in Blurt, Master Constable, or The Spaniard's Night Walk — Anonymous
Metadata
Play
Blurt, Master Constable, or The Spaniard's Night Walk
Author
Anonymous
Year (catalogued)
1602
First performance
1601
Decade
1600s
Genre
Romance
Play type
Boys Professional
Company
Children of Paul's (second)
Speech prefix(es)
Pil. | Pilc. | Pilch.
Words
237
Characters
1258
Typicality
0.27 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A07492
BritDrama no.
1311
Cluster
Cluster 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
And I am melancholy because I am a cold. It's neither flesh nor fish that I pine for, but for both. Plain mutton without a lace would serve me. What vessel is that Signiort A most rascally damned Courtesan. Any man that sees us will swear that we shall both lay our bones, and nothing but bones, and we stalk here longer; they tell me Signior, I must go to the Constable, and he is to see you lodged. What ho, no body speaks, where dwells the Constable? Why do you put on your Spectacles then? Two: his own and mine. Upon your trencher Signior, most hungerly. The Constable has pressed him. I, for a Soldier; but ere he'll go, I think indeed, he & I together shall press the Constable. My name? you chops, why I am of the blood of the Pilchers. He wants wine Boy to swallow me down, for he wants money to swallow down wine: but farewell, I must dog my master. I'll make a shift to squeak. Dried Pilchers and poor John: My cheeks are fallen and gone. Oh how my teeth do water, I could eat For the heavens; my flesh is almost gone With eating of Pilchard and poor John. I will, and here come a leash of Informers: save you plump youths. Which is the Constables house? Follower to that Spanish-leather Gentleman. Farewell. The Officious Gentleman inherits here.
Plot summary
Plot — Blurt, Master Constable, or The Spaniard's Night Walk
Camillo and Hippolito return home to Venice after a war with France. Camillo brings the French lord Fontinelle as a prisoner, and presents him to his love Violetta. She falls for the Frenchman, so Camillo sends him to prison. Hippolito takes charge of the situation. He makes the courtesan Imperia dote on Fontinelle by sending her his picture; but Fontinelle refuses to accept her love and is taken back to his dungeon. Meanwhile Camillo’s attempts to woo Violetta back are met with rejection. Fontinelle escapes by changing clothes with Frisco, and, using Violetta’s page as a go-between, makes an assignation at a chapel, where they are secretly married. Afterwards, though, he takes up with Imperia. Camillo swears revenge on all three and leads a party of armed men to kill them and hang out their dead bodies. Violetta also goes to find her husband at Imperia’s, and is invited to join him in bed. Camillo’s men, the watch, and the Duke all arrive simultaneously at the brothel. The Duke prevents murder being done, but has Fontinelle arrested for adultery, which is a capital crime in Venice. Violetta denies that infidelity has occurred: it was all a plot laid by her and Fontinelle. In the sub-plot, Lazarillo also arrives in Venice from the wars and gets lodgings with Blurt the constable. He goes to Imperia’s house to lecture the ladies on Spanish marital conduct, and makes a nocturnal assignation with Imperia. Simperina makes another assignation with old Curvetto, but when he tries to attract her attention he is doused with water. Lazarillo is equally unlucky in his date: he falls through a trapdoor. Curvetto returns and is climbing up a rope ladder let down by Frisco when his foot slips; Frisco accuses him of trying to burgle the house, and he is arrested by Blurt. Lazarillo climbs out and he too is doused, with urine, and then arrested by Blurt. Curvetto refuses to 1601 marry Imperia to escape the death penalty, but the Duke pardons him and Lazarillo anyway, and agrees to pay the money the latter owes Blurt.