an antic an antic/antique dance

  75–6 recalling her part in the morris dance in 3.5

  80 Willow from the song of ‘Willow’ (also sung by Desdemona in Oth 4.3.40–57), alluding to the wearing of a willow garland by a forsaken lover. Thiselton-Dyer (233) suggests that it derives from Psalms, 137.1–2, where the exiled Israelites, weeping beside a river, hang their harps on the willows. The appearance of the ‘weeping willow’ and the fact that it grows beside streams might in themselves be sufficient explanation for the tradition.

  * * *

  63 sung] F; (song)

  82 Palamon … man a variation on one of the standard openings for ballads about a hero; see Appendix 6, p. 409.

  tall valiant

  83 knee-deep knee-high with grass and rushes

  84 rounded encircled

  about her stuck on her were placed (as on a masque costume?)

  86 methought Taylor suggests transposing this line as ‘she appeared me thought’, on the grounds that the result, metrically, is ‘much more regular’ (TxC, 632). However, stressing the first syllable of methought has the same effect and is consistent with both dramatists’ practice.

  nymph spirit that tends the lake

  87 Iris Juno’s messenger and a personification of the rainbow; the Daughter, with her flowers, is also a multi-coloured figure. See Appendix 4, pp. 393–5.

  88–9 Rings … rushes ‘a kind of token for plighting of troth among rustic lovers’ (Thiselton-Dyer, 229; he cites the November Eclogue of Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calendar, line 116). There may be an echo of A Lover’s Complaint: ‘Of folded schedules had she many a one, / Which she perus’d, sigh’d, tore, and gave the flood; / Crack’d many a ring of posied gold and bone, / Bidding them find their sepultures in mud’ (43–6).

  90 posies short mottoes, often in rhyme, such as were engraved on the insides of rings

  91 loose possibly lose, for which it is an alternative spelling, but Riv points out that tied in the first posy goes with loose (untie) in the second

  93 smiled … hand Cf. TN 3.4.32–3, where this behaviour is taken as evidence of Malvolio’s madness. It was apparently a courtly gesture signifying love; Selden’s Titles of Honour (1614) gives a false etymology of adoro from ad oro – the gesture of putting the fingers to the lips (41).

  94 made in pushed my way through

  * * *

  84 wreath] Seward; wreake Q

  95 straight … flood at once threw herself into the water (or tried to do so)

  96 presently at once

  98 cry like a cry of hounds?

  100 cross her intercept her

  101 stayed stopped

  102 scarce … away because she was exhausted, or because she didn’t want to accompany them

  103 Here they are Strangely, the Wooer has no further lines in the scene, and the Daughter apparently directs none to him. See List of Roles and n. on 139 SD.

  104 No one has yet identified this song, though, as Waith (Oxf1) points out, the & in Q suggests that it was already known to the actor who was to sing a stanza or so. Possibly both it and the song that ends the scene were considered too coarse to print. At this point, the Daughter evidently sees no one except the Jailer’s Brother, who may be supporting or carrying her in.

  107–8 ‘The Broom’, ‘Bonny Robin’ See Appendix 6, p. 409.

  * * *

  104 Sings.] not in Q

  110 *early Q has rarely – an obsolete dialect word (sometimes spelled ‘rearly’) meaning early. Though neither the 1679 nor the 1711 edition alters it, Davenant’s adaptation has early. There seems a strong case for emendation, unless (as has been argued) the Daughter is meant to speak dialect (Bruster, 291).

  I … else ‘otherwise I shall be away from home’ (Leech)

  112 by cocklight by dawn, when the cock crows (with the usual sexual pun)

  113 ’Twill never thrive The wedding night will never go well (perhaps, in view of what follows, to thrive means to become pregnant).

  114 See Appendix 6, p. 409.

  119 cross contradict. He may be responding to the Daughter’s behaviour or to the First Friend’s reluctance to answer her.

  distempered ill, deranged

  121 Oh, is he so? The Daughter jealously takes the Friend’s well-meaning agreement as evidence of a plot to marry his sister to Palamon.

