Early Modern Drama · Character Archetypes

JACK DAPPER

in The Roaring Girl, or Moll Cutpurse — Dekker, Thomas; Middleton, Thomas

Metadata

PlayThe Roaring Girl, or Moll Cutpurse
AuthorDekker, Thomas; Middleton, Thomas
Year (catalogued)1611
First performance1611
Decade1610s
GenreComedy
Play typeAdult Professional
CompanyPrince Henry's Men
TheaterFortune;Outdoor Professional
Speech prefix(es)I. Dap. | Iac. Dap. | Iae. Dap. | Iacke Dap. | Iac, Dap. | Iack. Dap.
Words455
Characters2429
Typicality0.52 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP idA07524
BritDrama no.1633
ClusterCluster 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

Save you gentlemen all three in a peculiar salute. Mol. How dost Mol. Thou shalt find me here this hour about a feather. Faith to buy one feather. Gul. Here's three halfpence for your ordinary, boy, meet me and hour hence in Powles. Puh I Like it not. And therefore I mislike it, tell me of general. Now a continual Simon and Jude's rain Beat all your feathers as flat down as pancakes. Show me——a—spangled feather, How likest thou this Mol. Is not amorous a good word? What's thy name fellow soldier? I am for Parkers ordinary. Gul. Didst ever see such and ass as I am boy? Run Gul and draw. But prithee Master Captain Jack be plain and perspicuous with me; was it your Meg of Westminsters courage, that rescued me from the Poultry puttocks indeed. Where are you maimed? I did not think there had be such knavery in black patches as now I see. What sayest Tom Long? Troth I whistled the poor little buzzard of a my fist, because when he waited upon me at the ordinaries, the gallants hit me i'the teeth still, and said I looked Like a painted Alderman's tomb, and the boy at my elbow Like a death's head. Sirrah Jack, Mol. Mol and I'll be i'the amid. Sirrah Captain mad Marry, the gull my own fa there (Dapper) Sir Davy) laid these London boote-halers the catch poles in ambush to set upon me. By the tassels of this handkerchief it's true, and what was his warlike stratagem think you? he thought be cause a wicker cage tames a nightingale, a lousy prison could make and ass of me. I; as though a Counter, which is a park, in which all the wild beasts of the City run head by head could tame me. Thanks my Lord. My Lord Noland will you go to Pimlico with us? we are making a boon voyage to that appy land of spice-cakes Here's most amorous weather my Lord. You have ambled all over Italy then. Thou lookest Like a strange creature, a fat butter box, yet speakest English, What art thou? So then Trap-door thou art turned soldier now. Here's old cheating. Zounds, I'll give a schoolmaster half a crown a week, and teach me this pedlars French. Nay teach me what niggling is, I'de feign be niggling. The grating of ten new cartwheels, and the gruntling of five hundred hogs continued ̄ ming from Rumford mar ket, cannot make a worse noise then this canting language does in my ears; pray my Lord Noland, let's give these soul dyers their pay. How dost thou know it? So would I Captain Moll: 'twere a sweet tick ling office 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.