The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works

by Thomas Nashe

  100. Bishop of Casa Nigra, Numidia, led the first important schism of the Christian Church in 311.

  101. Theologian of the fourth century, holding that Jesus was not of one substance’ with God.

  102. bugbears and scarecrows: Childish superstitions.

  103. Wide breeches reaching to the knees.

  104. Early Baptists, first appearing in England c. 1534.

  105. The Family of Love, a mystical section of the Anabaptists.

  106. Followers of Martin Senior, who protested against abuses of the Church.

  107. Followers of Henry Barrow, arrested for heresy 1586, hanged 1593.

  108. Followers of John Greenwood, associated and hanged with Barrow.

  109. Popular verse romance, early fourteenth century.

  110. prove men before Adam: Show that men existed before the Biblical account (cf. p. 479).

  111. Befouled.

  112. A lively Spanish dance.

  113. Over-refined.

  114. Embroidery with a moral text.

  115. voice… puppets: Voice used in a puppet show.

  116. Equals.

  117. Without sexual intercourse.

  118. Butcher’s meat.

  119. Marrow-bones.

  120. Insects.

  121. Famous ale-wife, perhaps mythical.

  122. Manure-men, lavatory-cleaners.

  123. Dung-beetles.

  124. Manual, artisan.

  125. Rascals.

  126. There is a story of a bird trained to say this flattering phrase to Augustus, and eventually brought to the Emperor because he also said (in imitation of his trainer) ‘opera et impensa periit’ (‘All this work and expense for nothing’).

  127. The university courses of the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music).

  128. Pictures of St George common in pageants and as inn-signs.

  129. See Spenser’s Mother Hubbard’ Tale.

  130. Valiant

  131. Rebato, or framework of a ruff.

  132. English title of a satirical Latin poem by Sebastian Brandt (1494).

  133. Augustus gave privileges to old soldiers, including the right to wear certain badges, but this ‘had little to do with heraldry in the modern sense’ (M.).

  134. Boastful.

  135. next your heart: On an empty stomach.

  136. Causeway, paved part of the street.

  137. To hamstring.

  138. Decorated with tassels.

  139. Swollen.

  140. A fine silk material.

  141. Tippler.

  142. Small Dutch coins of little value.

  143. Orid lived in exile among the Thracian tribe of the Getae.

  144. One who deals in ochre, a colourman.

  145. Entered Stationer’s Register 1590. Poking sticks are instruments used in setting the plaits of a ruff.

  146. lawn… hospitality: All the wheat is used to make starch for dressing lawn ruffs.

  147. M. suggests the name is given to Lucifer because St Laurence’s Day is 10 August, in the hottest part of the year.

  148. Watchman.

  149. A cosmetic.

  150. Crab-apple juice.

  151. London, the new Troy.

  152. lay off… night-caps: Go bald through venereal disease.

  153. ‘The cowl does not make the monk.’

  154. Being replaced by rapiers in the 1570s.

  155. Noted for second-hand dealers.

  156. Pun on ‘latten’, like brass.

  157. ‘We praise the days of yore, but make the most of our own’ (Ovid).

  158. Edmund Plowden (1518 – 85), a famous lawyer and writer on law.

  159. Ornaments, playthings.

  160. Antiquity.

  161. Nicolas, common name for the Devil, and allusion to Nicolai Macchiavelli.

  162. Individuality lies in the mind’ (Cicero).

  163. Familiar conjuring terms.

  164. Tit for tat.

  165. ‘Hippomenes [a charioteer] goes past; the amphitheatre echoes with applause’ (Ovid).

  166. Sing ‘I shall be pleased’, i.e. be sycophants.

  167. Outdone in fine attire.

  168. Seneca (Hippolytus, I, 981).

  169. Sixtus V, Pope 1585 – 90. This is an unauthenticated account of his death.

  170. Satire, lampoon.

  171. Smithfield, ‘where trials of skill were played by ordinary ruffianly people with sword and buckler’ (Blount, 1674).

  172. Probably.

  173. Peevish.

  174. Famous comic actor d. 1588.

  175. From Sextus Empiricus (quotation in M. IV, 115).

  176. Stinking mouth (the devil, breathing brimstone).

  177. Used commonly as name for party in a law suit.

  178. First words in writ summoning juryman to assizes; here the judgement of a court of law.

  179. Commonplace phrase at beginning of letters, which had somehow become a joke.

  180. ‘Don’t go to the Council before you are called.’

