154 guiltless of election ‘I have made no choice.’ To choose would make her guilty, both in betraying her service to the virgin goddess and, as she goes on to say, in condemning one of the men to death.

  * * *

  152 him.] Seward subst.; him, Q 154 election. Of] Dyce subst.; election of Q

  158 pretenders claimants

  160 wheaten garland symbol of virginity, already mentioned in 1.1. Also of peace, as Skeat points out, comparing Ham 5.2.41: ‘peace should still her wheaten garland wear’.

  161 file and quality rank and status (as a virgin)

  162.1–2 The disappearance of the hind and its replacement by the rose tree was probably accomplished by the same means as the disappearing banquet in Tem 3.3.51 SD: perhaps a stagehand under a trapdoor, as Waith (Oxf1) suggests; perhaps a reversible table.

  163 our … flows Diana as the moon, who rules the tides

  164 the bowels the depths. The image may have been suggested by the fact that classical augury involved interpreting the entrails of sacrificial animals.

  166 If well inspired if this interpretation is divinely inspired (that is, correct)

  confound destroy

  167–8 I … unplucked perhaps recalling Theseus’ warning to Hermia in MND 1.1.77 that the unmarried virgin is like the rose ‘withering on the virgin thorn’. But the comparison is common.

  168.1 a sudden twang may be similar to the ‘strange, hollow, and confused noise’ that ends the masque at Tem 4.1.138. Not necessarily made by strings (RP).

  168.2 which then descends Some such direction is implied by Emilia’s next lines.

  170 dischargest me release me from your service (i.e., give me permission to marry)

  * * *

  165 art] this edn; act Q 168.2 which then descends] Dyce subst; not in Q

  172–3 There seems to be a pause after Emilia’s plea; she asks to know, not only what will happen, but what the goddess wishes (which means, which of the two men she has chosen). As no stage business is indicated, it may be that there is no reply and that Emilia in these lines (addressed more to herself than to her maids) tries to talk herself into an optimistic interpretation. Or the signs to which she refers in 173 may be, not those already seen, but new omens occurring at this point.

  5.2

  5.2.0.1 the habit of he probably wears Palamon’s old costume, which Palamon would not have needed after Act 3

  1–6 Printed as verse in Q, but with irregular lineation (see t.n.). Lines 1–2, though unscannable as blank verse, work fairly well as alexandrines. Line 5 scans as blank verse if I would is pronounced ‘I’d’.

  2 maids See n. to 39 SD.

  6 ‘Presently!’ at once (as also 11)

  9 watch stay awake to watch over

  10–11 fit … fit her The Daughter imagines that Palamon, suffering from a malarial type of fever such as was caught in prison, will have regular intervals of fever and shivering. The Doctor’s pun on fit involves two other meanings: 1. attack of sexual desire and 2. ‘enter her’ (cf. ‘stow her’ in 2.3.33). In Fletcher’s Wit Without Money (c.1614), the rakish hero sings the heroine a song beginning ‘The fit’s upon me now’ (Bowers, 6: 5.4.53).

  * * *

  5.2] Scæna 2. Q 2–6] Q lines company / this / what I / told her / twice.

  11 home thoroughly

  12 would have me wanted me to

  14 observe humour, gratify

  16 Skeat compares AYL: ‘ ’Tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise enough’ (4.2.9).

  18 Whoa Q’s Hoa clearly means stop.

  19 in the way of The phrase as used by the Doctor means ‘as part of the cure’; the Jailer means ‘as far as honour allows’ (see OED sb. 35f), which is also how the Daughter uses the phrase (71). That way may also mean path or direction is indicated by 22–3.

  20 honesty chastity (and the reputation for it)

  niceness excessive delicacy

  21 cast … away lose your child (to madness)

  22 will be wants to be

  23 the path i.e., marriage

  Thank ye It is tempting to assign this speech to the Wooer, who has more reason to be grateful for the advice. If the Jailer says it, he must be either puzzled or sarcastic.

  * * *

  11] Q lines home, / presently. / 18 Whoa] (Hoa)

  26 stays is waiting

  29 ‘If we had to treat her medically until we discovered whether or not she was a virgin … (we would go on forever).’ A supposedly scientific test of virginity is depicted (and ridiculed) in Middleton and Rowley’s The Changeling, 4.1.