  * * *

  110 early] Davenant; rarely Q; rearly (Sympson) 119 means] 1778; meane Q 120 Far] 1711; For Q

  123 For because of

  trick perhaps a (fantasized) prior engagement to the Daughter which as yet is a secret from everyone (cf. 126–7); perhaps a bed-trick that she intends to play on him; perhaps meaningless

  124 gone pregnant (cf. LLL 5.2.672–7)

  124–5 done, / And undone seduced and ruined

  127 let … alone pay no attention to them

  130 Close as a cockle proverbial (Dent, C499); here meaning both ‘I keep myself to myself’ and ‘I keep my legs together’

  131 the trick on’t the technique for begetting only boys. There were many theories about how this could be done, by diet or will-power.

  132 gelt gelded

  132–3 gelt … Theseus Castration was a means of preserving the boy’s singing voice. Cf. the offering to Theseus, in MND, of ‘The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung / By an Athenian eunuch to the harp’ (5.1.44–5).

  134 As … nothing Probably the Daughter overhears the friends speaking aside. Some editors suggest transferring her line to the Brother, on the grounds that she herself pays no attention to the others in the scene, but it is characteristic of other ‘mad’ discourse. Ophelia also speaks of ‘tricks i’th’ world’ (Ham 4.5.5) and is obsessed with secrecy (see 3.4.18n.). A similar exchange occurs in a Fletcher scene in The Knight of Malta, a collaboration of 1616–19: ‘Ye are a strange Gentleman’ – ‘As ever thou knew’st’ (Bowers, 8: 2.4.14–15).

  136–7 he … dispatch Cf. Fletcher and Massinger’s The Custom of the Country (1619–20), where Rutilio actually does what the Daughter fantasizes (Bowers, 8: 3.3.77–82).

  137 tickle’t up The OED gives no exact equivalent for the sense implied here, which appears to be a cross between II 3 (‘to give pleasure’) and II 7 c. (‘to arouse by tickling, excite to action’). The Daughter means both Palamon’s sexual potency and his ability to induce orgasm.

  138 if … in metaphorically, if he is in good form or lucky (see Dent, H67)

  139 SD The Jailer seems the most likely addressee. Alternatively she might mean the Wooer, whose silence and sadness might lead her to think of him as wise. Or wise might be used (of either man) in the ironic sense (cf. Beatrice’s ‘a wise gentleman’ in MA 5.1.165–6); she has already enjoyed telling the Schoolmaster that he is a fool (3.5.80).

  142 Here The Jailer either consults an imaginary compass or pretends to take some other object for one.

  Set … north ‘i.e. find the north by setting up the compass’ (Oxf1)

  145 Let me alone rely on me (cf. 3.5.32): presumably the Daughter mimes the hauling of ropes on an imaginary ship

  weigh weigh anchor

  * * *

  139–42] Q lines man. / him? / did. 139 SD] Riv; not in Q 140 2 FRIEND] F; 1 Fr. Q SD 1,2aside] this edn; not in Q 145–6 cheerily! / … Ugh!] (Owgh); cheerly all! O Leech; cheerily! / ALL THE OTHERS. O, O, O! / DAUGHTER. ’Tis up Bawcutt

  146–8 ALL … master? Bawcutt (see t.n.) argues that ALL is not a speech prefix but a misreading of part of the Daughter’s lines. But the collective improvisation of a ship under sail is both theatrically effective (it may parody Tem 1.1.5–8) and in keeping with the notion of humouring madness; it also explains the presence of so many otherwise unnecessary characters in the scene.

  46 Ugh! Q’s Owgh represents the grunts of people lifting an imaginary anchor; in a Fletcher scene in The Knight of Malta (Bowers, 8: 3.1.31–62) the same word depicts the sound made by a character imitating the grunting of a pig.

  147 ’Tis up! They have finished hoisting the imaginary anchor.

  Top the bowline raise or tighten the bowline, a rope fastened to the larboard or starboard bow ‘for the purpose of keeping the edge of the sail steady when sailing on a wind’ (OED)

  149 either an aside to the others about the need to get the increasingly distracted Daughter indoors, or part of the play-acting (with her as the ship making for land) – or both, if the other characters persuade the Daughter to go in by steering towards an imaginary offstage wood

  150 Up … top climb up to the top of the mast. Perhaps (as Taylor, TxC, suggests) the Second Friend climbs to the upper stage level.

  151 What kenn’st thou? ‘What can you make out?’ From the archaic verb ‘ken’, which includes the sense of testing the range of sight or knowledge.