  181. Bag, valise.

  182. ‘Neither greater nor smaller than the body that was placed there.’

  183. ‘Wickedness took possession of mortals.’

  184. Preaching only once a quarter.

  185. ‘Let arrogance be absent’, (i.e. let me not be thought arrogant).

  186. Morose people, as born under the melancholy influence of Saturn.

  187. Theodore de Bèze (1519 – 1605), noted Calvinist.

  188. Augustin Marlorat (1506 – 63), also prominent among the Genevan reformers.

  189. Complaint of Rosamund (Samuel Daniel, 1592).

  190. Stupid.

  191. Waste paper and books were commonly used to cover mustard pots.

  192. Henry Smith (1550?–91) of St Clement Danes, London.

  193. ‘Many respect what other people say; few respect what their conscience tells them.’

  194. Du Bartas (1544 – 90), author of La Seconde Semaine; translated into Du Bartas His Divine Weeks (1633).

  195. Chroniclers.

  196. Stuttering.

  197. Unemployed, advertising for work on the doors of St Paul’s.

  198. Officers concerned with offences committed within twelve miles of the King’s palace.

  199. A.W. suggests that this virtually meaningless Latin is recollected but misquoted from Cicero (In Catilinam I, 1, 2) and that we might possibly glean ‘he lacks the character and has not the time’, referring to the career of a university man with no Maecenas, or great patron, behind him.

  200. ‘Whatever comes to my tongue’ (Martial).

  201. Nitric acid.

  202. A reference to Nashe’s Preface to Menaphon (see p. 476).

  203. Professor of Greek, Cambridge, 1540 – 51.

  204. Thomas Watson, 1513 – 84, Bishop of Lincoln.

  205. Walter Haddon, 1516 – 72, Professor of Civil Law, Cambridge.

  206. Nicholas Carr, 1524 – 68, Cambridge, Professor of Greek.

  207. Roger Ascham, 1515 – 68, author of The Scholemaster, tutor to Elizabeth.

  208. A reference to the Harveys (Gabriel, John and Richard) who attacked Nashe in Lamb of God, 1590.

  209. Thou… ears: M. suggests it means he had been deprived of his degree.

  210. Half-farthings.

  211. John Harvey’s Almanacks for 1583 and 1589.

  212. The predictions of 1583 proved false.

  213. Instrument used in taking the altitude of the sun.

  214. A popular, hard-drinking ballad-writer.

  215. ‘He lives, indeed he lives’ (‘imo’ = ‘immo’). (M. suggests it is a reminiscence of Cicero, In Catilinam, I, 1, 2.)

  216. i.e. as rector of Chislehurst.

  217. Martin Marprelate, pseudonym of author of pamphlets attacking Church of England (see Intro. pp. 22 – 6).

  218. ‘Jupiter affords his divine inspiration to the minds of poets, and permits himself to be cel
ebrated by any mouth’ (Ovid).

  219. ‘Somebody’, (i.e. ‘any mouth’ of the Ovid quotation).

  220. ‘Whom for the sake of honour I named’.

  221. Thomas Nash of Eltistey, Cambridgeshire. Richard Harvey had written in the Preface to Lamb of God, 1590: ‘Thomas Nash, one whom I never heard of before (for I cannot imagine him to be Thomas Nash our butler of Pembroke Hall, albeit peradventure not much better learned).’

  222. A burnt crust.

  223. A term of ridicule derived from the scholar Dorbellus, Nicholas de Orbelli (d. 1455).

  224. Broth.

  225. ‘Only for printing’, copyright.

  226. ‘For no law is fairer than that those who devise a method of killing people should die by their own methods’ (Ovid).

  227. The author of Pap with a Hatchet, probably John Lyly.

  228. Gibe.

  229. ‘Why have I written? Why have I died?’

  230. ‘Immorality suits an immoral person; forbidden sensuality is pleasing’ (play on parva parvum decent: ‘little things please little minds’).

  231. Sanctus bell rung after the main peals.

  232. ‘I return to you, my listeners.’

  233. The hospital of St Giles in the Field was on the way to Tyburn, the place of execution.

  234. Fancy name for Harvey (M. sees no special sense; J. Crow suggests ‘a ludicrous perversion of Jupiter Hammon’).

  235. Probably satirical reference to Anthony Munday (F.P.W.).

  236. ‘Have mercy upon me.’