  32 that’s all one that makes no difference

  nothing … purpose irrelevant

  35 Videlicet that is to say (Latin)

  the ‘way of flesh’ towards sexual desire (proverbial: Dent, W166)

  you have me? ‘You see what I mean?’ Both this exchange and videlicet occur in the Polonius–Reynaldo scene (Ham 2.1.59, 65–6), of which this speech seems a curious reminiscence.

  37 home See 11.

  ipso facto by that very act (Latin)

  * * *

  24] Q lines in / is. / 27–8 Go … honesty?] one line Q 35 Videlicet] roman Q ‘way of flesh’] italic Q 36 Yes] F; Yet Q

  39 SD The maid has no lines; her function is presumably to keep an eye on the Daughter (RP) or to assist the Doctor in his deception. Most directors simply remove her. Wells (TxC) and Waith (Oxf1), arguing that the Daughter would not have had a personal servant, suggest that Maide is a misreading of ‘madde’, which means that the Daughter should enter looking dishevelled. But ‘mad’ is not used at any of her earlier entrance SDs, where it would be still more appropriate. Bowers is surely right: Maid in this context means one of the friends (or play-feres) to whom the Doctor and Wooer have already referred (4.3.89–90; 5.2.2). The dramatists may have wished to recreate the visual effect of 2.2, where Palamon and Arcite (here corresponding to the Wooer and the Doctor) observe Emilia and her woman (corresponding to the Daughter and her maid or friend). In Pericles another ‘maid’, equally silent, enters with Marina and is referred to in the text as her companion (5.1.79).

  40 *humour her Q’s honour her might work as it stands: honour could mean to bow, as partners did at the start and end of a dance, and as the Wooer finally does at 69. The interim of nearly 30 lines is curious: perhaps the Doctor continues to coach the Wooer in the background; perhaps either the Wooer or the Daughter is too nervous to begin the impersonation. At Ashland, the Daughter at first refused to look at the Wooer, using her ramblings about the horse to postpone the confrontation of her fantasy with the reality before her.

  41 stays See 26.

  44 bound obliged

  45 the horse … me parallels the horses given by Emilia to Arcite (see 3.1.18–20 and 5.4.49–50)

  * * *

  40 humour] Seward; honour Q

  49 jig comic dance

  come … tail proverbial (Dent C938): whatever happens. Literally, whether a horse has a docked tail or one that has been allowed to grow. Holdsworth gives examples of bawdy contemporary meanings for both cut and tail as well as for horse, jig and dance.

  50 ye (= for you), a redundant survival of the old dative case

  51 dance the morris an echo of her earlier activities in 3.5. Proudfoot suggests a reminiscence of ‘Will Kemp’s famous morris dance from London to Norwich in 1600’.

  52 founder make lame

  hobby-horse A man dressed as a horse normally featured in morris dances (as in Fletcher’s Women Pleased, 4.1). The word also meant prostitute.

  53 have any skill know anything about it

  54 ‘Light o’ love’ a popular tune referring to a faithless lover; also a term for a prostitute. Dancing to this tune meant being fickle. See Appendix 6, p. 410.

  56 brought brought up, trained. Skeat and Littledale suggested that this passage alludes to a celebrated performing horse of the 1590s, Marocco, or ‘Banks’s horse’ (after the name of his owner).

  57 that’s nothing he does that already

  58 fair hand good handwriting (like that of a professional scribe)

  casts himself ‘reckons up for himself’ (Bawcutt)

  59 provender feed

  59–60 That … him proverbial: see Dent, R133.1. Ostlers were often accused of stealing the feed that they were paid to give the horses of lodgers. Littledale cites an ostler’s complaint about a too-clever horse, which occurs in both Jonson’s New Inn (3.1) and the Fletcher collaboration Love’s Pilgrimage (1.1).

  * * *

  54 tune] Seward; turne Q ‘Light o’ love’] Seward; Light a’love Q

  60 betimes early

  63 his master Palamon

  coy standoffish

  64 What … she? The Jailer shows the same concerns as in 2.1.

  bottles bundles (of hay)

  65 strike a (variable) number of bushels

  67 A miller’s mare proverbial, apparently as a symbol of sobriety (see Tilley, M960)

  He’ll … her The Daughter identifies herself with the lovelorn mare, rejected by Palamon’s horse.

