

A roaring boy the Roaring Girl puts down.

SIR ALEXANDER

God-a-mercy, lose no time.

Exeunt.

[II.i.] The three shops open in a rank

The first a pothecary's shop, the next a feather shop, the third a sempster's shop: Mistress Gallipot in the first, Mistress Tiltyard in the next, Master Openwork and his wife in the third. To them enters Laxton, Goshawk and Greenwit.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Gentlemen, what is't you lack? What is't you buy? See fine bands and ruffs, fine lawns, fine cambrics! What is't you lack, gentlemen, what is't you buy?

LAXTON
Yonder's the shop.

GOSHAWK
Is that she?

LAXTON
Peace.

GREENWIT
She that minces tobacco.

LAXTON
Ay, she's a gentlewoman born, I can tell you, tho' it be her hard fortune now to shred Indian pot-herbs.

GOSHAWK
Oh, sir, 'tis many a good woman's fortune, when her husband turns bankrout, to begin with pipes and set up again.

LAXTON
And indeed the raising of the woman is the lifting up of the man's head at all times: if one flourish, t'other will bud as fast, I warrant ye.

GOSHAWK
Come, th' art familiarly acquainted there, I grope that.

LAXTON
And you grope no better i' th' dark, you may chance lie i' th' ditch when y'are drunk.

GOSHAWK
Go, th' art a mystical lecher.

LAXTON
I will not deny but my credit may take up an ounce of pure smoke.

GOSHAWK
May take up an ell of pure smock. Away, go!

[Aside]

'Tis the closest striker. Life, I think he commits venery foot deep; no man's aware on't. I like a palpable smockster go to work so openly with the tricks of art that I'm as apparently seen as a naked boy in a vial, and were it not for a gift of treachery that I have in me to betray my friend when he puts most trust in me--mass, yonder he is too--and by his injury to make good my access to her, I should appear as defective in courting as a farmer's son the first day of his feather that doth nothing at court but woo the hangings and glass windows for a month together, and some broken waiting-woman forever after. I find those imperfections in my venery that were 't not for flattery and falsehood, I should want discourse and impudence, and he that wants impudence among women is worthy to be kick'd out at beds' feet. He shall not see me yet.

GREENWIT
Troth, this is finely shred.

LAXTON
Oh, women are the best mincers.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
'T had been a good phrase for a cook's wife, sir.

LAXTON
But 'twill serve generally, like the front of a new almanac, as thus: calculated for the meridian of cooks' wives, but generally for all Englishwomen.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Nay, you shall ha't, sir, I have fill'd it for you.

She puts it to the fire.

LAXTON
The pipe's in a good hand, and I wish mine always so.

GREENWIT
But not to be us'd a' that fashion.

LAXTON
Oh, pardon me, sir, I understand no French.

[Greenwit doffs his hat and bows.]

I pray be cover'd.

[Handing Goshawk a pipe]

Jack, a pipe of rich smoke.

GOSHAWK
Rich smoke? That's sixpence a pipe, is't?

GREENWIT
To me, sweet lady.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
[Aside to Laxton]

Be not forgetful: respect my credit, seem strange. Art and wit makes a fool of suspicion; pray be wary.

LAXTON
[Aside to Mistress Gallipot]

Push, I warrant you!--Come, how is't, gallants?

GREENWIT
Pure and excellent.

LAXTON
I thought 'twas good, you were grown so silent; you are like those that love not to talk at victuals, tho' they make a worse noise i' the nose than a common fiddler's prentice and discourse a whole supper with snuffling.

[Aside to Mistress Gallipot]

I must speak a word with you anon.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
[Aside to Laxton]

Make your way wisely then.

GOSHAWK
Oh, what else, sir? He's perfection itself, full of manners, but not an acre of ground belonging to ['im].

GREENWIT
Ay, and full of form: h'as ne'er a good stool in's chamber.

GOSHAWK
But above all religious: he preyeth daily upon elder brothers.

GREENWIT
And valiant above measure; h'as run three streets from a sergeant.

LAXTON
Puh, puh!

He blows tobacco in their faces.

GREENWIT, GOSHAWK

Oh, puh, ho, ho!

[They move away.]

LAXTON
So, so.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
What's the matter now, sir?

LAXTON
I protest I'm in extreme want of money: if you can supply me now with any means, you do me the greatest pleasure, next to the bounty of your love, as ever poor gentleman tasted.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
What's the sum would pleasure ye, sir? Tho' you deserve nothing less at my hands.

LAXTON
Why, 'tis but for want of opportunity, thou know'st.

[Aside]

I put her off with opportunity still. By this light, I hate her but for means to keep me in fashion with gallants, for what I take from her I spend upon other wenches. Bear her in hand still; she has wit enough to rob her husband, and I ways enough to consume the money.--[

Approaching Goshawk from behind and slapping him on the back

] Why, how now? What, the chincough?

GOSHAWK
Thou hast the cowardliest trick to come before a man's face and strangle him ere he be aware! I could find in my heart to make a quarrel in earnest.

LAXTON
Pox and thou dost--thou know'st I never use to fight with my friends--thou'll but lose thy labour in't.

Enter J[ack] Dapper and his man Gull.

Jack Dapper!

GREENWIT
Monsieur Dapper, I dive down to your ankles.

JACK
Save ye gentlemen, all three in a peculiar salute.

GOSHAWK
[Aside to Laxton]

He were ill to make a lawyer: he dispatches three at once.

LAXTON
So, well said.

[Mistress Gallipot secretly gives him money.]

But is this of the same tobacco, Mistress Gallipot?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
The same you had at first, sir.

LAXTON
I wish it no better: this will serve to drink at my chamber.

GOSHAWK
Shall we taste a pipe on't?

LAXTON
Not of this, by my troth, gentlemen; I have sworn before you.

GOSHAWK
What, not Jack Dapper?

LAXTON
Pardon me, sweet Jack, I'm sorry I made such a rash oath, but foolish oaths must stand. Where art going, Jack?

JACK
Faith, to buy one feather.

LAXTON
[Aside]

One feather? The fool's peculiar still.

JACK
Gull.

GULL
Master.

JACK
Here's three halfpence for your ordinary, boy; meet me an hour hence in Paul's.

GULL
How! Three single halfpence! Life, this will scarce serve a man in sauce, a hal'p'orth of mustard, a hal'p'orth of oil, and a hal'p'orth of vinegar. What's left then for the pickle herring? This shows like small beer i' th' morning after a great surfeit of wine o'ernight. He could spend his three pound last night in a supper amongst girls and brave bawdy-house boys; I thought his pockets cackl'd not for nothing. These are the eggs of three pound; I'll go sup 'em up presently.

Exit Gull.

LAXTON
[Aside, counting his money]

Eight, nine, ten angels. Good wench, i'faith, and one that loves darkness well: she puts out a candle with the best tricks of any drugster's wife in England; but that which mads her, I rail upon opportunity still and take no notice on't. The other night she would needs lead me into a room with a candle in her hand to show me a naked picture, where no sooner entered but the candle was sent of an arrant; now I not intending to understand her, but, like a puny at the inns of venery, call'd for another light innocently: thus reward I all her cunning with simple mistaking. I know she cozens her husband to keep me, and I'll keep her honest as long as I can to make the poor man some part of amends: an honest mind of a whoremaster!--How think you amongst you? What, a fresh pipe? Draw in a third man.

GOSHAWK
No, you're a hoarder; you engross by th' ounces.

At the feather shop now

JACK
Puh, I like it not.

[MISTRESS] TILTYARD
What feather is't you'ld have, sir?

These are most worn and most in fashion

Amongst the beaver gallants, the stone riders,

The private stage's audience, the twelvepenny-stool gentlemen:

I can inform you 'tis the general feather.

JACK
And therefore I mislike it; tell me of general!

Now a continual Simon and Jude's rain

Beat all your feathers as flat down as pancakes.

Show me a spangled feather.

MISTRESS TILTYARD
Oh, to go

A-feasting with? You'd have it for a [hench]-boy;

You shall.

At the sempster's shop now

OPENWORK
Mass, I had quite forgot

His honour's footman was here last night, wife.

Ha' you done with my lord's shirt?

MISTRESS OPENWORK
What's that to you, sir?

I was this morning at his honour's lodging

Ere such a [snail] as you crept out of your shell.

OPENWORK
Oh, 'twas well done, good wife!

MISTRESS OPENWORK
I hold it better, sir, than if you had done 't yourself.

OPENWORK
Nay, so say I. But is the countess's smock almost done, mouse?

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Here, yes, the cambric, sir, but wants, I fear me.

OPENWORK
I'll resolve you of that presently.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
[Hoyda]! Oh, audacious groom,

Dare you presume to noblewomen's linen?

Keep you your yard to measure shepherd's holland!

I must confine you, I see that.

At the tobacco shop now.

GOSHAWK
What say you to this gear?

LAXTON
I dare the arrant's[t] critic in tobacco

To lay one fault upon't.

Enter Moll in a frieze jerkin and a black safeguard.

GOSHAWK
Life, yonder's Moll!

LAXTON
Moll? Which Moll?

GOSHAWK
Honest Moll.

LAXTON
Prithee, let's call her. Moll!

[GOSHAWK, GREENWIT]
Moll, Moll, pist, Moll!

MOLL
How now, what's the matter?

GOSHAWK
A pipe of good tobacco, Moll?

MOLL
I cannot stay.

GOSHAWK
Nay, Moll, puh! Prithee hark, but one word, i'faith.

MOLL
Well, what is't?

GREENWIT
Prithee come hither, sirrah.

LAXTON
[Aside]

Heart, I would give but too much money to be nibbling with that wench! Life, sh'as the spirit of four great parishes, and a voice that will drown all the city; methinks a brave captain might get all his soldiers upon her and ne'er be beholding to a company of Mile End milksops, if he could come on and come off quick enough. Such a Moll were a marrow-bone before an Italian; he would cry bona roba till his ribs were nothing but bone. I'll lay hard siege to her; money is that

aqua fortis

that eats into many a maidenhead: where the walls are flesh and blood, I'll ever pierce through with a golden auger.

GOSHAWK
Now thy judgment, Moll: is't not good?

MOLL
Yes, faith, 'tis very good tobacco. How do you sell an ounce? Farewell. God b'i'you, Mistress Gallipot.

GOSHAWK
Why, Moll, Moll!

MOLL
I cannot stay now, i'faith. I am going to buy a shag ruff; the shop will be shut in presently.

GOSHAWK
'Tis the maddest, fantastical'st girl: I never knew so much flesh and so much nimbleness put together.

LAXTON
She slips from one company to another, like a fat eel between a Dutchman's fingers.

[Aside]

I'll watch my time for her.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Some will not stick to say she's a man

And some both man and woman.

LAXTON
That were excellent: she might first cuckold the husband and then make him do as much for the wife.

The feather shop again.

MOLL
Save you. How does Mistress Tiltyard?

JACK
Moll.

MOLL
Jack Dapper.

JACK
How dost, Moll?

MOLL
I'll tell thee by and by; I go but to th' next shop.

JACK
Thou shalt find me here this hour about a feather.

MOLL
Nay, and a feather hold you in play a whole hour, a goose will last you all the days of your life.

The sempster shop

Let me see a good shag ruff.

OPENWORK
Mistress Mary, that shalt thou i'faith, and the best in the shop.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
How now! Greetings? Love-terms with a pox between you! Have I found out one of your haunts? I send you for hollands, and you're i' th' low countries with a mischief. I'm serv'd with good ware by th' shift, that makes it lie dead so long upon my hands: I were as good shut up shop, for when I open it I take nothing.

OPENWORK
Nay, and you fall a-ringing once the devil cannot stop you. I'll out of the belfry as fast as I can. Moll.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Get you from my shop.

MOLL
I come to buy.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
I'll sell ye nothing; I warn ye my house and shop.

MOLL
You goody Openwork, you that prick out a poor living

And sews many a bawdy skin-coat together,

Thou private pandress between shirt and smock,

I wish thee for a minute but a man:

Thou shouldst never use more shapes. But as th' art

I pity my revenge: now my spleen's up,

I would not mock it willingly.

Enter a Fellow with a long rapier by his side.

Ha! Be thankful.

Now I forgive thee.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Marry, hang thee;

I never ask'd forgiveness in my life.

MOLL
You, goodman swine's-face!

FELLOW
What, will you murder me?

MOLL
You remember, slave, how you abus'd me t'other night in a tavern?

FELLOW
Not I, by this light.

MOLL
No, but by candlelight you did. You have tricks to save your oaths, reservations have you, and I have reserved somewhat for you.

[Strikes him.]

As you like that, call for more; you know the sign again.

FELLOW
Pox on't, had I brought any company along with me to have borne witness on't; 'twould ne'er have griev'd me; but to be struck and nobody by, 'tis my ill fortune still. Why, tread upon a worm, they say 'twill turn tail, but indeed a gentleman should have more manners.

Exit Fellow.

LAXTON
Gallantly performed, i'faith, Moll, and manfully! I love thee forever for't! Base rogue! Had he offer'd but the least counterbuff, by this hand I was prepared for him.

MOLL
You prepared for him! Why should you be prepared for him? Was he any more than a man?

LAXTON
No, nor so much by a yard and a handful London measure.

MOLL
Why do you speak this then? Do you think I cannot ride a stone horse unless one lead him by th' snaffle?

LAXTON
Yes, and sit him bravely; I know thou canst, Moll. 'Twas but an honest mistake through love, and I'll make amends for't any way. Prithee, sweet, plump Moll, when shall thou and I go out a' town together?

MOLL
Whither? To Tyburn prithee?

LAXTON
Mass, that's out a' town indeed; thou hang'st so many jests upon thy friends still. I mean honestly to Brainford, Staines or Ware.

MOLL
What to do there?

LAXTON
Nothing but be merry and lie together; I'll hire a coach with four horses.

MOLL
I thought 'twould be a beastly journey. You may leave out one well: three horses will serve if I play the jade myself.

LAXTON
Nay, push, th' art such another kicking wench! Prithee be kind and let's meet.

MOLL
'Tis hard but we shall meet, sir.

LAXTON
Nay, but appoint the place then.

[Giving her money]

There's ten angels in fair gold, Moll; you see I do not trifle with you. Do but say thou wilt meet me, and I'll have a coach ready for thee.

MOLL
Why, here's my hand I'll meet you, sir.

LAXTON
[Aside]

Oh, good gold!--The place, sweet Moll?

MOLL
It shall be your appointment.

LAXTON
Somewhat near Holborn, Moll.

MOLL
In Gray's Inn Fields then.

LAXTON
A match.

MOLL
I'll meet you there.

LAXTON
The hour?

MOLL
Three.

LAXTON
That will be time enough to sup at Brainford.

Fall from them to the other.

OPENWORK
I am of such a nature, sir, I cannot endure the house when she scolds. Sh' has a tongue will be [heard] further in a still morning than Saint Antling's bell. She rails upon me for foreign wenching, that I being a freeman must needs keep a whore i' th' suburbs, and seek to impoverish the liberties. When we fall out, I trouble you still to make all whole with my wife.

GOSHAWK
No trouble at all; 'tis a pleasure to me to join things together.

OPENWORK
Go thy ways.

[Aside]

I do this but to try thy honesty, Goshawk.

The feather shop

JACK
How lik'st thou this, Moll?

MOLL
Oh, singularly! You're fitted now for a bunch.

[Aside]

He looks for all the world with those spangled feathers like a nobleman's bedpost! The purity of your wench would I fain try; she seems like Kent, unconquered, and I believe as many wiles are in her. Oh, the gallants of these times are shallow lechers; they put not their courtship home enough to a wench. 'Tis impossible to know what woman is thoroughly honest, because she's ne'er thoroughly tried; I am of that certain belief there are more queans in this town of their own making than of any man's provoking. Where lies the slackness then? Many a poor soul would down, and there's nobody will push 'em:

Women are courted but ne'er soundly tried,

As many walk in spurs that never ride.

The sempster's shop.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Oh, abominable!

GOSHAWK
Nay, more: I tell you in private, he keeps a whore i' th' suburbs.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Oh, spital dealing! I came to him a gentlewoman born. I'll show you mine arms when you please, sir.

GOSHAWK
[Aside]

I had rather see your legs and begin that way.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
'Tis well known he took me from a lady's service, where I was well beloved of the steward; I had my Latin tongue and a spice of the French before I came to him, and now doth he keep a suburbian whore under my nostrils.

GOSHAWK
There's ways enough to cry quit with him; hark in thine ear.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
There's a friend worth a million.

MOLL
[Aside]

I'll try one spear against your chastity, Mistress Tiltyard, though it prove too short by the [burr].

Enter Ralph Trapdoor.

TRAPDOOR
[Aside]

Mass, here she is! I'm bound already to serve her, tho' it be but a sluttish trick.--Bless my hopeful young mistress with long life and great limbs! Send her the upper hand of all bailiffs and their hungry adherents!

MOLL
How now! What art thou?

TRAPDOOR
A poor, ebbing gentleman that would gladly wait for the young flood of your service.

MOLL
My service! What should move you to offer your service to me, sir?

TRAPDOOR
The love I bear to your heroic spirit and masculine womanhood.

MOLL
So, sir, put case we should retain you to us, what parts are there in you for a gentlewoman's service?

TRAPDOOR
Of two kinds, right worshipful, movable and immovable: movable to run of arrants, and immovable to stand when you have occasion to use me.

MOLL
What strength have you?

TRAPDOOR
Strength, Mistress Moll? I have gone up into a steeple and stayed the great bell as 't has been ringing, stopp'd a windmill going.

MOLL
And never struck down yourself?

TRAPDOOR
Stood as upright as I do at this present.

Molls trips up his heels; he falls.

MOLL
Come, I pardon you for this; it shall be no disgrace to you: I have struck up the heels of the high German's size ere now. What, not stand?

TRAPDOOR
I am of that nature where I love, I'll be at my mistress' foot to do her service.

MOLL
Why, well said. But say your mistress should receive injury: have you the spirit of fighting in you? Durst you second her?

TRAPDOOR
Life, I have kept a bridge myself and drove seven at a time before me.

MOLL
Ay?

TRAPDOOR

aside

But they were all Lincolnshire bullocks, by my troth.

MOLL
Well, meet me in Gray's Inn Fields between three and four this afternoon, and upon better consideration we'll retain you.

TRAPDOOR
I humbly thank your good mistress-ship.

[Aside]

I'll crack your neck for this kindness.

Exit Trapdoor. Moll meets Laxton.

LAXTON
Remember: three.

MOLL
Nay, if I fail you, hang me.

LAXTON
Good wench, i'faith.

Then Openwork

MOLL
Who's this?

OPENWORK
'Tis I, Moll.

MOLL
Prithee tend thy shop and prevent bastards.

OPENWORK
We'll have a pint of the same wine, i'faith, Moll.

[Exeunt Moll and Openwork.] The bell rings.

GOSHAWK
Hark the bell rings; come, gentlemen.

Jack Dapper, where shall's all munch?

JACK
I am for Parker's ordinary.

LAXTON
He's a good guest to 'm; he deserves his board:

He draws all the gentlemen in a term-time thither.

We'll be your followers, Jack, lead the way.

Look you, by my faith, the fool has feather'd his nest well.

Exeunt gallants [Laxton, Goshawk, Greenwit, Jack Dapper]. Enter Master Gallipot, Master Tiltyard, and servants with water-spaniels and a duck.

TILTYARD
Come, shut up your shops. Where's Master Openwork?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Nay, ask not me, Master Tiltyard.

TILTYARD
Where's his water-dog? Puh-pist-her-her-pist!

GALLIPOT
Come, wenches, come, we're going all to Hogsden.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
To Hogsden, husband?

GALLIPOT
Ay, to Hogsden, pigsney.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
I'm not ready, husband.

GALLIPOT
Faith, that's well. Hum-pist-pist!

Spits in the dog's mouth

.

Come, Mistress Openwork, you are so long.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
I have no joy of my life, Master Gallipot.

GALLIPOT
Push, let your boy lead his water-spaniel along and we'll show you the bravest sport at Parlous Pond. Hey Trug, hey Trug, hey Trug! Here's the best duck in England, except my wife.

Hey, hey, hey, fetch, fetch, fetch, come let's away;

Of all the year this is the sportfull'st day.

[II.ii. A street]

Enter Sebastian solus.

SEBASTIAN

If a man have a free will, where should the use

More perfect shine than in his will to love?

All creatures have their liberty in that,

Enter Sir Alexander and listens to him.

Tho' else kept under servile yoke and fear;

The very bondslave has his freedom there.

Amongst a world of creatures voic'd and silent

Must my desires wear fetters?

[Aside]

Yea, are you

So near? Then I must break with my heart's truth,

Meet grief at a back way; well.--Why, suppose

The two-leav'd tongues of slander or of truth

Pronounce Moll loathsome: if before my love

She appear fair, what injury have I?

I have the thing I like. In all things else

Mine own eye guides me, and I find 'em prosper.

Life, what should ail it now? I know that man

Ne'er truly loves, if he gainsay 't he lies,

That winks and marries with his father's eyes.

I'll keep mine own wide open.

Enter Moll and a Porter with a viol on his back.

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside]

Here's brave willfulness,

A made match. Here she comes; they met a' purpose.

PORTER
Must I carry this great fiddle to your chamber, Mistress Mary?

MOLL
Fiddle, goodman hog-rubber? Some of these porters bear so much for others they have no time to carry wit for themselves.

PORTER
To your own chamber, Mistress Mary?

MOLL
Who'll hear an ass speak? Whither else, goodman pageant-bearer? They're people of the worst memories.

Exit Porter.

SEBASTIAN
Why, 'twere too great a burthen, love, to have them carry things in their minds and a' their backs together.

MOLL
Pardon me, sir, I thought not you so near.

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside]

So, so, so.

SEBASTIAN
I would be nearer to thee, and in that fashion

That makes the best part of all creatures honest.

No otherwise I wish it.

MOLL
Sir, I am so poor to requite you, you must look for nothing but thanks of me. I have no humour to marry: I love to lie a' both sides a' th' bed myself; and again a' th' other side, a wife, you know, ought to be obedient, but I fear me I am too headstrong to obey, therefore I'll ne'er go about it. I love you so well, sir, for your good will I'd be loath you should repent your bargain after, and therefore we'll ne'er come together at first. I have the head now of myself and am man enough for a woman; marriage is but a chopping and changing, where a maiden loses one head and has a worse i' th' place.

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside]

The most comfortablest answer from a roaring girl

That ever mine ears drunk in.

SEBASTIAN
This were enough

Now to affright a fool forever from thee,

When 'tis the music that I love thee for.

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside]

There's a boy spoils all again.

MOLL
Believe it, sir, I am not of that disdainful temper, but I could love you faithfully.

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside]

A pox on you for that word! I like you not now:

Y'are a cunning roarer; I see that already.

MOLL
But sleep upon this once more, sir, you may chance shift a mind tomorrow. Be not too hasty to wrong yourself; never while you live, sir, take a wife running: many have run out at heels that have done 't. You see, sir, I speak against myself, and if every woman would deal with their suitor so honestly, poor younger brothers would not be so often gull'd with old cozening widows that turn o'er all their wealth in trust to some kinsman and make the poor gentleman work hard for a pension. Fare you well, sir.

SEBASTIAN
Nay, prithee, one word more.

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside]

How do I wrong this girl: she puts him off still!

MOLL
Think upon this in cold blood, sir: you make as much haste as if you were a-going upon a sturgeon voyage. Take deliberation, sir; never choose a wife as if you were going to Virginia.

SEBASTIAN
And so we parted, my too-cursed fate.

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside]

She is but cunning, gives him longer time in't.

Enter a Tailor.

TAILOR
Mistress Moll, Mistress Moll: so ho ho so ho!

MOLL
There boy, there boy! What, dost thou go a-hawking after me with a red clout on thy finger?

TAILOR
I forgot to take measure on you for your new breeches.

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside]

Hoyda! Breeches! What, will he marry a monster with two trinkets? What age is this? If the wife go in breeches, the man must wear long coats like a fool.

MOLL
What fiddling's here? Would not the old pattern have serv'd your turn?

TAILOR
You change the fashion; you say you'll have the great Dutch slop, Mistress Mary.

MOLL
Why, sir, I say so still.

TAILOR
Your breeches then will take up a yard more.

MOLL
Well, pray look it be put in then.

TAILOR
It shall stand round and full, I warrant you,

MOLL
Pray make 'em easy enough.

TAILOR
I know my fault now: t'other was somewhat stiff between the legs; I'll make these open enough, I warrant you.

SIR ALEXANDER
[Aside]

Here's good gear towards! I have brought up my son to marry a Dutch slop and a French doublet, a codpiece-daughter!

TAILOR
So, I have gone as far as I can go.

MOLL
Why then, farewell.

TAILOR
If you go presently to your chamber, Mistress Mary, pray send me the measure of your thigh by some honest body.

MOLL
Well, sir, I'll send it by a porter presently.

Exit Moll.

TAILOR
So you had need: it is a lusty one; both of them would make any porter's back ache in England.

Exit Tailor.

SEBASTIAN

I have examined the best part of man,

Reason and judgment, and in love they tell me

They leave me uncontroll'd: he that is sway'd

By an unfeeling blood past heat of love,

His springtime must needs err; his watch ne'er goes right

That sets his dial by a rusty clock.

SIR ALEXANDER

[Coming forward]

So, and which is that rusty clock, sir? You?

SEBASTIAN

The clock at Ludgate, sir; it ne'er goes true.

SIR ALEXANDER

But thou goest falser: not thy father's cares

Can keep thee right. When that insensible work

Obeys the workman's art, lets off the hour

And stops again when time is satisfied;

But thou runn'st on, and judgment, thy main wheel,

Beats by all stops, as if the work would break

Begun with long pains for a minute's ruin,

Much like a suffering man brought up with care

At last bequeath'd to shame and a short prayer.

SEBASTIAN

I taste you bitterer than I can deserve, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER

Who has bewitch['d] thee, son? What devil or drug

Hath wrought upon the weakness of thy blood

And betray'd all her hopes to ruinous folly?

Oh, wake from drowsy and enchanted shame,

Wherein thy soul sits with a golden dream,

Flatter'd and poisoned! I am old, my son;

Oh, let me prevail quickly,

For I have weightier business of mine own

Than to chide thee: I must not to my grave

As a drunkard to his bed, whereon he lies

Only to sleep and never cares to rise.

Let me dispatch in time; come no more near her.

SEBASTIAN

Not honestly? Not in the way of marriage?

SIR ALEXANDER

What, sayst thou marriage? In what place, the sessions-house? And who shall give the bride, prithee, an indictment?

SEBASTIAN

Sir, now ye take part with the world to wrong her.

SIR ALEXANDER

Why, wouldst thou fain marry to be pointed at?

Alas, the number's great; do not o'erburden 't.

Why, as good marry a beacon on a hill,

Which all the country fix their eyes upon

As her thy folly dotes on. If thou long'st

To have the story of thy infamous fortunes,

Serve for discourse in ordinaries and taverns,

Th' art in the way; or to confound thy name,

Keep on, thou canst not miss it; or to strike

Thy wretched father to untimely coldness,

Keep the left hand still, it will bring thee to't.

Yet if no tears wrung from thy father's eyes,

Nor sighs that fly in sparkles from his sorrows,

Had power to alter what is willful in thee,

Methinks her very name should fright thee from her

And never trouble me.

