EPIGRAPH
Archilochum rabies armavit iambo: ‘Rage armed Archilochus with an iambic poem’ (Horace, Ars Poetica). Archilochus of Paros had a reputation for being the most bitter of the satirists. This quotation stresses the harsh nature of Otway’s comedy.
DEDICATION
Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, earl of Middlesex and Dorset. Otway also dedicated Alcibiades (1675) to him. The Maecenas of the Restoration, Dorset was patron to a host of playwrights and poets. He entertained writers at both of his country seats, but Knole House became associated with Dryden and Durfey, while writers such as Shadwell, Etherege, and Prior frequented Copt Hall. Knole House featured a Poet’s Parlour which displayed portraits of contemporary actors and writers, including one of Otway commissioned shortly before the painter Gerard Soest died in 1681. Dorset’s generosity was legend; often he would leave a £50 or £100 note under the dinner plate of a writer. He also read drafts of plays and used his influence with the playhouses. In the dedications to Friendship in Fashion and Alcibiades, Otway expressed gratitude for Dorset’s generosity, a munificence that included an appointment as tutor to Nell Gwyn’s eldest son by Charles II. Dorset was himself an accomplished poet and a member of the court wits who surrounded Charles II. He specialized in the satiric lyric, a brief poem in ballad stanzas mocking a person or event. Along with Sir Charles Sedley, Edward Filmer, Sidney Godolphin, and Charles Sackville, Dorset assisted Edmund Waller in putting together Pompey the Great (1664), a translation of Corneille’s La mort de Pompee. This translation rivalled Katherine Phillips’s version, produced the previous year in Dublin. For additional information on Dorset, see Brice Harris, Charles Sackville, Sixth Earl of Dorset: Patron and Poet of the Restoration (Urbana, Ill., 1940).
in my respects to your lordship: i.e. in making visits to your lordship.
the circumstances of my condition: Otway frequently complained in print about his penurious circumstances; his bitter poem, The Poet’s Complaint of His Muse (1680), describes in great detail the indignities facing any writer during the Restoration whose ‘daily business must be daily bread’.
As for the unlucky censures … for this play: the defensive tone of Otway’s dedication suggests an embattled stance against the audience; certainly, the sole known performance and the meagre printing history indicate that the play was unpopular with spectators and readers alike.
accused of the thing: the language here reveals that ‘some people of the world’ took the satire personally (‘as to believe themselves deserved it’). That Otway appealed to Dorset for assistance further suggests that the complaints pre-dated the first performance; in all likelihood, he needed the peer’s help to ensure the play’s appearance on the stage. The conciliatory language of the Prologue also hints at the hostility Otway and the players expected to encounter from factions in the audience.
THE CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY
Like many Restoration dramatists, Otway gives his characters humorous yet revelatory names. The romantic young blades, Truman and Valentine, are marked by their names, as are the musically inclined fops, Caper and Saunter. ‘Goodvile’ functions as a kind of oxymoron, as might befit an unhappy marriage between a good wife and a vile husband. Less apparent are the names Otway assigns to Malagene and Lady Squeamish. ‘Malagene’ implies an innately bad nature (‘mal’ = bad and ‘gen’ = condition), while ‘Squeamish’ suggests someone who is both excessively fastidious and coyly sexual.
Goodvile:1678 fluctuates between ‘Goodvile’ and ‘Goodvil’. I have regularized the name throughout.
Mrs Barry: ‘Mrs. Barrey’ (1678).
fasting days: the Christian calendar designated certain days during the year for fasting or abstinence, including the Lenten season and the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday of Ember weeks. The allusion to ‘strictest vigils and fasting days’ suggests that Otway composed the play during Lent, which began on 13 February in 1677/8. The only known performance took place after Easter of that year.
disciplined: in both the religious and artistic sense.
libel: a piece of writing, usually brief in nature, defaming the character of someone.
jades: hussies or trollops; also applied commonly to Fortune. Otway appears to be using it in this latter sense–of the Muses as capricious hussies.
Bankside butchers do a bear: see note to MM, 2.1.147.
Bear Garden law: the animals were expected to fight until death; thus, the reference to ‘stand or fall’ in the preceding line.
S.D. The Mall: see note to MM, 2.1.161.
tin lattice: a lattice is a gate, screen, or window; here it clearly designates the tin window–so-called because of the lattice design–in the coach.
two vizards: see note to MM, 2.1. 183.
appointed: make an appointment.
