0 s.d. In the original production, the ‘study’ may have been represented by scenery set out in the ‘discovery space’ (a curtained alcove at the back of the stage). Many previous editors assume that Soranzo writes down his poetical contradiction of Sannazaro, and supply a stage direction at line 9. (The first to do so was Gifford in 1827.) If so, he needs to have writing materials to hand, but Ford provides no attendant to carry them on for him; he will probably also need something to lean on as he writes. The likeliest solution is a desk in the ‘study’, probably set side-on to avoid his having to turn his back on the audience. Instead of a conventional entrance, he may have been ‘discovered’ in the study, i.e. the discovery space curtain would be drawn to reveal him already there.

1 s.p. SORANZO ed. (not in Q)

5 Sannazar Jacopo Sannazaro (c. 1456–1530), Neapolitan humanist and love poet (hence ‘licentious’ in line 4). His Italian and Latin poems contain much about the pains of love, but nothing that corresponds precisely with the epigrammatic lines Soranzo quotes. In seventeenth-century England he was best known for his six-line Latin eulogy of Venice (Epigrams, 1.36), for which the city rewarded him with 600 crowns (as mentioned in lines 14–15).

8 Muse Conventionally invoked by poets as an inspiring agency; from the nine Muses of classical mythology, patron goddesses of the arts

9 envy malice

10 mean norm annoys troubles

14 left abandoned

20 taxed of reprimanded for

28 rage of blood lustful frenzy

30 foil… unsated change A foil is a thin sheet of metal on which a jewel is mounted to set off its lustre by contrast; Hippolita is saying that, having changed lovers even though his sexual appetite is not ‘sated’ (fully satisfied), Soranzo now uses her as the foil to his new love, Annabella.

39 urged on partly induced

40 womanhood womanly attributes (here, sexual fidelity to her husband)

42 distaste dislike

48 Madam Merchant Annabella; Florio is either a merchant or a member of the merchant class, which is socially lower than Hippolita’s.

48–9 triumph… dejection exult in my being humiliated

50 free honourable

51 double duplicitous

53 weeds clothes

56 widow in my widowhood doubly a widow, both because her husband is dead and because Soranzo has not kept his promise to be her second husband (see below, lines 69–71)

63 unedge make blunt (like a sword) perplex torment

64 will… vent must be spoken

65 freely without interrupting

66–7 Are… love? This could be spoken to either Vasques or Hippolita, but in either case it carries implications about Soranzo’s relationship with the former. If to Vasques, it means ‘Is your love to me so unprofitable that I end up having to reason with a deranged woman?’, and it is suggestive that he speaks not of Vasques’ duty but his love (implying a more personal relationship than is usual between master and servant, though not necessarily a sexual one). If he is speaking to Hippolita, however, it means ‘So this is how your love for me ends up’, with a kind of forced reasonableness that is obviously crass in the circumstances; in this case, the whole line shows him first rejecting and then submitting to Vasques’ recommendation, suggesting the servant’s unusually dominant role in their relationship.

73 protests solemn affirmations, vows (to marry her)

75 Leghorn a coastal town in Tuscany (after 1606, a city) about 80 miles south of Parma; the journey between the two would take a traveller through dangerous mountain districts.

77 unfriended with nobody to support her

89 digressed… shame deviated from proper behaviour (inhibited from wrongdoing by shame); Hippolita is now ‘shameless’

92 quality social position or personal disposition condition personal qualities

93 entertainment hospitality (considered a mark of nobility)

94 braver finer

102 contemns contemptuously disregards, scorns

105 his woe the woe he has caused her

114 followed maintained

115 shrewd aggressively harsh, scolding

120 hearty sincere, heartfelt

125 spleen bitter passion

131 and his Probably referring to Vasques’ prior relationship with Soranzo’s dead father (see V.vi.115–18).

132 acquittance repayment

132–133 master… of myself her husband

139 all what everything

140 dispose disposal

141 mole Vasques imagines Hippolita’s plotting in terms of a mole’s underground burrowing; but a relevant secondary sense alludes to the animal’s supposed blindness (as Hippolita is blind to Vasques’ own motives).

141 I have … you Vasques describes himself in terms of a predator upwind of its prey (= Hippolita), and so able to track it by scent.

147 Give me thy hand This may mean more than simply shaking hands on a bargain: since the joining of hands also had a specific matrimonial significance (see note to III.vi.52 s.d.) which is activated by the terms of Hippolita’s offer to Vasques, it also underlines how absolutely they have committed themselves to each other in and through the plot against Soranzo.

151–2 prose ed. (Come … merry, / This… can / Neither… beleeue Q)

151 merry only joking

154 good genii guardian angels; Ford had probably read in Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) that ‘every man hath a good and a bad angel attending of him in particular all his life’, and that these spirits were known as genii (Clarendon edn., 1989-, vol. 1, p. 191).
for witnesses ed. (foe-witnesses Q)

160 bane poison