SEBASTIAN

Why is the name of Moll so fatal, sir?

SIR ALEXANDER

[Marry], one, sir, where suspect is ent'red,

For seek all London from one end to t'other

More whores of that name than of any ten other.

SEBASTIAN

What's that to her? Let those blush for themselves.

Can any guilt in others condemn her?

I've vow'd to love her: let all storms oppose me

That ever beat against the breast of man,

Nothing but death's black tempest shall divide us.

SIR ALEXANDER

Oh, folly that can dote on nought but shame!

SEBASTIAN

Put case a wanton itch runs through one name

More than another: is that name the worse

Where honesty sits possess'd in't? It should rather

Appear more excellent and deserve more praise

When through foul mists a brightness it can raise.

Why, there are of the devil's honest gentlemen,

And well descended, keep an open house,

And some a' th' good man's that are arrant knaves.

He hates unworthily that by rote contemns,

For the name neither saves nor yet condemns.

And for her honesty, I have made such proof an't

In several forms, so nearly watch'd her ways,

I will maintain that strict against an army,

Excepting you my father. Here's her worst:

Sh' has a bold spirit that mingles with mankind,

But nothing else comes near it, and oftentimes

Through her apparel somewhat shames her birth,

But she is loose in nothing but in mirth.

Would all Molls were no worse.

SIR ALEXANDER

[Aside]

This way I toil in vain and give but aim

To infamy and ruin. He will fall;

My blessing cannot stay him: all my joys

Stand at the brink of a devouring flood

And will be willfully swallowed, willfully,

But why so vain? Let all these tears be lost:

I'll pursue her to shame, and so all's cross'd.

Exit Sir Alexander.

SEBASTIAN

He is gone with some strange purpose, whose effect

Will hurt me little if he shoot so wide,

To think I love so blindly. I but feed

His heart to this match to draw on th' other,

Wherein my joy sits with a full wish crown'd,

Only his mood excepted, which must change

By opposite policies, courses indirect:

Plain dealing in this world takes no effect.

This mad girl I'll acquaint with my intent,

Get her assistance, make my fortunes known:

'Twixt lovers' hearts, she's a fit instrument

And has the art to help them to their own

By her advice, for in that craft she's wise:

My love and I may meet, spite of all spies.

Exit Sebastian.

[III.i. Gray's Inn Fields]

Enter Laxton in Gray's Inn Fields with the Coachman.

LAXTON
Coachman.

COACHMAN
Here sir.

LAXTON
[Giving him money]

There's a tester more. Prithee drive thy coach to the hither end of Marybone Park, a fit place for Moll to get in.

COACHMAN
Marybone Park, sir?

LAXTON
Ay, it's in our way, thou know'st.

COACHMAN
It shall be done, sir.

LAXTON
Coachman.

COACHMAN
Anon, sir.

LAXTON
Are we fitted with good [frampold] jades?

COACHMAN
The best in Smithfield, I warrant you, sir.

LAXTON
May we safely take the upper hand of any [couch'd] velvet cap or tufftaffety jacket? For they keep a vild swaggering in coaches nowadays; the highways are stopp'd with them.

COACHMAN
My life for yours and baffle 'em too, sir. Why, they are the same jades, believe it, sir, that have drawn all your famous whores to Ware.

LAXTON
Nay then, they know their business; they need no more instructions.

COACHMAN
They're so us'd to such journeys, sir, I never use whip to 'em, for if they catch but the scent of a wench once, they run like devils.

Exit Coachman with his whip.

LAXTON
Fine Cerberus: that rogue will have the start of a thousand ones, for whilst others trot afoot, he'll ride prancing to hell upon a coach-horse. Stay, 'tis now about the hour of her appointment, but yet I see her not.

The clock strikes three.

Hark, what's this? One, two, three, three by the clock at Savoy: this is the hour, and Gray's Inn Fields the place. She swore she'd meet me. Ha, yonder's two Inns a' Court men with one wench, but that's not she; they walk toward Islington out of my way. I see none yet dress'd like her: I must look for a shag ruff, a frieze jerkin, a short sword, and safeguard, or I get none. Why, Moll, prithee make haste or the coachman will curse us anon.

Enter Moll like a man.

MOLL
[Aside]

Oh, here's my gentleman: if they would keep their days as well with their mercers as their hours with their harlots, no bankrout would give seven score pound for a sergeant's place, for would you know a catchpole rightly deriv'd, the corruption of a citizen is the generation of a sergeant! How his eye hawks for venery!--Come, are you ready, sir?

LAXTON
Ready for what, sir?

MOLL
Do you ask that now, sir? Why was this meeting 'pointed?

LAXTON
I thought you mistook me, sir.

You seem to be some young barrister.

I have no suit in law; all my land's sold:

I praise heaven for't; 't has rid me of much trouble.

MOLL
Then I must wake you, sir. Where stands the coach?

LAXTON
Who's this? Moll? Honest Moll?

MOLL
So young and purblind? You're an old wanton in your eyes, I see that.

LAXTON
Th' art admirably suited for the Three Pigeons at Brainford; I'll swear I knew thee not.

MOLL
I'll swear you did not, but you shall know me now.

LAXTON
No, not here, we shall be spied, i'faith; the coach is better, come.

MOLL
Stay.

LAXTON
What, wilt thou untruss a point, Moll?

She puts off her cloak and draws.

MOLL
Yes, here's the point that I untruss: 't has but one tag; 'twill serve tho' to tie up a rogue's tongue.

LAXTON
How!

MOLL
There's the gold with which you hir'd your hackney.

[Attacking him]

Here's her pace;

She racks hard, and perhaps your bones will feel it!

Ten angels of mine own I've put to thine;

Win 'em and wear 'em!

LAXTON
Hold, Moll, Mistress Mary!

MOLL
Draw or I'll serve an execution on thee

Shall lay thee up till doomsday!

LAXTON
Draw upon a woman? Why, what dost mean, Moll?

MOLL

To teach thy base thoughts manners: th' art one of those

That thinks each woman thy fond, flexible whore

If she but cast a liberal eye upon thee;

Turn back her head, she's thine, or amongst company,

By chance drink first to thee. Then she's quite gone;

There's no means to help her, nay, for a need,

Wilt swear unto thy credulous fellow lechers

That th' art more in favour with a lady

At first sight than her monkey all her lifetime.

How many of our sex by such as thou

Have their good thoughts paid with a blasted name

That never deserved loosely, or did trip

In path of whoredom beyond cup and lip?

But for the stain of conscience and of soul,

Better had women fall into the hands

Of an act silent than a bragging nothing.

There's no mercy in't. What durst move you, sir,

To think me whorish, a name which I'd tear out

From the high German's throat if it lay ledger there

To dispatch privy slanders against me?

In thee I defy all men, their worst hates

And their best flatteries, all their golden witchcrafts

With which they entangle the poor spirits of fools,

Distressed needlewomen, and trade-fall'n wives.

Fish that must needs bite or themselves be bitten,

Such hungry things as these may soon be took

With a worm fast'ned on a golden hook:

Those are the lecher's food, his prey; he watches

For quarrelling wedlocks, and poor shifting sisters:

'Tis the best fish he takes. But why, good fisherman,

Am I thought meat for you, that never yet

Had angling rod cast towards me? 'Cause, you'll say,

I'm given to sport, I'm often merry, jest.

Had mirth no kindred in the world but lust?

Oh, shame take all her friends then! But howe'er

Thou and the baser world censure my life,

I'll send 'em word by thee, and write so much

Upon thy breast, 'cause thou shalt bear 't in mind:

Tell them 'twere base to yield where I have conquer'd.

I scorn to prostitute myself to a man,

I that can prostitute a man to me:

And so I greet thee.

LAXTON

Hear me!

MOLL

Would the spirits

Of all my [slanderers] were clasp'd in thine

That I might vex an army at one time!

They fight.

LAXTON
I do repent me! Hold!

MOLL
You'll die the better Christian then.

LAXTON
I do confess I have wrong'd thee, Moll.

MOLL
Confession is but poor amends for wrong,

Unless a rope would follow.

LAXTON
I ask thee pardon.

MOLL
I'm your hir'd whore, sir.

LAXTON
I yield both purse and body!

MOLL
Both are mine and now at my disposing.

LAXTON
Spare my life!

MOLL
I scorn to strike thee basely.

LAXTON
Spoke like a noble girl, i'faith!

[Aside]

Heart, I think I fight with a familiar or the ghost of a fencer! Sh' has wounded me gallantly. Call you this a lecherous [voyage]? Here's blood would have serv'd me this seven year in broken heads and cut fingers, and it now runs all out together. Pox a' the Three Pigeons! I would the coach were here now to carry me to the chirurgeon's.

Exit Laxton.

MOLL

If I could meet my enemies one by one thus,

I might make pretty shift with 'em in time

And make 'em know she that has wit and spirit

May scorn to live beholding to her body for meat

Or for apparel like your common dame

That makes shame get her clothes to cover shame.

Base is that mind that kneels unto her body,

As if a husband stood in awe on's wife:

My spirit shall be mistress of this house

As long as I have time in'l.

Enter Trapdoor.

[Aside]
Oh,

Here comes my man that would be: 'tis his hour.

Faith, a good well-set fellow, if his spirit

Be answerable to his umbles. He walks stiff,

But whether he will stand to't stiffly, there's the point;

H'as a good calf for't, and ye shall have many a woman

Choose him she means to [make] her head by his calf.

I do not know their tricks in't. Faith, he seems

A man without; I'll try what he is within.

TRAPDOOR
[Aside]

She told me Gray's Inn Fields 'twixt three and four.

I'll fit her mistress-ship with a piece of service!

I'm hir'd to rid the town of one mad girl.

She justles him.

What a pox ails you, sir?

MOLL
[Aside]

He begins like a gentleman.

TRAPDOOR
Heart, is the field so narrow, or your eyesight?

She comes towards him.

Life, he comes back again!

MOLL
Was this spoke to me, sir?

TRAPDOOR
I cannot tell, sir.

MOLL
Go, y'are a coxcomb!

TRAPDOOR
Coxcomb?

MOLL
Y'are a slave!

TRAPDOOR
I hope there's law for you, sir.

MOLL
[Yea], do you see, sir?

Turn his hat.

TRAPDOOR
Heart, this is no good dealing!

Pray let me know what house you're of.

MOLL
One of the Temple, sir.

Fillips him.

TRAPDOOR
Mass, so methinks!

MOLL
And yet sometime I lie

About Chick Lane.

TRAPDOOR
I like you the worse

Because you shift your lodging so often.

I'll not meddle with you for that trick, sir.

MOLL
A good shift, but it shall not serve your turn.

TRAPDOOR
You'll give me leave to pass about my business, sir?

MOLL
Your business?

I'll make you wait on me before I ha' done,

And glad to serve me too.

TRAPDOOR
How, sir! Serve you?

Not if there were no more men in England!

MOLL
But if there were no more women in England,

I hope you'd wait upon your mistress then.

TRAPDOOR
Mistress!

MOLL
Oh, you're a tried spirit at a push, sir!

TRAPDOOR
What would your worship have me do?

MOLL
You a fighter?

TRAPDOOR
No, I praise heaven; I had better grace and more manners.

MOLL
As how I pray, sir?

TRAPDOOR
Life, 't had been a beastly part of me to have drawn my weapons upon my mistress! All the world would 'a' cried shame of me for that.

MOLL
Why, but you knew me not.

TRAPDOOR
Do not say so, mistress; I knew you by your wide straddle, as well as if I had been in your belly.

MOLL
Well, we shall try you further; i' th' mean time we give you entertainment.

TRAPDOOR
Thank your good mistress-ship.

MOLL
How many suits have you?

TRAPDOOR
No more suits than backs, mistress.

MOLL
Well, if you deserve, I cast off this next week,

And you may creep into't.

TRAPDOOR
Thank your good worship.

MOLL
Come, follow me to St. Thomas Apostle's;

I'll put a livery cloak upon your back

The first thing I do.

TRAPDOOR
I follow, my dear mistress.

Exeunt omnes.

[III.ii. Gallipot's house]

Enter Mistress Gallipot as from supper, her husband after her.

GALLIPOT
What, Pru! Nay, sweet Prudence!

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
What a pruing keep you; I think the baby would have a teat, it kyes so. Pray be not so fond of me: leave your city humours; I'm vex'd at you to see how like a calf you come bleating after me.

GALLIPOT
Nay, honey Pru. How does your rising up before all the table show? And flinging from my friends so uncivilly? Fie, Pru, fie, come!

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Then up and ride, i'faith.

GALLIPOT
Up and ride? Nay, my pretty Pru, that's far from my thought, duck. Why, mouse, thy mind is nibbling at something. What is't? What lies upon thy stomach?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Such an ass as you. Hoyda, y'are best turn midwife or physician! Y'are a pothecary already, but I'm none of your drugs.

GALLIPOT
Thou art a sweet drug, sweet'st Pru, and the more thou art pounded, the more precious.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Must you be prying into a woman's secrets, say ye?

GALLIPOT
Woman's secrets?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
What, I cannot have a qualm come upon me but your teeth waters till your nose hang over it.

GALLIPOT
It is my love, dear wife.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Your love? Your love is all words; give me deeds: I cannot abide a man that's too fond over me, so cookish; thou dost not know how to handle a woman in her kind.

GALLIPOT
No, Pru? Why, I hope I have handled--

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Handle a fool's head of your own, fie, fie!

GALLIPOT
Ha, ha, 'tis such a wasp! It does me good now to have her [sting] me, little rogue.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Now fie, how you vex me! I cannot abide these [apron] husbands, such cotqueans: you overdo your things; they become you scurvily.

GALLIPOT
[Aside]

Upon my life, she breeds! Heaven knows how I have strain'd myself to please her, night and day. I wonder why we citizens should get children so fretful and untoward in the breeding, their fathers being for the most part as gentle as milch-kine.--Shall I leave thee, my Pru?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Fie, fie, fie.

GALLIPOT
Thou shalt not be vex'd no more, pretty kind rogue: take no cold, sweet Pru.

Exit Gallipot.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
As your wit has done.

[Taking out a letter]

Now, Master Laxton, show your head. What news from you? Would any husband suspect that a woman crying, "Buy any scurvygrass" should bring love letters amongst her herbs to his wife? Pretty trick, fine conveyance! Had jealousy a thousand eyes, a silly woman with scurvygrass blinds them all.

Laxton, with bays

Crown I thy wit for this: it deserves praise.

This makes me affect thee more; this proves thee wise.

'Lack what poor shift is love forc'd to devise?

To th' point:

She reads the letter.

‘"Oh, sweet creature,"--a sweet beginning--"pardon my long absence, for thou shalt shortly be possessed with my presence. Though Demophon was false to Phyllis, I will be to thee as Pan-da-rus was to Cres-sida; tho' Aeneas made an ass of Dido, I will die to thee ere I do so. Oh, sweet'st creature, make much of me, for no man beneath the silver moon shall make more of a woman than I do of thee. Furnish me therefore with thirty pounds; you must do it of necessity for me: I languish till I see some comfort come from thee, protesting not to die in thy debt, but rather to live so, as hitherto I have and will. Thy true Laxton ever."’

Alas, poor gentleman! Troth, I pity him.

How shall I raise this money? Thirty pound?

'Tis thirty sure, a 3 before an O;

I know his threes too well. My childbed linen?

Shall I pawn that for him? Then if my mark

Be known, I am undone; it may be thought

My husband's bankrout. Which way shall I turn?

Laxton, what with my own fears and thy wants,

I'm as a needle 'twixt two adamants.

Enter Master Gallipot hastily.

GALLIPOT
Nay, nay, wife, the women are all up!

[Aside]

Ha! How, reading a' letters? I smell a goose, a couple of capons, and a gammon of bacon from her mother out of the country, I hold my life.--Steal, steal!

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh, beshrew your heart!

GALLIPOT
What letter's that?

I'll see't.

She tears the letter.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh, would thou hadst no eyes to see

The downfall of me and thyself: I'm forever,

Forever I'm undone!

GALLIPOT
What ails my Pru?

What paper's that thou tear'st?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Would I could tear

My very heart in pieces, for my soul

Lies on the rack of shame that tortures me

Beyond a woman's suffering.

GALLIPOT

What means this?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Had you no other vengeance to throw down

But even in height of all my joys--

GALLIPOT

Dear woman!

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

When the full sea of pleasure and content

Seem'd to flow over me--

GALLIPOT

As thou desirest to keep

Me out of bedlam, tell what troubles thee?

Is not thy child at nurse fall'n sick, or dead?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Oh, no!

GALLIPOT

Heavens bless me! Are my barns and houses

Yonder at Hockley Hole consum'd with fire?

I can build more, sweet Pru.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

'Tis worse, 'tis worse.

GALLIPOT

My factor broke, or is the Jonas sunk?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Would all we had were swallowed in the waves,

Rather than both should be the scorn of slaves.

GALLIPOT

I'm at my wits' end!

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Oh, my dear husband,

Where once I thought myself a fixed star

Plac'd only in the heaven of thine arms,

I fear now I shall prove a wanderer.

Oh, Laxton, Laxton, is it then my fate

To be by thee o'erthrown?

GALLIPOT

Defend me, wisdom,

From falling into frenzy! On my knees,

Sweet Pru, speak: what's that Laxton who so heavy

Lies on thy bosom?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

I shall sure run mad!

GALLIPOT

I shall run mad for company then. Speak to me:

I'm Gallipot thy husband. Pru, why, Pru!

Art sick in conscience for some villainous deed

Thou wert about to act? Didst mean to rob me?

Tush, I forgive thee! Hast thou on my bed

Thrust my soft pillow under another's head?

I'll wink at all faults, Pru; 'las, that's no more

Than what some neighbours near thee have done before.

Sweet honey Pru, what's that Laxton?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Oh!

GALLIPOT

Out with him!

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Oh, he's born to be my undoer!

This hand which thou call'st thine to him was given;

To him was I made sure i' th' sight of heaven.

GALLIPOT

I never heard this thunder.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Yes, yes, before

I was to thee contracted, to him I swore,

Since last I saw him twelve months three times told

The moon hath drawn through her light silver bow,

For o'er the seas he went, and it was said,

But rumour lies, that he in France was dead.

But he's alive, oh, he's alive! He sent

That letter to me, which in rage I rent,

Swearing with oaths most damnably to have me,

Or tear me from this bosom. Oh, heavens save me!

GALLIPOT

My heart will break! Sham'd and undone forever!

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

So black a day poor wretch went o'er thee never.

GALLIPOT

If thou shouldst wrastle with him at the law,

Th' art sure to fall: no odd sleight, no prevention.

I'll tell him th' art with child.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Umh.

GALLIPOT

Or give out

One of my men was ta'en a-bed with thee.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Umh, umh.

GALLIPOT

Before I lose thee, my dear Pru,

I'll drive it to that push.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Worse, and worse still:

You embrace a mischief to prevent an ill.

GALLIPOT

I'll buy thee of him, stop his mouth with gold.

Think'st thou twill do?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Oh me, heavens grant it would!

Yet now my senses are set more in tune,

He writ, as I remember in his letter,

That he in riding up and down had spent

Ere he could find me thirty pounds: send that;

Stand not on thirty with him.

GALLIPOT

Forty, Pru;

Say thou the word 'tis done. We venture lives

For wealth, but must do more to keep our wives.

Thirty or forty, Pru?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Thirty, good sweet;

Of an ill bargain let's save what we can.

I'll pay it him with my tears: he was a man

When first I knew him of a meek spirit;

All goodness is not yet dried up, I hope.

GALLIPOT

He shall have thirty pound; let that stop all:

Love's sweets taste best when we have drunk down gall.

Enter Master Tiltyard and his wife, Master Goshawk, and Mistress Openwork.

God-so, our friends! Come, come, smooth your cheek;

After a storm the face of heaven looks sleek.

TILTYARD
Did I not tell you these turtles were together?

MISTRESS TILTYARD
How dost thou, sirrah? Why, sister Gallipot!

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Lord, how she's chang'd!

GOSHAWK
Is your wife ill, sir?

GALLIPOT
Yes, indeed la, sir, very ill, very ill, never worse!

MISTRESS TILTYARD
How her head burns! Feel how her pulses work.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Sister, lie down a little; that always does me good.

MISTRESS TILTYARD
In good sadness, I find best ease in that too.

Has she laid some hot thing to her stomach?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
No, but I will lay something anon.

TILTYARD
Come, come, fools, you trouble her. Shall's go, Master Goshawk?

GOSHAWK
Yes, sweet Master Tiltyard.

[Taking Mistress Openwork aside]

Sirrah Rosamond, I hold my life Gallipot hath vex'd his wife.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
She has a horrible high colour indeed.

GOSHAWK
We shall have your face painted with the same red soon at night when your husband comes from his rubbers in a false alley; thou wilt not believe me that his bowls run with a wrong bias.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
It cannot sink into me that he feeds upon stale mutton abroad, having better and fresher at home.

GOSHAWK
What if I bring thee where thou shalt see him stand at rack and manger?

MISTRESS OPENWORK
I'll saddle him in's kind and spur him till he kick again.

GOSHAWK
Shall thou and I ride our journey then?

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Here's my hand.

GOSHAWK
No more.--Come, Master Tiltyard, shall we leap into the stirrups with our women and amble home?

TILTYARD
Yes, yes; come, wife.

MISTRESS TILTYARD
In troth, sister, I hope you will do well for all this.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
I hope I shall. Farewell, good sister, sweet Master Goshawk.

GALLIPOT
Welcome, brother, most kindly welcome, sir.

OMNES
Thanks, sir, for our good cheer.

Exeunt all but Gallipot and his wife.

GALLIPOT
It shall be so, because a crafty knave

Shall not outreach me nor walk by my door

With my wife arm in arm, as 'twere his whore,

I'll give him a golden coxcomb, thirty pound.

Tush, Pru, what's thirty pound? Sweet duck, look cheerly.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Thou art worthy of my heart: thou buy'st it dearly.

Enter Laxton muffled.

LAXTON
'Ud's light, the tide's against me! A pox of your pothecaryship! Oh, for some glister to set him going! 'Tis one of Hercules' labours to tread one of these city hens because their cocks are still crowing over them; there's no turning tail here, I must on.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh, husband, see, he comes!

GALLIPOT
Let me deal with him.

LAXTON
Bless you, sir.

GALLIPOT
Be you bless'd too, sir, if you come in peace.

LAXTON
Have you any good pudding tobacco, sir?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh, pick no quarrels, gentle sir! My husband

Is not a man of weapon as you are;

He knows all: I have op'ned all before him

Concerning you.

LAXTON
Zounds, has she shown my letters!

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Suppose my case were yours, what would you do

At such a pinch, such batteries, such assaults

Of father, mother, kindred, to dissolve

The knot you tied, and to be bound to him?

How could you shift this storm off?

LAXTON

If I know, hang me.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Besides a story of your death was read

Each minute to me.

LAXTON

[Aside]

What a pox means this riddling?

GALLIPOT

Be wise, sir; let not you and I be toss'd

On lawyers' pens: they have sharp nibs and draw

Men's very heart-blood from them. What need you, sir,

To beat the drum of my wife's infamy,

And call your friends together, sir, to prove

Your [precontract] when sh' has confess'd it?

LAXTON

Umh, sir,

Has she confess'd it?

GALLIPOT

Sh' has, faith, to me, sir,

Upon your letter sending.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

I have, I have.

LAXTON

[Aside]

If I let this iron cool, call me slave.--

Do you hear, you dame Prudence? Think'st thou, vile woman,

I'll take these blows and wink?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Upon my knees--

LAXTON

Out, impudence!

GALLIPOT

Good sir--

LAXTON

You goatish slaves,

No wild fowl to cut up but mine?

GALLIPOT

Alas, sir,

You make her flesh to tremble; fright her not.

She shall do reason and what's fit.

LAXTON

I'll have thee,

Wert thou more common than an hospital

And more diseased.

GALLIPOT

But one word, good sir.

LAXTON

So, sir?

GALLIPOT

I married her, have [lain] with her, and got

Two children on her body; think but on that.

Have you so beggarly an appetite,

When I upon a dainty dish have fed,

To dine upon my scraps, my leavings? Ha, sir?

Do I come near you [now], sir?

LAXTON

Be-Lady, you touch me.

GALLIPOT

Would not you scorn to wear my clothes, sir?

LAXTON

Right, sir.

GALLIPOT

Then pray, sir, wear not her, for she's a garment

So fitting for my body, I'm loath

Another should put it on; you will undo both.

Your letter, as she said, complain'd you had spent

In quest of her some thirty pound: I'll pay it.

Shall that, sir, stop this gap up 'twixt you two?

LAXTON

Well, if I swallow this wrong, let her thank you;

The money being paid, sir, I am gone.

Farewell, oh women! Happy's he trusts none.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Dispatch him hence, sweet husband.

GALLIPOT

Yes, dear wife.

Pray, sir, come in. Ere Master Laxton part

Thou shalt in wine drink to him.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

With all my heart.

[Aside to Laxton]

How dost thou like my wit?

LAXTON

[Aside to Mistress Gallipot]

Rarely!

Exit Master Gallipot and his wife.

That wile

By which the serpent did the first woman beguile

Did ever since all women's bosoms fill;

Y'are apple-eaters all, deceivers still.

Exit Laxton.

[III.iii. Holborn Street]

Enter Sir Alexander Wengrave, Sir Davy Dapper, Sir Adam Appleton at one door, and Trapdoor at another door.

SIR ALEXANDER

Out with your tale, Sir Davy, to Sir Adam;

A knave is in mine eye deep in my debt.

SIR DAVY

Nay, if he be a knave, sir, hold him fast.

[Sir Alexander takes Trapdoor aside.]

SIR ALEXANDER

Speak softly. What egg is there hatching now?

TRAPDOOR

A duck's egg, sir, a duck that has eaten a frog; I have crack'd the shell and some villainy or other will peep out presently. The duck that sits is the bouncing ramp, that roaring girl my mistress, the drake that must tread is your son Sebastian.

SIR ALEXANDER

Be quick.

TRAPDOOR

As the tongue of an oyster-wench.

SIR ALEXANDER

And see thy news be true.

TRAPDOOR

As a barber's every Saturday night. Mad Moll--

SIR ALEXANDER

Ah.

TRAPDOOR

Must be let in without knocking at your back gate.

SIR ALEXANDER

So.

TRAPDOOR

Your chamber will be made bawdy.

SIR ALEXANDER

Good.

TRAPDOOR

She comes in a shirt of mail.

SIR ALEXANDER

How shirt of mail?

TRAPDOOR

Yes, sir, or a male shirt, that's to say in man's apparel.

SIR ALEXANDER

To my son?

TRAPDOOR

Close to your son: your son and her moon will be in conjunction, if all almanacs lie not. Her black safeguard is turn'd into a deep slop, the holes of her upper body to button holes, her waistcoat to a doublet, her placket to the ancient seat of a codpiece, and you shall take 'em both with standing collars.

SIR ALEXANDER

Art sure of this?

TRAPDOOR

As every throng is sure of a pickpocket, as sure as a whore is of the clients all Michaelmas Term, and of the pox after the term.

SIR ALEXANDER

The time of their tilting?

TRAPDOOR

Three.

SIR ALEXANDER

The day?

TRAPDOOR

This.

SIR ALEXANDER

Away, ply it, watch her.

