0 s.d. take their places sit at the table
4–6 the use… cause formal entertainments like this are held more because of the inertia of custom than for any good reason
10 trimmed covered (literally, decorated) reeking steaming
17 idle mere
19 rape violent theft
25 stone precious stones, jewels
26 balanced calculated
40 throughly thoroughly
41–2 How… madman lineation ed. (one line in Q)
46 paler cheek It is not clear whether he means paler than his own (which is covered in blood) or Florio’s (which may be blushing in shame at Giovanni’s revelations).
48 bewrayed revealed
49 passage The word implies both a sequence of events and a mutual interchange of amorous experience between lovers; Ford was probably recalling Shakespeare’s Prologue to Romeo and Juliet (‘The fearful passage of their death-marked love’).
51 rage frenzy
59 s.d. ed. (after line 60a in Q)
61 Hold up, Florio The words are ambiguous, their sense depending on whether the Cardinal already recognizes that Florio is dead. As here punctuated, the Cardinal offers encouragement to Florio in the belief that he is still alive; dramatic irony thus cuts against the Cardinal, making him yet another character wrong-footed by Giovanni’s actions in this and the previous scene. Without the comma, the Cardinal would be ordering attendants to show Giovanni the dead body (hence ‘see what thou hast done’ in the next line).
67 gilt covered; but in performance, assonance may also convey the implication of blood-guilt
68 hapless unlucky, ill-fated
71 twists woven threads. Giovanni alludes to the thread representing a human life which was spun, woven, and cut by the Fates of classical mythology, whom he earlier claimed to rule (III.ii.20).
73 s.d. In order to be able to use his dagger on Soranzo, Giovanni must by this point have removed the heart from it; it was probably still on the dagger (or else held in his other hand) moments before when he referred to it as ‘this heart’ (72). The question of when to remove it and what to do with it is open to any number of inventive solutions in performance. (In the 1991–2 RSC production, for example, Giovanni physically placed the organ in Soranzo’s hands before stabbing him, making the exchange of one heart for another a semi-literal one; in Griffi’s film version he uses Soranzo’s own dagger.) Alternatively, Giovanni may have more than one weapon (e.g. rapier as well as dagger), and uses the other on Soranzo here.
78 will… yet? Giovanni is taking a long time to die.
79 fit you deal with you Vengeance The watchword to call in the banditti (see V.iv.13–14).
84–6 prose ed. (Now… Sir, / Away… done, / Shift… owne, / Shift… selues Q)
85–6 Shift for yourselves Every man for himself
91–2 give… breath i.e. in a dying instruction
93–4 prose ed. (The… him, / My… Maister Q)
97–100 lineation ed. (prose in Q)
100 thee ed. (the Q)
119 this man Soranzo
123 Of counsel Complicit
124 sometimes formerly
132 this woman It is unclear whether this means Putana or the dead Annabella, who is more obviously ‘chief [i.e. principal] in these effects’. Either way, the Cardinal focuses the primary blame on a character who has been disempowered either by gender or rank: Annabella’s body is given an admonitory cremation but Giovanni’s is spared; or, alternatively, the servant Putana is made a scapegoat as the ‘chief’ criminal when she was really only an accomplice.
143–4 dispense… offence The Cardinal grants Vasques a legal dispensation (in commuting the death penalty to banishment) in recognition of the nature of his motives (‘reason’), but this does not diminish the gravity of the offence itself.
145–6 I rejoice… revenge Vasques takes it as a point of national pride that he has outdone an Italian in a field where Italians were considered pre-eminent. It is unclear whether the particular Italian he has in mind is Giovanni or Soranzo (who begins ‘to turn Italian’ at V.iv.28); if the latter, then the previously devoted servant is showing a new independence of mind now that his obligations to the Soranzo family are done.
148 all the… jewels Florio, Giovanni, and Soranzo have all died without heirs to inherit their property.
150 proper personal
156 at large in full
158 Nature’s store the gifts of abundant Nature. The image was often used in connection with beautiful women; compare William Barksted and Lewis Machin, The Insatiate Countess, IV.ii.182: ‘Thou abstract drawn from Nature’s… storehouse’