  237. ‘Believe an expert.’

  238. Food for fattening swine.

  239. Loss.

  240. Tubs for salting or pickling meat.

  241. Salads, (also a headpiece).

  242. Irregular soldiers in Netherlands with black armour and blackened faces.

  243. Wholesale.

  244. patterns… by: Patterned pastry surrounding a custard.

  245. Disturbance, trouble.

  246. Shoemaking.

  247. ‘A full stomach does nothing willingly, and the gut has killed more than the sword’ (proverb).

  248. Who feasted on Christian fast-days.

  249. Poultry.

  250. Call.

  251. Thomas Watson (1513 – 84), Bishop of Lincoln.

  252. Foreign.

  253. ‘Of course, master, I am the worst fisherman’ (‘fisherman’ suggesting ‘fishmonger’, or brothel-keeper).

  254. ‘But you are the best butcher,’ (or executioner) (part of the joke is the bad Latin, malissimus and bonissimus being unlearned solecisms).

  255. Laity.

  256. M. thinks Nashe may be confusing him with Henri, Due de Joyeuse, whose entry into the Capuchin Order in 1587 attracted much attention at the time. (Other 1592 texts say that he remained in the Order ‘four year’, not ‘twelvemonth’ as in this text.)

  257. Actually founded 1525, introduced into France 1572 and spread rapidly.

  258. Fat, corpulent.

  259. Dormitory.

  260. St Pancras.

  261. Third Epistle of John (v.9) refers to Diotrephes ‘who loveth to have the pre-eminence among them’.

  262. With snap-locks.

  263. A drinking term.

  264. Drinking heavily, like the Frisians.

  265. gloves, mumps, frolics: Games and pastimes associated with drinking.

  266. Young coxcomb.

  267. stand upon terms: argue, dispute.

  268. The devil, a name used in ballads (M. queries whether it could be the name of some contemporary clown or fire-eater).

  269. A rowdy drunkard.

  270. Unidentified.

  271. A poem by Vincentius Obsopaeus (d. 1539).

  272. The tutor of Dionysus, commonly depicted as drunk and riding on an ass.

  273. A kind of monkey.

  274. Calculating.

  275. Drink left at the bottom of a cup.

  276. A punishment for vagabonds.

  277. A tavern near London Bridge.

  278. ‘Where something is being done’.

  279. seen in the sweetening: Given to flattery.

  280. Afternoon sleep.

  281. ‘Everything unfamiliar is thought wonderful’ (Tacitus).

  282. Beggar, rogue.

  283. A mere courtier, no soldier.

  284. A story told in Ovid, Metamorphoses, x.

  285. ‘If they haven’t an enemy abroad, they’ll find one at home’ (Livy).

  286. Matters.

  287. Sir John Talbot, second Earl of Shrewsbury.

  288. Rascal, base fellow.

  289. Dauphin.

  290. Talons.

  291. Tricks, frauds.

  292. In passing.

  293. i.e. the players.

  294. Justus Lipsius (1547 – 1606), Belgian scholar. M. suspects Nashe is using his name at random.

  295. ‘In the Sophoclean buskin’, i.e. the stately, dignified form of tragedy (Ovid).

  296. Both actors flourished about 70 B.C.

  297. Edward Alleyn (1566 – 1626), most famous tragic actor of his time.

  298. Mixture.

  299. Richard Tarlton (d. 1588), chief comedian of the Queen’s players.

  300. Thomas Knell (fl. 1586), another comic actor.

  301. Mentioned by Thomas Heywood as a well-known actor.

  302. Here, an official inquiry into the affairs of a ward or district.

  303. A reference to Leah in Genesis (30, 14 – 16) ‘hiring’ Jacob to lie with her with Reuben’s mandrakes (fertility symbol).

  304. Goddess of chastity.

  305. ‘The habit of sinning takes away the sense of sin’ (St Augustine).

  306. Lais…. Clytemnestra: M. points out a confusion on N.’s part, what is said of Clytemnestra’s bathing being properly applied to Lais.

  307. Hospital (with allusion to venereal disease).

  308. In Clerkenwell, frequented by prostitutes.

  309. Give (variant of ‘can’).

  310. Die.

  311. ‘Turn and turn about’.