TRAPDOOR

As the devil doth for the death of a bawd, I'll watch her; do you catch her.

SIR ALEXANDER

She's fast: here weave thou the nets. Hark--

TRAPDOOR

They are made.

SIR ALEXANDER

I told them thou didst owe me money; hold it up, maintain 't.

TRAPDOOR

Stiffly, as a puritan does contention.

[Loudly]

[Pox], I owe thee not the value of a halfpenny halter!

SIR ALEXANDER

Thou shalt be hang'd in't ere thou scape so! Varlet, I'll make thee look through a grate.

TRAPDOOR

I'll do't presently, through a tavern grate. Drawer! Pish!

Exit Trapdoor.

SIR ADAM

Has the knave vex'd you, sir?

SIR ALEXANDER

Ask'd him my money;

He swears my son receiv'd it. Oh, that boy

Will ne'er leave heaping sorrows on my heart

Till he has broke it quite.

SIR ADAM

Is he still wild?

SIR ALEXANDER

As is a Russian bear.

SIR ADAM

But he has left

His old haunt with that baggage?

SIR ALEXANDER

Worse still and worse:

He lays on me his shame, I on him my curse.

SIR DAVY

My son Jack Dapper then shall run with him,

All in one pasture.

SIR ADAM

Proves your son bad too, sir?

SIR DAVY

As villainy can make him. Your Sebastian

Dotes but on one drab, mine on a thousand,

A noise of fiddlers, tobacco, wine and a whore,

A mercer that will let him take up more,

Dice, and a water-spaniel with a duck: oh,

Bring him a-bed with these! When his purse jingles,

Roaring boys follow at's tale, fencers and ningles,

Beasts Adam ne'er gave name to: these horse-leeches suck

My son; he being drawn dry, they all live on smoke.

SIR ALEXANDER

Tobacco?

SIR DAVY

Right, but I have in my brain

A windmill going that shall grind to dust

The follies of my son, and make him wise

Or a stark fool; pray lend me your advise.

[SIR ALEXANDER, SIR ADAM]

That shall you, good Sir Davy.

SIR DAVY

Here's the springe

I ha' set to catch this woodcock in: an action

In a false name, unknown to him, is ent'red

I' th' counter to arrest Jack Dapper.

[SIR ALEXANDER, SIR ADAM]

Ha, ha, he!

SIR DAVY

Think you the counter cannot break him?

SIR ADAM

Break him?

Yes, and break's heart too if he lie there long.

SIR DAVY

I'll make him sing a countertenor sure.

SIR ADAM

No way to tame him like it; there he shall learn

What money is indeed, and how to spend it.

SIR DAVY

He's bridled there.

SIR ALEXANDER

Ay, yet knows not how to mend it.

Bedlam cures not more madmen in a year

Than one of the counters does; men pay more dear

There for their wit than anywhere; a counter:

Why, 'tis an university! Who not sees?

As scholars there, so here men take degrees

And follow the same studies all alike.

Scholars learn first logic and rhetoric.

So does a prisoner: with fine honey'd speech

At's first coming in he doth persuade, beseech,

He may be lodg'd with one that is not itchy,

To lie in a clean chamber, in sheets not lousy;

But when he has no money, then does he try

By subtle logic and quaint sophistry

To make the keepers trust him.

SIR ADAM

Say they do?

SIR ALEXANDER

Then he's a graduate.

SIR DAVY

Say they trust him not?

SIR ALEXANDER

Then is he held a freshman and a sot,

And never shall commence, but being still barr'd

Be expuls'd from the master's side to th' twopenny ward,

Or else i' th' hole be plac'd.

SIR ADAM

When then I pray

Proceeds a prisoner?

SIR ALEXANDER

When money being the aim

He can dispute with his hard creditors' hearts

And get out clear, he's then a Master of Arts.

Sir Davy, send your son to Wood Street College:

A gentleman can nowhere get more knowledge.

SIR DAVY

There gallants study hard.

SIR ALEXANDER

True, to get money.

SIR DAVY

Lies by th' heels, i'faith; thanks, thanks. I ha' sent

For a couple of bears shall paw him.

Enter Sergeant Curtilax and Yeoman Hanger.

SIR ADAM

Who comes yonder?

SIR DAVY

They look like puttocks; these should be they.

SIR ALEXANDER

I know 'em;

They are officers, sir. We'll leave you.

SIR DAVY

My good knights.

Leave me; you see I'm haunted now with spirits.

[SIR ALEXANDER, SIR ADAM]

Fare you well, sir.

Exeunt [Sir] Alexander and [Sir] Adam.

CURTILAX

[Aside to Hanger]

This old muzzle-chops should be he by the fellow's description.--Save you, sir.

SIR DAVY

Come hither, you mad varlets. Did not my man tell you I watch'd here for you?

CURTILAX

One in a blue coat, sir, told us that in this place an old gentleman would watch for us, a thing contrary to our oath, for we are to watch for every wicked member in a city.

SIR DAVY

You'll watch then for ten thousand. What's thy name, honesty?

CURTILAX

Sergeant Curtilax I, sir.

SIR DAVY

An excellent name for a sergeant, Curtilax.

Sergeants indeed are weapons of the law

When prodigal ruffians far in debt are grown:

Should not you cut them, citizens were o'erthrown.

Thou dwell'st hereby in Holborn, Curtilax?

CURTILAX

That's my circuit, sir; I conjure most in that circle.

SIR DAVY

And what young toward whelp is this?

HANGER

Of the same litter: his yeoman, sir; my name's Hanger.

SIR DAVY

Yeoman Hanger.

One pair of shears sure cut out both your coats:

You have two names most dangerous to men's throats;

You two are villainous loads on gentlemen's backs.

Dear ware, this Hanger and this Curtilax.

CURTILAX
We are as other men are, sir. I cannot see but he who makes a show of honesty and religion, if his claws can fasten to his liking, he draws blood. All that live in the world are but great fish and little fish, and feed upon one another: some eat up whole men; a sergeant cares but for the shoulder of a man. They call us knaves and curs, but many times he that sets us on worries more lambs one year than we do in seven.

SIR DAVY
Spoke like a noble Cerberus. Is the action ent'red?

HANGER
His name is ent'red in the book of unbelievers.

SIR DAVY
What book's that?

CURTILAX
The book where all prisoners' names stand, and not one amongst forty when he comes in believes to come out in haste.

SIR DAVY
Be as dogged to him as your office allows you to be.

[CURTILAX, HANGER]
Oh, sir!

SIR DAVY
You know the unthrift Jack Dapper?

CURTILAX
Ay, ay, sir. That gull? As well as I know my yeoman.

SIR DAVY
And you know his father too, Sir Davy Dapper?

CURTILAX
As damn'd a usurer as ever was among Jews; if he were sure his father's skin would yield him any money, he would when he dies [flay] it off, and sell it to cover drums for children at Bartholomew Fair.

SIR DAVY
[Aside]

What toads are these to spit poison on a man to his face!--Do you see, my honest rascals? Yonder greyhound is the dog he hunts with: out of that tavern Jack Dapper will sally. Sa, sa; give the counter, on, set upon him.

[CURTILAX, HANGER]
We'll charge him upo' th' back, sir.

SIR DAVY
Take no bail, put mace enough into his caudle, double your files, traverse your ground.

[CURTILAX, HANGER]
Brave, sir.

SIR DAVY
Cry arm, arm, arm.

[CURTILAX, HANGER]
Thus, sir.

SIR DAVY
There boy, there boy, away: look to your prey, my true English wolves, and so I vanish.

Exit Sir Davy.

CURTILAX
Some warden of the sergeants begat this old fellow, upon my life! Stand close.

HANGER
Shall the ambuscado lie in one place?

CURTILAX
No, [nook] thou yonder.

Enter Moll and Trapdoor.

MOLL
Ralph.

TRAPDOOR
What says my brave captain male and female?

MOLL
This Holborn is such a wrangling street.

TRAPDOOR
That's because lawyers walks to and fro in't.

MOLL
Here's such justling, as if everyone we met were drunk and reel'd.

TRAPDOOR
Stand, mistress: do you not smell carrion?

MOLL
Carrion? No, yet I spy ravens.

TRAPDOOR
Some poor wind-shaken gallant will anon fall into sore labour, and these men-midwives must bring him to bed i' the counter: there all those that are great with child with debts lie in.

MOLL
Stand up.

TRAPDOOR
Like your new maypole.

HANGER
Whist, whew.

CURTILAX
Hump, no.

MOLL
Peeping? It shall go hard, huntsmen, but I'll spoil your game. They look for all the world like two infected maltmen coming muffled up in their cloaks in a frosty morning to London.

TRAPDOOR
A course, captain; a bear comes to the stake.

Enter Jack Dapper and Gull.

MOLL
It should be so, for the dogs struggle to be let loose.

HANGER
Whew.

CURTILAX
Hemp.

MOLL
Hark, Trapdoor, follow your leader.

JACK
Gull.

GULL
Master.

JACK
Didst ever see such an ass as I am, boy?

GULL
No, by my troth, sir. To lose all your money, yet have false dice of your own! Why, 'tis as I saw a great fellow used t'other day: he had a fair sword and buckler, and yet a butcher dry-beat him with a cudgel.

[MOLL]
Honest sergeant--

[TRAPDOOR]
Fly, fly, Master Dapper: you'll be arrested else!

JACK
Run, Gull, and draw!

GULL
Run, master, Gull follows you!

[Exeunt Jack] Dapper and Gull.

CURTILAX
I know you well enough: you're but a whore to hang upon any man.

MOLL
Whores then are like sergeants, so now hang you! [

To Trapdoor

] Draw, rogue, but strike not: for a broken pate they'll keep their beds and recover twenty marks damages.

CURTILAX
You shall pay for this rescue!

[To Hanger]

Run down Shoe Lane and meet him.

[Exeunt Curtilax and Hanger.]

TRAPDOOR
Shoo! Is this a rescue, gentlemen, or no?

MOLL

Rescue? A pox on 'em! Trapdoor, let's away;

I'm glad I have done perfect one good work today.

If any gentleman be in scriveners' bands,

Send but for Moll, she'll bail him by these hands.

Exeunt.

[IV.i. Sir Alexander's chamber]

Enter Sir Alexander Wengrave solus.

SIR ALEXANDER

Unhappy in the follies of a son,

Led against judgment, sense, obedience,

And all the powers of nobleness and wit:

Oh, wretched father!

Enter Trapdoor.

Now, Trapdoor, will she come?

TRAPDOOR

In man's apparel, sir; I am in her heart now

And share in all her secrets.

SIR ALEXANDER

Peace, peace, peace.

Here, take my German watch; hang 't up in sight

That I may see her hang in English for't.

TRAPDOOR

I warrant you for that now; next sessions rids her, sir: this watch will bring her in better than a hundred constables.

SIR ALEXANDER

Good Trapdoor, sayst thou so? Thou cheer'st my heart

After a storm of sorrow. My gold chain too:

Here, take a hundred marks in yellow links.

TRAPDOOR

That will do well to bring the watch to light, sir,

And worth a thousand of your headboroughs' lanthorns.

SIR ALEXANDER

Place that a' the court cupboard, let it lie

Full in the view of her thief-whorish eye.

TRAPDOOR

She cannot miss it, sir; I see't so plain

That I could steal 't myself.

SIR ALEXANDER

Perhaps thou shalt too,

That or something as weighty; what she leaves,

Thou shalt come closely in and filch away,

And all the weight upon her back I'll lay.

TRAPDOOR

You cannot assure that, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER

No, what lets it?

TRAPDOOR

Being a stout girl, perhaps she'll desire pressing,

Then all the weight must lie upon her belly.

SIR ALEXANDER

Belly or back I care not so I've one.

TRAPDOOR

You're of my mind for that, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER

Hang up my ruff band with the diamond at it;

It may be she'll like that best.

TRAPDOOR

[Aside] It's well for her that she must have her choice; he thinks nothing too good for her.--If you hold on this mind a little longer, it shall be the first work I do to turn thief myself; would do a man good to be hang'd when he is so well provided for.

SIR ALEXANDER

So, well said; all hangs well, would she hung so too:

The sight would please me more than all their [glisterings].

Oh, that my mysteries to such straits should run

That I must rob myself to bless my son!

Exeunt. Enter Sebastian, with Mary Fitzallard like a page, and Moll [in man's clothing].

SEBASTIAN

Thou hast done me a kind office, without touch

Either of sin or shame; our loves are honest.

MOLL

I'd scorn to make such shift to bring you together else.

SEBASTIAN

Now have I time and opportunity

Without all fear to bid thee welcome, love.

Kiss.

MARY

Never with more desire and harder venture.

MOLL

How strange this shows, one man to kiss another.

SEBASTIAN

I'd kiss such men to choose, Moll;

Methinks a woman's lip tastes well in a doublet.

MOLL

Many an old madam has the better fortune then,

Whose breaths grew stale before the fashion came;

If that will help 'em, as you think 'twill do,

They'll learn in time to pluck on the hose too.

SEBASTIAN

The older they wax, Moll--troth, I speak seriously--

As some have a conceit their drink tastes better

In an outlandish cup than in our own,

So methinks every kiss she gives me now

In this strange form is worth a pair of two.

Here we are safe and furthest from the eye

Of all suspicion: this is my [father's] chamber,

Upon which floor he never steps till night;

Here he mistrusts me not, nor I his coming.

At mine own chamber he still pries unto me;

My freedom is not there at mine own finding,

Still check'd and curb'd: here he shall miss his purpose.

MOLL

And what's your business now you have your mind, sir?

At your great suit I promis'd you to come;

I pitied her for name's sake, that a Moll

Should be so cross'd in love when there's so many

That owes nine lays apiece, and not so little.

My tailor fitted her. How like you his work?

SEBASTIAN

So well no art can mend it for this purpose,

But to thy wit and help we're chief in debt

And must live still beholding.

MOLL

Any honest pity

I'm willing to bestow upon poor ring-doves.

SEBASTIAN

I'll offer no worse play.

MOLL

Nay, and you should, sir;

I should draw first and prove the quicker man.

SEBASTIAN

Hold, there shall need no weapon at this meeting;

But 'cause thou shalt not loose thy fury idle,

Here take this viol, run upon the guts,

And end thy quarrel singing.

MOLL

Like a swan above bridge,

For look you here's the bridge, and here am I.

SEBASTIAN

Hold on, sweet Moll.

MARY

I've heard her much commended, sir, for one that was ne'er taught.

MOLL

I'm much beholding to 'em. Well, since you'll needs put us together, sir, I'll play my part as well as I can; it shall ne'er be said I came into a gentleman's chamber and let his instrument hang by the walls.

SEBASTIAN

Why, well said, Moll! I'faith, it had been a shame for that gentleman then that would have let it hung still and ne'er off'red thee it.

MOLL

There it should have been still then for Moll, for though the world judge impudently of me, I ne'er came into that chamber yet where I took down the instrument myself.

SEBASTIAN

Pish, let 'em prate abroad; th' art here where thou art known and lov'd. There be a thousand close dames that will call the viol an unmannerly instrument for a woman and therefore talk broadly of thee, when you shall have them sit wider to a worse quality.

MOLL

Push, I ever fall asleep and think not of 'em, sir, and thus I dream.

SEBASTIAN

Prithee let's hear thy dream, Moll.

The song.

MOLL.

I dream there is a mistress,

And she lays out the money;

She goes unto her sisters,

She never comes at any.

Enter Sir Alexander behind them.

She says she went to th' Burse for patterns;

You shall find her at Saint Kathern's,

And comes home with never a penny

SEBASTIAN

That's a free mistress, faith.

SIR ALEXANDER

[Aside]

Ay, ay, ay, like her that sings it, one of thine own choosing.

MOLL

But shall I dream again?

Here comes a wench will brave ye,

Her courage was so great:

She lay with one o' the navy,

Her husband lying i' the Fleet,

Yet oft with him she cavill'd.

I wonder what she ails.

Her husband's ship lay gravell'd,

When hers could hoise up sails;

Yet she began like all my foes

To call whore first, for so do those:

A pox of all false tails!

SEBASTIAN

Marry, amen say I.

SIR ALEXANDER

[Aside]

So say I too.

MOLL

Hang up the viol now, sir: all this while I was in a dream; one shall lie rudely then, but being awake, I keep my legs together. A watch: what's a' clock here?

SIR ALEXANDER

[Aside]

Now, now, she's trapp'd.

MOLL

Between one and two; nay, then I care not. A watch and a musician are cousin-germans in one thing: they must both keep time well, or there's no goodness in 'em; the one else deserves to be dash'd against a wall, and t'other to have his brains knock'd out with a fiddle case. What? A loose chain and a dangling diamond.

Here were a brave booty for an evening-thief now;

There's many a younger brother would be glad

To look twice in at a window for't,

And wriggle in and out, like an eel in a sandbag.

Oh, if men's secret youthful faults should judge 'em,

'Twould be the general'st execution

That e'er was seen in England;

There would be but few left to sing the ballets.

There would be so much work: most of our brokers

Would be chosen for hangmen, a good day for them;

They might renew their wardropes of free cost then.

SEBASTIAN

This is the roaring wench must do us good.

MARY

No poison, sir, but serves us for some use,

Which is confirm'd in her.

SEBASTIAN

Peace, peace!

Foot, I did hear him sure, where'er he be!

MOLL

Who did you hear?

SEBASTIAN

My father.

'Twas like a sight of his; I must be wary.

SIR ALEXANDER

[Aside]

No, wilt not be. Am I alone so wretched

That nothing takes? I'll put him to his plunge for't.

SEBASTIAN

Life, here he comes!

[To Moll, giving her money]

Sir, I beseech you take it;

Your way of teaching does so much content me,

I'll make it four pound. Here's forty shillings, sir.

I think I name it right.

[Aside to her]

Help me, good Moll.--

Forty in hand.

MOLL

Sir, you shall pardon me;

I have more of the mean'st scholar I can teach.

This pays me more than you have off'red yet.

SEBASTIAN

At the next quarter

When I receive the means my father 'lows me,

You shall have t'other forty.

SIR ALEXANDER

[Aside]

This were well now,

Were 't to a man whose sorrows had blind eyes,

But mine behold his follies and untruths

With two clear glasses.--How now?

SEBASTIAN

Sir.

SIR ALEXANDER

What's he there?

SEBASTIAN

You're come in good time, sir: I've a suit to you;

I'd crave your present kindness.

SIR ALEXANDER

What is he there?

SEBASTIAN

A gentleman, a musician, sir, one of excellent fing'ring.

SIR ALEXANDER

[Aside]

Ay, I think so; I wonder how they scap'd her.

SEBASTIAN

H'as the most delicate stroke, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER

[Aside]

A stroke indeed: I feel it at my heart.

SEBASTIAN

Puts down all your famous musicians.

SIR ALEXANDER

[Aside]

Ay, a whore may put down a hundred of 'em.

SEBASTIAN

Forty shillings is the agreement, sir, between us.

Now, sir, my present means mounts but to half on't.

SIR ALEXANDER

And he stands upon the whole.

SEBASTIAN

Ay, indeed does he, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER

[Aside]

And will do still; he'll ne'er be in other tale.

SEBASTIAN

Therefore I'd stop his mouth, sir, and I could.

SIR ALEXANDER

Hum, true, there is no other way indeed.

[Aside]

His folly hardens; shame must needs succeed.--

Now, sir, I understand you profess music.

MOLL

I am a poor servant to that liberal science, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER

Where is it you teach?

MOLL

Right against Clifford's Inn.

SIR ALEXANDER

Hum, that's a fit place for it. You have many scholars?

MOLL

And some of worth whom I may call my masters.

SIR ALEXANDER

[Aside]

Ay, true, a company of whoremasters.--

You teach to sing too?

MOLL

Marry, do I, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER

I think you'll find an apt scholar of my son,

Especially for prick-song.

MOLL

I have much hope of him.

SIR ALEXANDER

[Aside]

I am sorry for't; I have the less for that.--

You can play any lesson?

MOLL

At first sight, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER

There's a thing called "The Witch." Can you play that?

MOLL

I would be sorry anyone should mend me in't.

SIR ALEXANDER

[Aside]

Ay, I believe thee: thou hast so bewitch'd my son,

No care will mend the work that thou hast done.

I have bethought myself, since my art fails,

I'll make her policy the art to trap her.

Here are four angels mark'd with holes in them,

Fit for his crack'd companions; gold he will give her:

These will I make induction to her ruin

And rid shame from my house, grief from my heart.--

Here, son, in what you take content and pleasure,

Want shall not curb you.

[Giving him money]

Pay the gentleman

His latter half in gold.

SEBASTIAN

I thank you, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER

[Aside]

Oh, may the operation an't end three:

In her, life, shame in him, and grief in me.

Exit [Sir] Alexander.

SEBASTIAN

Faith, thou shalt have 'em: 'tis my father's gift.

Never was man beguil'd with better shift.

MOLL

He that can take me for a male musician,

I cannot choose but make him my instrument

And play upon him.

Exeunt omnes.

[IV.ii. Openwork's house]

Enter Mistress Gallipot and Mistress Openwork.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Is then that bird of yours, Master Goshawk, so wild?

MISTRESS OPENWORK
A goshawk, a puttock: all for prey; he angles for fish, but he loves flesh better.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Is't possible his smooth face should have wrinkles in't and we not see them?

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Possible! Why, have not many handsome legs in silk stockings villainous splay feet for all their great roses?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Troth, sirrah, thou sayst true.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Didst never see an archer as thou 'ast walk'd by Bunhill look a-squint when he drew his bow?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Yes, when his arrows have fline toward Islington, his eyes have shot clean contrary towards Pimlico.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
For all the world so does Master Goshawk double with me.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Oh, fie upon him! If he double once, he's not for me.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Because Goshawk goes in a shag-ruff band, with a face sticking up in't which shows like an agate set in a cramp-ring, he thinks I'm in love with him.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
'Las, I think he takes his mark amiss in thee.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
He has by often beating into me made me believe that my husband kept a whore.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Very good.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Swore to me that my husband this very morning went in a boat with a tilt over it to the Three Pigeons at Brainford, and his punk with him under his tilt.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
That were wholesome.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
I believ'd it, fell a-swearing at him, cursing of harlots, made me ready to hoise up sail, and be there as soon as he.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
So, so.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
And for that voyage Goshawk comes hither incontinently. But, sirrah, this water-spaniel dives after no duck but me; his hope is having me at Brainford to make me cry quack.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Art sure of it?

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Sure of it! My poor innocent Openwork came in as I was poking my ruff; presently hit I him i' the teeth with the Three Pigeons: he forswore all, I up and opened all, and now stands he in a shop hard by like a musket on a rest, to hit Goshawk i' the eye when he comes to fetch me to the boat.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Such another lame gelding offered to carry me through thick and thin--Laxton, sirrah--but I am rid of him now.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Happy is the woman can be rid of 'em all. 'Las, what are your whisking gallants to our husbands, weigh 'em rightly man for man?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Troth, mere shallow things.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Idle simple things, running heads, and yet let 'em run over us never so fast, we shopkeepers, when all's done, are sure to have 'em in our purse-nets at length, and when they are in, Lord, what simple animals they are!

[MISTRESS GALLIPOT]
[...]

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Then they hang the head.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Then they droop.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Then they write letters.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Then they cog.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Then they deal underhand with us, and we must ingle with our husbands a-bed, and we must swear they are our cousins, and able to do us a pleasure at court.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
And yet when we have done our best, all's but put into a riven dish: we are but frump'd at and libell'd upon.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Oh, if it were the good Lord's will, there were a law made no citizen should trust any of 'em at all!

Enter Goshawk.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
[Aside to Mistress Openwork]

Hush, sirrah, Goshawk flutters.

GOSHAWK
How now, are you ready?

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Nay, are you ready? A little thing, you see, makes us ready.

GOSHAWK
Us? Why, must she make one i' the voyage?

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Oh, by any means. Do I know how my husband will handle me?

GOSHAWK
[Aside]

Foot, how shall I find water to keep these two mills going?--Well, since you'll needs be clapp'd under hatches, if I sail not with you both till all split, hang me up at the mainyard and duck me.

[Aside]

It's but liquoring them both soundly, and then you shall see their cork heels fly up high, like two swans when their tails are above water and their long necks under water, diving to catch gudgeons.--Come, come, oars stand ready, the tide's with us: on with those false faces. Blow winds and thou shalt take thy husband casting out his net to catch fresh salmon at Brainford.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
I believe you'll eat of a cod's head of your own dressing before you reach half way thither.

[The women don masks.]

GOSHAWK
So, so, follow close; pin as you go.

Enter Laxton muffled.

LAXTON
Do you hear?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Yes, I thank my ears.

LAXTON
I must have a bout with your pothecaryship.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
At what weapon?

LAXTON
I must speak with you.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
No.

LAXTON
No? You shall.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
Shall? Away, sous'd sturgeon, half fish, half flesh!

LAXTON
Faith, gib, are you spitting? I'll cut your tail, pusscat, for this.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
'Las, poor Laxton, I think thy tail's cut already. Your worst!

LAXTON
If I do not--

Exit Laxton.

GOSHAWK
Come, ha' you done?

Enter Master Openwork.

[Aside to her]

'Sfoot, Rosamond, your husband!

OPENWORK
How now? Sweet Master Goshawk, none more welcome;

I have wanted your embracements: when friends meet,

The music of the spheres sounds not more sweet

Than does their conference. Who is this? Rosamond?

Wife? How now, sister?

GOSHAWK
[Aside to Mistress Openwork]

Silence if you love me.

OPENWORK
Why mask'd?

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Does a mask grieve you, sir?

OPENWORK
It does.

MISTRESS OPENWORK
Then y'are best get you a-mumming.

GOSHAWK
[Aside to her]

'Sfoot, you'll spoil all!

MISTRESS GALLIPOT
May not we cover our bare faces with masks

As well as you cover your bald heads with hats?

OPENWORK

No masks. Why, th' are thieves to beauty, that rob eyes

Of admiration in which true love lies.

Why are masks worn? Why good, or why desired,

Unless by their gay covers wits are fired

To read the vild'st looks? Many bad faces,

Because rich gems are treasured up in cases,

Pass by their privilege current, but as caves

Dam misers' gold, so masks are beauty's graves.

Men ne'er meet women with such muffled eyes

But they curse her that first did masks devise,

And swear it was some beldam. Come, off with 't.

MISTRESS OPENWORK

I will not.

OPENWORK

Good faces mask'd are jewels kept by [sprites].

Hide none but bad ones, for they poison men's sights:

Show [them] as shopkeepers do their broid'red stuff,

By owl-light; fine wares cannot be open enough.

Prithee, sweet Rose, come strike this sail.

MISTRESS OPENWORK

Sail?

OPENWORK

Ha?

Yes, wife, strike sail, for storms are in thine eyes.

MISTRESS OPENWORK

Th' are here, sir, in my brows if any rise.

OPENWORK

Ha, brows? What says she, friend? Pray tell me why

Your two flags were advanc'd. The comedy,

Come, what's the comedy?

MISTRESS [GALLIPOT]

Westward Ho!

OPENWORK

How?

MISTRESS OPENWORK

'Tis Westward Ho she says.

GOSHAWK

Are you both mad?

MISTRESS OPENWORK

Is't market day at Brainford, and your ware

Not sent up yet?

OPENWORK

What market day? What ware?

