Early Modern Drama · Character Archetypes

PORTER

in Look About You — Anonymous

Metadata

PlayLook About You
AuthorAnonymous
Year (catalogued)1600
First performance1599
Decade1600s
GenreComedy
Play typeAdult Professional
CompanyAdmiral's (Nottingham's) Men
Speech prefix(es)Port. | Por. | Po.
Words170
Characters912
Typicality0.17 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP idA06333
BritDrama no.1184
ClusterCluster 16 — Errand servants & brief parts

Important excerpts

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

Full speech

Why should the Watchmen come along with thee? Well sir dispatch your business with the Earl, He's angry at your stay I tell you that. Exit. Why whither must you now? Well sir wilt please you hasten home again. Look to your business sir let me alone. I pray God there be no practice in this change. Now I remember these are Skinkes clothes, That he wore last day, at the Parliament, Is't Midsummer do you begin to rave? Who calls? my Lord of Gloucester all alone? Your Coossen Moorton humbly craves, Leaving your game, you would come visit him, I wonder how thou camest so strangely changed? 'Tis not and hour since thou wents from hence, Do you not hear them knock, you must stay sir, Alas in your apparel Gloucesters gone, I let him out, even now I am undone, God bless your grace, you spoke with the L. Moorton. I would your grace would comfort him from hence, The Fleet is weary of his company, Redcap knocks.

Plot summary

Plot — Look About You
Before the start of the action, Queen Eleanor had her rival, Rosamund, poisoned by Skink, and was imprisoned for it; Skink escaped and has taken the identity of a fortune-telling hermit. Her son Henry and his brothers attempted a coup, and there are now two kings in England, father and son. At a parliament, the younger King Henry offers to split the kingdom with the elder, but alienates his supporters by his readiness to seize their lands. Skink, summoned to the parliament by Prince Richard, is rewarded with Gloucester’s lands, and Gloucester imprisoned when he protests and strikes Skink. Richard, who has an interest in Gloucester’s sister, Lady Falconbridge, promises to free him. Eavesdropping on a meeting between them, Sir Richard Falconbridge sees his wife reject the Prince’s advances. Pursued by the watch, Skink evades arrest by swapping clothes with Redcap, but is taken to the Fleet prison for identification by Redcap’s father, the porter. Gloucester swaps clothes with him in turn and escapes, and finally Skink too gets away by purloining Prince John’s clothes. Lady Falconbridge disguises Gloucester as her husband, fooling the watch sent to search for him. The substitutions cause misunderstandings when Skink (as John) is given a chain by Falconbridge and Gloucester (as Falconbridge) is given John’s sword; in each case the real man denies what his doppelganger has done. The porter of the Fleet is to be hanged for Gloucester’s escape, but the old King is persuaded to reprieve him. Gloucester intercepts the pursuivant, gets him drunk, steals the pardon, and ensures that it reaches its destination. Skink evades capture at the tavern by swapping clothes with the drawer and pretending to have been assaulted by the escaped Skink. John and Falconbridge consult the hermit: John wants to locate Gloucester, and Falconbridge to know for sure whether his wife is committing adultery. Lady Falconbridge also goes there in disguise, leaving Robin Hood standing in for her at home, cross-dressed. She too wants to locate Gloucester, to save him from the malice of John and his mother; John and Falconbridge both arrange assignations with her. Skink resumes the hermit’s identity, tells them how Gloucester escaped, and predicts that they will be able to catch Skink committing a robbery nearby; he then changes his disguise, induces them to fall in a hole, and steals their purses. While he is away, Gloucester finds his hermit costume and puts it on, convincing the robbed…