Chatelins: ‘Chatolins’ (1678). A famous ordinary in London, frequently referred to in the plays of the period. Pepys mentions it twice in his diary.
had much ado: had much trouble or ceremony.
as your Jews are from the rest of mankind: an allusion to the Jewish practice of circumcision, a procedure that renders Jews ‘distinguishable from one of us’ (i.e. Christians or gentiles).
fond, wanton ape: (i) natural-born fool, a naïf; (ii) lascivious, abandoned lover; a woman who has ‘apish’ (and therefore highly sexual) characteristics.
fresh kindness: ‘kindness’ in Restoration plays and poetry is frequently a code word for sexual favours.
reserve: something to fall back upon, solace oneself with, when need arises.
censures: passes judgement on, estimates, criticizes.
none dedicated to her yet: as the plays in this volume indicate, it was common for dramatists during the Restoration to dedicate their plays to patrons, largely in the hopes of receiving a cash gift. For the patron, a dedication acknowledged social status, as well as aesthetic authority.
stager: one qualified by long experience; a veteran or old hand.
resty: also reasty; here, stale or rancid.
that he is able: i.e. as to think that he is able.
under the rose: see note to FH, 1.1.349. sweetly fitted: nicely joined; sexually connected or fitted.
free: frank in what we say.
guinea-club: during this time, a ‘club’ designated one’s share of the bill; thus, Malagene claims that his share of the evening’s expenses cost one guinea, a not inconsiderable sum.
a right honourable: applies to peers below the rank of marquess; applies also to privy councillors and to certain civil functionaries. Malagene boasts that he keeps only the most select of company, a snobbery based entirely upon titles.
Toledo: a generic name for a Spanish blade of superb quality.
managed her: Malagene plays upon the early modern sense of ‘manage’ (handle, train, or direct a horse in its paces); thus, he has put this woman through her sexual paces. He also implies he has commanded her for his pleasure with total authority and control.
person of quality … on foot too?: urban violence discouraged people of means, especially women, from walking around the city at night. Not until the mid-eighteenth century would a police force be established.
take no notice on’t: don’t reveal her identity.
I have discovered … drinks of: Malagene’s claim that Charles II drank ‘pale wine’ has some basis in fact. Although the monarch preferred French wine, by 1673 he was drinking wine from the Rhine region-undoubtedly the ‘pale wine’ mentioned by Malagene—in sufficient quantities to justify a purchase of 100 vats.
sham: ruse, trick; according to Ghosh, a word that had just entered the language the previous year, in 1677.
am used: am accustomed.
the groom-porter’s: the gambling hall. It was managed by the groom-porter, originally a member of the royal household but later authorized to oversee gambling within the precincts of the court. He was also empowered to decide gambling disputes and settle wagers.
send a guard: Malagene offers to send one of his own household guards to adjudicate the duel. Guards from the royal household were expected to prevent duels, which were outlawed (but nonetheless occurred frequently).
bullies: good friends, fine fellows.
blowing: whore.
heats herself … course at night: i.e. in the morning, she limbers up sexually in St James’s Park to prepare for the truly serious erotic activities that will occur there later under cover of darkness. See Rochester’s poem, A Ramble in St James’s Park.
an Italian song: Italian composers and musicians who worked in London during the Restoration–men such as Nicola Matteis, Pietro Reggio, and Giovanni Battista Draghi–popularized Italian song and singing.
not fail: i.e. not fail to attend Goodvile’s ball.
my Lord—at court tonight: there are a couple of possibilities here for performance. Malagene could be teasing Saunter and Caper with the identity of the nobleman by almost naming him–and then not doing so. The line could also be delivered absent-mindedly insofar as Malagene nearly blurts out the nobleman’s name and then catches himself.
Nay then: i.e. let’s be on our guard; or, wait for it; or, a show’s about to happen.
‘As Chloe full of, etc.’: a song by Rochester, at one point a patron of Otway’s. The song actually begins ‘As Chloris, full of harmless thoughts…‘
abroad but two years … in an academy: ‘abroad’ makes it apparent that Valentine has spent two years in a Parisian academy. An institution of learning halfway between a preparatory school and a university, the academy functioned as a finishing school for privileged young men and women.
makes bold with me: speaks satirically or mockingly about me. Malagene in his next speech puns on ‘bold’ to indicate a sexual relationship has taken place between Lady Squeamish and Valentine.
the poet came … my lodgings: it was customary for the poet to read his play to a patron for approval; Lady Squeamish clearly fancies herself a patron of the arts despite Truman’s claim on at 1.1.80–1 that she has never had a play dedicated to her.
