0 s.d. ready to fight The phrase probably refers only to Vasques: both men are armed, but the ensuing dialogue indicates that Grimaldi is initially unwilling to fight, so only Vasques’ sword is drawn.

1 stand… tackling stand and fight (tackling = weapons); a variant of the military command ‘stand to arms’(= prepare for combat)

1–2 prose ed. (Come … Crauen, / I’le … quickly Q)

3 no equal Grimaldi is a gentleman, Vasques a servant; the inequality is underlined by Grimaldi’s use of the familiar ‘thou’ pronoun (whereas Vasques at first uses the more respectful ‘you’).

4–6 I never… field Vasques goads Grimaldi with an accusation of cowardice and mendacity. Mountebanks (itinerant medicine pedlars) were notorious for telling exaggerated lies about their wares, and Vasques suggests that Grimaldi’s claims of military honour are in the same category: that he was never at the wars as a combatant, only a reporter, and has lied about his wounds to make himself a welcome guest at Florio’s table. (The scene apparently takes place during an all-male dinner – here a mid-day meal – for the three suitors; see also lines 103–4 below.)

7 gear the matter in hand (i.e. the fight between them)

8 balance equate

9 cast-suit a base person who wears cast-off clothes

10 cotquean low-born housewife
your profession the category of person in which you belong

11 shadow unreal image

12 servants thy betters servants who are thy betters

14–15 prose ed. (Neither… thee, / I… got / Mine … blood Q)

15 expense of blood shedding of his own blood

16 by these hilts An asseveration, but also referring to Grimaldi’s undrawn sword, with its hilt pointing forward; the plural, hilts, may suggest that he is armed with rapier and dagger, the latter used for parrying (though compare II.vi.73 and note).

18 Brave… lord If ‘Brave’ is an adjective (as punctuated here), the line is a sarcastic taunt; if it is a verb, however, the sense is ‘How dare you challenge my lord!’

21 sudden rash, violent

23 spleen a fit of anger or proud temper

26 naught worthless

29 seconding stirring up the ground the cause of the argument

29 s.d. above on the stage balcony

30 resolve explain, clarify

32 else otherwise. Soranzo says, provocatively that Grimaldi’s reputation (‘fame’) is the only soldierly thing about him

34 prefers advances

38 bewrays reveals, exposes (implying that the thing revealed is shameful)

42 this Q; other editors, assuming that Soranzo is still speaking to Grimaldi, have emended to ‘thy’. The recurrence of the word ‘ground’, however, suggests to me that he is addressing Florio in conclusion to his answer to the question Florio asked in line 29, ‘What’s the ground?’ The Q reading’s unusual wording (as distinct from, say, ‘his’) conveys his disdainful contempt for his rival.

44 had not ed. (had Q)

44–5 let… gills The metaphor is of a Renaissance doctor drawing off infected blood to cure the patient. A man’s gills are the fleshy area under his jaw: Vasques is saying he would have cut Grimaldi’s throat. The phrase may also suggest that Grimaldi has become red-faced with anger or exertion.

46 wormed… mad To worm a dog was to cut its lytta, a ligament under its tongue, as a preventative against rabies (‘running mad’); Grimaldi has also ‘run mad’ with anger.

48 stay your stomach (a) satisfy your appetite; (b) check your aggression

49 Spoon-meat Liquid food typically eaten by invalids and toothless people 49–50 a Spanish blade Vasques’ sword

53 engaged pledged

54 Owing Possessing.

55 The winner of a game should magnanimously allow the losers to express their disappointment or resentment; proverbial (Tilley, L. 458).

56 villainy ed. (villaine Q)

57 make… choleric In contemporary psychology, choler was the ‘humour’ (bodily fluid) which caused anger when an excessive amount was present in the blood-stream. It was believed that doves’ livers did not secrete gall (thought to be a form of choler); thus to make a dove choleric is to enrage even the mildest of creatures.

56–8 prose ed. (Yet… such, / As… Chollerick, / Blame … this Q)

62 put up sheathe your sword

68 ends matters

70 No marvel else! No wonder [you want me to do so]! Putana assumes that Annabella wishes to be left alone for sexual reasons.

70–2 prose ed. (Leaue … (Chardge) / This … haue / Choyce … Italy Q)

75 well-timbered well-built. (The metaphor is of a house.)

76 Duke Monferrato ed. (Duke Mount Ferratto Q). Monferrato was a small, strategically important state in north-west Italy, which was annexed to the state of Mantua in 1536, and became a duchy in 1574.

