73 Master the title recognizes Eyre’s new social status; Eyre’s response in the next line insists on his humble position.

88 keeps is dwelling

94 Lurk (Q3; lurch Q1)

95 start him flush him out (a metaphor from hunting)

97 angels gold coins with an image of the Archangel Michael on one side, worth ten shillings (i.e. 50 pence) in Elizabethan currency

105 God’s Lord a mild oath (O.E.D. ‘god’, 14a)

106 stay await

1 O, Firk (Q3; omitted Q1)

7 forswear renounce; leave

8 compendious Margery probably means ‘long-winded’, but the term is actually a synonym for ‘economical’ - the opposite of what she intends.

9-10 like a new cartwheel i.e. squeakily

10-11 she looks . . . scalding she looks like a poxy old bottle headed for boiling and cleansing. A musty ale-bottle is a leather bottle conventionally cleaned by soaking in boiling water; but scalding is slang for sitting in a boiling hot tub, a treatment for syphilis.

12 melancholy one of the four humours (as noted by Firk at line 13), the others being choler, phlegm and blood; the mix (or ‘complexion’) of the humours was believed to govern mood and personality. Talk of the humours had become fashionable at this time amongst London citizens; the trend was parodied by Ben Jonson in his so-called comedies of the humours, including Every Man in His Humour, first performed in 1598, and Every Man Out of His Humour, first performed in 1599.

15 dame - mistress Hodge corrects himself, for at this time ‘dame’ was used only for women of lower rank.

19 Mee tanck yow, vro ‘I thank you, mistress’

21 perdie by God (slightly pretentious)

22 we are all mortal proverbial (Tilley, M502), but - like so much of Margery’s affected speech - inappropriate in relation to what she means to say.

23 back friend false friend (with an unwitting bawdy innuendo)

25 Yaw, ick sal, vro ‘Yes, I shall, mistress’

26 knowest . . . foot a) literally (i.e. for the purpose of making a shoe); b) proverbial (Tilley, L202) meaning ‘know how to win my love’ - another malapropism.

28 cork . . . wooden heel too cork heels added height; but Margery asks for wooden heels on top of the cork, which insures she will be tottering ridiculously in her new footwear.

30 farthingale underskirt hooped and stiffened with wire, resembling a car tire hung around the hips. Sometimes the farthingale had only a stiffened back half, in which case it was known as a ‘bum roll’; hence Margery’s reference to enlarging her ‘bum’ in the following line.

31 French-hood close-fitting pleated hood, formerly fashionable amongst ladies but by the 1590s worn largely by citizens’ wives. They had large flaps on their sides, which might suggest to Hodge the image of the pillory in his next speech.

33 HODGE ed. (Roger Q1 for the remainder of the scene)

a cat out of a pillory a whore (‘cat’) looking out of a head-hole in a pillory (the wooden stocks in which an offender’s head and hands were locked)