the reason he … the conduct of it: debates raged during the Restoration over the proper composition of plays. French neoclassical precepts dictated strict adherence to rules for action and language; but English writers, well aware of the idiosyncratic practice of dramatists like Shakespeare, vacillated between their own native tradition and that of the continent. The court, much influenced by French fashion, was commonly thought to promote decorous speech and writing. See e.g. Dryden’s compliment to the earl of Rochester in the dedication to Marriage A-la-Mode.
neither song nor dance in it: to attract audiences, the theatres often included songs and/or dances in plays, always sure crowd-pleasers. See, for instance, the many songs in FH. Some dramatists dismissed these more popular aspects of the drama.
pass: happen, are current.
Supple: in addition to its still current meanings, ‘supple’ signified someone who was servilely submissive or ingratiatingly accommodating.
Colt: both an awkward young person who needs to be ‘broken in’, as well as a wanton, lascivious person.
Pruneit: ‘prune’ describes someone who plumes himself–who decks himself out in fancy dress; it also signified the conventional meaning of lopping off superfluous branches or shoots. Both meanings operate here, as Mr Pruneit preens while ‘pruning’ the sexually the inexperienced (but eager) Lady Colt.
he keeps a player again: references in the period abound to the practice of ‘keeping’ an actress for a mistress. Charles II took the actresses Moll Davis and Nell Gwyn for mistresses, and several of the nobility, including the earls of Oxford and Rochester, followed suit.
lay out… to better advantage: (i) exhibit or display my romantic inclinations in a more advantageous light; (ii) spend my affections on someone more worthy (i.e. possessing more wealth and status).
Mr Saunter sings the French manner: years of exile in Paris and elsewhere on the continent had formed Charles II’s predilection for French music. French musicians such as Louis Grabu, Robert Cambert, and Jacques Paisible popularized the ‘French manner’ of music, as did performances in England of works by the great composer Jean-Baptiste Lully. The French influence, however, was not to last: increasingly Italian music replaced French; and even Louis Grabu, who in 1674 was replaced by a native Englishman, Nicholas Staggins, as Master of the King’s Musick, saw himself removed from royal favour. Much like the remark about continental actors surpassing their English counterparts (see below), this comment reveals the extent of Lady Squeamish’s ignorance. For all of her professions of being au courant, she is actually quite passé.
he pronounces … a tone or accent: it appears that Mr Saunter applies a French accent to English verses, with the end result that no one can understand him, as evidenced by Malagene’s irritable aside.
commence: grow into, become.
2.1 S.D. The ordinary: a public house or tavern where meals could be had for a fixed price. In keeping with fashionable practices during the Restoration, the Goodviles have taken over a dining room for eating and dancing. Mrs Goodvile and the other women appear to be using a chamber off the dining room (cf. Victoria’s comment, ‘I’ll but step into my chamber and follow you instantly’).
parole: release from prison on condition not to do certain things. Goodvile is ‘paroled’ from the prison of marriage, having promised (ineffectually) not to repeat the sins of the previous night.
getting a stomach: acquiring an appetite, in this instance, sexual appetite.
turtle: shortened form of turtle-dove, a bird known for its affection for its mate; term of endearment.
kind: see Goodvile’s sardonic remark on receiving a ‘fresh kindness’ from his wife, 1.1.66.
ranging gallant: hunts sexual partners everywhere.
champagne: see note to MM, 4.1.388.
a drunken country vicar … stronger than his reason: nobility and powerful politicians in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries dispensed ecclesiastical positions as part of the privilege of patronage.
doubt: fear.
has caused this alteration in you: both Mrs Goodvile and Lettice claim to observe the signs of pregnancy that have caused an alteration in Victoria’s appearance, including pale skin and dark circles under the eyes.
if there … will cure all: in other words, if Victoria is indeed pregnant out of wedlock, a hastily arranged marriage will ‘cure all’.
herded: joined the party, become part of the crowd.
Smithfield doggerel: a form of low, popular verse sung by the clowns and ‘Merry Andrews’ in Smithfield Market, the site of the annual Bartholomew Fair.
Chloris dwindles into a kitchen-wench: ‘Chloris’ was one of the stock names used for the young woman who functioned as the object of love in pastoral poetry. Customarily a shepherdess or a nymph, Chloris has here ‘dwindled’ into a scullery-maid.
held at so dear a rate: offered at such a high price. beat down the market: reduce the going rate (of beauty–see above).
