Cute Kids Sell Seats (and Ideas)

Having been onstage quite a bit as a young child, I can personally attest to the idea that audiences love seeing children perform.  It doesn't even matter if the children are good at performing or not.  There is something about a cute little kid prancing around onstage that causes audible, "awwwwww's" to be heard throughout a theatre.  Children have an ability to capture an audience's attention, unlike most adult actors.  Even when children make mistakes onstage and cause a ruckus, audiences think they are cute.  When adults make mistakes onstage, however, audiences don't know whether to laugh or hold their breath.  Clearly, children evoke different emotions in audiences than adults do.

What does this mean for the boys companies that would have performed KBP and Galatea?  Quite possibly, a cast of all boys could have helped the audiences of the time buy into the ideas of the plays.  Both plays are unconventional; Galatea presents rather radical ideas about gender and sexual expression, while KBP presents a play within a play that satirizes the way theatre was done at the time.  Both of these plays have the potential to turn off an audience, but perhaps the charming children who played the roes had the power to keep their audiences' attention long enough to get the playwrights' messages across.

In the case of Galatea, two boys playing girls who are dressed up as boys could have had an entire theatre roaring with laughter.  In KBP, the boys playing the citizen and his wife could have had the potential to start the play off in a riotously humorous way.  Imagine a young boy running through the audience, distracting the player onstage and yelling, "Hold your peace, goodman boy" (p56).  Such a scene could really catch an audience off guard.  The continued childish interruptions and the insertion of a boy dressed up like a knight with a burning pestle on his shield into the production could have added to the hilariousness of it all.  Perhaps Beaumont's purpose in having children do such ridiculous things onstage was to soften the audience so that he could get his point across.

Playtime

What is it that children do best above all other things? The answer came quickly to me when I thought back on my childhood. Play of course. Children live to play, have fun, eat fruit-snacks and drink juice boxes. Now, KBP makes sense in light of this idea that children are good at playing. Think about the plot of the play, it amounts to some characters running around and basically just playing, doing what they think might be fun. When I was a child I used to pretend I was a cowboy all the time, only I didn't get to do it in a play. Whereas I used to act as a cowboy, in the play at hand the equivalent is that Rafe pretends he is a knight. Having a child traipsing about the stage pretending to be a knight would not only highlight the overall silliness of what is going on and would, in my opinion, be hilarious, but also just makes sense. On page 86 Beaumont captures fantastically how children are while they play in his depiction of Rafe being a knight. Rafe says, "My trusty dwarf and friend, reach me my shield, and hold it while I swear. First by my knighthood; then by the sould of Amadis de Gaul...then by my sword..." Having a child standing on a stage doing his best to do what he thinks knights are supposed to do, that is swearing by a whole bunch of things to be chivalrous, plays to a child's innocence. A child has the innocence that adults lose in the process of growing up, and that element makes a huge difference in how Rafe would be perceived by an audience. It is just plain cute if a child does it, but would be a little different if it were an adult. It would still be funny, but in a different way. I think I am going to go have a juice box and a PB and J and play with my roommate's dog, and somehow, that seems relevent to this post and productive to my intellectual growth.

Child’s Play: Boys’ Companies and Audience Enjoyment

Pieter Bruegel, Children's Games 1560

Our last post was all about complicating the reception of KBP as “anti-bourgeois” by seeking out affectionate, even celebratory, portrayals of community pride. This week’s mission is to sift the affective cues regarding the figure of the child. That is, your object is to recover the moods, feelings, and attitudes that the play evokes by putting the child onstage.

Boys' Company performance of Jonson’s Poetaster

Let’s take as our jumping-off point Osbourne’s claim that Nell (the Citizen's wife) regards Rafe as a child:

“Indeed, the most noticeable aspect of Nell’s behavior towards Rafe is that she treats him as a child and frequently associates him with her children.” (500)

There are a number of textual indications that Nell takes particular pleasure from the fact that the performance is really a spectacle of children at play (and to get an early modern sense of what such a spectacle could look like, see the Breughel painting). My question to you is, what is the nature of her enjoyment? How does Beaumont play up or even exploit the fact that children play his roles?

To help you to reach some conclusions, consider the following child performances:






In your post, please take up one episode from the play and discuss how it works in relation to the child’s body in performance. What sensibilities are being evoked? Cuteness? Cloyingness? Professionalism? Amateurism? Innocence? Knowingness? Take your cues from the text, then speculate to the best of your ability. Extra credit to those of you who acknowledge Lyly’s Gallatea too.

The Rise of the Common Citizen

Beaumont attacks the rising role of the middle class on several different levels. The concept that he presents “The Knight of the Burning Pestle” with great affections for the average citizen has a valid foundation. However, I feel that Beaumont does more than simply choose a side on this issue. Throughout the course of the play he manages to critique the rising influence of the middle class on a number of levels.