  152 Tack about Cf. Prologue 26.

  153 unidentified song; Proudfoot points out that the line closely resembles one in Sackville’s Induction to the ‘Complaint of Henry Duke of Buckingham’ in A Mirror for Magistrates

  Cynthia the moon

  * * *

  146 SD] this edn; not in Q 152 Tack] F; (Take)

  4.2

  4.2. 0.1 two pictures probably miniatures, such as were often exchanged by lovers

  1 bind … up literally, prevent those wounds from being given in the forthcoming fight (Leech); metaphorically, keep their wounded friendship from dying

  3–6 Two … cruelty Cf. 3.6.245–50. This soliloquy partly anticipates 5.3.41–55.

  7–12 Nature … man Nature herself would love Arcite madly, even if she were also as coy as mortal women; that is, it is ‘natural’ to love him.

  14 Love … smiling a common conceit, based on the personification of Love as Cupid: e.g., ‘Love in thine eyes doth build his bower’ (Lodge, 2.19), ‘Love in the twinkling of your eyelids danceth’ (Davies, Orchestra, stanza 106)

  15 Just … another either eye or smile. The more usual word order would be: ‘With just such another glance (or smile) wanton Ganymede set Jove afire.’ Cf. ‘This false smile was well exprest, / Just such another caught me’ (Maid’s Tragedy, Bowers, 2: 2.2.51–2).

  Ganymede a beautiful boy snatched up from earth by Jove to become cup-bearer to the gods (Ovid, 10.155–61)

  * * *

  4.2] Scæna 2. Q 6 SD] this edn; not in Q 9 sows] Q; shews F 12 eye,] 1711; eye? Q 16 Set … with] 1778 (Sympson); Set Love a fire with Q; set Jove afire, and Seward; he / Set Jove afire with (Heath); Set Jove afire once Oxf

  18 constellation Aquarius (the water-bearer)

  What a brow Cf. ‘See what a grace was seated on this brow’ (Ham 3.4.55–62).

  20 great-eyed Juno’s possibly, as Proudfoot suggests, ‘grey-eyed’ (a common expression in this play – cf. 131), but Juno is often called ‘ox-eyed’

  21 Pelops’ shoulder ivory; see Ovid, 6.403–11. Tantalus served his son Pelops to the gods at a banquet. When they discovered his crime, they reassembled the dismembered body, replacing one shoulder, already eaten, by one of ivory. Leech compares lines in Marlowe, Hero and Leander: ‘his necke … surpasst / The white of Pelops’ shoulder’ (64–5).

  21–5 Fame … ’em Skeat compares Philaster: ‘Place me, some god, upon a Piramis / Higher than hils of earth, and lend a voyce / Loud as your thunder to me, that from thence / I may discourse to all the under-world / The worth that dwells in him!’ (Bowers, 1: 4.6.90–4).

  22 hence i.e., from Arcite’s brow

  promontory a mountainous stretch of land jutting into the sea; also, metaphorically, the highest and farthest point of excellence

  23 Pointed in of which the peak is in

  24 under-world the earth below

  25 such … ’em such men as this, near to divinity

  26 foil someone who merely serves to set off the splendour of someone else, as dull metal (foil) sets off a jewel (cf. Ham 5.2.255)

  to by comparison with

  27 swart a variation of swarthy: dark

  meagre skinny

  heavy gloomy

  28 still lethargic

  29 stirring liveliness

  30 this Arcite’s

  smile trace (perhaps harking back to 14)

  32 Narcissus Contrast Emilia’s earlier attitude to this character, 2.2.120–1.

  sad serious

  * * *

  25 SD] this edn; not in Q

  33 *Bawcutt compares ‘O who does know the bent of women’s fantasy?’ (Faerie Queene, 1.4.24). Perhaps Emilia is meant to be (anachronistically) quoting.

  bent direction (which way it bends)

  fancy either love or infatuation, but with emphasis on the role of imagination in the emotional experience

  35 choice capacity to make a choice

  lewdly ignorantly (Skeat compares Acts, 17.5)

  36 On my knees Emilia may kneel to the picture at this point, or the phrase may be purely metaphorical.

  37–8 alone / And only uniquely

  39–40 command … love by contrast with the smiling love in Arcite’s eyes

  40 cross withstand, or come within range of

  *cross ’em? No punctuation follows these words in Q, where the line ends flush with the right margin. It is probably a rhetorical question, meaning ‘What young maid would dare resist them?’ (or encounter them, in the sense of meeting their eyes) but it is also possible that what means ‘whatever’ and that command / And threaten applies to both love and maid.

