Early Modern Drama · Character Archetypes

COREBUS

in The Old Wives Tale — Peele, George

Metadata

PlayThe Old Wives Tale
AuthorPeele, George
Year (catalogued)1595
First performance1590
Decade1590s
GenreRomance
Play typeAdult Professional
CompanyQueen Elizabeth's Men
Speech prefix(es)Booby: | Corobus: | Core: | Coreb: | Cor: | Coreb.
Words514
Characters2546
Typicality0.26 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP idA09232
BritDrama no.913
ClusterCluster 23 — Gulls, fops & laughing-stocks

Important excerpts

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

Full speech

Hark you sir, hark you; First know I have here the flirting feather, and have given the Parish the start for the long stock: Now sir if it be no more but running through a little lightning and thunder, and riddle me riddle me whats this, I'll have the wench from the Con jurer if he were ten Conjurers. Oh falsum Latinum! the fair maid is minum, cum apurtinantibus gibletes and all. Do you hear sir; had not you a Cousin, that was called Gustecerydis? Oh Lord I know him well: he is the knight of the neats feet. Come shall we go along? Soft, here is and old man at the Cross, let us ask him the way thither. Ho, you Gaffer, I pray you tell where the wise man the Conjurer dwells? Father do you see this man, you little think heel run a mile or two for such a Cake, or pass for a pudding, I tell you father he has kept such a begging of me for a piece of this Cake, who he comes upon me with a super fantiall substance, and the foison of the earth, that I know not what he means: If he came to me thus, and said, my friend Booby or so, why I could spare him a piece with all my heart; but when he tells me how God hath enriched me above other fellows with a Cake: why he makes me blind and deaf at once: Yet father here is a piece of Cake for you as harden as the world goes. Farewell father, farewell; for I must make hast after my two hand sword that is gone before. Exeunt omnes. You whoreson sodden headed sheeps-face, shall a good fellow do less service and more honesty to the parish, & will you not when he is dead let him have Christmas burial. Can you blame him sir, if he take Jacks partly against this shake rotten parish that will not bury Jack. Who Jack sir, who our Jack sir? as good a fellow as ever troad upon Neats lea there. You Capons face, we shall have you turned out of the parish one of these days, with never a tatter to your arse, then you are in worse taking then Jack. You may thank God the long staff and the bilbowe blade, crossed not your coxcomb; well weel to the church style, and have a pot, and so tryll lyll. Come my duck come: I have now God a wise, thou art fair, art thou not? So Corebus things have well hit, Thou hast got wealth to mend thy wit. Exit. Who hawe master Bango are you here? hear you, you had best fit down here, and beg and alms with me. Her hast thou slave Huam ̄ a slashing knight And robbed poor Corebus of his sighed. Exit. Come wench, are we almost at the well. Well said wench, now we shall have joust enough, God send us coiners to coin our gold: but come shall we go home sweet heart?

Plot summary

Plot — The Old Wives Tale
PLOT Lost in the woods, three pages encounter Clunch the smith, and accept the hospitality of his cottage. One of them goes to bed with him while his wife, Madge, tells the others a tale. Delia, the daughter of the King of Thessaly, has been abducted by the sorcerer Sacrapant, who can only be killed by a dead man, and whose power depends on a light in a glass which can only be broken by a woman who is neither wife, widow, nor maid. Delia's two brothers come to England in search of her, and meet Erestus. They give him alms and he prophesies to them. He too is a victim of Sacrapant, who has transformed him into an old man by day and a bear by night, and driven his betrothed lady, Venelia, out of her mind. The brothers enter Sacrapant's domain, but are imprisoned by Furies and set to work digging for gold. Delia, forgetting her identity under the influence of a potion, is appointed as their overseer. Others are also searching for Delia. One is the wandering knight Eumenides, another the braggart Huanebango; the former gives generous alms to Erestus, but the latter refuses. Eumenides happens upon a fight between Wiggen and the parish officials, who are refusing to bury Wiggen's dead brother Jack; Eumenides resolves the dispute by giving all his remaining money to pay for the funeral. Huanebango attempts to force his way into Sacrapant's cell, and is ejected by the Furies; Sacrapant strikes him deaf and Corebus blind. Lampriscus has two daughters, one ugly in looks and the other in temperament. Erestus advises that they should fetch water from the well of life and there see their fortune. Zantippa, the ill-tempered one, maltreats the well's spirit, a head, but finds the unconscious, newly deaf Huanebango lying beside it: her future husband will be unable to hear her shrewish words. Celanta, the ill-faced one, becomes the blind Corebus' wife. She treats the head in the well better, and is rewarded with corn and gold. The despairing Eumenides meets Jack, and accepts him as a companion. At a tavern, the knight will not eat because he cannot pay, but finds his purse miraculously full of money. He vows to give Jack a half share in everything he gets on his travels. Jack renders Eumenides resistant to Sacrapant's magic by stopping his ears, then invisibly takes the enchanter's sword and garland. Sacrapant falls dead. Eumenides digs up the glass light, but is unable to break it; that falls to Venelia, who, being betrothed but unwed, is neither maid nor wife, and so…