Beaumont & Fletcher, The Knight of the Burning Pestle

Beaumont & Fletcher, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, The Works of Beaumont & Fletcher, Volume II, Ed. The Rev. Alexander Dyce, London, Edward Moxon, Dover Street, 1843.

This comedy, as Malone observes (Supplement to Shakespeare, i. 194), appears to have been produced in 1611; (125)

Whether The Knight of the Burning Pestle was the joint composition of Beaumont and Fletcher, or written by one of them without the assistance of the other, remains a matter of dispute. … If it was really written in the short space of eight days, as Burre informs us, the probability perhaps would be that it was not the effort of a single pen. (125)

The author, or authors, of this comedy are under considerable obligations to Don Quixote, which, before the year 1611, must have been well known in England, where the Spanish language had become a fashionable study. The Knight of the Burning Pestle was evidently written to ridicule the extravagances of the earlier stage, the satire being more particularly leveled at a celebrated piece by Heywood—The Foure Prentises of London. With the Conquest of Ierusalem. As it hath bene diuerse times Acted, at the Red Bull, by the Queenes Maiesties Seruants. (125)

Speaker of the Prologue: Are you a member of the noble city?
Citizen: I am.
Speaker of the Prologue: And a freeman?
Citizen: Yea, and a grocer.

(KBP, Induction, 132)


Sp. of the Prologue: For wicked mirth never true pleasure brings,
But honest midns are pleas’d with honest things.—

(KBP, Induction, 136)


Jasper: You know my rival!
Luce: Yes, and love him dearly;
Even as I love an ague or foul weather:

(KBP, 1.1.138)


Venturewell: Come, sir, she’s yours; upon my faith, she’s yours;
…My wanton prentice,
That like a bladder blew himself with love,
I have let out, and sent him to discover
New masters yet unknown.

(KBP, 1.1.139)


Humphrey: I am of gentle blood, and gentle seem.

(KBP, 1.1.139)


Humphrey: I…
…can pull
Out of my pocket thus a pair of gloves.
Look, Lucy, look; the dog’s tooth nor the doves
Are not so white as these; and sweet they be,
And whipt about with silk, as you may see.

(KBP, 1.1.142)


Citizen: Well said, Ralph; some more of those words, Ralph!

(KBP, 1.3.146)


Tim: “Sir, my master sent me to know whither you are riding?”
Ralph: “No, thus: “Fair sir, the right courteous and valiant Knight of the Burning Pestle commanded me to inquire…

(KBP, 1.3.147)


Mistress Merrythought: Hark, my husband! He’s singing and hoiting; and I’m fain to cark and care, and all little enough.—Husband! Charles! Charles Merrythought!

(KBP, 1.4.150; cark and care: “These words, the former of which is now obsolete, are nearly synonymous.” Weber,—who might have added that this somewhat pleonastic expression was formerly a common one.)


Mistress Merrythought: But how wilt thou do, Charles? Thou art an old man, and thou canst not work, and thou hast not forty shillings left, and thou eatest good meat, and drinkest good drink, and laughest.
Merrythought: And will do.
Mistress Merrythought: But how wilt thou come by it, Charles?
Merrythought: How! Why, how have I done hitherto these forty years? I never came into my dining room, but, at eleven and [150] six o’clock, I found excellent meat and drink o’the table; … If all should fail, it is but a little straining myself extraordinary, and laugh myself to death.

(KBP, 1.4.150-1)


Mistress Merrythought: What says my white boy?

(KBP, 2.2.156; “This was a usual term of endearment at the time.” )


Mistress Merrythought: Look here, Michael; here’s a ring, and here’s a brooch, and here’s a bracelet, and here’s two rings more,

(KBP, 2.2.157)


Citizen: How likest thou this, wench?
Wife: I cannot tell; I would have Ralph, George; I’ll see no more else, indeed, la;

(KBP, 2.2.157)


Citizen: Here’s Ralph, here’s Ralph!
Wife: How do you do, Ralph? You are welcome, Ralph, as I may say: it’s a good boy, hold up thy head, and be not afraid; we are thy friends, Ralph; the gentlemen will praise thee, Ralph, if thou playest thy part with audacity.

(KBP, 2.2.157; if thou playest thy part with thy audacity:
- - / - - / - - - / - - )


Ralph: …swears revenge
Upon that recreant coward…

(KBP, 2.2.158)


George: Take courage, valiant knight, damsel, and squire!
I have discover’d, not a stone’s cast off,
An ancient castle, held by the old knight
Of the most holy order of the Bell,

(KBP, 2.4.167)


George: Who will our palfreys slick with wisps of straw,
And in the manger put them oats enough,
And never grease their teeth with candle-snuff.

(KBP, 2.7.168; And never grease teeth with candle-snuff: “A common trick of the ostlers at the time to prevent the horses from eating the hay.” Weber)


Luce: I am a woman, made of fear and love,

(KBP, 3.1.178)


Jasper: Oh, Chance, or Fortune, or whate’er thou art,
That men adore for powerful, hear my cry,
And let me loving live, or losing die!

(KBP, 3.1.179)


Ralph: Dwarf, bear my shield; squire, elevate my lance:—
And now farewell, you Knight of the holy Bell.

(KBP, 3.2.182)


Wife: George, dost think Ralph will confound the giant?
Citizen: I hold my cap to a farthing he does: why, Nell, I saw him wrestle with the great Dutchman, and hurl him.
Wife: Faith, and that Dutchman was a goodly man, if all things were answerable to his bigness.

(KBP, 3.2.185)


Citizen: Nay, prithee, Nell, chide not; for, as I am an honest man and a true Christian grocer, I do not like his doings.

(KBP, 3.5.195)


Jasper: There, my boy;
Take it, but buy no land. [Gives money
Boy: Faith, sir, ‘twere rare
To see…

(KBP, 4.1.198)


Jasper: …Stand fix’d, thou rolling stone,

(KBP, 4.1.198)


Wife: Go thy ways; thou art as cooked a sprig as ever grew in London.

(KBP, 4.1.198)


Ralph: Hold up thy snowy hand, thou princely maid!
There’s twelve-pence for your father’s chamberlain;
And another shilling for his cook,
For, by my troth, the goose was roasted well;
And twelve-pence for your father’s horse-keeper,
For ’nointing my horse-back, and for his butter
There is another shilling; to the maid
That wash’d my boot-hose there’s an English groat;
And two-pence to the boy that wip’d my boots;
And last, fair lady, there is for yourself
Three-pence, to buy you pins at Bumbo-fair.

(KBP, 4.2.203)


Ralph: The lords and ladies now abroad, for their disport and play,
Do kiss sometimes upon the grass, and sometimes in the hay;

(KBP, 4.5.214)


Venturewell: But tell me what were best for me to do?
Jasper: Repent thy deed, and satisfy my father,
And beat fond Humphrey out of thy doors.

(KBP, 5.1.216)


Ralph: Open your files, that I may take a view both of your persons and munition.—Sergeant, call a muster.
Sergeant: A stand!—William Hammerton, pewterer!
Hammerton: Here, captain!
Ralph: A corselet and a Spanish pike; ’tis well: can you shake it with a terror?

(KBP, 5.2.218-9)