  42 Love probably addressed to Cupid rather than Palamon

  43 complexion what complexion ought to be

  44–5 a changeling … body Fairies and gypsies were thought to steal the children of noblemen, leaving their own ugly children behind in exchange: hence the term ‘changeling’ for an ugly or stupid person.

  44 to him See 26.

  gypsy dark, like an Egyptian; consistent with Palamon’s earlier reference to Arcite as ‘a black-haired man’ (3.3.31) but odd after 27, above, where she calls Palamon ‘swart’. It has been argued (Underwood, TNK, 17) that the two men are meant to be indistinguishable. But Emilia’s speech is probably not evidence of their appearance. Like Lysander, who rejects Hermia with ‘Away, you Ethiop!’ (MND 3.2.257), she describes each man according to the convention that makes beauty fair and ugliness dark.

  45 sotted turned into a sot, a fool

  * * *

  33 ‘Oh … fancy?’] this edn. (Bawcutt); Oh … fancy? Q 38 these the eyes] Q; these thy eyes F; they’re the eyes (Mason) 40 cross ’em?] Seward; crosse ’em Q 43 SD] this edn; not in Q

  46 faith constancy; cf. ‘Ye make my faith reel’ (3.6.212).

  48 Whether which of the two

  had run would have run

  49 if my sister (had asked me)

  more for more inclined to

  50 Stand both together She probably places the two pictures side by side.

  52 ‘I … look’ ‘I cannot answer’

  Fancy See 33.

  53 gauds toys

  54 distinguish discriminate, decide between them

  *SD Q’s SD (see t.n.) may have resulted from revision – if, for instance, Emilia’s soliloquy was either added or marked for deletion.

  60–4 my chastity … beauty a fore-shadowing of her appearance in the temple of Diana (5.1)

  63 Made mothers joy caused mothers to rejoice at their birth

  * * *

  46 virgin’s] 1711; Virgins Q; Virgin Seward 54 SD] 1711; Enter Emil. and Gent: Q 55 How] 1778; Emil. How Q 63 mothers joy] Q; mothers’ joy 1778

  64 unhappy hapless, bringing misfortune

  Bring ’em in Theseus gives an order (off stage, or to Pirithous) as he enters.

  68 You must love you will have to love (as a result of the combat); the stress is on must

  I … both ‘I had rather be forced to love both of them’; cf. her refusal to make a decision in 3.6.285.

  69 So thus

  70 a while briefly

  *SD The reference to ‘Curtis’ in Q’s SD (see t.n.) is a prompter’s annotation, not meant for printing. It is hard to see why the direction calls for two messengers, since Pirithous and the Gentleman are already available to describe the offstage knights. Some revision may have taken place at this point; see 54 SD n.

  71 speak used transitively here and at 91

  72–140 The descriptions follow those in KT, but with some alterations. Only two knights (the king of Thrace and the king of India) are described by Chaucer: a black-haired knight fighting for Palamon and a yellow-haired one (with the freckles mentioned in 120) fighting for Arcite. These speeches are rarely performed, since neither the messenger convention nor the homage to Chaucer is meaningful to a modern audience.

  * * *

  64–5 in / Quickly] 1778; in quickly, / By Q 70SD] 1711; Enter Messengers. Curtis. after 69 Q

  77 stout valiant

  81 circles … eyes probably the rolling of his eyes (cf. 108)

  *fire Dyce’s alteration is confirmed by Skeat’s quotation of the equivalent in Chaucer: ‘The circles of his eyen in his heed / They gloweden bytwixe yelwe and reed …’ (2131–2).

  82 heated angry

  looks refers to his expression, not his appearance (see 4.1.33n.)

  85 Armed … round a pun: the knight is furnished with arms (in both senses), which is why the speaker goes on to mention his sword

  86 a curious baldrick a finely made sword-belt (usually slung from the shoulder)

  87 To seal … with The subject is ‘sword’; there may be a pun on sealing a legal document. Cf. the construction in 15–16.

  87–8 Better … friend refers to the sword; Skeat compares ‘A better [weapon] never did itself sustain / Upon a soldier’s thigh’ (Oth 5.2.260–1). For a similar ‘epic’ phrase see 2.2.20–1.

  89–90 Yet … Palamon It is the knight rather than the description that Pirithous proposes to surpass; but this scene is also a competition between descriptions.