in The Roaring Girl, or Moll Cutpurse — Dekker, Thomas; Middleton, Thomas
Metadata
Play
The Roaring Girl, or Moll Cutpurse
Author
Dekker, Thomas; Middleton, Thomas
Year (catalogued)
1611
First performance
1611
Decade
1610s
Genre
Comedy
Play type
Adult Professional
Company
Prince Henry's Men
Theater
Fortune;Outdoor Professional
Speech prefix(es)
Green. | Greene. | Gree. | Green | Greene,
Words
337
Characters
1800
Typicality
0.31 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A07524
BritDrama no.
1633
Cluster
Cluster 9 — Boon companions & bluff banter
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
I have been too bold. To me sweet Lady. Pure and excellent. I and full of form, has never a good stool in's chamber. And valiant above measure; has run three streets from a Sergeant. Prithee come hither sirrah. Are you mad sir? Jack. Glad you're so penitent, for your former sin sir. Now you're resolved sir, it was never she, Not I sir. Troth this is finely shred. Mounsier Dapper, I dive down to your ankles. You sir? I have gone snaffling up and down by your door this hour to watch for you. —I have caught a cold in my head sir, by sitting up late in the rose tavern, but I hope you understand my speech. I cite you by the name of Hippocrates Gallipot, and you by the name of Prudence Gallipot, to appear upon Crastino, do you see, Crastino sancti Dunstani (this Easter Term) in Bow Church. Bow: Bow Church, to answer to a libel of precon tract on the partly and behalf of the said Prudence and another; you're best sir take a copy of the citation, it's but twelvepence. Nay Gentlemen, seeing your Women are so hight, I must lose my hair in their company I see. How will your care prevent it? And that Lambith, joins more mad matches, then your six wet towns, betwixt that and Windsor-bridge, where fares lie soaking. You urge a thing passed sense, how can he help you? All his assistance is as frail as ours, Full as uncertain, where's the place that holds they? One brings us uva er-newes; then comes and other With a full charged mouth, Like a culverins voice, And he reports the Tower; whose sounds are truest? He talks impossibilities, and you believe they. Troth but you shall not undertake such matches, We'll persuade so much with you. He holds it up well yet. Say he should marry a kind youthful sinner. But not to be used a that fashion. She that minces Tobacco. He doe's it well faith.
Plot summary
Plot — The Roaring Girl, or Moll Cutpurse
Sebastian Wengrave was contracted to marry Mary Fitzallard until his father, dissatisfied with the dowry, cancelled the arrangement; Sebastian plans to reverse 1611 his father’s decision by pretending infatuation with Moll Cutpurse. Sir Alexander employs Trapdoor to enter Moll’s service as a spy and agent provocateur. Trapdoor forewarns Sir Alexander of an assignation between Sebastian and Moll, and they plot to entrap her in.a false charge of theft. In fact, Moll uses the meeting to bring Sebastian together with Mary. Sir Alexander eavesdrops on them and gives Moll counterfeit coins. Moll recognizes Trapdoor as a spy and sacks him. He turns to begging, posing as an discharged soldier, but she sees through his disguise and buys his true allegiance. Sir Alexander hears that Sebastian has absconded with Moll to get married, but is stymied when Trapdoor brings him additional, contradictory (and false) information about their movements. This enables Sebastian to carry out his clandestine marriage with Mary unmolested. Relieved that his son has not married into the criminal classes after all, Sir Alexander settles lands on the couple and forgives Moll. In the second plot, Laxton and Goshawk are having adulterous affairs with the citizen wives, Mistress Gallipot and Mistress Openwork. Laxton also has a date with Moll, but changes his mind about it when she turns up cross-dressed. He sends Mistress Gallipot a love-letter and asks her for money. Gallipot catches her reading it, and she lies that Laxton had a prior claim to marry her but was thought to be dead. She persuades him to buy off his rival with the money Laxton had asked for. As a practical joke, Laxton pretends to use the deception to extort further money, but then repays the thirty pounds he first received from Gallipot. Meanwhile, Openwork outmanoeuvres Goshawk by claiming to be an adulterer himself. Goshawk tells Mistress Openwork, but she sees through it as merely a seduction gambit, proving her fidelity and enabling her husband to shame the rake into penitence. In the third plot, Sir Davy Dapper attempts to discipline his son’s prodigality by having him arrested and imprisoned, but Moll and Trapdoor help him to escape. Afterwards Moll saves him and his friends from being robbed by some cutpurses, whom she recognizes. She explains that her knowledge of petty criminals and their practices does not make her a cutpurse herself.