MISTRESS OPENWORK

A pie with three pigeons in't; 'tis drawn and stays

Your cutting up.

GOSHAWK

[Aside to her

] As you regard my credit--

OPENWORK

Art mad?

MISTRESS OPENWORK

Yes, lecherous goat, baboon!

OPENWORK

Baboon? Then toss

Me in a blanket.

MISTRESS OPENWORK

Do I it well?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Rarely.

GOSHAWK

Belike, sir, she's not well; best leave her.

OPENWORK

No,

I'll stand the storm now how fierce so e'er it blow.

MISTRESS OPENWORK

Did I for this lose all my friends? Refuse

Rich hopes and golden fortunes to be made

A stale to a common whore?

OPENWORK

This does amaze me!

MISTRESS OPENWORK

Oh God, oh God, feed at reversion now?

A strumpet's leaving?

OPENWORK

Rosamond--

GOSHAWK

[Aside]

I sweat!

Would I lay in Cold Harbour!

MISTRESS OPENWORK

Thou hast struck ten thousand daggers through my heart!

OPENWORK

Not I, by heaven, sweet wife.

MISTRESS OPENWORK

Go, devil, go;

That which thou swear'st by damns thee.

GOSHAWK

[Aside to her]

'Sheart, will you undo me?

MISTRESS OPENWORK

Why stay you here? The star by which you sail

Shines yonder above Chelsea; you lose your shore

If this moon light you: seek out your light whore.

OPENWORK

Ha?

MISTRESS [OPENWORK]

Push! Your western [pug]--

GOSHAWK

[Aside]

Zounds, now hell roars!

MISTRESS OPENWORK

With whom you tilted in a pair of oars

This very morning.

OPENWORK

Oars?

MISTRESS OPENWORK

At Brainford, sir.

OPENWORK

Rack not my patience. Master Goshawk,

Some slave has buzzed this into her, has he not?

I run atilt in Brainford with a woman?

'Tis a lie!

What old bawd tells thee this? 'Sdeath, 'tis a lie!

MISTRESS OPENWORK

'Tis one to thy face shall justify all that I speak.

OPENWORK

'Ud's soul, do but name that rascal!

MISTRESS OPENWORK

No, sir, I will not.

GOSHAWK

[Aside]

Keep thee there girl, then!

OPENWORK

Sister, know you this varlet?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Yes.

OPENWORK

Swear true:

Is there a rogue so low damn'd? A second Judas?

A common hangman? Cutting a man's throat?

Does it to his face? Bite me behind my back?

A cur dog? Swear if you know this hell-hound!

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

In truth I do.

OPENWORK

His name?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Not for the world,

To have you to stab him.

GOSHAWK

[Aside]

Oh, brave girls: worth gold!

OPENWORK

A word, honest Master Goshawk.

Draw out his sword.

GOSHAWK

What do you mean, sir?

OPENWORK

Keep off, and if the devil can give a name

To this new fury, holla it through my ear,

Or wrap it up in some hid character.

I'll ride to Oxford and watch out mine eyes,

But I'll hear the brazen head speak; or else

Show me but one hair of his head or beard,

That I may sample it. If the fiend I meet

In mine own house, I'll kill him, [in] the street,

Or at the church door: there, 'cause he seeks to untie

The knot God fastens, he deserves to die.

MISTRESS OPENWORK

My husband titles him.

OPENWORK

Master Goshawk, pray, sir,

Swear to me that you know him or know him not.

Who makes me at Brainford to take up a petticoat

Beside my wife's?

GOSHAWK

By heaven that man I know not!

MISTRESS OPENWORK

Come, come, you lie.

GOSHAWK

[Aside to her]

Will you not have all out?

By heaven I know no man beneath the moon

Should do you wrong, but if I had his name,

I'd print it in text letters.

MISTRESS OPENWORK

Print thine own then:

Didst not thou swear to me he kept his whore?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

And that in sinful Brainford they would commit

That which our lips did water at, sir, ha?

MISTRESS OPENWORK

Thou spider, that hast woven thy cunning web

In mine own house t' ensnare me! Hast not thou

Suck'd nourishment even underneath this roof

And turn'd it all to poison? Spitting it

On thy friend's face, my husband, he as 'twere sleeping?

Only to leave him ugly to mine eyes

That they might glance on thee?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Speak: are these lies?

GOSHAWK

Mine own shame me confounds.

OPENWORK

No more; he's stung.

Who'd think that in one body there could dwell

Deformity and beauty, heaven and hell?

Goodness I see is but outside: we all set

In rings of gold stones that be [counterfeit].

I thought you none.

GOSHAWK

Pardon me.

OPENWORK

Truth, I do.

This blemish grows in nature not in you,

For man's creation stick[s] even moles in scorn

On fairest cheeks. Wife, nothing is perfect born.

MISTRESS OPENWORK

I thought you had been born perfect.

OPENWORK

What's this whole world but a gilt, rotten pill?

For at the heart lies the old chore still.

I'll tell you, Master Goshawk, in your eye

I have seen wanton fire, and then to try

The soundness of my judgment, I told you

I kept a whore, made you believe 'twas true,

Only to feel how your pulse beat, but find

The world can hardly yield a perfect friend.

Come, come, a trick of youth, and 'tis forgiven;

This rub put by, our love shall run more even.

MISTRESS OPENWORK

You'll deal upon men's wives no more?

GOSHAWK

No, you teach me

A trick for that.

MISTRESS OPENWORK

Troth, do not, they'll o'erreach thee.

OPENWORK

Make my house yours, sir, still.

GOSHAWK

No.

OPENWORK

I say you shall:

Seeing thus besieg'd it holds out, 'twill never fall.

Enter Master Gallipot, and Greenwit like a sumner, Laxton muffled aloof off.

OMNES

How now?

GALLIPOT

With me, sir?

GREENWIT

You, sir. I have gone snaffling up and down by your door this hour to watch for you.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

What's the matter, husband?

GREENWIT

I have caught a cold in my head, sir, by sitting up late in the Rose Tavern, but I hope you understand my speech.

GALLIPOT

So, sir.

GREENWIT

I cite you by the name of Hippocrates Gallipot, and you by the name of Prudence Gallipot, to appear upon

Crastino

, do you see,
Crastino sancti Dunstani
this Easter Term in Bow Church.

GALLIPOT

Where sir? What says he?

GREENWIT

Bow, Bow Church, to answer to a libel of precontract on the part and behalf of the said Prudence and another. Y'are best, sir, take a copy of the citation; 'tis but twelvepence.

OMNES

A citation?

GALLIPOT

You pocky-nosed rascal, what slave fees you to this?

LAXTON

Slave? I ha' nothing to do with you, do you hear, sir?

GOSHAWK

Laxton, is't not? What fagary is this?

GALLIPOT

Trust me, I thought, sir, this storm long ago

Had been full laid when, if you be rememb'red,

I paid you the last fifteen pound, besides

The thirty you had first, for then you swore.

LAXTON

Tush, tush, sir, oaths!

Truth, yet I'm loath to vex you, tell you what:

Make up the money I had an hundred pound

And take your belly full of her.

GALLIPOT

An hundred pound?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

What, a hundred pound? He gets none: what, a hundred pound!

GALLIPOT

Sweet Pru, be calm, the gentleman offers thus,

If I will make the moneys that are past

A hundred pound, he will discharge all courts

And give his bond never to vex us more.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

A hundred pound! 'Las! Take, sir, but threescore.

Do you seek my undoing?

LAXTON

I'll not bate one sixpence.

I'll maul you, puss, for spitting.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Do thy worst!

Will fourscore stop thy mouth?

LAXTON

No.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Y'are a slave!

Thou cheat, I'll now tear money from thy throat!

Husband, lay hold on yonder tawny-coat.

GREENWIT

Nay, gentlemen, seeing your women are so hot,

I must lose my hair in their company, I see.

[Removes his wig.]

MISTRESS OPENWORK

His hair sheds off, and yet he speaks not so much in the nose as he did before.

GOSHAWK

He has had the better chirurgeon. Master Greenwit, is your wit so raw as to play no better a part than a sumner's?

GALLIPOT

I pray who plays a knack to know an honest man in this company?

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Dear husband, pardon me, I did dissemble,

Told thee I was his precontracted wife,

When letters came from him for thirty pound;

I had no shift but that.

GALLIPOT

A very clean shift,

But able to make me lousy. On.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

Husband, I pluck'd,

When he had tempted me to think well of him,

[Gelt] feathers from thy wings to make him fly

More lofty.

GALLIPOT

A' the top of you, wife. On.

MISTRESS GALLIPOT

He, having wasted them, comes now for more,

Using me as a ruffian doth his whore,

Whose sin keeps him in breath. By heaven I vow

Thy bed he never wrong'd, more than he does now.

GALLIPOT

My bed? Ha, ha, like enough: a shop-board will serve

To have a cuckold's coat cut out upon.

Of that we'll talk hereafter. Y'are a villain.

LAXTON

Hear me but speak, sir, you shall find me none.

OMNES

Pray, sir, be patient and hear him.

GALLIPOT

I am muzzled

For biting, sir; use me how you will.

LAXTON

The first hour that your wife was in my eye,

Myself with other gentlemen sitting by

In your shop tasting smoke, and speech being used,

That men who have fairest wives are most abused

And hardly scap'd the horn, your wife maintain'd

That only such spots in city dames were stain'd,

Justly, but by men's slanders: for her own part,

She vow'd that you had so much of her heart;

No man by all his wit, by any wile

Never so fine spun, should yourself beguile

Of what in her was yours.

GALLIPOT

Yet Pru, 'tis well.

Play out your game at Irish, sir. Who wins?

MISTRESS OPENWORK

The trial is when she comes to bearing.

LAXTON

I scorn'd one woman thus should brave all men

And, which more vex'd me, a she-citizen.

Therefore I laid siege to her; out she held,

Gave many a brave repulse, and me compell'd

With shame to sound retreat to my hot lust.

Then seeing all base desires rak'd up in dust,

And that to tempt her modest ears, I swore

Ne'er to presume again. She said her eye

Would ever give me welcome honestly,

And since I was a gentleman, if it run low,

She would my state relieve, not to o'erthrow

Your own and hers; did so. Then seeing I wrought

Upon her meekness, me she set at nought,

And yet to try if I could turn that tide,

You see what stream I strove with. But, sir, I swear

By heaven, and by those hopes men lay up there,

I neither have nor had a base intent

To wrong your bed; what's done is merriment.

Your gold I pay back with this interest:

When I had most power to do't, I wrong'd you least.

GALLIPOT

If this no gullery be, sir--

OMNES

No, no, on my life!

GALLIPOT

Then, sir, I am beholden not to you, wife,

But, Master Laxton, to your want of doing ill,

Which it seems you have not. Gentlemen,

Tarry and dine here all.

OPENWORK

Brother, we have a jest

As good as yours to furnish out a feast.

GALLIPOT

We'll crown our table with it. Wife, brag no more

Of holding out: who most brags is most whore.

Exeunt omnes.

[V.i. A street]

Enter Jack Dapper, Moll, Sir Beauteous Ganymede, and Sir Thomas Long.

JACK

But prithee, Master Captain Jack, be plain and perspicuous with me: was it your Meg of Westminster's courage that rescued me from the Poultry puttocks indeed?

MOLL

The valour of my wit, I ensure you, sir, fetch'd you off bravely when you were i' the forlorn hope among those desperates. Sir Beauteous Ganymede here and Sir Thomas Long heard that cuckoo, my man Trapdoor, sing the note of your ransom from captivity.

SIR BEAUTEOUS

'Uds so, Moll, where's that Trapdoor?

MOLL

Hang'd I think by this time: a justice in this town that speaks nothing but "make a

mittimus

, away with him to Newgate" used that rogue like a firework to run upon a line betwixt him and me.

OMNES

How, how?

MOLL

Marry, to lay trains of villainy to blow up my life; I smelt the powder, spied what linstock gave fire to shoot against the poor captain of the galley-foist, and away slid I my man, like a shovel-board shilling. He struts up and down the suburbs, I think, and eats up whores, feeds upon a bawd's garbage.

SIR THOMAS

Sirrah Jack Dapper.

JACK

What sayst Tom Long?

SIR THOMAS

Thou hadst a sweet-fac'd boy, hail-fellow with thee to your little Gull. How is he spent?

JACK

Troth, I whistled the poor little buzzard off a' my fist, because when he waited upon me at the ordinaries, the gallants hit me i' the teeth still, and said I look'd like a painted alderman's tomb, and the boy at my elbow like a death's head. Sirrah Jack, Moll.

MOLL

What says my little Dapper?

SIR BEAUTEOUS

Come, come, walk and talk, walk and talk.

JACK

Moll and I'll be i' the midst.

MOLL

These knights shall have squires' places, belike then. Well, Dapper, what say you?

JACK

Sirrah Captain Mad Mary, the gull my own father, Dapper Sir Davy, laid these London boot-halers, the catchpoles, in ambush to set upon me.

OMNES

Your father? Away, Jack!

JACK

By the tassels of this handkercher, 'tis true. And what was his warlike stratagem, think you? He thought because a wicker cage tames a nightingale, a lousy prison could make an ass of me.

OMNES

A nasty plot.

JACK

Ay, as though a counter, which is a park in which all the wild beasts of the city run head by head, could tame me.

Enter the Lord Noland.

MOLL

Yonder comes my Lord Noland.

OMNES

Save you, my lord.

LORD NOLAND

Well met gentlemen all, good Sir Beauteous Ganymede, Sir Thomas Long. And how does Master Dapper?

JACK

Thanks, my lord.

MOLL

No tobacco, my lord?

LORD NOLAND

No, faith, Jack.

JACK

My Lord Noland, will you go to Pimlico with us? We are making a boon voyage to that nappy land of spice-cakes.

LORD NOLAND

Here's such a merry ging, I could find in my heart to sail to the world's end with such company. Come, gentlemen, let's on.

JACK

Here's most amorous weather, my lord.

OMNES

Amorous weather?

They walk.

JACK

Is not amorous a good word?

Enter Trapdoor like a poor soldier with a patch o'er one eye, and Tearcat with him, all tatters.

TRAPDOOR

Shall we set upon the infantry, these troops of foot? Zounds, yonder comes Moll, my whorish master and mistress! Would I had her kidneys between my teeth.

TEARCAT

I had rather have a cow-heel.

TRAPDOOR

Zounds, I am so patch'd up, she cannot discover me; we'll on.

TEARCAT

Alla corago then.

TRAPDOOR

Good your honours and worships, enlarge the ears of commiseration and let the sound of a hoarse military organ-pipe, penetrate your pitiful bowels to extract out of them so many small drops of silver, as may give a hard straw-bed lodging to a couple of maim'd soldiers.

JACK

Where are you maim'd?

TEARCAT

In both our nether limbs.

MOLL
Come, come, Dapper, let's give 'em something. 'Las, poor men, what money have you? By my troth, I love a soldier with my soul.

SIR BEAUTEOUS
Stay, stay, where have you serv'd?

SIR THOMAS

In any part of the Low Countries?

TRAPDOOR
Not in the Low Countries, if it please your manhood, but in Hungary against the Turk at the siege of Belgrade.

LORD NOLAND

Who serv'd there with you, sirrah?

TRAPDOOR

Many Hungarians, Moldavians, Walachians, and Transylvanians, with some Sclavonians, and retiring home, sir, the Venetian galleys took us prisoners, yet freed us and suffered us to beg up and down the country.

JACK

You have ambled all over Italy then?

TRAPDOOR
Oh, sir, from Venice to Roma, Vecchio, Bononia, Romania, Bolonia, Modena, Piacenza, and Tuscana with all her cities, as Pistoia, Valteria, Mountepulchena, Arezzo with the Siennois, and diverse others.

MOLL
Mere rogues: put spurs to 'em once more.

JACK
Thou look'st like a strange creature, a fat butter-box, yet speak'st English. What are thou?

TEARCAT
Ick, mine here? Ick bin den ruffling Tearcat, den brave soldado; ick bin dorick all Dutchlant gueresen: der shellum das meere ine beasa ine woert gaeb. Ick slaag um stroakes on tom cop: dastick den hundred touzun divell halle frollick, mine here.

SIR BEAUTEOUS
Here, here, let's be rid of their jobbering.

MOLL
Not a cross, Sir Beauteous. You base rogues, I have taken measure of you better than a tailor can, and I'll fit you as you, monster with one eye, have fitted me.

TRAPDOOR
Your worship will not abuse a soldier?

MOLL
Soldier? Thou deserv'st to be hang'd up by that tongue which dishonours so noble a profession. Soldier, you skeldering varlet? Hold, stand, there should be a trapdoor hereabouts.

Pull off his patch

.

TRAPDOOR
The balls of these glaziers of mine, mine eyes, shall be shot up and down in any hot piece of service for my invincible mistress.

JACK
I did not think there had been such knavery in black patches, as now I see.

MOLL
Oh, sir, he hath been brought up in the Isle of Dogs, and can both fawn like a spaniel and bite like a mastiff as he finds occasion.

LORD NOLAND
What are you, sirrah? A bird of this feather too?

TEARCAT
A man beat'n from the wars, sir.

SIR THOMAS
I think so, for you never stood to fight.

DAPPER
What's thy name, fellow soldier?

TEARCAT
I am call'd by those that have seen my valour, Tearcat.

OMNES
Tearcat?

MOLL
A mere whip-jack, and that is, in the commonwealth of rogues, a slave that can talk of sea-fight, name all your chief pirates, discover more countries to you than either the Dutch, Spanish, French, or English ever found out, yet indeed all his service is by land, and that is to rob a fair or some such venturous exploit. Tearcat! Foot, sirrah, I have your name now! I remember me in my book of horners horns for the thumb, you know how.

TEARCAT
No indeed, Captain Moll, for I know you by sight: I am no such nipping Christian, but a maunderer upon on the pad, I confess, and meeting with honest Trapdoor here, whom you had cashier'd from bearing arms, out at elbows under your colours, I instructed him in the rudiments of roguery, and by my map made him sail over any country you can name, so that now he can maunder better then myself.

JACK
So then, Trapdoor, thou art turn'd soldier now.

TRAPDOOR
Alas, sir, now there's no wars, 'tis the safest course of life I could take.

MOLL
I hope then you can cant, for by your cudgels, you, sirrah, are an upright man.

TRAPDOOR
As any walks the highway, I assure you.

MOLL
And Tearcat, what are you? A wild rogue, an angler, or a ruffler?

TEARCAT
Brother to this upright man, flesh and blood, ruffling Tearcat is my name, and a ruffler is my style, my title, my profession.

MOLL
Sirrah, where's your doxy? Halt not with me.

OMNES
Doxy, Moll? What's that?

MOLL
His wench.

TRAPDOOR
My doxy? I have, by the salomon, a doxy that carries a kinchin mort in her slate at her back, besides my dell and my dainty wild dell, with all whom I'll tumble this next darkmans in the strommel, and drink ben [booze], and eat a fat gruntling cheat, a cackling cheat, and a quacking cheat.

JACK
Here's old cheating.

TRAPDOOR
My doxy stays for me in a boozing ken, brave captain.

MOLL
He says his wench stays for him in an alehouse. You are no pure rogues.

TEARCAT
Pure rogues? No, we scorn to be pure rogues, but if you come to our lib ken, or our stalling ken, you shall find neither him nor me a queer cuffin.

MOLL
So, sir, no churl of you.

TEARCAT
No, but a ben cove, a brave cove, a gentry cuffin.

LORD NOLAND
Call you this canting?

JACK
Zounds, I'll give a schoolmaster half a crown a week, and teach me this pedlar's French.

TRAPDOOR
Do but stroll, sir, half a harvest with us, sir, and you shall gabble your bellyful.

MOLL
Come, you rogue, cant with me.

SIR THOMAS
Well said, Moll. Cant with her, sirrah, and you shall have money, else not a penny.

TRAPDOOR
I'll have a bout if she please.

MOLL
Come on, sirrah.

TRAPDOOR
Ben mort, shall you and I heave a booth, mill a ken, or nip a bung? And then we'll couch a hogshead under the ruffmans, and there you shall wap with me, and I'll niggle with you.

MOLL
[Slapping and kicking him]

Out, you damn'd, impudent rascal!

TRAPDOOR
Cut benar whids, and hold your fambles and your stamps.

LORD NOLAND
Nay, nay, Moll, why art thou angry? What was his gibberish?

MOLL
Marry, this, my lord, says he: ben mort, good wench, shall you and I heave a booth, mill a ken, or nip a bung? Shall you and I rob a house or cut a purse?

OMNES
Very good.

MOLL
And then we'll couch a hogshead under the ruffmans: and then we'll lie under a hedge.

TRAPDOOR
That was my desire, captain, as 'tis fit a soldier should lie.

MOLL
And there you shall wap with me and I'll niggle with you, and that's all!

SIR BEAUTEOUS
Nay, nay, Moll, what's that wap?

JACK
Nay, teach me what niggling is; I'd fain be niggling.

MOLL
Wapping and niggling is all one, the rogue my man can tell you.

TRAPDOOR
'Tis fadoodling, if it please you.

SIR BEAUTEOUS
This is excellent. One fit more, good Moll.

MOLL
Come, you rogue, sing with me.

The song.

A gage of ben rom-booze

In a boozing ken of Romville

TEARCAT. Is benar than a caster,

Peck, pannam, [lap] or popler,

Which we mill in deuse a [vill].

[MOLL, TEARCAT]. Oh, I would lib all the lightmans,

Oh, I would lib all the darkmans,

By the salomon, under the ruffmans,

By the salomon, in the hartmans!

TEARCAT. And scour the queer cramp-ring,

And couch till a palliard docked my dell,

So my boozy nab might skew rom-booze well.

[MOLL, TEARCAT]. Avast to the pad, let us bing,

Avast to the pad, let us bing.

OMNES
Fine knaves, i'faith!

JACK
The grating of ten new cartwheels and the gruntling of five hundred hogs coming from Romford market cannot make a worse noise than this canting language does in my ears. Pray, my Lord Noland, let's give these soldiers their pay.

SIR BEAUTEOUS
Agreed, and let them march.

LORD NOLAND
[Giving her money]

Here, Moll.

MOLL
Now I see that you are stall'd to the rogue and are not ashamed of your professions.

[Giving Tearcat and Trapdoor the money]

Look you, my Lord Noland here and these gentlemen bestows upon you two two boards and a half, that's two shillings sixpence.

TRAPDOOR
Thanks to your lordship.

TEARCAT
Thanks, heroical captain.

MOLL
Away.

TRAPDOOR
We shall cut ben whids of your masters and mistress-ship wheresoever we come.

MOLL
You'll maintain, sirrah, the old justice's plot to his face?

TRAPDOOR
Else trine me on the cheats, hang me.

MOLL
Be sure you meet me there.

TRAPDOOR
Without any more maundering I'll do't. Follow, brave Tearcat.

TEARCAT
I prae, sequor

, let us go mouse.

Exeunt they two, manet the rest.

LORD NOLAND
Moll, what was in that canting song?

MOLL
Troth, my lord, only a praise of good drink, the only milk which these wild beasts love to suck, and thus it was:

A rich cup of wine,

Oh, it is juice divine,

More wholesome for the head

Than meat, drink, or bread

To fill my drunken pate!

With that, I'd sit up late;

By the heels would I lie,

Under a lousy hedge die.

Let a slave have a pull

At my whore, so I be full

Of that precious liquor--

And a parcel of such stuff, my lord, not worth the opening.

Enter a Cutpurse very gallant, with four or five men after him, one with a wand.

LORD NOLAND
What gallant comes yonder?

SIR THOMAS
Mass, I think I know him: 'tis one of Cumberland.

FIRST CUTPURSE
Shall we venture to shuffle in amongst yon heap of gallants and strike?

SECOND CUTPURSE
'Tis a question whether there be any silver shells amongst them for all their satin outsides.

OMNES [CUTPURSES]
Let's try.

MOLL
Pox on him! A gallant? Shadow me, I know him: 'tis one that cumbers the land indeed; if he swim near to the shore of any of your pockets, look to your purses.

OMNES [WITH MOLL]
Is't possible?

MOLL
This brave fellow is no better than a foist.

OMNES [WITH MOLL]
Foist? What's that?

MOLL
A diver with two fingers, a pickpocket: all his train study the figging law, that's to say, cutting of purses and foisting. One of them is a nip; I took him once i' the twopenny gallery at the Fortune. Then there's a cloyer, or snap, that dogs any new brother in that trade, and snaps will have half in any booty. He with the wand is both a stale, whose office is to face a man i' the streets whilst shells are drawn by another, and then with his black conjuring rod in his hand, he, by the nimbleness of his eye and juggling-stick, will in cheaping a piece of plate at a goldsmith's stall, make four or five rings mount from the top of his caduceus, and, as if it were at leap-frog, they skip into his hand presently.

SECOND CUTPURSE
Zounds, we are smok'd!

OMNES [CUTPURSES]
Ha?

SECOND CUTPURSE
We are boil'd. Pox on her! See, Moll, the roaring drab.

FIRST CUTPURSE
All the diseases of sixteen hospitals boil her! Away!

MOLL
Bless you, sir.

FIRST CUTPURSE
And you, good sir.

MOLL
Dost not ken me, man?

FIRST CUTPURSE
No, [trust] me, sir.

MOLL
Heart, there's a knight to whom I'm bound for many favours lost his purse at the last new play i' the Swan, seven angels in't. Make it good; you're best. Do you see? No more.

FIRST CUTPURSE
A synagogue shall be call'd, Mistress Mary; disgrace me not. Pacus palabros, I will conjure for you. Farewell.

[Exeunt Cutpurses.]

MOLL
Did not I tell you, my lord?

LORD NOLAND
I wonder how thou cam'st to the knowledge of these nasty villains.

SIR THOMAS
And why do the foul mouths of the world call thee Moll Cutpurse? A name, methinks, damn'd and odious.

MOLL

Dare any step forth to my face and say,

"I have ta'en thee doing so, Moll," I must confess,

In younger days, when I was apt to stray,

I have sat amongst such adders, seen their stings

As any here might, and in full playhouses

Watch'd their quick-diving hands to bring to shame

Such rogues, and in that stream met an ill name.

When next, my lord, you spy any one of those,

So he be in his art a scholar, question him,

Tempt him with gold to open the large book

Of his close villainies, and you yourself shall cant

Better than poor Moll can, and know more laws

Of cheaters, lifters, nips, foists, puggards, curbers,

With all the devil's black guard, than it is fit

Should be discovered to a noble wit.

I know they have their orders, offices,

Circuits and circles unto which they are bound

To raise their own damnation in.

JACK

How dost thou know it?

MOLL

As you do: I show it you, they to me show it.

Suppose, my lord, you were in Venice.

LORD NOLAND

Well.

MOLL

If some Italian pander there would tell

All the close tricks of courtesans, would not you

Hearken to such a fellow?

LORD NOLAND

Yes.

MOLL

And here,

Being come from Venice, to a friend most dear

That were to travel thither, you would proclaim

Your knowledge in those villainies to save

Your friend from their quick danger. Must you have

A black, ill name because ill things you know?

Good troth, my lord, I am made Moll Cutpurse so.

How many are whores in small ruffs and still looks!

How many chaste whose names fill slander's books!

Were all men cuckolds, whom gallants in their scorns

Call so, we should not walk for goring horns.