  69 Make curtsey Presumably the Wooer approaches and bows, in keeping with his aristocratic impersonation. The Daughter may attempt an equally courtly response.

  71 See 19–20.

  72 to … world a proverbial expression (Dent, Prov W906.11) for absolute devotion. The question may not be complete nonsense: she imagined herself seeking Palamon throughout the world (3.4.23), and now wonders how long it will be before her journey’s end. RA compares ‘an endless thing’ (Prologue 27) and ‘an end, and that is all’ (3.2.38).

  * * *

  67] Q lines Mare, / her. / 69 SD Wooer … forward] Oxf subst.; not in Q and bows] this edn; not in Q 70 SD] Oxf; not in Q

  74 play at stool-ball probably, make love. Stool-ball was an indoor country game similar to cricket or baseball, played by young people, especially women: a stool was used in place of the wicket or home plate. Women apparently caught the ball in their laps, a fact which encouraged sexual double meanings. In Middleton’s Women Beware Women, Isabella is asked, ‘Can you catch a ball well?’ and replies, ‘I have catch’d two in my lap at one game’ (3.3.81–2).

  75 am content agree

  76 keep celebrate

  78 blind priest meant either literally (so that he would not recognize the disparity in their rank) or figuratively (referring to an incompetent priest like Sir Oliver Martext in AYL 3.3)

  79 nice over-scrupulous

  80 The Daughter’s casualness about the prospect of her father’s death has been compared with that of Mopsa in Sidney’s Arcadia (Thompson, ‘Jailers’).

  84 petticoat long overskirt

  smocks undergarments, like the modern nightshirt or nightgown

  85 That’s all one See 32n.

  * * *

  86 SD] Leech; not in Q

  86 then That is, ‘after we are married’. Then could mean ‘Now, therefore’, but the Jailer would be unlikely to keep silent in that case. See also 87 SP n.

  87 SD Probably the Wooer kisses the Daughter on the mouth, in keeping with the Doctor’s earlier advice; the English custom that allowed women to kiss men on meeting and parting is often commented on in the period. It would however be possible for him to kiss only her hand, in which case her rubbing it would be reminiscent of Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene.

  SP Seward gave this line to the Jailer, on the ground that the Daughter has no objections to being kissed. Her response (88–9) is self-explanatory.

  88–9 ’Tis … wedding Perhaps the Daughter sniffs her fingers or rubs them elsewhere to spread the perfume and prolong the experience of the kiss. Cf. her reaction to the real Palamon’s kiss, 2.4.25–7.

  89 against in preparation for

  90–2 Is … choice Cf. her enlisting other characters in her fantasies in 4.1.141–52. Line 90 scans if Is not is elided like ‘isn’t’.

  94 Lord … grown Either Arcite is meant to be rather short (cf. 2.1.51–2), or the Doctor was played by an unusually tall – or fat – actor. How completely the Daughter is shown to be deceived at this point is a matter for actors and director.

  * * *

  87 SD Kisses her] Dyce; not in Q SP DAUGHTER] Q; JAILER Seward SD Rubs … kiss] Oxf subst.; not in Q 90 SD] Oxf subst.; not in Q

  96 chicken child (cf. Mac 4.3.218)

  97 kept down kept from growing; but, with up in the next line, also sexual. The contrast with the Daughter’s fantasies about Palamon’s incredible potency in 4.3 may indicate her gradual return to reality.

  hard meat coarse food

  101 bear a charge have an official role

  straight immediately

  102 we’ll … you Bowers argues that this means the Jailer must remain to the end of the scene and leave with the Doctor. No director, to my knowledge, has staged the scene this way. Perhaps the Doctor merely pretends that the Wooer will also accompany them and then, having got rid of the other characters, holds the Wooer back to finish the final stages of his ‘cure’. Only performance can show how far the Jailer knows what is going on and how he feels about it.

  103 How … her? What is your diagnosis?

  105 right in her right wits (cf. 4.1.45)

  from her leave her

  106 still … way keep up this pretence towards her

  * * *

  95 too, finely,] Weber; too finely Q 103 sight] Dyce; Fight Q 105 SD Exit … Messenger.] Oxf; not in Q

  107 Let’s … in the same excuse that gets the characters off stage in 4.1.149

  108 play at cards often a cover for flirting

  109 And twenty? a phrase used in ballads to mean an indefinite, or infinite, number (cf. ‘a year and a day’)

  110 Take her offer This perhaps follows hesitation on the Wooer’s part.

  * * *

  109 twenty?] (RP); twenty. Q 112 SD] Flourish Exeunt. Q 5.3] Scæna 3. Q 0.1 Flourish] after 5.2.112 Q 0.2 attendants.] some Attendants, T. Tucke: Curtis. Q

  5.3

  5.3.0.1–2 Q also mentions the names of two actors who were to play attendants, T. Tucke and Curtis.

