[163] i.e. For sale.
[165] The term sirrah was applied often to women as well as to men.
[166] Prostitute.
[167] A sweet Spanish wine.
[168] Simpletons.
[169] Measure.
[170] Wench.
[171] Calves’ Fry.
[172] Tripe.
[173] A corruption of the word “melancholy.”
[174] In allusion to the painting of a citizen’s gateposts on his promotion to be sheriff, so as to display official notices the better.
[175] A slang term applied to citizens in allusion to their head gear.
[176] Beat.
[177] Pleases.
[178] A contraction of “mine ingle,” i.e. my favourite or friend.
[179] The heraldic term for red.
[180] Desire.
[181] Weigh.
[182] Perquisites.
[183] Table covers.
[184] Portuguese coins, worth about 2s. 10d. each, but varying in value.
[185] Construe.
[186] i.e. Bourgeois knights dubbed for civil, not for martial, honours.
[187] i.e. I long.
[188] When he may rob under protection. Barn is a corruption of baron, and in law a wife is said to be under covert baron, being sheltered by marriage under her husband.—Dyce.
[189] Hat.
[190] Handsomest.
[192] Simpletons.
[193] Easily, readily.
[194] The siege of Ostend was protracted for three years and ten weeks.—The place was eventually captured by the Marquis of Spinola on Sep. 8, 1604.
[195] Foolish.
[196] i.e. A person,—thus spelt to mark the servant’s mispronunciation.
[197] From Seneca’s Oedipus.
[198] Ital. Good courage.
[199] “Slid” according to Halliwell is a north country oath.
[200] A corruption of “mazzard,” the head.
[201] i.e. In bowing.
[202] An allusion, no doubt, to Shakespeare’s comedy.
[203] Dyce points out the inconsistency, that Candido has just returned from the Senate House, although it appears from the intermediate Scenes that since he left home a night has elapsed.
[204] A quibble. A master’s was one of the three degrees in fencing, for each of which a “prize” was publicly played.
[205] Construe.
[206] A cheap substitute for tapestry and very frequently having verses inscribed on it as in the present instance.
[207] Readily. Possibly the above use of the term points to its derivation.
[208] Cheese-trenchers used to be inscribed with proverbial phrases.
[209] Consent.
[210] i.e. To steal a wench.
[211] It was the ancient practice when persons were sworn for them to eat bread and salt.
[212] Artifices.
[213] Anticipate.
[214] i.e. They are not to be restrained by being called to.
[215] Hats.
[216] Club foot.
[217] Informer.
[218] Slippers. Fr. pantoufles.
[219] In playing the virginal the sound ceased whenever the jack fell and touched the string.
[220] A flap-dragon was a raisin floating on lighted spirit in a dish or glass and had to be snatched out with the mouth and swallowed. Gallants used to toast their mistresses in flap-dragons.
[221] “An almond for parrot,” and “a rope for parrot,” were common phrases at the time.
[222] A corruption of God’s sanctity or God’s saints.—Steevens.
[223] In the game of barley-break the ground was divided into three compartments, the middle one of which was called “hell.”
[224] i.e. Infelice.
[225] A quibble. “Table” also meant the palm of the hand.—Dyce.
[226] i.e. A wench, a prostitute.
[227] An allusion to a ballad of that name.
[228] i.e. Confound.
[229] Hands.
[230] i.e. Reason.
[231] Favourite.
[232] The running footmen of those days were generally Irishmen.
[233] Meaning Dunkirk privateers.
[234] Buona roba is an Italian phrase for a courtesan.
[235] Yellow was typical of jealousy.
[236] A supposed recipe for restoring youth.—Dyce.
[237] Preserve.
[238] Renounce.
[239] Made use of by fowlers to allure quails.
[240] The common livery of the time.
[241] In allusion to the caps worn both by traders and their apprentices.
[242] Bucklers formerly had long spikes in their centre.
[243] The model for the hat.
[244] Struts.
[245] A tall pointed hat satirized by Stubbes in his Anatomie of Abuses (1538). Probably at this point Candido takes the steeple-like hat worn by the 1st Guest, and puts it on his own head.
[246] Hysteria.
[247] Rosemary was used as an emblem of remembrance at both funerals and weddings.
[248] A favourite simile with the writers of the time.
[249] Ital. A term of abuse or contempt.
[250] Roystering young gallants. A highly favourable female version of the type is given in Dekker and Middleton’s comedy, The Roaring Girl.
[251] i.e. Get a chance of drinking to excess.
[253] Foolish.
[254] Cheat.