Perhaps for my mad going some reprove me:

I please myself and care not else who loves me.

OMNES

A brave mind, Moll, i'faith.

SIR THOMAS

Come, my lord, shall's to the ordinary?

LORD NOLAND

Ay, 'tis noon sure.

MOLL

Good my lord, let not my name condemn me to you or to the world. A fencer I hope may be call'd a coward: is he so for that? If all that have ill names in London were to be whipp'd and to pay but twelvepence apiece to the beadle, I would rather have his office than a constable's.

JACK

So would I, Captain Moll: 'twere a sweet, tickling office, i'faith.

Exeunt.

[V.ii. Sir Alexander's house]

Enter Sir Alexander Wengrave, Goshawk and Greenwit, and others.

SIR ALEXANDER

My son marry a thief, that impudent girl,

Whom all the world stick their worst eyes upon?

GREENWIT

How will your care prevent it?

GOSHAWK

'Tis impossible.

They marry close; they're gone, but none knows whither.

SIR ALEXANDER

Oh, gentlemen, when has a father's heart-strings

Held out so long from breaking?

Enter a Servant.

Now what news, sir?

SERVANT

They were met upo' th' water an hour since, sir,

Putting in towards the Sluice.

[Exit Servant.]

SIR ALEXANDER

The Sluice? Come, gentlemen,

'Tis Lambeth works against us.

GREENWIT

And that Lambeth

Joins more mad matches than your six wet towns

'Twixt that and Windsor Bridge, where fares lie soaking.

SIR ALEXANDER

Delay no time, sweet gentlemen: to Blackfriars!

We'll take a pair of oars and make after 'em.

Enter Trapdoor.

TRAPDOOR

Your son and that bold masculine ramp,

My mistress, are landed now at Tower.

SIR ALEXANDER

Hoyda, at Tower?

TRAPDOOR

I heard it now reported.

[Exit Trapdoor.]

SIR ALEXANDER

Which way gentlemen shall I bestow my care?

I'm drawn in pieces betwixt deceit and shame.

Enter Sir [Guy] Fitzallard.

SIR GUY

Sir Alexander,

You're well met and most rightly served:

My daughter was a scorn to you.

SIR ALEXANDER

Say not so, sir.

SIR GUY

A very abject she, poor gentlewoman;

Your house [has] been dishonoured. Give you joy, sir,

Of your son's gaskin-bride; you'll be a grandfather shortly

To a fine crew of roaring sons and daughters:

'Twill help to stock the suburbs passing well, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER

Oh, play not with the miseries of my heart!

Wounds should be dress'd and heal'd, not vex'd or left

Wide open to the anguish of the patient,

And scornful air let in: rather let pity

And advice charitably help to refresh 'em.

SIR GUY

Who'd place his charity so unworthily

Like one that gives alms to a cursing beggar?

Had I but found one spark of goodness in you

Toward my deserving child, which then grew fond

Of your son's virtues, I had eased you now;

But I perceive both fire of youth and goodness

Are rak'd up in the ashes of your age,

Else no such shame should have come near your house,

Nor such ignoble sorrow touch your heart.

SIR ALEXANDER

If not for worth, for pity's sake, assist me.

GREENWIT

You urge a thing past sense. How can he help you?

All his assistance is as frail as ours,

Full as uncertain. Where's the place that holds 'em?

One brings us water-news; then comes another

With a full-charg'd mouth, like a culverin's voice,

And he reports the Tower. Whose sounds are truest?

GOSHAWK

In vain you flatter him, Sir Alexander.

[SIR ALEXANDER]

I flatter him! Gentlemen, you wrong me grossly.

GREENWIT

He does it well, i'faith.

SIR GUY

Both news are false

Of Tower or water: they took no such way yet.

SIR ALEXANDER

Oh, strange! Hear you this, gentlemen: yet more plunges?

SIR GUY

Th' are nearer than you think for, yet more close

Than if they were further off.

SIR ALEXANDER

How am I lost

In these distractions!

SIR GUY

For your speeches, gentlemen,

In taxing me for rashness, 'fore you all

I will engage my state to half his wealth,

Nay, to his son's revenues, which are less,

And yet nothing at all till they come from him,

That I could, if my will stuck to my power,

Prevent this marriage yet, nay, banish her

Forever from his thoughts, much more his arms.

SIR ALEXANDER

Slack not this goodness, though you heap upon me

Mountains of malice and revenge hereafter:

I'd willingly resign up half my state to him,

So he would marry the mean'st drudge I hire.

GREENWIT

He talks impossibilities, and you believe 'em.

SIR GUY

I talk no more than I know how to finish;

My fortunes else are his that dares stake with me.

The poor young gentleman I love and pity,

And to keep shame from him, because the spring

Of his affection was my daughter's first

Till his frown blasted all, do but estate him

In those possessions which your love and care

Once pointed out for him, that he may have room

To entertain fortunes of noble birth,

Where now his desperate wants casts him upon her;

And if I do not for his own sake chiefly

Rid him of this disease that now grows on him,

I'll forfeit my whole state before these gentlemen.

GREENWIT

Troth, but you shall not undertake such matches;

We'll persuade so much with you.

SIR ALEXANDER

Here's my ring;

He will believe this token. 'Fore these gentlemen

I will confirm it fully: all those lands

My first love 'lotted him he shall straight possess

In that refusal.

SIR GUY

If I change it not,

Change me into a beggar.

GREENWIT

Are you mad, sir?

SIR GUY

'Tis done.

GOSHAWK

Will you undo yourself by doing,

And show a prodigal trick in your old days?

SIR ALEXANDER

'Tis a match, gentlemen.

SIR GUY

Ay, ay, sir, ay.

I ask no favour, trust to you for none;

My hope rests in the goodness of your son.

Exit [Sir Guy] Fitzallard.

GREENWIT

He holds it up well yet.

GOSHAWK

Of an old knight, i'faith.

SIR ALEXANDER

Curs'd be the time I laid his first love barren,

Willfully barren, that before this hour

Had sprung forth fruits of comfort and of honour!

He lov'd a virtuous gentlewoman.

Enter Moll [in man's clothes].

GOSHAWK

Life,

Here's Moll!

GREENWIT

Jack?

GOSHAWK

How dost thou, Jack?

MOLL

How dost thou, gallant?

SIR ALEXANDER

Impudence, where's my son?

MOLL

Weakness, go look him.

SIR ALEXANDER

Is this your wedding gown?

MOLL

The man talks monthly:

Hot broth and a dark chamber for the knight;

I see he'll be stark mad at our next meeting.

Exit Moll.

GOSHAWK

Why, sir, take comfort now, there's no such matter:

No priest will marry her, sir, for a woman

Whiles that shape's on, and it was never known

Two men were married and conjoin'd in one.

Your son hath made some shift to love another.

SIR ALEXANDER

Whate'er she be, she has my blessing with her.

May they be rich and fruitful, and receive

Like comfort to their issue as I take

In them; h'as pleas'd me now, marrying not this:

Through a whole world he could not choose amiss.

GREENWIT

Glad y'are so penitent for your former sin, sir.

GOSHAWK

Say he should take a wench with her smock-dowry,

No portion with her but her lips and arms?

SIR ALEXANDER

Why, who thrive better, sir? They have most blessing,

Though other have more wealth, and least repent:

Many that want most know the most content.

GREENWIT

Say he should marry a kind, youthful sinner?

SIR ALEXANDER

Age will quench that: any offence but theft

And drunkenness, nothing but death can wipe away;

Their sins are green even when their heads are grey.

Nay, I despair not now; my heart's cheer'd, gentlemen:

No face can come unfortunately to me.

Enter a Servant.

Now, sir, your news?

SERVANT

Your son with his fair bride

Is near at hand.

SIR ALEXANDER

Fair may their fortunes be!

GREENWIT

Now you're resolv'd, sir, it was never she?

SIR ALEXANDER

I find it in the music of my heart.

Enter Moll mask'd, in Sebastian's hand, and [Sir Guy] Fitzallard.

See where they come.

GOSHAWK

A proper lusty presence, sir.

SIR ALEXANDER

Now has he pleas'd me right: I always counsell'd him

To choose a goodly, personable creature;

Just of her pitch was my first wife his mother.

SEBASTIAN

Before I dare discover my offence,

I kneel for pardon.

SIR ALEXANDER

My heart gave it thee

Before thy tongue could ask it.

Rise; thou hast rais'd my joy to greater height

Than to that seat where grief dejected it.

Both welcome to my love and care forever,

Hide not my happiness too long, all's pardoned.

Here are our friends. Salute her, gentlemen.

They unmask her.

OMNES

Heart! Who['s] this? Moll?

SIR ALEXANDER

Oh, my reviving shame! Is't I must live

To be struck blind? Be it the work of sorrow,

Before age take 't in hand.

SIR GUY

Darkness and death!

Have you deceiv'd me thus? Did I engage

My whole estate for this?

SIR ALEXANDER

You ask'd no favour,

And you shall find as little; since my comforts

Play false with me, I'll be as cruel to thee

As grief to fathers' hearts.

MOLL

Why, what's the matter with you,

'Less too much joy should make your age forgetful?

Are you too well, too happy?

SIR ALEXANDER

With a vengeance.

MOLL

Methinks you should be proud of such a daughter,

As good a man as your son.

SIR ALEXANDER

Oh, monstrous impudence!

MOLL

You had no note before, an unmark'd knight:

Now all the town will take regard on you,

And all your enemies fear you for my sake.

You may pass where you list through crowds most thick,

And come off bravely with your purse unpick'd;

You do not know the benefits I bring with me:

No cheat dares work upon you with thumb or knife

While y'ave a roaring girl to your son's wife.

SIR ALEXANDER

A devil rampant!

SIR GUY

Have you so much charity

Yet to release me of my last rash bargain,

And I'll give in your pledge.

SIR ALEXANDER

No sir, I stand to't, I'll work upon advantage,

As all mischiefs do upon me.

SIR GUY

Content, bear witness all then

His are the lands, and so contention ends.

Here comes your son's bride, 'twixt two noble friends.

Enter the Lord Noland and Sir Beauteous Ganymede with Mary Fitzallard between them, the citizens and their wives with them.

MOLL

Now are you gull'd as you would be, thank me for't:

I'd a forefinger in't.

SEBASTIAN

Forgive me, father;

Though there before your eyes my sorrow feigned,

This still was she for whom true love complain'd.

SIR ALEXANDER

Blessings eternal and the joys of angels

Begin your peace here to be sign'd in heaven.

How short my sleep of sorrow seems now to me

To this eternity of boundless comforts

That finds no want but utterance and expression!

My lord, your office here appears so honourably,

So full of ancient goodness, grace, and worthiness:

I never took more joy in sight of man

Than in your comfortable presence now.

LORD NOLAND

Nor I more delight in doing grace to virtue

Than in this worthy gentlewoman, your son's bride,

Noble Fitzallard's daughter, to whose honour

And modest fame I am a servant vow'd;

So is this knight.

SIR ALEXANDER

Your loves make my joys proud.

Bring forth those deeds of land my care laid ready,

And which, old knight, thy nobleness may challenge,

Join'd with thy daughter's virtues, whom I prize now

As dearly as that flesh I call mine own.

Forgive me, worthy gentlewoman, 'twas my blindness

When I rejected thee; I saw thee not:

Sorrow and willful rashness grew like films

Over the eyes of judgment, now so clear

I see the brightness of thy worth appear.

MARY

Duty and love may I deserve in those,

And all my wishes have a perfect close,

SIR ALEXANDER

That tongue can never err, the sound's so sweet.

Here, honest son, receive into thy hands

The keys of wealth, possession of those lands

Which my first care provided: they're thine own;

Heaven give thee a blessing with 'em. The best joys

That can in worldly shapes to man betide

Are fertile lands and a fair fruitful bride,

Of which I hope thou'rt sped.

SEBASTIAN

I hope so too, sir.

MOLL

Father and son, I ha' done you simple service here.

SEBASTIAN

For which thou shalt not part, Moll, unrequited.

SIR ALEXANDER

Thou art a mad girl, and yet I cannot now

Condemn thee.

MOLL

Condemn me? Troth, and you should, sir.

I'd make you seek out one to hang in my room;

I'd give you the slip at gallows and cozen the people.

Heard you this jest, my lord?

LORD NOLAND

What is it, Jack?

MOLL

He was in fear his son would marry me,

But never dreamt that I would ne'er agree.

LORD NOLAND

Why? Thou hadst a suitor once, Jack. When wilt marry?

MOLL

Who, I, my lord? I'll tell you when, i'faith.

When you shall hear

Gallants void from sergeants' fear,

Honesty and truth unsland'red,

Woman mann'd but never pand'red,

[Cheaters] booted but not coach'd,

Vessels older ere they're broach'd:

If my mind be then not varied,

Next day following I'll be married.

LORD NOLAND

This sounds like doomsday,

MOLL

Then were marriage best,

For if I should repent, I were soon at rest.

SIR ALEXANDER

In troth, th' art a good wench. I'm sorry now

The opinion was so hard I conceiv'd of thee;

Some wrongs I've done thee.

Enter Trapdoor.

TRAPDOOR

Is the wind there now?

'Tis time for me to kneel and confess first,

For fear it come too late and my brains feel it:

Upon my paws, I ask you pardon, mistress.

MOLL

Pardon? For what, sir? What has your rogueship done now?

TRAPDOOR

I have been from time to time hir'd to confound you

By this old gentleman.

MOLL

How!

TRAPDOOR

Pray forgive him,

But may I counsel you, you should never do't.

Many a snare to entrap your worship's life

Have I laid privily, chains, watches, jewels,

And when he saw nothing could mount you up,

Four hollow-hearted angels he then gave you

By which he meant to trap you, I to save you.

SIR ALEXANDER

To all which shame and grief in me cry guilty.

Forgive me; now I cast the world's eyes from me

And look upon thee freely with mine own:

I see the most of many wrongs before [thee],

Cast from the jaws of envy and her people,

And nothing foul but that. I'll never more

Condemn by common voice, for that's the whore

That deceives man's opinion, mocks his trust,

Cozens his love, and makes his heart unjust.

MOLL

Here be the angels, gentlemen; they were given me

As a musician. I pursue no pity;

Follow the law: and you can cuck me, spare not;

Hang up my viol by me, and I care not.

SIR ALEXANDER

So far I'm sorry I'll thrice double 'em

To make thy wrongs amends.

Come, worthy friends, my honourable lord,

Sir Beauteous Ganymede, and noble Fitzallard,

And you kind [gentlewomen], whose sparkling presence

Are glories set in marriage, beams of society,

For all your loves give lustre to my joys.

The happiness of this day shall be rememb'red

At the return of every smiling spring;

In my time now 'tis born, and may no sadness

Sit on the brows of men upon that day,

But as I am, so all go pleas'd away.

[Exeunt all but Moll.]

Epilogus

[MOLL]

A painter, having drawn with curious art

The picture of a woman, every part

Limn'd to the life, hung out the piece to sell.

People who pass'd along, viewing it well,

Gave several verdicts on it: some dispraised

The hair; some said the brows too high were raised;

Some hit her o'er the lips, mislik'd their colour;

Some wish'd her nose were shorter; some, the eyes fuller;

Others said roses on her cheeks should grow,

Swearing they look'd too pale; others cried no.

The workman still as fault was found did mend it

In hope to please all, but this work being ended

And hung open at stall, it was so vile,

So monstrous and so ugly, all men did smile

At the poor painter's folly. Such we doubt

Is this our comedy. Some perhaps do flout

The plot, saying, "'Tis too thin, too weak, too mean;"

Some for the person will revile the scene,

And wonder that a creature of her being

Should be the subject of a poet, seeing

In the world's eye none weighs so light; others look

For all those base tricks publish'd in a book,

Foul as his brains they flow'd from, of cutpurse[s],

Of nips and foists, nasty, obscene discourses,

As full of lies, as empty of worth or wit,

For any honest ear or eye unfit. And thus,

If we to every brain that's humourous

Should fashion scenes, we with the painter shall

In striving to please all please none at all.

Yet for such faults as either the writers' wit

Or negligence of the actors do commit,

Both crave your pardons; if what both have done

Cannot full pay your expectation,

The Roaring Girl herself some few days hence

Shall on this stage give larger recompense,

Which mirth that you may share in herself does woo you,

And craves this sign: your hands to beckon her to you.

[Exit.]

FINIS

NOTES

The Roaring Girl, the final dramatic collaboration between Middleton and Thomas Dekker, first appeared in quarto in 1611. David Lake's textual analyses of both authors' works has confirmed the date of composition as later rather than earlier in the first decade of 1600, and he conjectures the date to be 1608. However, P. A. Mulholland [‘The Date of The Roaring Girl,’ RES 28 (1977)], citing allusions to contemporary events, which I include in the glossary below, maintains a later date of the spring of 1611, which I believe is more likely. Lake and others divide the shares as Dekker having written I, III.ii-iii, IV.ii, V.i, and Middleton II, III.i, IV.i, V.ii, a roughly even division, although some scenes are probably not solely from one author's pen. Dekker is undoubtedly the author of the canting scene: the usages closely parallel his contemporary Bellman of London and Lanthorn and Candlelight tracts. Editions of The Roaring Girl include Dyce's of 1840, Bullen's of 1885, Andor Gomme's for the New Mermaids Series (1976), and Fredson Bowers's in The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker (1953-61), with Introductions, Notes and Commentaries by Cyrus Hoy (1980).

The title of the play derives from the riotous gallants of London, known as ‘roaring boys,’ whose penchant for machismo quarreling was parodied by Middleton and Rowley in A Fair Quarrel, and by Jonson in The Alchemist. The title character is based upon Mary Frith, the real Moll Cutpurse, whose notorious exploits tested the patience of proper society and often brought her before the court. Accounts of these exploits were variously recorded, and they include wearing men's clothes, appearing on the stage, drinking, swearing, making ‘immodest and lascivious speeches,’ prostitution, pick-pocketing, forgery, and highway robbery. A full rap sheet indeed but as the prologue, epilogue, and epistle to the reader clearly demonstrate, Dekker and Middleton were sympathetic to her, and through Moll offer, if not an apologia, at least some well-needed positive public relations. T. S. Eliot observed that the character of Moll is the one exquisite jewel in the crown of a rather mediocre play; without a doubt, she is thoroughly engaging. The loose and episodic structure of the play, in fact, allows Dekker and Middleton to showcase her various talents: she sings, she fights, she rescues Jack Dapper from the clutches of the law; she is just as comfortable with lords and gentlemen as with the thieves whose cant she speaks and over whom she has some authority. Moll's character is also amazingly well-rounded in the Forsterian sense: Dekker and Middleton take her beyond a presentation of the mere spectacle and her iconic status in the contemporary culture. We not only learn the ‘facts’ of her past, but we also hear her heart and mind in many candid reactions to social prejudice and condemnation. It is certainly the best comic female role in the Middleton canon, and few comic female roles of the time are its equal.

Note: Illustration: A portrait of Moll Frith from the prose tract The Life and Death of Mrs. Mary Frith, Commonly Called Moll Cutpurse, Exactly Collected and Now Published for the Delight and Recreation of All Merry-Disposed Persons (1662). Bullen gives a precise synopsis.

Note: My case is alter'd, I must work for my living. According to the Consistory of London Correction Book, Mary Frith appeared before the court on 27 January 1612 for misdemeanors and was subsequently incarcerated, a fact which Hoy believes informs this quotation that appears beside her picture on the quarto title-page: ‘At the time of the publication of the play, Mary Frith apparently was beating hemp in Bridewell, in the manner of the loose women Dekker had shown undergoing correction in that place some half-a-dozen years before, in the final scene of The Honest Whore, Part Two.’ As Gomme notes, the first half of the quotation is proverbial, and gave title to Jonson's comedy of 1597.

Note: Wengrave: Wentgraue (Q), here and elsewhere in the d.p.

Note: NEATFOOT: Neats-foot (Q); neat's foot is the foot of an ox, used as an article of food.

Note: Ganymede: in classical mythology, Jove's page

Note: GREENWIT: green = youthful, but also an emblem of lust; cf. The Revenger's Tragedy II.iii.

Note: LAXTON: As Sir Alexander's pun in I.ii makes clear, his name = ‘lacks stone,’ or testicle. Cf. ‘Singlestone’ in A Mad World, My Masters II.vi.

Note: TILTYARD: A tilt-yard is an enclosed space for tilts and tournaments; cf. Your Five Gallants II.i. The connection with his profession lies in the use of feathers for an archer's arrows.

Note: OPENWORK: A piece of cloth with a pattern of holes, like lace or crochet, that shows the material beneath.

Note: sempster: the masculine form of ‘seamstress,’ although then used for both genders (cf. Mary's disguise in I.i)

Note: [Hippocrates]: Greek physician (c. 460-357 BC)

Note: GALLIPOT: a small earthen glazed pot, especially one used by apothecaries for ointments and medicines, or, by extension, an apothecary

Note: TEARCAT: to tear a cat = to rant and bluster, to play a roistering hero; cf. A Midsummer Night's Dream

Note: CURTILAX: A curtal-ax is a short, broad-cutting sword, or a cutlass.

Note: HANGER: a loop or strap, fastened to the girdle, in which the rapier was suspended; cf. Your Five Gallants I.i.

Note: MINISTRI: servants

Note: FELLOW: a thief; cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One II.i, The Revenger's Tragedy III.v.

Note: Venery: good hunting or, more frequently, the pursuit of sexual pleasure; cf. The Witch I.i, The Second Maiden's Tragedy I.ii, The Family of Love IV.iv, A Trick to Catch the Old One I.ii, The Phoenix III.i, Northward Ho! III.i, Westward Ho! III.iv.

Note: crop-doublet: A richly padded, short doublet, which went out of fashion about thirty years earlier.

Note: bombasted: Bombast was cotton wool stuffing used to pad out clothes and make the wearer look muscular, but also took on this figurative and more familiar usage; cf. Your Five Gallants III.iii, Day's The Isle of Gulls Ind., Satiromastix V.ii.

Note: doublet fell: ‘Few garments underwent so many changes as did the doublet. From the straight-bodied, full, long-skirted doublet of the reign of Henry VIII evolved the 'Peas-cod' or Dutch 'doublets with great belly and small skirt', so familiar from the seventies...The peas-cod front...disappeared by 1610, and the doublet became form-fitting--but was worn over a stiff lining--with a small waist decorated by points’ (Linthicum, Costume in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, as cited by Hoy).

Note: single plots: not characteristic of contemporary plays; as Gomme suggests, Middleton is probably being ironic.

Note: quaint: ingenious

Note: conceits: witty devices

Note: termers: dissolute persons who frequented London during term-time (cf. introductory notes for Michaelmas Term, The Family of Love Pref., The Witch I.i). The law courts were in session during four terms: Hilary Term, Easter Term, Trinity Term, and Michaelmas Term. For various remarks about term-time, cf. The Family of Love I.ii, A Trick to Catch the Old One I.iv & II.i, Anything for a Quiet Life I.i, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.i, The Puritan I.i, The Revenger's Tragedy IV.ii.

Note: sixpence: the price of a printed play

Note: well couched: richly embroidered, and therefore not immediately apparent

Note: and: if (used frequently throughout the play)

Note: statute: Although there was no specific statute that forbade women from wearing men's clothing, the issue seems to have been covered in a general sumptuary law, i.e., a law meant to curtail extravagance.

Note: codpiece point: the lace which fastened the cod-piece, a bagged appendage to the front of the close-fitting hose or breeches; cf. The Puritan I.iii.

Note: galley room: The tiring room at the Fortune Theater was an extension of the upper gallery; Middleton's remark indicates copies of plays were stored there.

Note: mystical: secretive; cf.A Chaste Maid in Cheapside III.i, Your Five Gallants V.i, The Bloody Banquet IV.iii, The Family of Love IV.iv, The Second Maiden's Tragedy II.ii.

Note: vent his private bottle-ale at midnight: Gomme explores the possible bawdy connotations: ‘'Bottle-ale' appears in 2 Henry IV, II.iv, 128, where the Arden editor suggests it means small beer; and this seems to be confirmed by a remark in Nashe's Fouleweather's Prognostications (Works, ed. Wilson, III, 392).... But it could also means simply windy rhetoric (see Marston, Histriomastix, III.i, 202); 'vent' can mean sniff out, uncover, or emit (urine, wind, etc.), and 'bottle' was one of innumerable words for the female pudenda (cf. Measure for Measure, III.ii, 174).’

Note: ripped up: disclosed, brought out in the open

Note: mews: jeers by mewing like a cat

Note: vast theatre: The Fortune Theater on Golden Lane in Cripplegate (built 1600, burnt 1621, rebuilt 1623, finally destroyed 1662) was 53 feet square inside (80 outside), and had three tiers of galleries. To the right, the reconstruction, based on the surviving contract, is by W. H. Godfrey, and the engraving of the theater in its last days is by T. H. Shepherd (1811). It was occupied by the Lord Admiral's Men (which became Prince Henry's Men in 1603) under the management of Philip Henslowe and Edward Alleyn, his son-in-law and a leading acting of the Admiral's Men.

Note: covetous: eager

Note: gives braves: offers battle

Note: suburb roarers: i.e., the licentious lower classes of London's suburbs: ‘These suburb sinners have no land to live upon but their legs’ (Lanthorn and Candlelight ix).

Note: beside: besides (Q)

Note: state: estate, wealth

Note: iron grate: the bars of a debtor's prison

Note: bands: ruffs, collars; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.ii, The Changeling V.iii, Your Five Gallants I.i, The Family of Love IV.i.

Note: transcendent: Normally, the best possible definition would be ‘transcending or rising high above the ordinary rank of persons, i.e., given the privilege of meeting him privately even though she is ostensibly of the class of tradesmen.’ However, Gomme's inclination toward an obscure bawdy connotation is correct, because we ultimately learn that Neatfoot thinks she is Sebastian's whore. In his affected (and probably condescending and self-righteous) way, Neatfoot is saying she will rise, or become pregnant, a common Jacobean pun.

Note: fructify: become fruitful, with the bawdy innuendo; cf. The Family of Love III.iii, IV.ii, Westward Ho! II.i, Love's Labours Lost IV.ii.

Note: falling bands: ruffs falling flat around the neck, a new fashion at the time; cf. 1 The Honest Whore III.i.

Note: curl-pated: Curling the hair was much affected at this time.

Note: ingeniously: ingenuously

Note: [dined]: dyed (Q)

Note: Orleans: a favored wine from the Loire region

Note: buttery: liquor storeroom; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's IV.ii.

Note: antic: grotesque; cf. I.ii ‘ape's tricks,’ The Revenger's Tragedy III.v, The Changeling IV.iii.

Note: [fire]: omitted in Q

Note: auricular confession: confession heard by a priest; ‘confession’ has bawdy innuendo

Note: needlewoman: slang for harlot

Note: bond: a common pun; cf. Blurt, Master Constable II.i.

Note: wolf's at door: ‘To keep the wolf from the door’ was proverbial.

Note: As a horse runs...one path still: i.e., like a horse turning a millstone that often stumbles but always keeps to the same path, Sebastian will often seem to be unfaithful but will remain constant; cf. Northward Ho! I.iii.

Note: marks: A mark was worth 13s.4d.

Note: grey groat: A groat was fourpence. ‘Not worth a grey groat’ was proverbial.