Dutch bargain: bargain concluded with a drink and therefore unlikely to last.
the word: Goodvile invites a toast. Pass: proceed, go.
an elder brother: because of primogeniture–which ensured that estates passed intact into the hands of the first son—’elder brothers’ were much coveted as marriage prospects.
honour: respect or deferential admiration paid to ladies.
And, gallants, I am … epistle dedicatory: Sir Noble Clumsy recites the standard closing address at the end of an epistle dedicated to the poet’s patron.
boarding our mistresses: making advances to our mistresses.
gambados: boots—almost a kind of leather shield—that were attached to the saddle to protect the rider’s legs and feet from the elements. Because they were cumbersome, gambados were not used by riders during horse races (thus Caper’s remark).
stand my friend: intercede with her on my behalf.
at my heart: at bottom; in reality.
now acquaintance: present or recent acquaintance.
port: deportment, carriage, bearing.
shall be security: Malagene speaks metaphorically here, but Sir Noble Clumsy takes his pledge of security literally (‘I have sworn never to be bound for any man’).
son of Mars: in Roman mythology, Mars was the god of war. Malagene uses this epithet sarcastically, not taking Sir Noble Clumsy seriously as a swordsman or fighter.
Take the other glass: let me have your glass refilled.
I have two thousand pounds a year: by late seventeenth-century standards, Sir Noble Clumsy is quite well off. In 1688 the demographer Gregory King estimated the annual income for a successful merchant at £400; Sir Noble Clumsy’s income is five times that amount.
expedition: speed.
I will salute thy under-lip: kiss thy lower lip.
prefer: promote or advance in status.
Pelion upon Ossa: Pelion is the name of a mountain in Thessaly; the common phrase—to pile Pelion upon Ossa—means to add to what is already great. The phrase comes from Virgil’s Georgics i. 281 (imponere Pelio Ossam).
my grandmother’s kissing dance: see note to MM, 4.1.30.
S.D.The ordinary: a setting is not indicated in the first edition; the ensuing action, however, argues for this locale.
dip my bill: Goodvile continues the metaphor from the first sentence, likening himself to a bird that dips its bill into water (i.e. sips delicately). The two bottles of wine he has consumed, as the subsequent sentence makes clear, belie the image.
a decayed cavalier captain: a captain who served with Royalist forces during the Civil War; he is now ‘decayed’ (i.e. impoverished) because he was never adequately compensated under the Restoration Settlement, a chronic complaint of the times.
drinks journey-work under a deputy lieutenant: journey-work is work of an inferior or servile nature; hackwork. Truman jokes that the impoverished cavalier captain now ekes out a living by functioning as a hanger-on in a household of rank and means.
a pretty proposition to me: a pretty offering for me to consider.
Punchinello … Prince Prettyman: Punchinello, Scaramouchio, and Harlequin were all stock characters from the Italian commedia dell’arte, an improvisational form of drama. Commedia troupes performed in London immediately at the Restoration and proved very popular with audiences, much to the chagrin of the English theatre managers. Prince Prettyman is a mock-heroic character from the duke of Buckingham’s The Rehearsal (1672), his hilarious send-up of Dryden’s penchant for writing bombastic heroic tragedies.
O the English comedians … the French or Italian: ‘Comedian’ was still used in the Elizabethan sense (for actor) until the end of the Restoration. This comment reveals the ignorance of Lady Squeamish; generally, English actors were regarded as being far superior to their continental brethren. A letter from John Verney written a year before Friendship in Fashion was produced is fairly typical in its assessment of French actors: ‘a French opera, but most pitifully done, so ill that the King was aweary on’t, and some say it was not well contrived to entertain the English gentry, who came that night in honour to their King, with a lamentable ill-acted French play, when our English actors so much surpass …’ (as cited in Van Lennep, i. 257).
we want poets: we lack good dramatists; ‘poet’ designated all manner of literary endeavour, from the writing of verses to the composition of plays.