[255] Whoremonger.
[256] Portcullis.
[257] An expression signifying impatience.
[259] Cudgels.
[260] A hound,—derived from “Shake a Tory.”
[261] Críosd—Christ.
[262] Irish: Slán lúitheach—A joyous farewell(?).
[263] Irish: As a márach frómhadh bodach bréan—On the morrow of a feast, a clown is a beast.
[264] A rough sturdy fellow. Irish: Ceithearneach—A soldier.
[265] An allusion to the darts carried by the Irish running footmen.—Dyce.
[266] Irish: Maighisdir mo grádh—Master of my love.
[267] Foolish.
[268] i.e. With a staff.
[269] An allusion to the well-known romance of this name, from the Spanish.
[270] A cant term for money.
[271] i.e. Turn bawd.
[272] Prostitutes.
[274] Gardens with summer-houses were very common in the suburbs of London at the time, and were often used as places of intrigue.—Dyce.
[275] Sift.
[276] Pear-tree.
[277] Finely attired.
[278] A Cataian came to signify a sharper because the people of Cataia (China) were famous for their thieving propensities.—Dyce.
[279] Serving-men’s livery at this time was usually blue.
[280] A kind of false dice.
[281] Whoremonger.
[282] The loops or straps appended to the girdle in which the dagger or small sword usually hung.—Halliwell.
[283] Means both a herring and a piece of money.
[284] Horses with long housings.
[285] Stuffed out.
[286] The clap or clack-dish was properly a box carried by beggars, the lid of which they used to rattle to attract notice and bring people to their doors.
[287] Hospital.
[288] Booty.
[289] Meaning his sword.
[290] Steevens pointed out that Arlotte was not the concubine of an English king but was the mistress of the father of William the Conqueror.
[291] i.e. Then.
[292] A net, the mouth of which was drawn together with a string.
[293] To drink tobacco was a common phrase for smoking it.—Reed.
[294] A long barge with oars.
[295] A common dish in the brothels of the time.
[296] A corruption of Pedro Ximenes, a sweet Spanish wine, so called from the grape of that name.
[297] A sweet Portuguese wine from the neighbourhood of Lisbon.
[298] i.e. Aleatico, a red Italian muscatel wine with a rich aromatic flavour.
[299] The saker and basilisk were both pieces of ordnance.
[300] A play upon “pop-guns.”
[301] It was a common custom to kneel when drinking a health, especially the health of a superior.
[302] The price was here probably indicated by displaying the fingers.
[303] On Shrove Tuesday the authorities made a search for brothel-keepers, and on the same day the London apprentices went about wrecking houses of ill-fame.
[304] It was in a blue gown that strumpets had to do penance.
[305] Meaning Bridewell, where loose women were whipped.
[306] An allusion to the carting of prostitutes, who were at the same time pelted by the populace with rotten eggs.
[307] Breaking chalk, grinding in mills, raising sand and gravel and making of lime were among the employments assigned to vagrants and others committed to Bridewell.—Reed.
[308] This and the subsequent allusions to the Bridewell of Milan, of course, really have reference to the London Bridewell. In the reign of Henry VIII. princes were lodged there, and it was there that Cardinal Campeius had his first audience of the king. After Henry’s death, Edward VI. gave the palace to the citizens. It was moreover endowed with land belonging to the Savoy to the amount of 700 marks a year and the bedding and furniture of this hospital were bestowed upon it.
[309] i.e. Skeletons.
[310] Atoms.
[311] Slang term for a small copper coin.
[312] The amount of the hangman’s fee.
[313] A cittern or lute was part of the appointments of a barber’s shop of the period.
[315] A heavy mallet.
[316] The term was applied both to a kept gallant and to a pander.
[317] Smartly attired.
[318] A term of contempt.
[319] A play upon the word, which also signifies “trimmed.”
[320] Prostitutes.
[321] Task work.
[322] At the carting of bawds and prostitutes they were preceded by a mob beating basins and performing other rough music.
[323] Trimmed.
[324] Ensign.
[325] Branded.
[326] Disdain.
[327] Finely dressed.
[328] Fools.
[329] This Prologue and the Epilogue are specially devised for the performance of the play before the queen, hence “At Court.”
[330] i.e. Queen Elizabeth, at this time in her sixty-eighth year.
Pandora is the only one of these poetic terms for Elizabeth peculiar to Dekker. The rest of them are used by others of the Elizabethan poets. He evidently here conceives Pandora on the side of her good fortune only, as receiving the gifts of the gods, and not in her more familiar association with the story of Pandora’s Box and its evils.