1–19 Tim. Your argument is denied, tutor. Tut, I am proving to you, pupil, that a fool is not a rational animal. Tim. Indeed you will be wrong. Tut. I ask you to be silent, I am showing you. Tim. How will you prove it, master? Tut. A fool has no reason, therefore he is not a rational animal. Tim. Thus you argue, master, a fool does not have reason, therefore he is not a reasonable animal; your argument is denied again, tutor. Tut. I will demonstrate the argument to you again, sir: he who doesn’t partake of reason can in no way be called rational, but a fool does not partake of reason, therefore a fool can in no way be called rational. Tim. He does partake. Tut. So you hold; how does the partaker partake? Tim. As a man; I will prove it to you in a syllogism. Tut. Prove it. Tim. I prove it thus, master: a fool is a man just as you and I are, man is a rational animal, just so a fool is a rational animal.
11 de (ac Folger Q)
21–2 Tut. So you contend: a fool is a man just as you and I are, man is a rational animal, just as a fool is a rational animal.
30 I come to you a term in academic disputation for ‘I put the question to you’
31 wit (a) intelligence (b) penis
33 bring forth ironic, as Maudline brought forth Tim at his birth
48 tailor Tailors, especially women’s, were considered unmanly; cf. nursery rhyme, ‘Four and twenty tailors / Went to kill a snail’, and note to II.ii.14.
54 Accidences books of the rudiments of Latin grammar; Tim was, not surprisingly, a slow learner it seems
58 haberdines salt dried codfish. Dyce suggests, ‘Perhaps Tim alludes to some childish sport’. Frost suggests a game where cut-out fish shapes are blown over a line on the floor; Parker cites a Christmas game, ‘Selling of fish’, and ‘the foolscap decorated with paper emblems of red herring worn by Jack-of-Lent’. As ‘cod’ = scrotum, however, this is the first of a series of doubles entendres concluded when Maudlin invites the tutor to ‘withdraw a little into my husband’s chamber’.
60 as in presenti Introductory phrase in the part of Lily and Colet’s A Short Introduction to Grammar (1549) dealing with inflections of verbs; several writers make puns on it, e.g. Marston, What You Will, II.i, Here the pun is on both ‘arse’ (see l. 75) and ‘cunt’ (see l. 78).
64 must have all out must tell all, but with a sexual suggestion
65 Quid est grammatica? ‘What is grammar?’
74–5 ‘The art of speaking and writing correctly’; (see J. D. Reeves, ‘Middleton and Lily’s Grammar’, N&Q, 197 (1952), 75–6).
75 sir-reverence (i) with apologies to (ii) excrement (continuing the pun on as)
80 lock the door Cf. Allwit’s ‘pin the door’ I.ii.30.
83 stranger foreigner
86 kiffkith, neighbour (as in ‘kith and kin’)
92 o’erseen mistaken
94 runts small breed of Welsh and Highland cattle
97 Rider’s Dictionary English-Latin and Latin-English dictionary compiled by the Bishop of Killaloe, John Rider, first published at Oxford in 1589.
99 Rumford (Romford) in Essex 12 miles (20 km) north-east of London, held hog markets on Tuesdays and grain and cattle markets on Wednesdays
110–11 ‘Hail to you too, most beautiful maiden; what you want I don’t know and certainly don’t care.’
112 Tully’s Cicero’s
114 quotha? said he? indeed?
116–17 ‘It’s said, by Hercules, young lady, that Wales has the greatest abundance of riches.’
Fertur prounced ‘Fartur’
121–4 ‘Again I say that you abound in resources, in the greatest mountains and fountains and, as I could say, runts; however I am truly but a little chap by nature and by art a bachelor, not actually ready for bed’. The Latin is by no means clear. The reference to Tim’s size indicates that the part was probably played by one of the Queen’s Revels boys.
126 ‘Can you speak Welsh, for God’s sake are you pretending with me?’ A phonetic rendering for ‘A fedrwch chwi Cymraeg, er Duw cog fo gennyf?’ (The final’s’ may be due to a misreading of the copy text.)
127 Cog Probably a pun on ‘cog’ = lie (deceive).
128 ‘I won’t come together [with you).’
129 The first part could mean ‘Some cheese and whey after a walk’, a phonetic rendering of ‘Rhyn gosyn a chwig gin ar 61 bod yn cerdedd am dro’. The Welsh were popularly thought to delight in cheese.
133 proceeded (a) graduated (b) gone past virginity
148 recoiled answered
153 clap clasp, stick closely to, with a hidden irony as ‘clap’ also = pox
157 Protestant tongue English
161 country a familiar pun (cf. Hamlet, III.ii.121)
163 Welsh mutton was famous, but Tim’s speech is all unconscious double entendre: cf. I.i.140
sing used again with a sexual sense; cf. II.i.52
170–95 The first nine lines of this song, with two additional lines, occur in Middleton’s More Dissemblers Besides Women, I.iv.
174 crests cuckolds’ horns
183 quick tenderest part, but with a bawdy implication
187 lips those above and below
194 Frost adds a line here to equalize the stanzas.
197 lodging ‘on my own account’, but with a bawdy pun; Bullen unnecessarily adds s.d. Sings.
199 a-life as my life; extremely
206 Abbington (Abingdon), in Berkshire, on the Thames 56 miles (90 km) north-west of London; six miles (10 km) south of Oxford
227 Resolve … point Satisfy me
228 contract A de praesenti contract of marriage was made by two people agreeing before witnesses to take each other as man and wife and was held to be binding (cf. Webster, The Duchess of Malfi, II.i.392); a contract de futuro was an agreement to marry in the future and could be broken.
passed (past Q)
234 The lacunae here and four lines further on are in Q; see note to III.iii.137.
242 Poulters (a) Sellers of birds (b) Bawds
venting conies selling (a) rabbits (b) prostitutes
256 Cato and Cordelius Dionysius Cato’s Disticba de Moribus, written in the 3rd or 4th century, and Marthurin Cordier’s Colloquia scholastica (1564) were famous textbooks, approved by Puritans.
259 Eton College founded by Henry VI in 1440, in Buckinghamshire some 23 miles (38 km) west of London on the Thames opposite Windsor
261 prevented anticipated
263 Foot God’s foot
272 call him back reform him
274 in Anno ‘in the year’, punning on the mother’s name
276 warden (a) see note II.i.71 (b) a pear, taken up punningly in fruit. Pears were sexually symbolic; cf. Romeo and Juliet II.i.37.
his Sir Walter’s
277 They Sir Walter’s children by Mrs Allwit
279 wholesome free of the pox
281 sweat well in a steam tub to cure any venereal disease
287 Lay Set watch on
295 Trig stairs a landing place on the Thames at the bottom of Trig Lane; appropriate for Tim, as trig was slang for a coxcomb, a dandified fool
296–7 Common stairs at Puddle wharf about two hundred yards upstream from Trig stairs; appropriate for Maudline. The ‘dock’ is presumably Dung wharf, downstream, where the garbage was dumped onto barges. The reference continues the cloacan stream of scatological references in the play.
298 silly pitiable, helpless