Note: galleries: ‘Sir Alexander's collection suggests a parody of the great collections which began to be made in Elizabeth's reign, and of which Lord Lunley's at Nonesuch Palace, Surrey, was an already famous example. Pictures were sometimes fixed to the wall so close together as to make a mosaic covering the wall entirely. The display hints at the kind of spectacular stage effects which were then becoming popular in masques and is a kind of visual diagram of the action of the play’ (Gomme).

Note: plaudities: applause; cf. The Revenger's Tragedy II.i, Dekker's The Noble Spanish Soldier V.iv.

Note: obsequious: dutiful

Note: floating island: ‘A trompe-l'oeil effect must be in mind here, intended to draw the audience more completely into the spectacle’ (Gomme).

Note: comical: cheerful

Note: back friend: a backer or supporter

Note: stoop: the swoop of a hawk (a term from falconry); cf. The Family of Love I.ii.

Note: lure: a fake bird, usually made of pigeon's wings, with a hawk's foot attached

Note: stand: Laxton counters Sir Alexander's cruel pun with the common bawdy Elizabethan pun.

Note: mess: company eating together

Note: heartstrings: The heart was supposedly braced with strings (tendons or nerves) that could be broken with emotional stress. The concept was often likened to the strings of a musical instrument, where there was a handy pun on ‘fret’: 1) stress, worry, 2) a bar of gut, wood, or metal on the fingerboard used to regulate the fingering. Cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.ii, A Yorkshire Tragedy x, The Revenger's Tragedy I.i, Hamlet III.ii, Henry VIII III.ii, Chapman's Monsieur D'Olive.

Note: Fortune:

A detail from the title-page of Robert Record's The Caste of Knowledge, 1556 showing the Wheel of Fortune. Click on the image for the complete title-page (266 KB), which illustrates the various concepts associated with the goddess Fortune, in contrast to Urania, or Wisdom, on the left. Fortune stands unstably upon a ball, while Wisdom stands firmly on a block. She is blindfolded and turns her wheel, which can as easily bring someone wealth one day as take it all away the next day, for ‘she is turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and variation’ (Henry V III.vi); by contrast, Wisdom holds a compass (representing rational knowledge) and the Sphere of Destiny. Fortune is illuminated by the moon, a symbol of irrationality and changefulness, and Wisdom is illuminated by the sun, a symbol of reason and stability: the inscription ends, ‘Though earth do honour Fortune's ball,/And battles blind her wheel advance,/The heavens to Fortune are not thrall:/These spheres surmount all Fortune's chance.’

Note: read o'er his cards: Bowers emends to ‘cares,’ but Gomme's gloss of ‘reckon up his position’ is correct: he looks at the cards Fortune has dealt him and realizes his situation is not all bad.

Note: that like: thats like (Q)

Note: by-blows: side-blows or glancing blows

Note: Adam Bell: the famous archer; cf. Romeo and Juliet II.i, Much Ado about Nothing I.i, Satiromastix IV.iii.

Note: more tongues in his head than some have teeth: ostensibly alluding to Sebastian's knowledge of languages, but double-tongued = deceitful (cf. II.ii ‘two-leav'd tongues’), and cf. the proverb ‘the tongue walks where the teeth speed not,’ quoted in Dekker's The Gull's Horn-Book.

Note: flesh-fly: blow-fly, which eats and lays eggs in dead flesh; cf. The Revenger's Tragedy V.i, Women Beware Women II.ii.

Note: It is a thing...than woman: This passage was lifted by Nathan Field for his Amends for Ladies (1612), for a scene in which Moll unsuccessfully attempts to corrupt the virtuous heroine.

Note: two shadows to one shape: i.e., a both a man's and woman's shadow, although Gomme suggests that ‘by witchcraft she has stolen a shadow and so would have power over another's soul. The devil was normally held to cast no shadow.’

Note: blazing star: According to medieval astrology, the stars that controlled men's fate were fixed and incorruptible; on the other hand, meteors, which are sublunary, were corruptible and subject to change, and heralded or were provoked by evil events on earth. Gomme seems to support Bald's conjecture that this is a reference to Halley's comet, which had reached its perihelion in late November 1607, but allusions to this cosmology were quite frequent: cf. Mistress Gallipot's ‘fixed star’ of III.ii, as well as The Changeling V.iii, The Revenger's Tragedy V.i & V.iii, The Bloody Banquet V.ii, Julius Caesar I.iii & II.i.

Note: naughty pack: a term of approach, used for both males and females, almost always occurring in this compound form; cf. Westward Ho! II.i, Northward Ho! II.ii.

Note: naught: wicked, immoral; cf. The Revenger's Tragedy II.i, A Fair Quarrel V.i, 1 The Honest Whore IV.i.

Note: Their: there (Q, here as well as later in the line and throughout the play)

Note: baffle: publicly disgrace, originally a punishment on recreant knights, part of which was being hanged by the heels; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.ii

Note: [Wear]: cf. The Revenger's Tragedy II.i for the same emendation

Note: drab: whore, mistress; cf. The Phoenix I.ii, A Trick to Catch the Old One I.iii, The Witch II.iii, Your Five Gallants III.ii, The Revenger's Tragedy II.ii.

Note: quench out: Deleting ‘out’ would improve the scansion.

Note: I wash a negro: ‘To wash an Ethiop white’ was proverbial, deriving from classical times and reflecting the Elizabethan/Jacobean prejudice toward fair-haired paleness; cf. 2 The Honest Whore IV.iii.

Note: turn: deflect (a hunting term)

Note: ape's tricks: extravagant bowing

Note: To be a shifter...good bit upon't: A shifter is a cozener, or cheater, and Trapdoor promises that he can steal a full platter of food from under someone's nose.

Note: As two crafty attorneys plotting the undoing of their clients: cf. Michaelmas Term III.i.

Note: Simon and Jude's day: October 28th, the day before the Lord Mayor's Day on which the Liveries' pageants turned out; it was proverbially stormy. Cf. Anything for a Quiet Life I.ii, Westward Ho! II.i.

Note: watermen a' th' Bankside: boatmen paid for transporting people up and down the Thames; they were said at this time to number ‘no fewer than forty thousand.’ Cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside IV.ii, The Witch II.i.

Note: burnt: Sir Alexander fears that Trapdoor is a branded felon.

Note: mermaid: whore; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside IV.ii, A Fair Quarrel IV.iv, The Old Law IV.i, 2 The Honest Whore IV.iii.

Note: cut her comb: lower her pride; cutting a cock's comb usually accompanied gelding. Cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One IV.i.

Note: Cast out a line hung full of silver hooks: cf. A Fair Quarrel III.ii, Old Fortunatus I.ii.

Note: hobbyhorse: 1) a pantomime horse that was part of a morris dance, 2) slang for harlot

Note: morris: country dance, although sometimes used generally to refer to any wild dancing, such as here; cf. The Changeling IV.iii, Dekker's Patient Grissil II.i, All's Well that Ends Well II.ii, A Midsummer Night's Dream II.i, Henry V II.iv

Note: Zounds: ‘God's wounds,’ an oath; cf. The Puritan IV.iii, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's V.i.

Note: bencher: magistrate, judge

Note: goll: hand; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.ii, Blurt, Master Constable I.i, The Revenger's Tragedy V.i, Satiromastix I.ii.

Note: entertain: employ, hire; cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One IV.iv, The Phoenix III.i, The Old Law II.i.

Note: rank: row Like many market scenes of the time, this scene is highly visual and includes many sight gags; in an effort to bridge this gap, I've made explicit some implicit stage directions to give a sense of the action.

Note: what is't you lack: the standard cry of shopkeepers; cf. Anything for a Quiet Life II.ii, The Shoemakers' Holiday III.iv.

Note: lawns: fine linen or clothing made from it, so called because it was bleached on a lawn instead of the ordinary bleaching grounds; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.i, Your Five Gallants II.iii, The Witch II.i, The Revenger's Tragedy II.iii.

Note: cambrics: a kind of fine white linen, originally made at Cambray, France, or the clothing made from it; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.i.

Note: minces tobacco: Tobacco was sold in apothecaries' shops. Smoking was used widely for affection during James's reign; it was estimated that London had at least 7000 tobacco shops. Cf. The Witch II.i, The Phoenix I.ii, and Lazarillo in Blurt, Master Constable. There is an interesting article about the Elizabethans and tobacco at http://www.tobacco.org/History/Elizabethan_Smoking.

Note: Indian pot-herbs: ‘Pot-herbs are simply herbs boiled in a pot; perhaps a misunderstanding of how tobacco is prepared’ (Gomme). The statement is not so much a misunderstanding in Laxton's knowledge of tobacco as an inconsistency in the background of the wives, for it is Mistress Openwork who later claims to have been a lady's serving-woman, a ‘gentlewoman born.’ On the other hand, it's entirely possible that neither of them came from a higher social class, and that both merely make such a claim as psychological leverage against their husbands (i.e., marrying below their station) and to impress the gallants Laxton and Goshawk.

Note: bankrout: bankrupt

Note: pipes: with the bawdy pun on penis, and much sexual innuendo following; cf. Romeo and Juliet IV.v.

Note: May take up an ell of pure smock: An ell is a measure of length (in England, 45 inches), chiefly used in measuring cloth; cf. The Old Law IV.i, 2 Honest Whore II.ii, Anything for a Quiet Life II.ii. A smock was a woman's undergarment.

Note: closest: most secretive

Note: striker: fornicator

Note: smockster: bawd; cf. Your Five Gallants V.ii.

Note: naked boy in a vial: "Steeven's suggestion--‘I suppose he means an abortion preserved in spirits’--seems irrelevant and incredible; the point is presumably the visibility of nakedness seen through clear glass. Naked boys is a popular name for the meadow saffron which flowers after its leaves have withered; but the phrase also occurs in The Alchemist (III.iv.80-1) ‘in such a way as to suggest catamite [page]’ (Gomme). In this context, the ‘naked boy’ sounds like an allusion to Cupid, but this does not help to explain the relevance of ‘vial.’ Viol,which has its own sexual innuendo (cf. IV.i), is also spelled ‘vial>’ in Q, but this doesn't make the image any clearer.

Note: first day of his feather: newly fledged

Note: woo the hangings and glass windows: i.e., is a wallflower

Note: broken: i.e., already deflowered

Note: almanac: For the background on almanacs, cf. my notes to No Wit, No Help like a Woman's; forecasts were provided for individual meridians as well as the nation in general.

Note: not to be us'd a' that fashion...I understand no French: An extension of the pipe/penis pun: Greenwit comments that ‘Laxton should not wish his pipe to be set on fire, i.e., suffer from venereal disease, which was commonly called ’the French disease. Cf. A Fair Quarrel IV.iv, Blurt, Master Constable I.ii, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside V.i, Your Five Gallants III.i, Anything for a Quiet Life II.iv, A Midsummer Night's Dream I.ii, The Revenger's Tragedy I.i.

Note: Jack: Not necessarily Goshawk's proper name, but a familiar form of address, i.e., chap or fellow. Later this is frequently used for Moll.

Note: strange: unfamiliar to me; cf. The Witch III.ii.

Note: Push: Middleton's favorite ejaculation (e.g., cf. The Changeling III.iv, A Trick to Catch the Old One II.i, Your Five Gallants II.i, The Revenger's Tragedy I.iii, The Old Law II.i), and one examined in contrast to Rowley's ‘Tush!’ in one of the earliest attribution studies (1897).

Note: manners: with the pun on manors

Note: ['im]: 'em (Q)

Note: stool: with the scatological pun

Note: preyeth: with the pun on prayeth

Note: pleasure: with the sexual innuendo

Note: Bear her in hand: delude her with false hopes; cf. Macbeth III.i, Cymbeline V.v, Much Ado about Nothing IV.i, 2 Henry IV I.ii.

Note: chincough: whooping-cough

Note: I dive down to your ankles: an example of the extravagant bowing of courtiers, emphasized by Greenwit's use of French

Note: he dispatches three at once: Apparently Jack has not bowed to each gallant individually as he should have done.

Note: drink: smoke; cf. The Shoemakers' Holiday III.ii.

Note: ordinary: eating-house; a tavern was primarily for drinking. Cf. Anything for a Quiet Life I.i., The Witch V.i, The Phoenix IV.ii, A Trick to Catch the Old One I.i, Your Five Gallants II.i & III.ii, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's II.iii.

Note: Paul's: St. Paul's. Men who had been turned out of service by their masters posted notices of their availability in St. Paul's nave; Gull eventually loses his position, as we learn in V.i.

Note: hal'p'orth: halfpenny worth

Note: small beer: weak or inferior beer; cf. The Witch I.i, The Old Law II.i. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's V.ii.

Note: cackl'd: gave away secrets

Note: angels: gold coins worth ten shillings each, with the figure of St. Michael defeating the dragon; for Middleton's frequent punning, cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One II.i, The Phoenix I.vi, Blurt, Master Constable II.i, A Yorkshire Tragedy ii, The Old Law IV.ii, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.ii, The Puritan III.iv, The Bloody Banquet II.i, The Revenger's Tragedy II.i.

Note: puts out a candle: cf. the Jeweller's Wife in The Phoenix IV.ii.

Note: arrant: errand

Note: puny: novice; cf. 1 Henry VI IV.vii, The Revenger's Tragedy I.iii, Westward Ho! I.ii.

Note: whoremaster: lecher; cf. Measure for Measure III.ii.

Note: Draw in a third man: Gomme edits to ‘draw in a thread, man’ and explains, ‘'Third' is occasionally found for 'thread', and 'thrid', for which 'third' could be a compositor's slip, quite commonly. But this is frankly a guess at a meaning which I cannot find in Q as it stands. I suggest that Laxton may be inviting Goshawk to draw in (= inhale) a thread of smoke; or 'thread' may be a measure of tobacco as of yarn. But 'draw in' can mean inveigle or take in, and also, it seems, to lay down a stake at dice (cf. Michaelmas Term II.i).’ It seems clear to me that Laxton, returning after his aside, has found Goshawk and Greenwit sharing a bowl--I assume the gallants have been sampling Gallipot's various tobaccos--and asks to be a third; Goshawk refuses, claiming that Laxton himself never shares.

Note: engross: monopolize or obtain exclusive possession of; cf. Anything for a Quiet Life III.i, Dekker's If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil Is in It II.i.

Note: beaver gallants: gallants who wear beavers, hats made of beaver fur; cf. Your Five Gallants I.i, Anything for a Quiet Life II.i, Westward Ho! V.iv.

Note: stone riders: those who ride stone horses, or stallions; there is possibly the stone/testicles pun that Laxton makes later in this scene, hence stone riders might = womanizers, as Gomme suggests

Note: private stage's audience: included in this list of the fashionable well-to-do because of the higher price of admission at the private theaters, which were established to circumvent the law that prohibited houses of public entertainment within the city

Note: twelvepenny-stool: twice the normal price for the use of a stool

Note: [hench]-boy: page; hinch (Q)

Note: [snail]: snake (Q)

Note: wants: i.e., wants finishing

Note: [Hoyda]: Haida (Q), cf. ‘Hoyda!’ in No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.iii, ‘Heyday!’ in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside IV.ii.

Note: shepherd's holland: holland linen used for shepherds' smocks

Note: gear: stuff. The word also refers specifically to tobacco in 1 The Honest Whore II.i and Satiromastix I.ii; Middleton frequently uses the word with bawdy innuendo elsewhere.

Note: arrant's[t]: strictest

Note: frieze: coarse woolen cloth

Note: jerkin: a soldier's short coat; cf. Blurt, Master Constable I.i. The Puritan I.ii, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's II.i, Westward Ho! II.ii.

Note: safeguard: the outer petticoat worn over other clothes to protect them from dirt, the usual riding dress for women; cf. The Witch II.iii.

Note: [GOSHAWK, GREENWIT]: Both. (Q); I have preferred to be more specific here, and make a similar emendation in III.iii for lines shared between Sir Alexander and Sir Adam, and Curtilax and Hanger.

Note: Mile End milksops: a favorite recreation spot for city-dwellers, where apparently cakes and cream were available; the trained bands that guarded the city exercised here. Cf. The Shoemakers' Holiday I.i.

Note: marrow-bone: supposedly an aphrodisiac; cf. A Mad World, My Masters I.ii, Venus and Adonis, If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil Is in It I.iii.

Note: Italian: stereotyped as being extremely lecherous; cf. A Mad World, My Masters III.iii.

Note: bona roba: wanton, courtesan; Blurt, Master Constable II.ii, 2 The Honest Whore I.i.

Note: aqua fortis: nitric acid, a powerful solvent and corrosive

Note: shag: cloth having a velvet nap on one side

Note: fat eel between a Dutchman's fingers: The Dutch were supposedly fond of eels; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.iii.

Note: i' th' low: ith the low (Q)

Note: I send you for hollands...I take nothing: Gomme's gloss is thorough: "A dazzling linguistic challenge. The first pun seems to derive in particular from the brilliant wordplay of 2 Henry IV II.ii, 21-2: 'the rest of thy low countries have made a shift to eat up thy holland': 'low countries' (the first half of the latter word was always suggestive: see Hamlet III.ii.120) meant both the lower parts of the body and the stews [brothels] (where Poins and supposedly Master Openwork beget bastards); hence, similarly, 'holland', as well as, literally, linen--which prompts 'shift' in the sense of chemise. And the seemingly innocent shopkeeping talk win the second sentence conceals a complex obscenity: 'ware' was in regular use for the privates of either sex, but especially of women (where it was commonly 'lady's ware') (cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.i) [also cf. The Family of Love II.i, No Wit, No Help Like a Woman's I.i & III.i, The Witch I.ii, Anything for a Quiet Life II.iv]. The burden, then, of Mistress Openwork's complaint is that by a trick (a shift) she is left to make what shift she can by handling her sexual parts (those next to her shift) herself: a barren ('dead') activity, but she may as well stop offering herself, for when she opens up her 'shop', nothing comes in.

Note: ringing: scolding

Note: warn: deny

Note: goody: goodwife, used for married women of a humble station

Note: skin-coat: a coat made of skins, with the explicit sexual pun

Note: spleen: The spleen was often regarded as the seat of passions and/or impulsive behavior: in Renaissance psychology, an individual had four basic ‘humours,’ or temperaments, which were determined by the amount of their corresponding bodily fluids secreted in the spleen. The four humours are choleric (anger) derived from bile (as in The Revenger's Tragedy II.iii and here), phlegmatic (cold torpor) from phlegm, sanguine (geniality) from blood, and melancholy from black bile (as in The Revenger's Tragedy IV.i, The Witch I.i). The spleen was also held responsible for sexual desire (as in The Old Law III.ii, Anything for a Quiet Life III.ii).

Note: tread upon a worm, they say 'twill turn tail: proverbial, meaning that even the lowliest of creatures will resent ill-treatment

Note: yard: 1) three feet, the tailor's yardstick, 2) slang for penis; cf. The Old Law IV.i, Anything for a Quiet Life passim, The Revenger's Tragedy II.i, 1 The Honest Whore V.ii, Love's Labours Lost V.ii.

Note: London measure: London drapers customarily gave a little more than the exact measure; cf. Anything for a Quiet Life III.ii.

Note: snaffle: bridle-bit; cf. A Yorkshire Tragedy ii, The Witch of Edmonton II.i.

Note: Tyburn: Tyburn was the place of public execution in London until 1783. Cf. Anything for a Quiet Life III.ii (illustration in notes section), No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.ii, The Puritan IV.iii.

Note: Brainford: Brentford, eight miles upstream of Cheapside, was a place of resort for the citizenry and had numerous prostitutes. It is also spelled Brainford in The Merry Wives of Windsor IV.ii and Westward Ho! II.iii, but Branford in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.ii.

Note: Staines: on the north bank of the Thames in Middlesex seventeen miles west of London, also well-known as a place of assignation; cf. Massinger's The City Madam II.i.

Note: Ware: twenty miles north of London, a trysting place for lovers; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside III.iii, Northward Ho! I.i.

Note: coach: Coaches were popular places for love-making; cf. The Phoenix II.iii, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside III.iii, Your Five Gallants II.i, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's V.i, The Puritan II.i, The Revenger's Tragedy II.i.

Note: jade: 1) broken-down horse, 2) whore; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside V.iv, Much Ado about Nothing I.i, The Old Law III.ii.

Note: Holborn: The area to the north of the Strand and northwest of the old walled city, a place with an unsavory reputation, especially toward the west end; it takes its name from the Holbourne, a tributary of the Fleet. It was also the center of the legal profession, and contained the Inns of Court (Gray's Inn, Lincoln's Inn, the Middle Temple, and the Inner Temple), as well as the Inns of Chancery; because of their frequent reference in this play, I feel compelled to cite Weinreb and Hibbert's The London Encyclopedia: ‘By the middle of the 15th century the Inns [of Chancery] had largely been taken over by resident students and solicitors and attorneys and had become preparatory schools for students wishing to be called to the Bar by the Inns of Court which had managed to secure a degree of control over the Inns of Chancery. By 1530 Furnival's and Thavies Inns had become affiliated to Lincoln's Inn, while Staple Inn and Barnard's Inn looked to Gray's Inn, and Clement's, Clifford's, and Lyon's Inns were affiliated to the Inner Temple. After the destruction of the Strand Inn in 1549, the Middle Temple had only one Inn of Chancery, namely New Inn. Each Inn of Chancery normally comprised a Principal, Ancients (Benchers) [magistrates] and Juniors or Companions (barristers and students). Unlike the Inns of Court, the Inns of Chancery--also styled 'Honourable Societies'--had no power to call students to the Bar but in most other respects their constitutions were similar to those of the Inns of Court. By 1600 eight Inns of Chancery were in existence but, with the decline in the educational role of these Inns, students were tending increasingly to enroll directly in the Inns of Court. At the same time the attorney and solicitors, who were being gradually excluded from the Inns of Court, took over the Inns of Chancery.’ For references to various Inns, also cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.i, The Puritan I.iii, Your Five Gallants IV.ii, A Trick to Catch the Old One I.iv.

Note: Gray's Inn Fields: open fields to the north of Gray's Inn, used as grounds for recreation but eventually frequented by petty thieves

Note: [heard]: hard (Q)

Note: Saint Antling's bell: St. Antlings was another name for the Puritan church of St. Antholin, on Watling Street on the north side of Budge Row. In 1599, the congregation of St. Antholin's began sermons at 5 a.m., heralded by the chapel bells, much to the frustration of the neighbors. Cf. the character Nicholas St. Tantlings in The Puritan (specifically II.i for the earliness of their sermons), Michaelmas Term V.i.

Note: liberties: the liberties of the city of London

Note: Kent, unconquered: It was a Kentish boast that it had never been conquered; there is a pun on Kent/cunt.

Note: wiles: with the pun on wilds, referring to the formerly heavily forested nature of Kent; cf. Michaelmas Term II.iii, 1 Henry IV II.i.

Note: queans: whores, strumpets; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.ii, A Yorkshire Tragedy v, Your Five Gallants III.ii, The Witch III.ii, A Trick to Catch the Old One III.iv, The Family of Love IV.iii, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.ii.

Note: spital dealing: Spitals were originally houses for lepers and victims of other diseases, but the term came a hospital specifically for venereal disease; frequently alluded to in Middleton, e.g., A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.ii & V.i.

Note: [burr]: a broad ring of iron behind the handle of a tilting lance; burgh (Q)

Note: young flood: when the tide begins to flow up the river; cf. A Chaste Maid in CheapsideII.ii, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's II.ii.

Note: put case: suppose (a legal term), with the sexual pun of case = vagina; cf. II.ii,A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.i, Your Five Gallants III.ii, The Changeling II.ii, Women Beware Women IV.ii, Westward Ho! I.i.

Note: service: with the bawdy double meaning; cf. Anything for a Quiet Life II.i, The Witch I.i, Blurt, Master Constable II.ii. Trapdoor continues to quibble on the bawdy.

Note: high German's size: a reference to a famous German fencer of the time

Note: same wine: Bastard was a sweet Spanish wine.

Note: Parker's ordinary: not particularly identified

Note: duck: i.e., a decoy; the use of spaniels in duck-hunting was quite popular, and alluded to frequently by Dekker. Cf. The Witch of Edmonton IV.i, Match Me in London III.ii, The Noble Spanish Soldier II.ii, Marston's Histriomastix II.

Note: Hogsden: Hoxton, a northern suburb of London, a favorite place for afternoon jaunts by Londoners

Note: pigsney: pig's eye, a common form of endearment

Note: Spits in the dog's mouth: ‘The reason for this action is obscure. Mr. T. R. Henn suggests that it may have been a device to ensure that the dog memorized its master's scent; he also informs me that he has known groundskeepers to spit on a ferret after it has been muzzled to smooth down the fur ruffled by the muzzled. Possibly the dog was similarly muzzled’ (Gomme). Hoy replies, ‘Perhaps so; but other evidence suggests that the action betokens some odd sign of affection bestowed on a pet. Cf. Jonson, Discoveries, lines 309-311: 'what hath he done more, then a troublesome base curre? bark'd, and made a noyse a farre off: had a foole, or two to spit in his mouth, and cherish him with a musty bone?'’ I tend to agree with Hoy; cf. The Witch of Edmonton IV.ii.

Note: Parlous Pond: Parlous, or Perilous, Pond, so called because of the numerous accidents there, was in Hoxton and visited by many Londoners for both duck-hunting and swimming.

Note: two-leav'd: two leaud (Q); ‘the primary sense intended is the comparison of the tongue to the two hinged parts of a door or gate’ (Bowers)

Note: hog-rubber: a term of contempt, probably derived from ‘hog-grubber,’ a sneak; cf. Bartholomew Fair V.iv, The Devil's Law-Case IV.i.

Note: pageant-bearer: Porters were employed to carry pageants, or portable stages, for plays and other spectacles in the streets.

Note: at first: in the first place

Note: a chopping and changing: an exchange

Note: poor younger brothers...old cozening widows: i.e., one who has not benefited by inheritance and must therefore be more aggressive in marrying for money; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's III.ii.

Note: sturgeon voyage: fishing-voyage for sturgeon; ‘The point here, and in what follows, seems to be: don't chose [sic] a wife as if you were going to be away from home and would never have to live with her, or as if you were going to a barbaric country where any female would do’ (Hoy).

Note: as if you were going to Virginia: cf. Women Beware Women I.ii.

Note: She is but cunning, gives him longer time in't: i.e., like a usurer who gives a debtor more time to repay, thus allowing the interest to mount

Note: so ho ho so ho: the falconer's cry, encouraging the bird to stoop to the lure; cf. Old Fortunatus I.i.

Note: There boy, there boy: a huntsman's cry to his dogs; cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One IV.iv, The Tempest IV.i.

Note: clout: a pincushion strapped to the wrist or finger for use in tailoring

Note: two trinkets: Apparently, small ornaments on the breeches, perhaps referring to the points (cf. gloss below), although Gomme's conjecture of ‘testicles’ is certainly valid.

Note: coats: petticoats

Note: great Dutch slop: wide breeches, like those worn by Moll in the title-page illustration; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.iii, Blurt, Master Constable II.i, The Alchemist III.iii.

Note: lusty: full of healthy vigor (cf. the ‘Lusty Servant’ in A Yorkshire Tragedy), as well as the sexual definition

Note: he that is sway'd...rusty clock: ‘A sardonic comment on the old man's incapacity--once he is old and impotent he cannot hope for sexual success, his spring is no longer taut, his action is rusty, his rhythm erratic and weak--with a warning that the young (those in their springtime) be not ruled by the dicta of the elderly’ (Gomme).

