A CHASTE MAID IN CHEAPSIDE

8 sheet a shroud, with knots at the head and feet

25 Methinks I think. Dyce added ‘mads thee’ to complete the line, Q has ‘endurest’, Parker emends ‘endurest—’, which makes good sense, with Sir Walter interrupting Allwit.

35 do good with a pun on ‘do’ = copulate

46 parts (part Q) departs

65 dalliance over-indulgence

69 vengeance God’s vengeance, as represented in the children before him

73 he (ho Q); Dyce emends ‘O too’, Bullen ‘O, O’, George ‘go to’, Parker ‘her too’, but ‘he’ is acceptable, referring to (a) God, who ‘sees [Sir Walter] now’ or (b) ‘who[ever)’

84 ‘Let a hundred sighs of repentance make a way (to heaven) for me’.

87 seven Mrs Allwit’s children by Sir Walter

100 Imprimis In the first place

114 French The ‘French disease’ was syphilis.

Dutch probably sexually transmitted disease also, as a ‘Dutch widow’ was a harlot (see Middleton’s A Trick to Catch the Old One III.iii.15–17), but it could refer to drunkenness

115 Confusion Shaming. Cf. Psalm 109:29 ‘Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own confusion … ’

120 lifting (a) assisting (b) stealing (c) fucking

127 Hear a fool Listen to the silly woman! lands His lands will be forfeited to the Crown, since he’s a murderer, so he is more likely to hang.

133 close chamber secluded room, here the place of easement, the lavatory

145 consorts companions (i.e. his two servants)

150 officers of the watch could arrest offenders and take them before the constable or justice of the peace

159 Gamesters (a) Gamblers (b) Lechers

161 spitals places for the indigent and foully diseased (cf. note to II.i.146). ‘To rob the spital’ = to make gain or profit in a particularly mean or dastardly manner.

170 Strand the most fashionable part of London, running from Temple Bar to Charing Cross; a resort of high class whores

171 simply absolutely

172 bay windows were used by whores to display themselves (cf. Middleton, Hengist, King of Kent III.i.143); Allwit’s use of ‘quaint’ ( = cunt) indicates an intention of setting up a brothel.

175 close-stool a chamber pot in a stool or box

176 There’s that … There’s everything there ought to be

180 box the box into which money was placed by gamesters as a kind of cover charge; ‘every player, at the first hand he draweth, payeth a crown to the box, by the way of relief towards the house charges’ (G. Walker, A Manifest Detection of the Most Vile and Detestable Use of Diceplay, ed. J. O. Halliwell (1850), p. 12) Allwit is comparing himself to the box, which no matter what happens, contains the money. There may also be a pun on box = coffin.