  312. Conceptions, notions.

  313. Foolish.

  314. shrivest… near: Question closely.

  315. ‘Obvious truth’.

  316. Parasitical.

  317. ‘As if in truth’.

  318. Canopy and supporting framework.

  319. bee… battledore: ‘To tell a B from a battledore’ (proverbial reference to illiteracy).

  320. M. thinks the bear may represent the Earl of Leicester (d. 1588); the fox being Cartwright or Martin (i.e. the puritans); the chameleon, Martin Marprelate or Penry; the bees the Anglican clergy. See Introduction, pp. 22 – 6.

  321. Some kind of horse.

  322. Homage.

  323. i.e. the bear.

  324. A close, full-stop.

  325. Frequent.

  326. Medicinal herbs acting on the spleen.

  327. A harper sang at the banquet given by Alcinous to Ulysses.

  328. Gather, take in.

  329. ‘Man a devil to man’. (In this section on demons N. is following a tract called the Isagoge by Georgius Pictorius, 1563.)

  330. In De Deo Socratis.

  331. Rebellious, treacherous.

  332. (?) Syrianus of Alexandria (fl. 435).

  333. Comprehensive.

  334. St Augustine.

  335. Misreading for Psaphon (M.).

  336. Isaiah.

  337. proper consistory: Own council.

  338. Said to have gone mad when adjudged less worthy than Ulysses in the Trojan War, and to have committed suicide in desperation.

  339. Leader of a religious sect in the first century A.D. (see Acts 8, 5).

  340. Defiled, stained.

  341. Material attributes.

  342. Capable of movement.

  343. Naiads and Nereids: Nymphs of rivers and seas.

  344. ‘The highest form’.

  345. ‘Devil, as falling from above’.

  346. ‘W
ith limited power’.

  347. Quickness.

  348. ‘Let God arise, and his enemies shall be scattered.’

  349. ‘A vehicle of fire from above.

  350. ‘Away, now stand away, you uninitiated ones… But you [Aeneas], draw your sword from the scabbard and fare forth’ (Aeneid, VI, 358, 260, translated by C. Day Lewis).

  351. M points out that N. has mistranslated from the Isagoge, and is probably thinking of Apollyon (Revelation 9, 11).

  352. Names of plants.

  353. ‘I kiss your hand’ (Spanish: ‘beso las manos’).

  354. ‘Sometime eventually’.

  355. Where books were sold.

  356. A man employed to drive dogs away.

  357. plodder at Noverint: Scrivener or petty lawyer (writs began with the words ‘noverint universi’: ‘let all men know’).

  358. Circumlocution.

  359. ‘Would appear to be some kind of pitch and toss, in which a Turk’ head cut out of grey paper was the mark’ (H.).

  360. Popular recreation and sporting grounds.

  361. De Origine Erroris (N. appears to have supposed the book was a treatise against Origen).

  362. ‘You promise riches to anyone who wants them’ (adapted from Ovid, An Amatoris, I, 443 – 4).

  363. Braggart, (character in Terence’s Eunuch).

  364. Pietro Aretino (1492 – 1554), commonly regarded as champion of the writer, as well as being famous for his Sonetti Lusuriosi.

  365. Effigies as used in pageants (H.).

  366. Goddess of chastity; here Queen Elizabeth.

  367. Probably the Earl of Derby, alluded to by that name in Spenser’s Colin Clout, 1595.

  368. ‘O ornament and great glory of your age’ (Ovid).

  369. And viewing… guise: Presumably, looking over the advertised goods, as merchant and traders do.

  370. miss the cushion: Go wide of the mark.

  371. ‘Thus much do I labour’.

  372. ‘Accept [someone] who will serve you for long years; accept [someone] who knows how to love with pure faith’ (Ovid).

  373. ‘The kindly earth affords Alcinous fruits; the poor man reckons only his duties and obligations’ (Ovid). (Alcinous: King of Phoeacia, proverbially well provided by the gods.)

  1. Became Court Fool 1525; d. 1560.

  2. ‘I cast a cloud over the sins and deceptions of the night’ (Horace).

  3. Knowing my part by heart.

  4. May have been the name of the Fool of this household.

  5. i.e. in the actors’ dressing-room.

  6. Idea, fancy (note also ending of The Epilogue, p. 206).

  7. ‘To wear a hat without a band was a mark of eccentricity’ (M.).