Early Modern Drama · Character Archetypes

3 GOSSIP

in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside — Middleton, Thomas

Metadata

PlayA Chaste Maid in Cheapside
AuthorMiddleton, Thomas
Year (catalogued)1630
First performance1613
Decade1630s
GenreComedy
Play typeAdult Professional
CompanyLady Elizabeth's Men
TheaterSwan;Outdoor Professional
Speech prefix(es)3 Goſſ.
Words218
Characters1059
Typicality0.22 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP idA07493
BritDrama no.1715
ClusterCluster 1 — Wives, widows & intimate counsel

Important excerpts

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

Full speech

Not a whit, I hope I know my place. And that's as good at all times as a Pothicaries. As if it had been spit out of his Mouth, Byed, nosed, and browed as Like a Girl can be, Only indeed it has the Mother's Mouth. It's a large Child, she's but a little Woman. Oh she had great speed, We were afraid once, But she made us all have joyful hearts again, It's a good Soul I faith, The Midwife found her a most cheerful Daughter. Oh deer sweet gentleman, what fine words he has The fatness of our wishes. I would not care what Clown my Husband were too, so I had such fine Children. I, and see how fast they come. Now by my faith a fair high standing Cup, and two great Postle Spoons, one of them gilded. See Gossip and she lies not in Like a Countess, Would I had such a Husband for my Daughter. Oh no sweet Gossip. I that she was last Lammas, But she has a fault Gossip, a secret fault. I'll tell you when I have drunk. And now I'll tell you Gossip, she's too free. Oh I, she cannot lie dry in her Bed. It's as I tell you Gossip. Oh bless the Woman, M r Vnderman.

Plot summary

Plot — A Chaste Maid in Cheapside
Sir Walter Whorehound lives high on the expectation of an inheritance: unless Sir Oliver Kix produces an heir, his estate will pass to Sir Walter — and Sir Oliver is impotent. Sir Walter maintains Allwit and his wife, paying for everything, in return for exclusive sexual access to Mistress Allwit: he is the true father of the children presumed to be Allwit’s. But Sir Walter is ===== PAGE 327 ===== 1613 planning to discontinue the arrangement and get married: the goldsmith Yellowhammer has agreed to marry his son Tim to a Welsh gentlewoman whom Sir Walter has introduced as his niece, and Sir Walter hopes himself to marry Tim’s sister Moll. Moll has other ideas: her sweetheart Touchwood plans to elope with her, and has Yellowhammer himself make the wedding ring, umaware of the bride’s identity. The elopement is foiled, however: Yellowhammer and Sir Walter intervene just as Touchwood is putting the ring onto Moll’s finger, and Moll is taken home and locked up. Touchwood’s elder brother is poor but virile, and cannot afford to cohabit with his wife for fear that she may produce a legitimate child he will not have the means to support. He has fathered a prolific number of bastards, and refuses to acknowledge one of them when a former paramour, a country wench, brings it to him. She then disposes of the baby by duping two corrupt promoters set to prevent the illicit trade in meat during Lent: she hides the child in a basket and allows them to confiscate it as contraband. Lady Kix’s maid suggests that Touchwood Seniors excessive fertility might solve Sir Oliver’s problems in begetting an heir; Sir Oliver agrees to pay him £400 for the job. Mistress Allwit gives birth to another of Sir Walter’s children. Tim Yellowhammer arrives home from Cambridge and is sent to see his mother at the christening party; he is priggish about being in female company, contrary to university rules, and the women are drunkenly embarrassing. Encouraged to woo his fiancée, Tim finds it heavy going: he tries to converse with her in Latin, she with him in Welsh. Allwit learns of Sir Walter’s plans for Moll, and tries to forestall them by telling Yellowhammer that his prospective son-in-law is a notorious whoremonger, but Yellowhammer is unconcerned by this. Moll disappears from home: she and Touchwood Junior have eloped again, with the help of the London watermen; but her mother drags her home by the hair. Yellowhammer decides to accelerate matters: the wedding is to be tomorrow, and Moll…