Early Modern Drama · Character Archetypes

STILT

in Hoffman, or A Revenge for a Father — Chettle, Henry

Metadata

PlayHoffman, or A Revenge for a Father
AuthorChettle, Henry
Year (catalogued)1631
First performance1602
Decade1630s
GenreTragedy
Play typeAdult Professional
CompanyAdmiral's (Nottingham's) Men
TheaterPhoenix/Cockpit;Indoor Professional
Speech prefix(es)Stilt. | Silt. | Stils. | Stilt,
Words818
Characters4197
Typicality0.35 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP idA18596
BritDrama no.1384
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

I my lord, I know you should be one, but I hope you are not so mad. I my Lord, for you that cannot fit a hobby, you'll hardly manage your tilthorse. Not afore next grass; I could help you now to a stone mule, a stone ass. That's not your fit word; you must say, advance your pike, and you must be here sir, and here, you'll never learn for all my teaching. That will be excellent my Lord, the barbers will buy those poems abominably. No, but I hear a noise. O excellent! heers your casting bottle. Casheere you? no, do but manage your body, and have here, and here your congies, and then quid sequi tur, Stilt knows, and all the court shall see. Nay that's more then I know: this matter will trouble us more then all your poem of picktooths, s'nailes: you were better be unknighted then unprinced, I have lost all my hope of preferment, if this hold. I faith he's so odd, that he hath driven even hone sty from all men's hearts. O brave master, not a Lord: Oh, Stilt will stalk, and make the earth a stage, But he will have thee lord in spite of rage. Father, set you the army in qeraye, while I invocate: The General Foulkes: Fibs, foreman, and Friends all, Officers ail, help to marshal; Prince Jerom my Lord shall remunerate that, is shall be Full of thanksgiving, while nature is able to Nourish, or sustain; Father you have order to stay the rest, be sententious, and full of circumstance I advise you; and remember this, that more then mortality fights on our side; For we have treason and iniquity to maintain our quarrel. Reason, and equity I meant Father; ther's little controuersity in the words: but Like a Captain couragi ous, I pray go forward, remember the place you are, in no more, but this; the days of old, no more, but that; and the glory Father; Knighthood at least, to the utter defa cing of you and your posterity, No more but so. stand to't? here's the father and the son will stand, though all the rest fly away. I thought twou'd come to that; I thought we should bring The false Prince on his knees. We scorn pardons, Peace and pity; We'll have a Prince of our own choosing, Prince Jerom. Nay but trust him not my Lord; take heed of him, Aware your enemies at any hand. Nay we deny that, wear none of your Countrymen; you are and ar ant arrant Alien. he Well we will are him: come on, speak, what wlil ye say? None at all father, now we are in, we must go through stitch. Well since my Lord ha said the word, bring that of spoke he to pass and you shall have my word too, and old Stilt my father's, being a man of good reproach I tell you, and condemnation in his country. Sweet Prince I scarce understand this fellow well, but I Like his conceit in not trusting Prince otho; you must give him the remove that's flat. Hold ye there my Lord, I am but a poor fellow and have but a simple living left me; yet my brother were he a very natural brother of mine own, should he b e dopted, I would dopt him, and herrite him, i'll fit him. That were excellent my Lord, and it could be done, and no body know on't. That's excellent, master; Farewellawe, and iebbit a vow; and we speed by thy practice we'll crush a cup of thine own country wine. I warrant you Master let Prince Otho drink next, Pray ye do my Lord, for Prince Otho is best wor thy of all this company to drink of that cup, which and he do, I hope he shall never drink more. Oh give the Duke some of the medicine I, he is one that had great cqre of you. That's nothing to the purpose, but my Lord took occasion by the council of a French Doctor. Surgeons for the Prince, my master falls. We left him in the court in my Master's cham ber. I pray provide for me fit; Provide quoth a and you call this providing, pray let me, provide for my self, alas my poor father, he'll creep upon crutches into his graven when, he hears his properest Stilt is cut off by the stumps. Pray, not so hasty, you would scarce be so forward, and you were going as I am, to the Gall lowes. I as beggars do the Ladies that are their Almesgi givers. I truly: was I sir therefore I hope you'll be good to me, I helped to mingle the poison as the French Doctor, and my master charged me. Oh lord sir. I meant you no hurt, but to Prince Charles

Plot summary

Plot — Hoffman, or A Revenge for a Father
HanisiHofinan, Vice-Admiral of Luneburg, was betrayed by the state after doing it good service, forced to turn pirate and then executed for it. His son Clois stole his body from the gallows but was bound by oath not to bury ===== PAGE 5 ===== 1603 it. Now Clois Hoffman seeks revenge against the Dukes of Luneburg and Prussia. He witnesses a shipwreck; @iiarles, heir to the Duchy of Luneburg, is among the survivors, but Hoffman murders him with a burning crown, then adopts his identity and visits the court of Prussia. Férditiaid) Duke of Prussia, disinherits his son Jeremie and adopts the supposed Charles as his heir. The brothers BOdGWick and Mathias are to joust for the hand of L@€ibélla. Their fathers, SAXGHY and \(AuStfid, meet by chance at the hermit R@@EfiIEK’s cell and discover that he is Austria’s long-lost brother. Hoffman, posing as Roderick, tells Lodowick and Lucibella that Ferdinand has plotted Lodowick’s murder, and supplies Lodowick with Greek garments to enable them to leave the court in disguise. He then tells Mathias that Lucibella has absconded with a Greek. Mathias pursues the couple and assaults them; Lodowick has time to reveal the truth before he dies. Roderick denies the story, and Saxony confirms his alibi. Hoffman murders Austria. Lucibella recovers from her wounds, but goes mad with grief. J@fGME raises an army in rebellion against his father, but Hoffman makes peace by persuading him to accept the office of food taster. He inveigles his servant Lorrique into Jerome’s service disguised as a French doctor. Jerome acquires poison from him to murder ‘Charles’, but only succeeds in administering it to Ferdinand and himself (as food taster); unfortunately the antidote supplied by the ‘doctor’ doesn’t work. Hoffman succeeds to the Dukedom. Charles’s recently widowed mother, Martha, comes to court to congratulate her son, and Hoffman considers killing her to protect his identity, but instead enlists her as an ally after explaining what happened (but omitting to mention that he murdered Charles). Mathias, Saxony, and Roderick find the skeletons of Hans Hoffman and Charles, and overhear Lorrique discussing Hoffman’s imposture with Martha. Lucibella gives Martha Charles’s clothes, and she notices that they are not water-damaged, even though her son was supposedly drowned. Lorrique confesses everything and agrees to help lure Hoffman into a trap, but Hoffman murders him. Mathias and Saxony hang up his dead body near a cave where Hoffman…