The Merry Conceits … his dog, Bobadillo: a hit against Dryden. The play Sir Noble Clumsy has undertaken to write mixes genres, as is evident from its title. Throughout the period, critics attacked Dryden for writing tragicomedies that juxtaposed heroic scenes written in verse against comic scenes written in prose. These plays were not always happy inventions. ‘Bobadillo’ is most likely a variation on ‘Drybob’, a character in Shadwell’s The Humorists (1670) clearly modelled on Dryden. Shadwell, according to James Anderson, ‘creates a spoken idiom for Drybob by repeating two phrases he had first used against Dryden in 1668, when he accused him of “imagining that all the Wit in Playes consisted in bringing two persons upon the Stage to break Jests, and to bob one another, which they call Repartie”’. A dry bob, more vulgarly, was also slang for sex without ejaculation. See James Anderson Winn’s John Dryden and His World (New Haven, 1987), 222.
squirt comedy: the OED cites this particular usage in the play. Normally, to squirt is to eject or spew a stream of liquid; it was also used to describe diarrhoea. Sir Noble Clumsy, who looks down on comedy, implicitly likens this form of literary output to the alimentary kind.
Louvre or Whitehall: a fortress built at the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Louvre had, by the sixteenth, become a palace for monarchs. During the Restoration period, Louis XIV added classical colonnades and had the apartments decorated by the painter Charles Le Brun. Whitehall—originally known as York House—was purchased by the archbishop of York in 1298 and became the London palace for his successors. Seized by Henry VIII and renamed Whitehall, the palace subsequently became a royal residence. Troupes of commedia players frequently performed at the Louvre and Whitehall, the reason why Lady Squeamish associates Malagene’s imitation of Harlequin with these abodes.
S.D. Punchinello’s voice: one of the comic servants in the commedia dell’arte. In his original Italian form, he represented the Neapolitan area. Malagene could be using a Neapolitan accent, or he could be imitating Punchinello in his more Anglicized form: as a rough-hewn, doltish fellow.
unlucky jerks: mischievous jibes.
Cuts backward: in dance, to execute a ‘cut’ one sprang from the ground and, while in mid-air, twiddled the feet one in front of the other with great rapidity. The prodigious Caper manages to perform this feat backwards.
are you a dancing master?: Thomas Jevon, who played the part of Caper, had taught dancing and singing before he joined the Duke’s Company.
overtaken: inebriated.
I mind dancing altogether: I only care for dancing.
By yea and by nay: phrase attributed to certain kinds of religious separatists, especially Quakers, and cited in mockery of them. Sir Noble Clumsy, however, appears to use the phrase earnestly to express moral revulsion at the ‘foul’ strumpet.
a running bawd: (i) a street prostitute who ‘runs’ from street to street in search of business; and (ii) a diseased prostitute with ‘running’ sores or suppurations.
hackney stripping whore: almost a redundancy. A hackney is a common drudge or prostitute. Truman appears to be describing the lowest sort of whore.
to put in for the rubbers: in games of chance, a set of three games, the last of which decides the winner. Goodvile has won the first two rounds with his wife and Victoria, but Valentine hopes to win the final decisive round with Camilla as his prize.
Madam Goodvile: it is not entirely clear how Lady Squeamish is pairing off these three remaining characters. ‘Dear Mr Truman, won’t you oblige me?’ indicates that she has taken Truman for her dancing partner, thus forcing the Goodviles—who are left without partners—to dance together. She could also be offering herself to Goodvile as a dancing partner (‘your humble servant’), thereby asking Truman to ‘oblige’ her by dancing with Mrs Goodvile.
I’ll keep good orders: keep the dancers in orderly formation.
S.D. take out the women: i.e. the men join the women and take them to the place onstage where they will begin the dance.
cramped: forcibly or unnaturally compressed; constrained (OED).
kit: also kitt. A small fiddle, often preferred by dancing masters during the period.
‘In January last’: Ghosh thinks this is the song beginning ‘In January last, on Munnonday at Morn’ in Durfey’s Wit and Mirth; or, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719).
a Scotch bagpipe … have better music: musical instruments dating back perhaps as far as the second or fifth centuries, bagpipes continued to be played widely in the less Anglicized regions of north and west Scotland. ‘Scotch songs’ and bagpipes became part of the ballad revival of the seventeenth century, expressing in part an urban longing for rustic innocence. Trained bears often danced to the accompaniment of bagpipes. Despite the popularity of Scottish music, some urban dwellers looked down upon its ‘rude’ origins and ‘barbaric’ tones.
S.D. Irish cronon: also ‘cronane’; a monotonous chant or drone; a song without words.
an Irish musician that’s lately come over: perhaps a reference to an actual musician. His identity remains unknown.
if your ladyship has any further service for him: service of a clearly sexual nature. During the period, libertine poetry often joked about the sexual use of pages and boys ‘in service’.
