119 the devil’s in’t proverbial for something that is not working according to plan

124 Is… since? proverbial (see Tilley C 111)

ruled ed. (rude MS)

131 best folks See Introduction, p. xxiii.

135 prate chatter, boast of

136 clipped This has multiple meanings: a bird with clipped wings could not fly and was used to trap other birds; clipping coins, or paring the precious metal and selling it, mutilates the coin, just as an ‘unchaste’ woman would be seen to be mutilated; ‘cleped’ means named.

[Act II,] Scene iii

4 close secret

6 Well ballast weighted down, i.e. pregnant

6–12 Cf. the sanguine attitude towards child abandonment in CM II.ii.

7 drab harlot, strumpet

8–9 ed. (fashion: / He MS)

9 rid away get rid of

a scape trouble

11 prating See II.ii.135.

12 to a hair in precisely the same way

13 swell make pregnant

14 rid her get rid of the maid and of the baby

14–15 ‘Purse’ may mean scrotum (see The Taming of the Shrew I.ii.54). The basic meaning, that men can get women pregnant with comparative impunity, is clear.

16 This comes of this is what comes of

17 on ed. (one MS)

18 Go like a gentleman i.e. in a gentleman’s clothes but without a rapier which gentlemen wore, therefore indistinguishable from a gentleman fallen on hard times and forced to raise cash by pawning his rapier

22 convey This suggests stealing from customers, something tailors were notorious for doing. More Dissemblers Besides Women V.i. suggests that tailors’ sons were also proverbially dishonest.

23 ’Twill the business will

well said! i.e. well done

24 furnished ready

30 safe-guard outer skirt worn to protect dress when riding

31 probably dabbled plausibly splashed, as if from a long journey

34 woodcock slang for fool

35 betray myself my looks will give the game away

36 box me slap my cheeks

39 friend See II.i.36.

41 At after

43 no ironic

46 I’ll … least I would say at the lowest estimate

47 caudles warm, cordial drink

48 ’Tis … departure it has been gone a week

51 twopence not a big tip. In CM I.i.80 even the ungenerous Yellowhammer tips a porter sixpence .

54 whips Whipping was the usual punishment for whoring and so would be seen as an appropriate punishment for Francisca.

Act III, Scene i

1 This’s ed. (This’ MS)

3 had would have been

handled dealt with, i.e. deceived, as Almachildes would have been outraged if his bride (like the woman he has just had sex with) had lost her virginity

5 tries tests for virginity

11 ’em women

13 bird-lime viscous, sticky substance, used for catching small birds out up, expired

29 i.e. his death will be worse than that customarily meted out to a murderer

31 i.e. she’ll claim he raped her proud with a subsidiary sense, ‘sexually potent’

36 ’Tis chance or fortune is

37 that breath, i.e. instead of giving him a breathing space after sex, chance will, by taking away his breath, kill him

39 MS has ‘Enter Gaspero’, anticipating the beginning of the next scene.

40 Of for

43 bands marriage bands