Note: Ludgate: one of the eight gates in the Roman wall of ancient London, built during the reign of King Lud in 66 BC and rebuilt in 1586. It had a flat leaded roof but no clock; Gomme conjectures Sebastian means St. Martin's Church. Ludgate is also mentioned in The Puritan I.iii. Illustration: 1) Aldgate, 2) Bishopsgate, 3) Moorgate, 4) Cripplegate, 5) Aldersgate, 6) Newgate, 7) Ludgate, 8) Temple Bar; all but the last were demolished before the end of the 18th century.

Note: lets off the hour...time is satisfied: i.e., tolls the hour, after which it stops

Note: stops: stop = mechanism which prevents the striker

Note: short prayer: i.e., before execution

Note: sessions-house: courtroom

Note: Keep the left hand: i.e., the sinister or perverse way; cf. The Spanish Tragedy I.i.

Note: [Marry]: Many (Q)

Note: suspect: suspicion, the accent on the last syllable

Note: a' th' good man's: ‘God is a good man’ was proverbial; cf. Much Ado about Nothing III.v.

Note: give but aim: give aim = stand by the target and inform the shooter how close his arrow came to the bull's eye in order for him to perfect his shot; cf. Westward Ho! II.ii.

Note: tester: sixpence, so called from the teston of Henry VIII and the image of his head (Old French teste) stamped on it; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.i, The Merry Wives of Windsor I.iii, 2 Henry IV III.ii.

Note: Marybone Park: ‘Until 1611 Marylebone Manor was crown property: the gardens (ultimately incorporated into Regent's Park) were said in A Fair Quarrel IV.iv to be suitable as a burial ground for whores and panders because it was near Tyburn. The point of Laxton's quip, however, is enriched by the linking of a pun on Marybone (= marrow-bone) and park in the sense of 'the female body as a domain where the lover may freely roam' (cf. Venus and Adonis 231ff.)’ (Gomme).

Note: [frampold]: phrampell (Q); fiery, mettlesome, spirited. Cf. Wit at Several Weapons III.i, The Merry Wives of Windsor II.ii.

Note: Smithfield: a horse-market outside Aldersgate; the reputation of its dealers was not very high; cf. 2 Henry IV I.ii.

Note: you: your (Q)

Note: [couch'd]: coacht (Q); embroidered with gold

Note: tufftaffety: Hoy cites Linthicum, p. 124: ‘Plain taffeta was not rich enough for Elizabethan taste. It must be 'tufted', i.e. woven with raised stripes of spots. These stripes, upon being cut, left a pile like velvet, and, since the tufted parts were always a different colour from the ground, beautiful colour combinations were possible.... Tuft-taffeta was used for hats for both men and women, and for men's hose, jerkins, cloaks, and jackets.’ Sir Godfrey has a ‘taffety’ hat in The Puritan III.vi.

Note: vild: vile

Note: highways are stopp'd with them: the nouveaux riches, who, by the sheer number of coaches and their incompetent driving, clogged up the highways

Note: Cerberus: watchdog, from the three-headed dog that watched the gates of Hades; cf. Blurt, Master Constable III.i.

Note: Savoy: the 13th-century palace reconstructed as a hospital for the poor in 1505; in the late 16th century there were complaints that criminals used it as a sanctuary from the law. Cf. The Shoemakers' Holiday IV.iv. The illustration is from an 18th-century engraving depicting the Savoy c. 1550.

Note: Islington: one of the northern suburbs of London, another favorite place of recreation

Note: mercers: Mercers dealt in costly fabrics. A Trick to Catch the Old One I.i, The Phoenix I.ii,

Note: catchpole: sheriff's officer who acted as tax gatherer; cf. Blurt, Master Constable II.i, The Puritan III.v, Westward Ho! III.ii.

Note: corruption: decomposition

Note: if they would keep...generation of a sergeant: if gallants were as prompt paying the mercers' bills as they were meeting their harlots, not even bankrupts would want to become sergeants, because, would you know, that's why men become sheriff's officers, i.e., they buy their way into a post in which they were likely to be bribed or be able to keep some of the money for themselves

Note: Three Pigeons: This inn in Brentford finally closed in 1916; I.ii of She Stoops to Conquer takes place here. Cf. The Alchemist V.iv.

Note: untruss a point: Untied one of the points that joined the breeches to the doublet; Laxton believes she is beginning to undress.

Note: There's the gold: the ten angels which Laxton gave Moll in II.i.

Note: hackney: 1) horse kept for hire, 2) prostitute; cf. 1 The Honest Whore II.i.

Note: pace: 1) speed of the horse, 2) training as a prostitute; cf. Pericles IV.v.

Note: racks: moves with the gait called a rack, in which the horse raises both hooves on the same side at the same time

Note: Win 'em and wear 'em!: a popular expression, a variation of which is ‘Win her and wear her,’ referring to a bride; cf. Much Ado about Nothing V.i, The Witch of Edmonton I.ii & II.ii.

Note: serve an execution on thee: 1) formally deliver a legal writ, 2) inflict corporal punishment, 3) Gomme sees sexual innuendo: ‘draw meant also to expose the penis (as a sword from a scabbard), and an execution a performance of the sexual act (see Troilus and Cressida III.ii.81, and cf. below, l. 118). Her threat therefore is that she will geld him.’

Note: monkey: exotic pets such as monkeys (proverbially lascivious) were mentioned to indicate the decadence of court ladies; cf. Michaelmas Term I.i, The Puritan I.iii & IV.ii, The Bloody Banquet I.iv, Cynthia's Revels IV.i.

Note: cup and lip: sharing a loving-cup and kissing

Note: act: sexual act; cf. The Merchant of Venice I.iii. For a similar sentiment, cf. Shakespeare's Sonnet 121: ‘'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed....’

Note: lay ledger: lie, rest, reside

Note: golden hook: ‘To angle with a golden hook’ is proverbial; cf. A Fair Quarrel III.ii.

Note: wedlocks: wives; cf. The Poetaster IV.iii.

Note: shifting sisters: probably prostitutes, i.e., the ‘sisterhood’ that shifts beds; cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One V.ii.

Note: 'cause: so that

Note: [slanderers]: slanders (Q)

Note: familiar: a spirit or demon appointed to serve a particular person; cf. The Witch I.ii.

Note: [voyage]: viage (Q)

Note: chirurgeon: surgeon (archaic)

Note: umbles: physical constitution (literally, the edible innards of an animal, usually a deer)

Note: stand to't stiffly: with the sexual innuendo

Note: [make]: meke (Q)

Note: their tricks in't: how they do it

Note: [Yea]: Ye (Q)

Note: Fillips: fillip = a stroke or tap given by bending the last joint of a finger against the thumb and suddenly releasing it; the pun, of course, is on ‘temple.’ Cf. Anything for a Quiet Life IV.ii.

Note: Chick Lane: better known as Stinking Lane, just off Newgate Street to the east of Grayfriars Church (later Christchurch)

Note: wide straddle: apparently a characteristic of the real Moll

Note: entertainment: employment

Note: cast off this: i.e., she will give Trapdoor the clothes she now wears as hand-me-downs; cf. Your Five Gallants IV.viii, Blurt, Master Constable II.ii, The Revenger's Tragedy V.i.

Note: St. Thomas Apostle's: on Knightrider Street by Wringwren Lane, east of St. Paul's near College Hill

Note: pruing: with the possible pun on ‘proo,’ to call an animal to stand (dial.)

Note: kyes: cries

Note: up and ride: a common phrase; cf. Blurt, Master Constable IV.i, The Family of Love I.ii.

Note: What is't: whats ist (Q)

Note: drugs: drudges

Note: pounded: with the sexual innuendo

Note: teeth waters: i.e., mouth waters; cf. 2 The Honest Whore IV.ii.

Note: cookish: like a cook, i.e., hovering over, tending all the time

Note: fool's head: with a pun on bauble, the ornament on the end of the wand carried by a jester, which often carried sexual innuendo, which certainly seems to be the case here

Note: [sting]: sing (Q); cf. The Taming of the Shrew II.i.

Note: [apron] husbands: aperne (Q); husbands who are tied to their wives' apron-strings

Note: cotqueans: men who meddle with female affairs (Dyce)

Note: milch-kine: milk-cows

Note: scurvygrass: cruciferous plant which supposedly prevented scurvy; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.ii.

Note: Demophon was false to Phyllis: ‘Demophon, son of Theseus, en route back to Athens at the end of the Trojan War, met and married Phyllis, a Bisaltian princess. When he tired of her and announced his need to visit his mother in Athens, Phyllis knew he would not return though he swore by all the gods that he would be back within the year. On his departure, she gave him a casket containing a charm, with instructions to open it when he had abandoned all hope of returning to her. Instead of going to Athens, Demophon settled in Cyprus. At the end of a year, Phyllis committed suicide. In the same hour, Demophon was prompted to look in the casket. The contents (their nature undisclosed in the myth) maddened him. Galloping off insanely on his horse, he was thrown and impaled on his own sword’ (Hoy, referencing Robert Graves, The Greek Myths). Gomme confuses this with another tale involving a Thracian princess named Phyllis at the time of the Trojan War.

Note: Pan-da-rus was to Cres-sida: Dyce was first to observe that the hyphens probably indicate the difficulty with which Mistress Gallipot reads their names.

Note: Aeneas made an ass of Dido: Returning from the Trojan War, Aeneas was shipwrecked in Carthage and with whom Dido, the queen, fell in love. He took advantage of her luxurious accommodations until Jupiter prompted him to leave in order to found Rome; at his departure, Dido killed herself.

Note: die to thee: with the sexual innuendo

Note: I know his threes too well: Mistress Gallipot may merely be making a comment on Laxton's handwriting, but this sounds like a laugh-line, probably bawdy; I haven't been able to discover any such significance, but it has been noted that Middleton, for one, had a penchant for things coming in threes.

Note: adamants: magnets, lodestones

Note: Hockley Hole: village that lay in the Fleet Valley northwest of Clerkenwell Green, not to be confused with Hockley-in-the Hole in Bedfordshire, mentioned in The Puritan IV.ii, Northward Ho! I.i.

Note: made sure: contracted, betrothed

Note: twelve months three times...silver bow: cf. 2 The Honest Whore V.ii, The Whore of Babylon I.i (‘Five summers have scarce drawn their glimmering nights/Through the moon's silver bow...’) & IV.ii.

Note: sleight: contrivance; cf. Your Five Gallants II.iii, The Changeling IV.i.

Note: God-so: an oath; cf. ‘catso,’ Blurt, Master Constable V.i.

Note: turtles: turtle-doves, emblems of true love; cf. The Changeling III.iv.

Note: sirrah: This form of address for servants was sometimes used for women.

Note: sadness: seriousness

Note: rubbers in a false alley: Rubbers, a singular form, was the third game after the players had each won one game in a match at bowls, a very popular sport often gambled upon. Aspects and terminology of the game were often used by playwrights, often with sexual overtones. Rubbing, a variation of rubbers, has obvious sexual overtones; cf. Love's Labours Lost IV.i. Alleys, or banks, were undulations in the open green which skilled bowlers used when rolling their bowls; here, the false alley is Openwork's supposed harlot. The bias was the impetus given to cause the bowl to run obliquely. For various allusions to bowls, cf. Blurt, Master Constable III.iii, If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil Is in It II.i, Old Fortunatus IV.i, Troilus and Cressida III.ii, Satiromastix V.ii.

Note: stale mutton: mutton was slang for strumpet, hence stale = overused, worn-out; cf. Your Five Gallants III.iii,A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.i, II.i, IV.i, Blurt, Master Constable I.ii, No Wit, No Help Like a Woman's I.i, The Bloody Banquet II.i, 1 The Honest Whore II.i.

Note: abroad: i.e., outside the house

Note: rack and manger: i.e., his food; to live at rack and manger was to live in reckless abundance. Cf. Northward Ho! IV.iii.

Note: saddle him in's kind: treat him as he should be treated, i.e., subdue him

Note: ride our journey: with the innuendo of ‘enjoy our sexual pleasure’

Note: amble: originally used only for horses; another in the series of sexual metaphors

Note: 'Ud's light: God's light, an oath; cf. IV.ii, ‘'Ud's soul’

Note: glister: clyster, enema; cf. Dr. Glister in The Family of Love,A Trick to Catch the Old One V.ii, The Old Law III.ii, Anything for a Quiet Life IV.ii.

Note: one of Hercules' labours: Hercules performed twelve nearly impossible tasks as penance for killing his wife and children in a fit of insanity.

Note: pudding tobacco: tobacco compressed into rolls resembling pudding, or sausage, but Laxton's question seems to be a threat, probably implying that he is after Gallipot's pudding, or guts; cf. Satiromastix I.ii.

Note: [precontract]: precontact (Q); a contract of marriage. Cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One IV.iv.

Note: No wild fowl to cut up: Wild fowl is slang for whore; cf. Northward Ho! I.ii.

Note: [lain]: lien (Q)

Note: [now]: uow (Q)

Note: Be-Lady: by our Lady, an oath (appears variously as berlady and byrlady; cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One IV.ii, The Puritan III.vi.

Note: bouncing ramp: bold, vulgar, ill-behaved woman or girl

Note: oyster-wench: cf. Richard II I.iv.

Note: As a barber's every Saturday night: alluding to barbers' reputation for gossip-mongering

Note: in conjunction: in the same zodiacal sign (with the sexual innuendo); for more astrological metaphors, cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's

Note: holes of her upper body: i.e., the eyelets of the bodice of her gown; cf. A Mad, World, My Masters III.iii.

Note: placket: a short opening or vent at the top of a woman's petticoat or kirtle skirt, hence slang for vagina; cf. The Family of Love IV.ii, Anything for a Quiet Life II.ii.

Note: standing collars: a high, straight collar fastened in front, like that worn by Moll on the title-page; cf. Northward Ho! II.i, If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil Is in It III.iii.

Note: Michaelmas Term: the first term in the legal year, when termers would have a lot of money; cf. Westward Ho! II.i, III.iii, IV.i.

Note: tilting: encountering (cf. IV.ii for other meanings, although this usage has sexual innuendo as well)

Note: them: the other knights

Note: [Pox]: Foxe (Q)

Note: Russian bear: Bears were imported from Russia for the bear-baitings, and they were known for their ferocity; cf. The Whore of Babylon II.i, Macbeth III.iv.

Note: baggage: wanton; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.i, Romeo and Juliet III.v, Pericles IV.ii, The Comedy of Errors III.i, The Merry Wives of Windsor IV.ii.

Note: take up more: i.e., on credit

Note: ningles: ingles, i.e., favorite boys, catamites; cf. Satiromastix I.ii.

Note: horse-leeches: rapacious parasites; cf. A Fair Quarrel III.ii.

Note: advise: advice

Note: woodcock: a bird easily trapped and hence a dupe; cf. The Witch II.iii, The Family of Love II.iv, the character Woodcock in Blurt, Master Constable, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's III.i, Northward Ho! V.i.

Note: counter: Counters (or compters) were debtors' prisons (in London were the Poultry Counter, in which Dekker himself was once imprisoned, and the Wood Street Counter); they were divided into four wards. The master's was for the richest and provided the best accommodations; then came the knight's, the twopenny, and finally, for the poorest, the Hole, a name which Middleton frequently takes advantage of for the bawdy pun. Cf. The Phoenix II.iii & IV.iii, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside V.iv, Your Five Gallants I.i, Michaelmas Term III.iv, A Trick to Catch the Old One IV.iii, The Puritan III.iv.

Note: countertenor: for the same pun, cf. The Witch of Edmonton II.i.

Note: bridled there: with a pun on Bridewell, a prison for prostitutes

Note: Bedlam: St. Mary of Bethlehem Hospital, the lunatic asylum just outside London (for its location, consult the map in the notes for A Chaste Maid in Cheapside). Cf. The Changeling I.ii.

Note: counter:/Why, 'tis an university!: Writers at this time frequently made this comparison (e.g., Middleton in The Phoenix and Michaelmas Term).

Note: commence: earn a degree

Note: be plac'd: beg plac't (Q)

Note: Proceeds: advances to a higher degree

Note: dispute: undergo a disputatio, or oral examination; cf. Middleton's parody in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside IV.i.

Note: Lies by th' heels: is arrested and chained; cf. Anything for a Quiet Life V.i.

Note: puttocks: buzzards; this is the name of the sergeant in The Puritan.

Note: spirits: i.e., sergeants (looking ahead to Curtilax's line about conjuring); cf. Michaelmas Term III.iii.

Note: muzzle-chops: nickname for a man with a prominent nose and mouth

Note: blue coat: describing the uniform of serving-men; cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One II.i, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's IV.ii, The Shoemakers' Holiday V.ii.

Note: honesty: a collective term for gentry, here used in the singular ironically

Note: I conjure most in that circle: with the pun on the circle in which conjurers evoked spirits

Note: toward: promising, hopeful

Note: One pair of shears sure cut out both your coats: i.e., you are two of a kind; cf. Measure for Measure I.ii.

Note: ware: merchandise (cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.iii); as Gomme notes, the image is not very precise, unless Sir Davy is thinking of the wares a peddler carries on his back, just as these officers are always on the backs of gentlemen.

Note: great fish and little fish: proverbial; cf. Pericles II.i.

Note: a sergeant cares but for the shoulder of a man: i.e., because he claps the man on his shoulder to signify his arrest; cf. Michaelmas Term III.iii, The Puritan III.iii, Satiromastix IV.ii, Westward Ho! V.iv.

Note: Jews: Jews were often unkindly depicted or referred to in these terms in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama; the most notable examples are of course The Merchant of Venice and The Jew of Malta. Also cf. The Phoenix II.ii, Your Five Gallants IV.viii, The Family of Love I.iii.

Note: [flay]: flea (Q)

Note: Bartholomew Fair: London's annual jamboree and chief national cloth sale; it was opened by the Lord Mayor on St. Bartholomew's Eve (August 23) and lasted a fortnight. Cf., of course, Jonson's Bartholomew Fair.

Note: Sa, sa: from the French ‘ça, ça’ the exclamation of fencers when delivering a thrust, here used as a hunting cry; cf. King Lear IV.vi, The Revenger's Tragedy V.i, Patient Grissil III.ii.

Note: give the counter: To hunt counter is to run a false scent, or follow it in reverse direction; so here, turn him back. ‘There is doubtless a play on counter in the sense of prison’ (Gomme).

Note: mace: A sergeant's scepter or staff of office, with the pun on the spice; cf. A Mad World, My Masters III.ii, The Old Law V.i, Anything for a Quiet Life III.ii.

Note: caudle: warm drink of gruel and ale or wine, often used medicinally; cf. Your Five Gallants IV.ii, The Witch II.iii, The Family of Love III.i, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's II.iii, The Puritan IV.iii.

Note: double your files, traverse your ground: literally, make the ranks smaller by putting two files in one, and move from side to side; it doesn't make sense, but Sir Davy's enthusiasm outstrips his knowledge of military maneuvers.

Note: and: and and (Q)

Note: ambuscado: ambush

Note: [nook] thou: uooke (Q); hide in that nook

Note: wrangling: noisy, argumentative

Note: ravens: Ravenshaw is a sergeant in The Puritan; also cf. Westward Ho! III.ii.

Note: wind-shaken: weakened by the force of the wind, here a metaphor for having been weakened by debts and ill-luck

Note: men-midwives: cf. The Whore of Babylon II.i.

Note: Peeping?: The officers are peeking into the tavern to see when Jack Dapper will come out.

Note: two infected maltmen: ‘Presumably the cloaks would hide the visible signs of an infection (but 'infected' could mean tainted with crime). I do not know why maltmen...should be picked on.... Maltmen appear in several proverbs, none of which seems to tell on the present context’ (Gomme). Cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's III.i.

Note: course: a pursuit with hounds, a hunting term

Note: buckler: a small, round shield; cf. The Phoenix II.iii, The Changeling I.ii, Much Ado about Nothing V.ii.

Note: dry-beat: cf. The Shoemakers' Holiday I.iv.

Note: a butcher dry-beat him with a cudgel: As Mulholland conjectures, an allusion to fray in February 1611 involving two butchers, Ralph Brewin of St. Clement's Eastcheap and John Lynsey of St. Andrew's Undershaft, accused on assaulting gentlemen patrons of The Fortune.

Note: [MOLL]/Honest sergeant--/[TRAPDOOR]: In Q, the s.p. is Both, and the word ‘sergeant’ is ‘Seriant’ uncorrected, ‘Serieant’ corrected. Gomme follows Dyce and Bullen, and maintains the dual s.p. while emending to ‘servant’. On the other hand, Bowers prefers ‘sir’, believing Gull would not be addressed before his master, and that the compositor mistakenly expanded the abbreviation ‘Sr’. However, I tend to think the Q reading is correct, and that Moll's and Trapdoor's lines were fused to convey the fact that they are acting in tandem and are speaking almost simultaneously. Splitting the s.p. somewhat clarifies the action and helps a reader visualize the trick: Moll accosts and in some way ‘hangs upon’ Curtilax (as he puts it) in order to expose him and divert his attention, leaving it to Trapdoor to sound the alarm, thus allowing Jack and Gull to escape. (Cf. similar ‘rescue’ in The Phoenix IV.iii, where a reveler physically prevents an arrest by feigning a jest.)

Note: rescue: the taking of a person or goods out of custody by force; cf. 1 The Honest Whore IV.iii, Coriolanus

Note: Shoe Lane: the lane that ran south from Holborn Street to Fleet Street; it paralleled the Fleet Ditch to the east

Note: scriveners' bands: i.e., in debt; Middleton especially took a very dim of scriveners (i.e., notaries, those who draw up contracts and bonds of debt): cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One I.iii, The Family of Love III.i, The Phoenix II.ii, A Yorkshire Tragedy i, The Revenger's Tragedy I.iii.

Note: German watch: renowned for their complexity and craftsmanship; cf. A Mad World, My Masters IV.i, Love's Labours Lost III.i.

Note: hundred marks in yellow links: his chain of office as magistrate; cf. A Mad World, My Masters V.i & V.ii.

Note: headboroughs: parish officers whose functions are identical to those of petty constables'; cf., e.g., Verges in Much Ado about Nothing, The Changeling I.ii.

Note: court cupboard: a sideboard with three shelves and elaborately carved legs

Note: closely: secretly

Note: lets: prevents

Note: [glisterings]: gilsterings (Q)

Note: mysteries: skill, art (obs.), cf. All's Well that Ends Well III.vi, Ford and Dekker's The Sun's Darling IV.i; Dyce suggests emending to ‘miseries’.

Note: to choose: for choice

Note: [father's]: fathets (Q)

Note: I pitied her for name's sake: Moll was traditionally the name of a ‘low’ woman; cf. A Yorkshire Tragedy i, the lascivious Moll Plus in The Puritan, and Moll Yellowhammer (ironically named because she is virtuous) in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside.

Note: lays: wagers; cf. The Revenger's Tragedy V.i, The Changeling III.iii.

Note: ring-doves: like turtle-doves (III.iii), emblematic of true love; cf. A Game at Chess IV.iv.

Note: fury: with a pun on fury in the sense of musical inspiration

Note: Like a swan above bridge: Bullen notes that ‘the Thames abounded with swans at this date.’ There is a pun on the piece of wood over which the strings of the viol are stretched.

Note: close: secretive

Note: call the viol an unmannerly instrument for a woman: viol de gambo, a six-stringed violin which was gripped between the player's thighs, with the sexual innuendo reinforced by the sexual pun on ‘instrument’; cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One I.i, Your Five Gallants II.i.

Note: Burse: The Royal Exchange, built by Sir Thomas Gresham in 1566-68; it had many shops and was famous for its silks and draperies. Cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.ii (‘Gresham's Burse’), Anything for a Quiet Life I.i, Westward Ho! II.i.

Note: Saint Kathern's: the dockside district of London's East End, which had a notorious reputation; cf. The Devil is an Ass I.i, The Alchemist V.iii.

Note: Fleet: the Fleet prison

Note: hoise up sails: cf. 2 The Honest Whore IV.ii, Patient Grissil III.i, If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil Is in It II.i.

Note: tails: 1) cant term for the sexual organs and, by extension, lascivious people, 2) pun on tales

Note: cousin-germans: first cousins; cf. The Old Law II.i, Blurt, Master Constable I.ii.

Note: many a younger brother...wriggle in and out: ‘Suggestive of a variation on that type of cony-catching known as 'The curbing law' (whereby a thief angles with a hooked rod through an open window for valuables that he has previously spotted)’ (Hoy).

Note: eel in a sandbag: Gomme glosses as ‘a proverbial phrase used of things languishing for want of proper sustenance’ (as Cynthia's Revels II.v), but this doesn't seem to fit the context.

Note: ballets: i.e., ballads commemorating the condemned

Note: brokers/Would be chosen for hangmen: It was customary for hangmen to receive the clothes of their victims; cf. The Devil Is an Ass I.i.

Note: wardropes: wardrobes

Note: No poison, sir, but serves us for some use: cf. The Changeling II.ii, ‘The ugliest creature/Creation fram'd for some use.’

Note: Foot: by God's foot, an oath (elsewhere ‘'Sfoot’); cf. The Phoenix I.ii, A Yorkshire Tragedy ix, Blurt, Master Constable I.i, The Bloody Banquet I.iv, The Revenger's Tragedy I.iii.

Note: sight: sigh

Note: plunge: stress, straits, i.e., into a dilemma

Note: Puts down: 1) surpasses, 2) overthrows, which Sir Alexander interprets as doing so by means of venereal disease

Note: And will do still; he'll ne'er be in other tale: he'll always be wanting the full payment, i.e., nobody will pay him if doesn't extend credit

Note: Clifford's Inn: the oldest of the Inns of Chancery, next to St. Dunstan's in the West on Fleet Street

Note: You teach to sing too?: with the sexual innuendo; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.i, Troilus and Cressida V.ii.

Note: prick-song: a pricked song is music written down, with the sexual innuendo; cf. Women Beware Women III.ii, The Phoenix I.ii, Your Five Gallants II.i, Romeo and Juliet II.iv, The Witch III.ii, Match Me in London IV.ii.

Note: lesson: musical exercise or composition written for use in teaching

Note: mend: surpass

Note: angels mark'd with holes in them: Small holes are drilled in the shillings for means of identification; evidently Sir Alexander means to have Moll arrested later for stealing them.

Note: fish: slang for loose women or the female genitals

Note: roses: Large silk roses on shoes became fashionable at the end of the 16th century; Moll wears them in the title-page illustration. Cf. Webster's The White Devil V.iii, Chapman's Caesar and Pompey II.i.

Note: Bunhill: A street in London near Moorfields; on its east side were the artillery fields, used for archery practice. Bullen notes that in September 1623, Middleton received twenty marks ‘for his service at the shooting on Bunhill, and at the Conduit Head before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen.’

Note: fline: flown

Note: Pimlico: The part of Hoxton from the corner of St. John's Road and New North Road to Hoxton Street, which was called Pimlico Walk; it was a place of resort and famous for fresh cakes and ale. The name was later transferred to the area between the Thames and St. James's Park. Cf. The Alchemist V.ii.

Note: double: be duplicitous, evasive; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's II.i.