Lancashire witch: Lancashire was known for its large number of witches. In 1612 nine witches were hanged; and in 1633 seventeen were sentenced but not executed. Thomas Heywood and Richard Brome wrote a play called The Lancashire Witches (1634), inspired in part by this second wave of witchcraft. By the Restoration, the expression ‘a Lancashire witch’ had become proverbial.
gypsy: contemptuous term for a woman, someone who is cunning, deceitful, or fickle; a ‘baggage’.
show her: put her on display, expose her folly.
repaired to: retreated to; escaped to.
shrift: confession, admission. The connotation here is sexual, as Mrs Goodvile suggests that her husband and Camilla are ‘confessing’ mutually sinful desires.
gloat: look amorously or longingly upon someone.
this is something: this is of some consideration.
far: ‘fat’ (1678).
hardly value you: judge you severely, condemn you.
the Mother of… wife in Holborn: the Mother of the Maids, an official position in the queen’s household, oversaw the maids of honour. Holborn was known for its thoroughly middle-class, unsophisticated denizens. Camilla suggests that Lady Squeamish, armed with the latest gossip about Victoria’s condition, would spread rumours from the highest to the lowest ranks of town.
a mask with an amber bead: ladies’ masks had beads inside which could be held in the mouth to keep the mask secure; that way, a lady could use her hands freely. Amber was thought to have medicinal qualities, perhaps the reason why Lady Squeamish specifically requests a mask with amber beads to forestall any fits (e.g. spells of fainting) she might have.
thoroughly: ‘throughly’ (1678).
crammed: confined.
fubb: a small, chubby person, perhaps here an allusion to Victoria’s ‘altered’ condition.
a very good Dutch burgomaster: the burgomaster was the chief magistrate in a Dutch or Flemish town. Valentine expresses the standard English view of the Dutch—that they were dishonest drunkards.
loof see note to The Libertine, 3.1.2.
probatum: a proven thing; an approved remedy.
soused me: soaked me in drink.
dry pimping: ‘dry’ because Valentine himself cannot enjoy the sexual fruits of pimping. ‘Dry’ in the period often connoted incomplete sexual pleasure (e.g. sex without ejaculation was known as a ‘dry bob’). See note to 138.
mumbling: literally, to chew softly; the meaning here is sexual, of course. Goodvile complains that he has been consuming sexually a tough old bird instead of a nice, young partridge.
joy: sweetheart.
wilderness: ‘piece of ground in a large garden or park, planted with trees, and laid out in an ornamental or fantastic style, often in the form of a maze or labyrinth’ (OED).
the daubing … appeared too plain: ‘daubing’ during the period connoted coarse painting and hypocritical flattery. Truman pulls both meanings together, suggesting that the pretence of Goodvile’s friendship is as obvious as heavily applied make-up: both appear ‘too plain’.
decoy: brothel.
put up: sheathe your swords.
charnel house: a house for dead bodies; also, a vault in which human bones are piled up.
blown upon: had eggs deposited on it; tainted.
Whirr: Goodvile is making a snarling or growling sound.
There, sir: Caper appears to make a dismissive gesture at this point.
raw head and bloody bones: a huge mastiff given to eating raw meat and bones; in Goodvile’s mind, Sir Noble Clumsy qualifies himself as such when he declares ‘I’ll eat his heart for it’.
towser: a large guard dog, sometimes used in bear or bull baiting. Truman here is the ‘great towser’ who has already ‘started’ on the ‘fresh game’ (i.e. Mrs Goodvile).
I am resolved… of the worst: there are two possibilities here. Saunter, in a show of generosity, could be pledging to save Victoria’s reputation by marriage if the ‘worst’ should come to light—i.e. that she’s pregnant by Goodvile. Victoria’s unavailability could also constitute Saunter’s ‘worst’ fear, if she returns to Goodvile or marries Sir Noble Clumsy.
resentments: thanks, gratitude.
Capuchin: in 1528 the Capuchins, a monastic order, received papal authority to become an autonomous branch of the Franciscans. They were known as Capuchins because of their practice of wearing a long hood (or capuche) attached to the standard issue Franciscan robe.
for composition: for the settling of differences.
she shows all her changes in a motion: she focuses all her emotions in a specific plan.
destitute: without power; without resources.
outrageous: excessively emotional, extravagant.
coffee-house companions: coffee houses were notorious for fostering scandal and sedition. The government tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to shut down coffee houses in London for these very reasons.
orange-women: the women who sold oranges, at the time, a costly delicacy, at the playhouse. Orange-women were reputed to be purveyors of gossip; in Wycherley’s The Country Wife, Horner orders Quack in the opening scene to tell the orange-women in the playhouse about his condition in the hope it will circulate around town more quickly. See also the Orange-Woman in MM 1.1.