  1 Will … sight? closely echoes the previous scene (5.2.102)

  2 a wren … a fly a struggle in which a weak creature will destroy a still weaker one, as opposed to the forthcoming combat, in which both parties are strong

  hawk at pursue

  3 decision trial by combat

  4–5 each … falls The sword of each man will grieve to hurt the other; compare ‘When this [log] burns, / ’Twill weep for having wearied you’ (Tem 3.1.18–19).

  6 bell death knell

  stay stop

  9 No deafing … hear no way not to hear

  9–10 to hear … shun a difficult construction; Emilia means that she cannot avoid hearing the fight, but refuses to see it. ‘I will stay here’ might also be taken as the subject of both hear and taint in the following sentence – she will stop there in order only to hear, not see.

  10 SD The characters presumably cross the stage in the order given in the opening SD. Thus Theseus and Hippolyta are on their way off stage, unaware of Emilia’s decision, when Pirithous interrupts the procession by calling to them.

  12 in their kind in nature, reality, as opposed to art (cf. 1.1.121–9)

  13 sometime possibly interchangeable with ‘sometimes’, but may also have the sense of ‘at some time’

  show appear

  pencilled painted; ‘The old meaning of pencil was a paint-brush’ (Skeat).

  15 Both … ear The deeds about to be performed will be believed only by those who have the evidence of both senses (‘sealed’ suggests a formal legal document). Theseus appears to be replying directly to Emilia’s earlier speech, but it is possible that he has not heard it.

  16 meed reward

  prize Q’s price is often retained, perhaps because the financial language recurs in 32 and 112–14. But although Emilia has a price she does not seem to be one; prize is consistent with 135.

  * * *

  9 hear,] Leech; hear; Q 13 well, pencilled] Weber (Mason); well pencild Q; well-pencil’d 1778 16 prize] Q (price)

  17 the question’s title the right to the object (Emilia) over which the question (trial by combat) is taking place

  Pardon me a polite refusal

  18 wink shut my eyes

  19–20 This trial … shine As in 29–30, Theseus plays with the idea that Emilia’s eyes will give both light and heat to the combatants (cf. 3.1.120–1 and Sidney, Astrophil and Stella, Sonnet 41).

  20 extinct dead (no longer giving light)

  21 envy malice (Mason)

  22–8 Darkness … guilty Darkness, normally a cover for murder, could make up for its crimes by preventing the combatants from seeing each other – as in the Iliad, when Poseidon spreads a mist over Achilles’ eyes in order to save Aeneas from death (20.291–5), or MND, when Puck prevents the duel between Lysander and Demetrius by leading them astray in the dark (3.2.401–30).

  23 dam mother

  28 Set off compensate for; the object of the sentence is ‘murder’

  whereto of which (to which she has to plead guilty)

  29 In faith a mild oath; Emilia’s strongest refusal yet

  * * *

  23 dam] Q; dame F

  33–4 The … itself Emilia has on several occasions been compared to a kingdom (cf. 4.2.145–6). Echoing Theseus’ use of title in 17, she points out that a decisive battle need not take place in the disputed territory.

  39 know best know to be the better (for you). The distinction between ‘better’ and ‘best’ was less fixed grammatically than at present.

  40 SD Theseus’ last speech implies that Emilia is left with at least two attendants; perhaps one (the Woman of 2.2?) remains with her while the other rushes in and out with news of the fight. Lines 60–6 could be addressed to the servant if Emilia were trying to justify a decision which keeps the latter from seeing the fight (as Theseus indicated at 35–6). Most directors give Emilia only one attendant, who remains off stage while she soliloquizes and enters only when there is something to report at 66. The absence of an exit direction at 72 in Q need not mean that further information is conveyed by another servant, though it would be in keeping with the ‘multiple messengers’ device already used in 4.1.1–103. See p. 141 for indications of exits in playtexts.