4 gillyflowers wallflowers

16 s.d. (after 15, Q1)

18 against. . . Harvest ready for the time I will be chosen Harvest-Queen; the ‘Lady of the Harvest’, garlanded with fruits and flowers, was the girl chosen to preside over the season’s harvest festivities.

22 Doctors’ Commons area near St Pauls’, so-called because populated by lawyers
(then known also as doctors)

25 out of cry beyond all measure

25-6 he wore a scarf ed. (a wore scarffe Q1; a wore a scarfe Q3)

29 Old Ford a village near London, three and a half miles north east of St Paul’s

30 our. . . Cornhill i.e. the Oatley town house, as opposed to his country mansion in Old Ford

31 Marry gup a mild expletive: marry is an oath on the Virgin Mary, and gup is a contraction of ‘go up’, meaning something like ‘for heaven’s sake’; ‘an exclamation of derision, remonstrance, or surprise’ (O.E.D., gup, int., b).

32 with a wanion and bad luck to you; wanion derives from the waning of the moon, with the implication of an inauspicious time.

33 humorous moody

38 bushel measure of eight gallons

stamped crabs crushed crab-apples (tasting very sour)

39 verjuice acidic juice of unripe fruit

40 gaskins . . . netherstocks breeches . . . stockings; probably a proverbial statement meaning ‘though I will be polite to you socially, I will not take you into my private confidence’.

42 Hieronimo ed. (Ieronimo Q1)

42-3 go by, Hieronimo, go by a catchphrase meaning ‘have nothing to do with that’; Hieronimo is the principal character in Kyd’s immensely popular Spanish Tragedy (c. 1589), which had become something of a joke by the time of The Shoemaker’s Holiday.

44-7 I’d set. . . wake as verse, ed. (prose in Q1)

44 driblets petty debts

44-5 I’d set. . . giblets proverbial couplet (Tilley, H161): what you have will balance your losses

46 sigh i.e. for a man

50 proper handsome

51 snick up hang

55 cambric fine white linen from Flanders Romish made of Italian leather

56 stomacher ornamental covering for the chest, often studded with jewels 58 at whose suit? need you ask?

60 sweat in purple burn in hell for wearing rich clothes

62 uptails all let’s get a move on. A hackneyed phrase: the name of a game, and the refrain of an old song.

jiggy-joggy at high speed, but ‘with a jolting motion’ (Smallwood and Wells)

0 s.d. like . . . shoemaker i.e. carrying shoemaker’s tools, and probably wearing traditional Dutch clothing, such as baggy breeches and a felt hat

1 shapes transformations or disguises; a reference to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in which Greek gods and kings often go wooing in disguise.

11 baseness ed. (barenesse Q1)

22 sprites spirits

0 s.d. making himself ready getting dressed; this is an early morning scene.

1 drabs lazy women

2 brewis meat broth or bread soaked in broth

3 to . . . cleansed in time to see my footpaths washed

4 powder-beef salted or pickled beef (cheap and tough to chew)