30 science trade

33 consume me spend

35 rioting riotous living

41 sent (Q2; omitted in Q1)

46 his Grace the King

48 Mustered forcibly gathered (military as well as herding term)

49 those wars of France English wars in France started with Henry V in 1413, and continued beyond the historical Simon Eyre’s term as Mayor in 1445. We cannot know with precision to which of these wars Dekker alludes. s.d. (after 49, Q1)

52 presently immediately

53 powers troops

54 Dieppe (Deepe, Q1)

56 forwardness readiness

58 Mile End a common on the eastern road out of London, used as a mustering and training ground for citizen soldiers

59 Tothill Fields another training ground for troops, in Westminster

61 Finsbury fields to the north of London used for archery practice as well as citizen soldier training

62 frolic joyful

63 imprest advance recruitment pay furniture equipment

65 Guildhall common hall of the City of London; meeting place of the City courts and Lord Mayor 67 approve demonstrate

77 painted made up with cosmetics

85 start from the true bias deviate from the proper course (a proverbial term from bowls, in which the ball is weighted to roll in a curve; Tilley, B339)

90 portagues Portuguese gold coins worth around £4; hence Lincoln gives Lacy approximately £120, a huge sum for the time.

97 beckons ed. (becomes Q1)

99 o’er-reach his policies outwit his scheming

110 Hath . . . consequence been tested in even more important matters

114 jealous vigilant

115 s.d. (after 116, Q1)

s.d.2 piece firearm, indicating Ralph’s conscription into the army. Hoy glosses it as a piece of cobbler’s leather.

118 puling snivelling

119 go to! a common Elizabeth colloquialism, similar to the modern ‘come on!’

123-4 pishery-pashery ‘obsolete nonce-word’ (O.E.D.); a cheerfully dismissive term favoured by Eyre (he uses it again at line 158 in this scene, and at 11.39-40 and 20.49-50).

125 an ed. (and, Q1 passim)

127 mad madcap, boisterous

128 Tower Street street in London, and centre of shoemaking mealy mouth genteel manner of speaking

130 firking the first of many such bawdy puns. See the note on Firk’s name, Dramatis Personae.

journeyman a craftsman who has served the term of his apprenticeship, but is not yet a master 133 find provide

136 midriff a reference to Margery’s diminutive stature (Palmer) or her plumpness (Smallwood and Wells), as well as to her status as ‘Adam’s rib’; Eyre uses the term again at line 159.

137 Cormorant Firk’s malapropism for ‘coronel’ (used at line 122), a common Elizabethan version of ‘colonel’

139 a-night ed. (a night, Q1)

141 prick and awl shoemaker’s tools, but with a bawdy innuendo (’awl’ is a pun on ‘hole’); Firk proceeds to treat Jane’s ‘undone’ in the next line as a sexual quibble, and supplements it with one of his own (’occupied’).

146 pressed conscripted

152 melancholy ‘pensive, thoughtful; sadly meditative’ (O.E.D., 3b)

158 pols and edipols nonce exclamations; ‘Pol’ and ‘Edipol’ were mild swearwords, contractions of ‘Pollux’.