Note: shag-ruff band...set in a cramp-ring: ‘One of a number of ingenious depictions of the Jacobean gallant's head precisely fixed in the centre of a stiffly elaborate ruff’ (Hoy). Cramp-rings were rings that supposed protected the wearer from the cramp and epilepsy; they were hallowed by the king or queen every year on Good Friday. Cf. The Alchemist IV.iii, The White Devil III.i.

Note: tilt: an awning over a boat

Note: punk: whore; cf. Your Five Gallants I.i, A Trick to Catch the Old One I.ii, Blurt, Master Constable III.i.

Note: incontinently: 1) immediately, 2) with an insatiable sexual appetite; cf. Blurt, Master Constable II.ii, The Old Law V.i, Satiromastix III.i.

Note: poking my ruff: poking-sticks (or poting-sticks) were steel sticks used to set the plaits of the ruff; cf. Blurt, Master Constable III.iii, A Yorkshire Tragedy i, 1 The Honest Whore II.i.

Note: hit I him i' the teeth: I reproached him; cf. A Fair Quarrel II.ii, Satiromastix I.ii.

Note: rest: a wood pole with an iron spike on one end driven into the ground, and a semicircular piece of iron on the other which supported the musket when firing

Note: whisking: moving actively, brisk, lively

Note: running: flighty

Note: purse-nets: a bag-shaped net, the mouth of which can be drawn together with cords, used especially for catching rabbits or fish; cf. Pursenet the pickpocketing gallant in Your Five Gallants, 2 The Honest Whore IV.ii.

Note: [MISTRESS GALLIPOT/ ]: A line of Mistress Gallipot's seems to have dropped out, for Mistress Openwork has two consecutive speeches. ‘Then they hang the head’ appears at the top of the page, with the s.p. appearing as the catchphrase at the bottom of the previous page. The sequence of dialogue doesn't necessitate a line between the two speeches (i.e., Mistress Openwork's second speech can follow the first without any disruption in sense), but another line could easily be inserted. Three copies of (Q) were reset, resulting in accidentals such as ‘Then they hang head’: Bowers conjectures that the printer realized Mistress Gallipot's was missing, unlocked the frame, found it could not be inserted, and the reset the type carelessly.

Note: hang the head...droop: with the sexual innuendo

Note: cog: wheedle, fawn, employ feigned flattery; cf. The Merry Wives of Windsor III.iii, Westward Ho! II.i.

Note: ingle: 1) fondle, caress, or 2) wheedle, cajole (as in Blurt, Master Constable II.ii)

Note: riven: broken, split

Note: frump'd: mocked, insulted

Note: how shall I find water to keep these two mills going?: a pun on water = semen; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.ii

Note: clapp'd under hatches: kept below deck, with the pun clap = clip, i.e., embrace

Note: all split: to make all split = to wreak havoc; cf. The Witch II.ii, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside IV.ii, A Midsummer Night's Dream I.ii.

Note: cork heels: Chopines had cork soles and high cork heels, and were often associated with wantonness; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside III.ii, The Changeling III.iii & V.iii, Much Ado about Nothing V.iv, The Revenger's Tragedy I.ii, 2 The Honest Whore III.i.

Note: gudgeons: small, easily-caught fish, therefore fools; cf. the character Gudgeon in The Family of Love, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside IV.ii, The Bloody Banquet II.i, Northward Ho! I.ii, Match Me in London V.ii.

Note: false faces: At one time fashionable only among the upper classes, the wearing of masks to conceal a woman's identity had worked its way down the social scale; by Restoration times, it was mostly identified with prostitution. Cf. The Phoenix I.v.

Note: you'll eat of a cod's head of your own dressing: i.e., you'll catch yourself in your own net (cod's head = fool), but also with sexual innuendo. Cf. Blurt, Master Constable II.ii, 2 The Honest Whore V.ii.

Note: gib: cat, a term of reproach, especially for an old woman

Note: Your worst: Gomme emends to ‘you're worsted’, i.e., you're blemished, but the Q reading can stand as an abbreviation for ‘Do your worst,’ as Mistress Gallipot says later this scene.

Note: music of the spheres: in Ptolemaic astronomy, crystal spheres revolved between earth and God's throne, a frequently occurring image; cf., e.g., The Revenger's Tragedy II.i.

Note: get you a-mumming: literally, a command to don a mask and take part in a mummers' play, but Mistress Openwork is telling him to be quiet (pun on mum)

Note: Pass by their privilege current: i.e., most people, believing the wearer to be beautiful beneath the mask, show her respect; as Gomme notes, however, the prostitutes who wore masks did not always pass current, as in Northward Ho! I.ii, 2 The Honest Whore IV.i.

Note: Dam: dambe (Q); both ‘dam’ and ‘damn’ fit the context, and the pun is probably intentional, but the OED records ‘dambe’ as an erroneous form only of ‘dam.’

Note: beldam: witch

Note: [sprites]: spirits (Q), emended for the rhyme

Note: [them]: then (Q)

Note: as shopkeepers do their broid'red stuff: a popular charge against tradesmen of keeping the light low to disguise shoddy merchandise; cf. the draper Quomodo (whose henchmen are Falselight and Shortyard) in Michaelmas Term, The Duchess of Malfi I.i, Anything for a Quiet Life II.ii. Hoy suggests emending to ‘braided’, i.e., goods that have changed color, or faded.

Note: two flags were advanc'd: an allusion to the raising of flags at theaters to announce performances; cf. The Whore of Babylon IV.i.

Note: MISTRESS [GALLIPOT]: Mist. Open. (Q)

Note: Westward Ho: the cry of the Thames watermen, but obviously a direct reference to Dekker's and Webster's 1604 comedy, which features citizens' wives and their gallants on a journey westward to Brainford; also cf. Twelfth Night III.i.

Note: toss/Me in a blanket: Blanketing, or tossing in a blanket, was a form of punishment, the offender being tossed in the air by blanket held by those below. There is the innuendo of love-making in a blanket, as Openwork links baboon, a term of abuse, with its proverbially lascivious nature. Cf. The Bloody Banquet III.i, Satiromastix IV.iii.

Note: stale: a lover or mistress whose devotion is turned into ridicule for the amusement of rivals

Note: reversion: 1) legal term for the right of succession after death or the expiration of a grant, 2) leftovers of a meal; cf. The Old Law II.ii, The Changeling IV.iii.

Note: Cold Harbour: Also called Cole Harbour, a mansion by the Thames on Upper Thames Street, later tenements where debtors and vagabonds found sanctuary from the law (a cole = a cheat, sharper); it burned down in the Great Fire of 1666. Cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One II.i, III.i, IV.i, Anything for a Quiet Life II.iii (illustration), Westward Ho! IV.ii.

Note: MISTRESS [OPENWORK]: Mist. Gal. (Q)

Note: western [pug]: png (Q). 1) pug = harlot, 2) western pug = navigators of barges down the Thames from places like Brentford to London; cf. Westward Ho! II.ii.

Note: tilted: 1) jousted, with the sexual innuendo, 2) pitched in the boat on the waves, with the sexual innuendo; cf. III.iii, 1 Henry IV II.iii.

Note: run atilt: engage in a joust

Note: OPENWORK: Mis. Open. (Q)

Note: I'll ride to Oxford...brazen head speak: At Oxford, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay spent seven years constructing a brass head in order to ask it if it was possible to build a brass wall around England. Unfortunately, the head was left unattended when it came time for the head to speak. The story would have been familiar from The Famous History of Friar Bacon (earliest extant copy dated 1627, but prob. c. 1550), and from Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1594), the prologue and epilogue of which Middleton wrote in 1602.

Note: text letters: large or capital letters; cf. If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil Is in It I.ii, The Whore of Babylon V.ii.

Note: turn'd it all to poison: It was believed that every spider was poisonous, but only if the victim knew it was there; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's II.i, The Winter's Tale II.i.

Note: OPENWORK: Mist. Open. (Q)

Note: [counterfeit]: counterfet (Q)

Note: chore: core, here, the core of the apple from the garden of Eden

Note: rub: another allusion the game of bowls, where rub = an obstacle by which a bowl is hindered in its proper course: cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.i & II.iii, The Revenger's Tragedy III.v, The Shoemakers' Holiday V.iv, Richard II III.iv, Hamlet III.i, Henry VIII II.i, and Henry V II.ii, V.ii.

Note: deal upon: 1) set to work upon, 2) have sexual intercourse with

Note: sumner: summoner, a petty officer who notified people when they were to appear in court; cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One II.i, Anything for a Quiet Life I.i.

Note: aloof off: cf. s.d.'s for Michaelmas Term I.i, III.i, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's IV.i.

Note: snaffling: snuffling (var.); Greenwit is pretending to have a cold in order to disguise his voice.

Note: Rose Tavern: There were many London taverns bearing this name. Hoy and Gomme think that the one near Temple Bar at the corner of Thanet Place, frequented by lawyers, is the most attractive candidate. Another Rose Tavern stood on Holborn Hill, from which coaches departed for Brentford.

Note: Crastino sancti Dunstani: the morrow after St. Dunstan's Day (19 May)

Note: Bow Church: St. Mary's le Bow (Sancta Maria de Arcubus) on the corner of Bread Street in West Cheap, the original site of the Court of Arches, the chief court of the Archbishops of Canterbury; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside I.i.

Note: libel: the plaintiff's charges

Note: fagary: vagary; cf. Satiromastix IV.ii.

Note: tawny-coat: the traditional dress of a summoner; cf. Patient Grissil IV.iii.

Note: I must lose my hair in their company: with the jest that he has syphilis, which causes the hair to fall out; cf., A Midsummer Night's Dream I.ii, The Revenger's Tragedy I.i, The Bloody Banquet II.iii, A Trick to Catch the Old One IV.v, Westward Ho! V.iv, 1 The Honest Whore II.ii.

Note: in the nose: The advanced stages of syphilis involved the disintegration of cartilage and tissue, and the disfigurement of the nose was an obvious sign; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's IV.ii.

Note: a knack to know an honest man: An anonymous play by this title was mentioned by Henslowe as being a new piece on 22 October 1594, between which date and 3 November 1596 twenty-one performances by the Admiral's Men at the Rose on the Bankside are recorded; it was printed in 1596. This and ‘a knack to know a knave’ were proverbial.

Note: A very clean shift,/But able to make me lousy: with the pun on shift = piece of clothing and lousy = lice-ridden

Note: [Gelt]: Get (Q). This seems to be the best emendation, = gold (from geld, i.e., money)

Note: Irish: a dice game resembling backgammon

Note: when she comes to bearing: 1) in Irish and backgammon, the removal of a piece at the end of a game, 2) child-bearing; cf. Northward Ho! IV.i.

Note: perspicuous: clear in statement

Note: Meg of Westminster: There was another Moll, much like Moll Frith, whose exploits are told in The Life and Pranks of Long Meg of Westminster (1582); cf. Satiromastix III.i, Jonson's The Fortunate Isles.

Note: forlorn hope: Originally, a chosen body of fighters detached to the front to begin the attack, or skirmishers, it came to mean figuratively those in a desperate condition.

Note: mittimus: a writ for the receiving and keeping of a criminal; cf. The Phoenix V.i, The Old Law V.i.

Note: Newgate: One of the six gates of ancient London and a chief prison, demolished in 1767; see the illustration above. Cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside II.ii, Your Five Gallants III.v, Anything for a Quiet Life III.ii, The Puritan I.iii.

Note: firework to run upon a line: for an illustration, cf. ‘firedrake’ (a firecracker) in The Witch I.i; also cf. Your Five Gallants III.ii, The Whore of Babylon III.i.

Note: linstock: a stick approximately three feet long used to hold matches for igniting a cannon; cf. Blurt, Master Constable II.ii.

Note: captain of the galley-foist: a term of contempt. A galley-foist was a large barge with oars, used specifically as the one that transported the Lord Mayor to Westminster to take his oath; cf. 2 The Honest Whore IV.iii.

Note: shovel-board shilling: a highly-polished shilling used in the game of shovel-board, a game resembling the modern shuffleboard; cf. The Merry Wives of Windsor I.i, Every Man in His Humour III.v.

Note: whistled the poor little buzzard off: a term from falconry, meaning to dismiss by whistling; cf. Othello III.iii.

Note: boot-halers: freebooters, marauders, highwaymen

Note: boon voyage: an anglicizing of bon voyage

Note: nappy: heady, intoxicated

Note: ging: company, crew

Note: world's end: There were apparently many taverns of this name within and (more appropriately) far outside London.

Note: cow-heel: a cow's foot stewed to a jelly

Note: Alla corago: from coraggio (Ital., courage); cf. All's Well that End's Well II.v, The Tempest V.i.

Note: siege of Belgrade: The Hungarians lost Belgrade to the Turks in 1521.

Note: Moldavians, Walachians, and Transylvanians: inhabitants of three of the Balkan provinces in modern Rumania

Note: Sclavonians: a general name for the Slavic people; cf. A Fair Quarrel IV.i.

Note: from Venice to Roma...diverse others: ‘An amble indeed: Vecchio is presumably Civitavecchia, Bononia and Bolonia are one and the same, the modern Bologna, Romania is Romogna, Valteria Volterra, Mountepulchena Montepulciano. Moll recognizes that this is not proper journey but a string of names picked up at hearsay’ (Gomme).

Note: butter-box: The Dutch were stereotyped as being overfond of butter, and therefore fat; cf. No Wit, No Help like a Woman's I.iii, The Shoemakers' Holiday I.iv.

Note: ruffling: swaggering

Note: Ick, mine here...mine here: Gomme provides a translation, although ‘a 'translation' must be a matter partly of guesswork, but it isn't entirely gibberish, though some words are hard to identify. (I have supposed that, since Tearcat goes once into Spanish, he may also include an attempt at a French word: it looks as if Beasa may be baiser.) 'I, sir? I am the ruffling Tearcat, the brave soldier, I have traveled through all Holland: the rascal who gave more [than] a kiss and a word. I beat him with blows on the head; pulled out thence a hundred thousand devils, cheerfully, sir'.’

Note: jobbering: jabbering

Note: Not a cross: i.e., not a penny; coins were frequently stamped with a cross on the reverse. Cf. Blurt, Master Constable II.i, The Family of Love I.ii. Sir Beauteous is trying to get rid of them by offering them money.

Note: skeldering: sponging, used especially for vagabonds posing as soldiers; cf. Satiromastix I.ii, the character Shift in Every Man out of His Humour.

Note: glaziers: eyes

Note: black patches: black patches were fashionable, and often hid blemishes such as rheum and scabs; cf. Blurt, Master Constable III.iii, Anything for a Quiet Life IV.ii.

Note: Isle of Dogs: a peninsula in the Thames between Limehouse, Greenwich, and Blackwall Reaches, so named because it was said the king's hounds were kept there; it was a place of refuge from creditors and the law, which led to frequent jokes. The lost play The Isle of Dogs by Jonson and Nashe led to the theaters being closed for two months. Cf. Satiromastix IV.i.

Note: whip-jack: A ‘sort of nimble-fing'red knaves...who talk of nothing but fights at sea, piracies, drownings and shipwracks, travelling both in the shapes and names of mariners, with a counterfeit license to beg from town to town.... The end of their land voyage is to rob booths at fairs.... These whip-jacks will talk of the Indies and of all countries that lie under heaven, but are indeed no more but fresh-water soldiers’ (The Bellman of London).

Note: horners: 1) workers in horn (i.e., the animal's horn is the raw material), 2) cuckolds (obs.)

Note: horns for the thumb: case or thimble of horn which the cutpurse wore when using a knife to cut the strings of a purse; thieves came to be known as horn-thumbs.

Note: nipping: cutting a purse

Note: maunderer: beggar

Note: pad: road

Note: out at elbows: have a coat worn out at the elbows, to be ragged, poor, in bad condition

Note: cant: ‘It was necessary that a people, so fast increasing and so daily practicing new and strange villainies, should borrow to themselves a speech which, so near as thy could, none but themselves could understand; and for that cause was this language, which some call pedlar's French, invented.... This word canting seems to be derived from the Latin verb canto, which signifies in English to sing, or to make a sound with words, that's to say, speak. And very aptly may canting take his derivation a cantando, from singing, because amongst these beggarly consorts that can play upon no better instruments, the language of canting is a kind of music, and he that in such assemblies can cant best is counted the best musician’ (Lanthorn and Candlelight). Some canting phrases have already been glossed above; Gomme provides an excellent glossary, culled from works of Dekker and others featuring canters' dictionaries.

Note: upright man: The highest ‘office’ in the thieves' hierarchy; after him comes the ruffler, the angler, the rogue, and finally the wild rogue.

Note: doxy: whore

Note: Halt not: do not limp, i.e., be roundabout

Note: by the salomon: by the Mass, an oath

Note: kinchin mort in her slate at her back: ‘Kinchin morts are girls of a year or two old, which the morts, their mothers, carry at their backs in the slates, which in the canting tongue are sheets’ (The Bellman of London).

Note: dell: ‘A dell is a young wench...but as yet not spoiled of her maidenhead.... These dells are reserved as dishes for the upright men, for none but they must have the first taste of them’ (The Bellman of London). A wild dell was one born or begotten under a hedge.

Note: darkmans: night

Note: strommel: straw

Note: ben: good

Note: [booze]: bouse (Q)

Note: gruntling cheat, a cackling cheat, and a quacking cheat: ‘By joining of two simples do they make almost all their compounds. As for example, nab...is head, and nab-cheat is a hat or a cap, which word cheat being coupled to other words stands in very good stead and does excellent service’ (Lanthorn and Candlelight). Trapdoor therefore refers to a pig, a cock or capon, and a duck.

Note: old: fine, rare

Note: ken: house. Like ‘cheat,’ this word is often used in combination with other cant, e.g., a boozing ken is an alehouse, and a few lines later a lib ken is a ‘sleep-house’ or lodging, and a stalling (or stuling) ken is a house for receiving stolen goods.

Note: queer cuffin: ‘The word cove or cofe or cuffin signifies a man, a fellow, etc., but differs something in his property according as it meets with other words, for a gentleman is called a gentry cove or cofe, a good fellow is a ben cofe, a churl is called a queer cuffin...and in canting they term a Justice of the Peace (because he punisheth them, belike) by no other name than by queer cuffin, that's to say a churl or a naughty man’ (Lanthorn and Candlelight).

Note: heave: rob

Note: mill: rob

Note: bung: purse

Note: couch a hogshead: lie down asleep

Note: ruffmans: woods or bushes

Note: wap: have sexual intercourse

Note: niggle: have sexual intercourse

Note: Cut benar whids: speak good words

Note: fambles: hands

Note: stamps: legs

Note: fadoodling: apparently Trapdoor's invention; the earliest OED entry is 1670 (= something ridiculous)

Note: fit: strain

Note: gage: quart pot

Note: rom-booze: wine

Note: Romville: London

Note: caster: cloak

Note: Peck: meat

Note: pannam: bread

Note: [lap]: butter; lay (Q)

Note: popler: porridge

Note: deuse a [vill]: the country; vile (Q)

Note: [MOLL, TEARCAT]: Tearcat's name appears as a s.p. at both the third and tenth lines, and the s.d. The song appears in the right-hand margin at the sixth; like Gomme, I think it is reasonable to assume they join in a chorus here, as well as the last two lines.

Note: lightmans: day

Note: hartmans: stocks

Note: scour the queer cramp-ring: to wear fetters (a jocular use of cramp-ring: cf. IV.ii)

Note: palliard: beggar

Note: docked: lay with

Note: skew: cup

Note: Avast: away

Note: bing: go

Note: Romford market: Romford, twelve miles northeast of London in Essex, famous for its hog market; cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside IV.i.

Note: stall'd: made, ordained

Note: trine: hang

Note: cheats: gallows

Note: I prae, sequor: go before, I follow

Note: gallant: finely dressed

Note: wand: switch for urging a horse on; cf. The Witch II.iii.

Note: strike: Their cant here is best explained by this passage from The Bellman of London, some of which is covered in Moll's explanation below:

This figging law, like the body of some monstrous and terrible beast, stands upon ten feet, or rather lifts up proudly ten dragon-like heads, the names of which are these, viz.:

- He that cuts the purse is called the nip.

- He that is half with him is the snap, or the cloyer.

- The knife is called a cuttle-bung.

- He that picks the pocket is called a foist.

- He that faceth the man is the stale.

- The taking of the purse is called drawing.

- The spying of this villain is called smoking or boiling.

- The purse is the bung.

- The money the shells.

- The act doing is called striking.

Note: Shadow: follow closely

Note: cheaping: asking the price of, bargaining for

Note: caduceus: Strictly defined, the wand carried by an ancient Greek or Roman herald: one was carried by Mercury, the messenger of the gods. Although it sounds as Moll is referring to a rod on which the goldsmith kept his rings in the marketplace, Mercury was also the god of thieves (cf. the inscription in the title-page of the 1662 prose tract above), and this stick may be similar to a curber's hook (cf. IV.i). Cf. Troilus and Cressida II.iii.

Note: ken: know

Note: [trust]: rrust (Q)

Note: last new play i' the Swan: Further evidence for the 1611 date of composition. The Swan produced no new plays from 1597/8 to 1611, featuring acrobatic performances and sports contests instead. The Swan was used exclusively as a theater from 1611 to 1615;A Chaste Maid in Cheapside was performed there in 1613. It was located in the Paris Garden, Southwark, at the western end of the Bankside, west of Hopton Street (click here for a map: the Swan is on the left, the Globe on the right). Illustration: the famous 'de Witt sketch' by Arend van Buchel, after a drawing by his friend Johannes de Witt, who had visited the Swan Theater around 1596. This is the only contemporary picture of the interior of an Elizabethan playhouse.

Note: Make it good: Returning property stolen by cutpurses was evidently a custom of Mary Frith's.

Note: synagogue: meeting-house of thieves where stolen money and goods are accounted for and divided, officers elected, etc.

Note: Pacus palabros: from pocas palabras (Spanish, few words); cf. The Taming of the Shrew Induc., The Spanish Tragedy III.xiv.

Note: In younger days: Moll Frith would have been about 26 in 1611.

Note: cheaters: ‘The cheating law, or the art of winning money by false dice. Those that practise this study call themselves cheaters, the dice cheaters, and the money which they purchase cheats’ (The Bellman of London). Cf. 1 The Honest Whore IV.ii.

Note: lifters: The lifting law

teacheth a kind of lifting of goods clean away. The such liftings are three sorts of levers used to get up the baggage, viz.:

- He that first stealeth the parcel is called the lift.

- The that receives it is the marker.

- He that stands without and carries it away is called the santar

(The Bellman of London).

Note: puggards: thieves; cf. The Winter's Tale IV.iii.

Note: curbers: Those who hook goods out of a window (cf. IV.i)

Note: black guard: cf. Westward Ho! III.iii.

Note: some Italian pander: In further support of a 1611 composition date, Mulholland ties this observation to the Crudities of Thomas Coryate (?1577-1617), entered in the Stationers' Register on 26 November 1610 and printed in 1611. The interesting link is that Prince Henry, who financed its publication, was also the patron of the company at the Fortune Theater; Mulholland suggests that this allusion could be either ‘a token of support for the beleaguered Coryate’ or ‘a form of advertisement.’

Note: quick: lively

Note: tickling: pleasing, amusing, with the pun on making an arrest, or whipping; cf. Your Five Gallants IV.viii, Blurt, Master Constable I.ii, passim, Anything for a Quiet Life III.ii.

Note: close: secretly

Note: the Sluice: an embankment on the Thames built to protect the low-lying district of Lambeth Marsh from flooding, with a possible pun of sluice = to have sexual intercourse with

Note: Lambeth: notorious for thieves; cf. Westward Ho! IV.i.

Note: six wet towns: possibly the riverside towns of Fulham, Richmond, Kingston, Hampton, Chertsey, and Staines

Note: where fares lie soaking: i.e., where travelers lie soaking wet, with the sexual innuendo

Note: Blackfriars: cf. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside for a map showing the Blackfriars stairs.

Note: [has]: had (Q)

Note: gaskin-bride: a bride who wears gaskins, a particular kind of breeches or hose; cf. The Puritan III.iii.

Note: rak'd up: i.e., smothered

Note: culverin: a large cannon, ten to thirteen feet long; cf. Patient Grissil IV.iii, The Noble Spanish Soldier II.i.

Note: [SIR ALEXANDER]: Fitz-All. (Q)

Note: He does it well: Indicating that Greenwit and Goshawk know about Fitzallard's plot?

Note: For your speeches...rashness: i.e., though I foresee that you will tax me for rashness

Note: engage: wager

Note: his: i.e., Sir Alexander's

Note: upon her: i.e., Moll

Note: matches: wagers

Note: In that refusal: i.e., of Moll

Note: Of an old knight: in the manner of an old knight

Note: monthly: like a lunatic, who supposedly were made mad by Luna, the moon; cf. The Witch IV.i, The Phoenix IV.i (‘privileg'd by the moon’), The Changeling III.iii.

Note: smock-dowry: with no dowry but her smock; cf. A Trick to Catch the Old One IV.iv, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside III.iii.

Note: unmark'd: unnoticed, of no account

Note: work upon advantage: take advantage of my position; cf. A Fair Quarrel III.iii.

Note: citizens and their wives: In the d.p. in (Q), Tiltyard, Openwork, and Gallipot are bracketed with the Latin cives et uxores to the right.

Note: challenge: be the equivalent of, rival

Note: sped: 1) provided, 2) sexually fertile

Note: simple: pure, disinterested

Note: [Cheaters]: Cheates (Q)

Note: booted but not coach'd: Gomme offers various explanations for this line; the best sense seems to me to be that those who cheat at dice will be rich or respectable enough to be well-shod but not enough to ride in coaches.

Note: Vessels: maidenheads

Note: before [thee]: done to thee; hee (Q)

Note: pursue: seek

Note: cuck: put on the cucking stool

Note: [gentlewomen]: gentlewoman (Q); the following line calls for the plural: Moll is addressing the citizens' wives.

Note: beams: sunbeams

Note: hit her o'er: directed criticism toward

Note: book: Believed by R. C. Bald to be Martin Mark-All, Beadle of Bridewell: His Defence and Answer to the Bellman of London, a pamphlet of 1610, now lost. Its author, one S. R., and Dekker exchanged hostilities in print, stemming from S. R.'s deriding Dekker's attempts at rogue literature and questioning his knowledge of thieves' cant.

Note: humourous: full of humours or fancies, whimsical

Note: The Roaring Girl...recompense: That this passage refers specifically to Moll Frith herself has been much discussed; it was certainly within her character, although, as Gomme suggests, it could refer to the actor playing Moll who was to appear at the Fortune in another play.

Information about this book

Title statement
The Roaring Girl or Moll Cutpurse
Dekker, Thomas and Middleton, Thomas

Editor: Chris Cleary.

TEI P5 conversion: Lou Burnard.

Publication

Distributor

University of Oxford Text Archive
Oxford University Computing Services
13 Banbury Road
Oxford
OX2 6NN

ota@oucs.ox.ac.uk

ID [ota]

http://ota.ox.ac.uk/id/3006

ID [isbn10]

1106000056

ID [isbn13]

9781106000057

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Source

Automatically converted from the HTML version by Chris Cleary at http://www.tech.org/~cleary/roar.html, which is an eclectic modernized edition: ‘I've consulted quarto facsimiles and critical editions when and where available, and I've hypertexted significant textual decisions, along with glossed words and phrases;’