Down with your dust: hand over your money.
I will sooner return to my vomit: proverbial; perhaps a paraphrase of Proverbs 26: 11: ‘As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.’
Phoebus: also Apollo, the Greek god associated with music, archery, prophecy, and medicine. He was also during the Hellenistic and Roman periods thought to be the sun god.
The wolves have preyed … spots of gray: Goodvile quotes several lines from Much Ado About Nothing. The lines actually read: ‘The wolves have prey’d; and look, the gentle day, | Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about | Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey’ (5.3.25–7). Otway frequently quotes from Shakespeare in his plays and emulates several of his dramatic techniques, including the use of blank verse in the tragedies.
As those whom … hedges and ditches: Summers (Otway) thinks this is an intentional misquotation from Samuel Butler’s Hudibras: ‘An ignis fatuus, that bewitches | And leads men into Pools and Ditches’ (1.1). It could also be an allusion to the earl of Rochester’s Satyr against Reason and Mankind: ‘Reason, an ignis fatuus, in the mind, | Which leaving light of Nature, sense behind; | Pathless and dangerous wandering ways it takes, | Through errors, fenny bogs, and thorny brakes’ (12–15).
wittol: a contented cuckold; a man complaisant about the infidelity of his wife.
rank: offensive, rancid.
Lord’s day: Sunday.
And when Mr Goodvile’s … lie together: Mrs Goodvile implies nothing sexual by this remark. Women during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries often slept together, in part for protection and in part for warmth. Good friends, sisters, and cousins frequently shared beds.
I hope so: I believe so.
So Theseus left… Mneas from his Dido: in Book IV of The Aeneid, Aeneas abandons Queen Dido in Carthage, sailing off with his men to found Rome. Theseus and Ariadne inhabit another tale of abandonment: Theseus, in exchange for Ariadne’s assistance in slaying the Minotaur, promises to marry her. Instead, on his voyage home, he abandons Ariadne and marries her sister Phaedra. Otway treats the final segment of this story in Phaedra to Hippolytus, which tells of the queen’s illicit love for her stepson.
Scour, scour, scour: ‘scourers’ (or scowrers) were violent young men who rampaged drunkenly through streets, breaking windows and causing fights; thus, to scour is to cause mayhem.
punks in beaten satin: whores in expensive dresses; satin was still a fairly new fabric for the period and quite costly.
journeymen tailors: tailors who do poor quality work.
neat: elegant, smartly dressed.
bear me out: support me.
S.D. beats her backward: knocks her to the ground.
Jerniè: from the French ‘je renie Dieu’ (‘I renounce God’); clearly, a blasphemous expression.
shock: slang for a gentlewoman’s lap dog. See Pope, The Rape of the Lock: ‘He said; when Shock, who thought she slept too long, | Leapt up, and wak’d his Mistress with his Tongue’ (i. 114–16).
Westminster Drollery: first published in 1671, this miscellany included some of the most popular songs, poems, prologues and epilogues of the day (‘both at Court and Theatres’). Subsequent volumes were published in 1672, 1673, and 1674. Miscellanies or ‘drolleries’ were extremely popular after the Restoration.
Oxford Jests: another popular collection, this one of ‘Witty Jests, merry Tales, and pleasant Joques’ (1669). Like Westminster Drollery, it went through subsequent printings and volumes. These were far from being highbrow works of art; thus, when Sir Noble Clumsy brags about the barber, the creator of his periwig, having drolleries ‘at his fingers’ ends’ (i.e. memorized), his audience is hardly to be impressed.
cittern: an instrument somewhat like a guitar, only strung with wire and played with a quill. According to Summers (Otway), it was commonly kept in barber shops for the customers to play. The modern zither is a descendant of the cittern.
Troy Town: a popular ballad, already old by the Restoration. It was much reprinted.
jessamine: variant of ‘jasmine’; perfume made from jasmine flowers.
rogues in buckram: an allusion to Falstaff’s ‘two rogues in buckram suits … four rogues in buckram’ (/Henry IV, 2.4). Buckram was a kind of coarse linen stiffened with paste. The expression ‘men in buckram’ or ‘rogues in buckram’ came to refer proverbially to non-existent persons; thus, Sir Noble Clumsy’s application of the expression to Caper and Saunter suggests they are men without substance, hollow men.
Cerberus: in Roman and Greek mythology, the three-headed dog who guards the entrance to the infernal regions.
popinjays: vain, conceited persons.