77 the wars … Milanese Parma was part of the Duchy of Milan until annexed to the Papal States in 1512; it was later incorporated into the Duchy of Piacenza and Parma in 1545. Milan still pressed its claim to Parma, and recaptured Piacenza in 1547; war followed in 1551–2.
Milanese ed. (Millanoys Q)

77 an’t if it

78 one… twenty… but have there is not one amongst twenty… who do not have

79 privy maim hidden wound

80 mars… upright makes them impotent (playing on the usual meaning of ‘standing upright’; but, since the wound is ‘privy’, the sexual sense is dominant)

81 crinkles… in the hams (a) bows obsequiously; (b) shrinks from his (sexual) purpose

85 very true
Signor Soranzo Putana (ignorantly?) ‘demotes’ Soranzo, who is everywhere else addressed as ‘Lord Soranzo’, to ‘Signor’ (a polite term of address, similar to the modern English ‘Mister’).

90 wholesome uninfected by venereal disease

91 Liberal Generous, especially with money; that Putana says she knows this implies that he has bribed her to promote his suit (compare II.vi. 14–20, where she cadges money from Donado for similar alleged services).

92 a man i.e. not impotent

93 good name high regard

95 would a were ‘a’ is the unstressed form of ‘he’

96 qualities skills, accomplishments

99 took… soon started drinking alcohol too early in the day; a ‘morning’s draught’ was literally a drink of wine or beer taken in the morning, often before work, so Annabella is probably speaking jocularly rather than with irritation (especially if the scene takes place around mid-day, as it seems to).

99 s.d. Bergetto and Poggio enter on the main stage, with Annabella and Putana looking down on them from above.

100–2 prose ed. (But… now: / Here’s… number: / Oh … obserue Q)

101 ciphers nonentities brave finely clad

101–2 ape… coat i.e. a fool dressed in finery 103–4 prose ed. (Did’st… my / New… fight Q)

104 leave my dinner All Florio’s other guests broke off their meal because of the fight between Grimaldi and Vasques; Bergetto has stayed behind to finish his.

106–7 prose ed. (I… thou / Neuer… Coxcomb, / Did’st Poggio? Q)

107 elder brother Implying an heir (with reference to himself as Donado’s heir). coxcomb fool

114 shift change Mark my pace Watch how I walk

116 the Spanish pavan a slow, stately dance

119 magnifico wealthy man

121 golden calf Alluding to the idol worshipped by the Israelites in the wilderness (Exodus 32); Donado is said to expect that Bergetto’s riches will make Annabella ‘fall down to’ him (meaning both worship him and accept him as a sexual partner in marriage), even though he is a ‘mooncalf’ (= a simpleton).

123 presently immediately

123–4 a fool’s… playfellow Proverbial (Tilley, F. 528); ‘bauble’ means both a professional fool’s stick with a carved head, and a penis.

125 cast… flesh take decisions (literally, calculate) based on a shortage of male suitors (literally, penises); implying that she need not consider taking someone like Bergetto as her husband.

136 partake be told (and so share)

138 partage a share

145 throughly thoroughly

150 wit intellect

156 Keep fear and… shame May fear and … shame dwell

157–8 though … attempt though attempting it should cost me my heart

158 rated valued

158 s.d. ed. (after line 159a in Q)

163 d’ee do you (a contraction often used by Ford)

169 I will printed on a separate line in Q

170 an office… credit a favour deserving reward (with the ironic secondary meaning, ‘post of honour’)

173 Annabella would have cause to blush with sexual modesty if walking alone with any man but her brother.

178 frantic deranged 178–9 prose ed. (I… franticke— / I… brother Q)

185 You’re ed. (y’are Q) fair beautiful

187 The poets ed. (they Poets Q)

188 Juno the classical goddess of marriage, twin sister and wife of Jupiter

192 Promethean fire a life-giving force; in classical mythology, Prometheus stole fire from heaven and, in some versions of the story, used it to animate the first human beings. Ford may be recalling Shakespeare’s usage in Love’s Labours Lost (IV.iii.327), where Promethean fire is also an attribute of beautiful women’s eyes. The whole passage plays on the two principal meanings of ‘glance’, to look swiftly and to strike obliquely (here against a stone, producing sparks).

195 strange in opposition (to one another)

196 change interchange; Annabella is blushing and blanching by turns.

198 anchorite a hermit or religious recluse; a byword for the absence of sexual desire

202 glass mirror

203 trim handsome

207 stand hesitate

209 affliction … death suffering so intense that it resembles or threatens death

220 despised attempted to defy

222 smoothed-cheek clean-shaven (implying either youth and inexperience or slippery persuasiveness); the term may also be a misprint for ‘smooth-cheeked’.

223 bootless useless, ineffectual

225 in sadness sincerely, earnestly

226 aught anything, in any respect

228–33 Giovanni offers her an argument (‘afford … instance’) in favour of incest: having already established that they are physically alike in beauty, he argues that they must also have a corresponding affinity of souls which, in neoplatonic philosophy, was the origin of love.

255 good sooth truthfully

259 change exchange Elysium in classical mythology, the posthumous destination of the virtuous; the pagan equivalent of heaven

260 What you will Whatever you like (with a sexual implication)