Early Modern Drama · Character Archetypes

PECK

in The New Inn, or The Light Heart — Jonson, Ben

Metadata

PlayThe New Inn, or The Light Heart
AuthorJonson, Ben
Year (catalogued)1631
First performance1629
Decade1630s
GenreComedy
Play typeAdult Professional
CompanyKing's Men
Speech prefix(es)Pec.
Words303
Characters1509
Typicality0.29 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP idA04658
BritDrama no.2263
ClusterCluster 0 — Clowns, beggars & street sellers

Important excerpts

No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).

Full speech

A plague of all Jades, what a clap he has gi'n m Oh me, my haunches! As sure as you live, Sir, he knew perfectly I meant to Cossin him. He did leere so on me, And then he sn erd. As who would say take heed S'ah, And when he saw our half-peck, which you know Was but and old court-dish, Lord how he stamped? I thought, it had been for joy. When suddenly He cuts me a back caper with his heals, And takes me joust o'the crouper. Down come I And my whole ounce of oats! Then he neighed out, As if he had a Mare by the tail. He ha hay before him. Troth Quartermaster, This trade is a kind of mystery, that corrupts Our standing manners quickly: Once a week, I meet with such a brush to mollify me. Sometime a brace, to awake my Conscience, Yet still, I sleep securely. Troth, to give good example, to my successors, I could be well content to steal but two girths, And now and then a saddle cloth, change a bridle, For exercise: and stay there. I there's— Do, lose no time, good Quartermaster. or blow upon the ̄ , he. Yes faith: it is ill halting afore cripples, I have God a dash of a Jade, here, will stick by me. What? Mum! I ha'bin i'the cellar, Pierce. Truly it seems to me That every horse has his whole peck, and tumbles p to the ears in littour, They have ever oats i'their cloak-bags, to affront us. For mine own partly, The next I cossen o'the pampered breed, I wish he may be foundered. And of all four, I wish it, I love no crouper compliments. Why, M r Bursts. And hour he has been here. M r Huffle.

Plot summary

Plot — The New Inn, or The Light Heart
Before the start of the action, the aristocratic Framipul family disintegrated. The younger daughter, |. actitia, ===== PAGE 357 ===== 1629 disappeared. Her mother, believing her husband had fallen out of love with her because of inability to produce a son, went mad. Lord Frampul too then vanished and his title devolved to his elder daughter, Frances, who is now enjoying herself spending her inheritance. Lady Frances and her crew of suitors descend on the Light Heart, a country inn, on pleasure bent. Lovel, a melancholy guest at the inn, decides to leave, but Goodstock the jovial host persuades him to stay. He agrees so long as he doesn’t have to meet Frances, and explains that he loves her but is honourably trying to leave the field clear for another suitor, his ward Beaufort. Unfortunately for him, Frances insists that he joins in with the day’s planned entertainment. Her maid Prudence has been appointed to preside over the revels as the mock-queen, even though the new gown she was to wear for the occasion has not arrived. She awards Lovel two hours of the Lady’s undivided attention in which to woo her, and to be rewarded with two kisses. Prudence also borrows Goodstock’s son Frank, dresses him as a woman, and induces Beaufort to fall in love with ‘her’. For the first hour, he discourses of the nature of spiritual love; Beaufort is more interested in love of the physical kind, but Frances is inspired with a new respect for the emotion, and gladly pays Lovel the kiss she owes. Another suitor, Tiptoe, is an admirer of all things Spanish. He fraternizes with the inn’s servants, tries to organize them on the lines of the Spanish army, and hears about their methods of cheating the guests. A fight breaks out when a visitor refuses to drink to the honour of Spain, but it is broken up by Lovel, and Tiptoe and his associates drink themselves into a stupor and out of the play. Pinnacia, an apparently noble lady, arrives at the inn with her footman, who is really her husband, Stuff the tailor. His sexual fetish is connected with his profession: after making a gown for a titled lady customer, and before delivering the garment, he likes to dress his wife up in it and have sex with her, pretending that she is herself an aristocrat. Today is not his lucky day: his customer is on the premises. Frances recognizes the gown Pinnacia is wearing as the one she ordered for Prudence to wear at the revels. Stuff is tossed in a blanket and Pinnacia sent home in her underwear.…