Bedlam: the abbreviated term for the Hospital of St Mary of Bethlehem in London. Founded as a priory in 1247, it became a hospital for the insane by 1402. Originally outside Bishopsgate, the asylum was moved during the Restoration to a building in Moorfields which was designed by Robert Hooke and said by Evelyn to be very beautiful.
your voice: ‘your vow’ (1678). Summers emends ‘vow’ to ‘voice’, a reasonable change given that Saunter has just begun singing, and it appears that Mrs Goodvile is urging her maid to join in the song.
wear the willow: proverbial; the willow symbolized grief for unrequited love or the death of a mate; thus, ‘to wear the willow’ was to don the visible sign of mourning.
cast mistresses … at the playhouse: it is not entirely clear whether ‘cast’ is being used as a verb or an adjective. If the former, Truman must resort to ‘cast’ for mistresses at the playhouse in the manner one might angle for trout. If the latter, then he is condemned to cast-off (abandoned) mistresses. Parallel structure suggests that ‘cast’ is the first in a succession of verbs (‘take up’ and ‘drudge’) in the sentence.
drudge: perform sexually.
nothing upon compulsion: Malagene teasingly echoes Falstaff’s outraged response to Prince Hal’s interrogation (‘What, upon compulsion.? Zounds, an I were at the strappado or all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion. Give you a reason on compulsion? If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I’). See 1 Henry IV, 2.4.224–8.
S.D. Jew’s trump: also known as a Jew’s harp; ‘a musical instrument of simple construction, consisting of an elastic steel tongue fixed at one end to a small lyre-shaped frame of brass or iron, and bent at the other end at right angles; it is played by holding the frame between the teeth and striking the free end of the metal tongue with the finger’ (OED).
Machiavel: Anglicized name of Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine political philosopher who wrote The Prince (1513). The term ‘Machiavel’ signified an unscrupulous nature, someone who plots and schemes against others for his own amoral or selfish ends (which is how Mrs Goodvile uses it). The stage Machiavel was a stock character in the Renaissance theatre: Iago and Richard III certainly qualify as prototypes.
this throw for all my future peace: this final throw of the dice will decide my future.
Ay, and six: a coach and six horses was a much coveted status symbol of the period.
Rampant: someone extravagant in action or opinion; it could also describe someone lustful or vicious. Otway might be alluding here to Madame Rampant, the whore we never actually see, in Etherege’s She Would If She Could.
fop of the corner fop’s corner was a section of the pit near the stage where the most foppish of critics issued (frequently loud) pronouncements on the play.
my more peculiar punk: my special strumpet. nose: confront, reproach.
pelf: money or riches, but with a depreciatory connotation. It could also mean booty or stolen property. Mrs Goodvile appears to acknowledge here that her London lifestyle is supported by ill gain, namely, the exploitation of the tenants (peasants) on their country estate.
squab: also ‘squobb’; young, tender game, not quite old enough to eat. Goodvile accuses his wife of having a fierce sexual appetite, one which requires ‘a substantial dish’.
do me reason: (1) justify by his behaviour what I say of him; (2) grant me a duel. It is to this latter meaning that Truman responds.
block … to fashion: piece of wood on which you can carve (or shape) your lies.
I’ll engage, shall make you satisfaction: Valentine urges Goodvile to save his energy for the duelling field, where Truman can be relied upon to oblige him.
convince: accomplish my victory; establish your guilt.
close: secret.
that thou: in the fact that you.
S.D. fools’ caps: caps of fantastic shape, often large, cone-like structures, formerly worn by fools or jesters.
warning of what: warning from what.
give my kinsman Sir Noble joy: congratulate my kinsman Sir Noble on his marriage.
as simply as I stand here: (1) as plainly as I stand here; (2) as I stand here, a fool or simpleton. Sir Noble’s response clearly encompasses both meanings.
Good people: Goodvile sardonically invokes the mode of address typical of the condemned criminal making his final speech before the gallows.
EPILOGUE
Poets themselves … quarrels taught: Otway here suggests that in-fighting among dramatists has taught others savagery in their criticism of plays. Historically, there may be something to this comment. By the 1670s, the theatre witnessed far more competition, as the gentleman poets of the 1660s were increasingly replaced by ambitious—and hungry—professional writers, such as Otway, Behn, Shadwell, Lee, and Durfey.
higgling: wrangling, cavilling. OED cites this particular use of the word by Otway.
misses: shorthand for mistress, a kept woman.