 

One of the most apparent factors in this play is the involvement and influence of the citizen and his wife. From the very beginning of the play, these two characters seem to interject their opinions at every crucial plot point in the play. Not only do they strongly voice their opinions, they have a direct effect on the direction the plot takes. The first, and most obvious, point Beaumont seems to be making is the rising influence of the middle class. By allowing these two citizens to have such an effect on the play and developing very few aristocratic characters, Beaumont shows the shift in his society from a dependence on the aristocracy to a stronger focus on the common individual.

 

Beaumont also addresses the rising role of women in his changing society. While still maintaining a slightly chauvinistic air (the female citizen is, after all, titled “woman”), he shows the growing influence women have in the spectrum of marriage. The wife interrupts the play quite often with her concerns, even more often than her husband. While she is portrayed as being highly emotional, her decisions are rarely questioned. Instead, the citizen seems to negotiate plot points with her until they reach a consensus on which direction the play should take.  Beaumont shows how the woman’s influence on society has grown along with that of the average citizen.

 

It seems as if Beaumont displays the new role of the average citizen as both a positive and negative transition.  In one light, Beaumont gives the audience Rafe: the common man turned noble knight on a whim. Beaumont uses Rafe to show how the new role of the average man is a positive switch. The lack of aristocratic influence to help develop the play shows how society can manage without it. On the other hand, Beaumont seems to use the citizen and wife to bring a little focus on the negative possibilities in society’s transition to the common man. The excessive influence these two characters have, gives insight into possible negative influence a new society of common people could have. Beaumont’s play seems to view this involvement quite negatively. He sheds light on the idea that, while the influence of the average person can be positive, some areas of influence are better left to those of a higher learning and perhaps even birth.

One point that I've found very interesting in reading "The Knight of the Burning Pestle" is that the citizen is never given a name. This makes it appear to the commoners that he actually stands for all of them, and he does it quite well I would say. At the beginning of the play, the citizen asks the prologue to "present something notably in honour of the commons of the city" (Induction, 57). He also requests that there be a grocer, like the citizen, and that he do "rare things" (Induction, 59). Of course the citizen is quite comical at times, but he also serves to represent the commons, and I feel as though they would have been quite pleased with this representation.

Citizens

When considering the question at hand, that is, how does Beaumont demonstrate a fondness for the average citizen, I am first drawn to think about what is admirable about his citizen characters. The affection between the citizen and his wife is unmistakable. This is laudable. They communicate openly with each other and are comfortable expressing themselves to each other in anger and in love (seen through the pet nick names). They speak to each other in accepting ways, their relationship is very unlike the relationship of Frankford and Anne, in which Anne could hardly speak in front of Frankford. The citizen and his wife are much more companions and friends than Frankford and Anne. That said, I am also drawn to one scene in particular when I think about this question. The scene is in Act 4, when Rafe meets the Lady(Pompiona). While reading this I was a bit impressed by the Lady's title, and was thinking, wow she certainly is at a higher status than Rafe. However the interesting part is that Rafe is not embarassed at all by his rank. She asks him his name and he proudly tells her that he is Rafe, the prentice to a grocer, and he is proud of it and says it with dignity. At least that is how I read it. And she responds well and even asks him if he has a lady. Really, she is digging Rafe and he is just an average citizen, well, an average citizen and a knight errant as well, so maybe he has a little extra coolness that the average citizen doesnt which helps him out here.

Citizen's Theater

The Knight of the Burning Pestle is set up much like Norden's map with the citizenry framing the play. In the very beginning the people object to the original play because it does not cater to them enough so they start to invent their own drama. I can see that this play could have had the lines of two different dramas and the commentary, but not let the two dramas meet. In this way they could appear to cater to the middle class but still put on a serious/good show. This is similar to when theaters put on a serious show and then an interlude of bawd or gore to appease the lower class. However The Knight of the Burning Pestle lets the two sections of story, the original and the one invented by the citizenry to meet and interact with each other, presumably changing the original story. I think that this is a very big tell-tale that it is a creation to truly explore this middle class interest in theater and give them something they want, not just throw them a bone of "interlude".
The citizens siding with Humphrey is interesting because he is of a higher class than Jasper. I think this could be the part of the story that actually makes fun of the citizens or maybe Beaumont just really had something against star-crossed lovers and thought his middle class would be practical enough to see it just wouldn't work out in the end.

Though clearly a parody of the emerging middle class, "The Knight of the Burning Pestle" is far from a condemnation of it. Through both their actions and their attitude, Beaumont frames the Citizen and his wife as ultimately sympathetic characters, creating a vision of the future middle-class dominated culture as a positive one, albeit with many foibles.
Throughout the work, the Citizens constantly interrupt the action, make themselves the center of attention, and inflict the most hackneyed, derivative plots on the players. And yet, never with malicious intent. Though undoubtedly annoying, the Citizen and his Wife have no intention of harming the play, rather they want to improve it. In fact, in commandeering the players they act out every audience member's fantasy: they get the play they want (and, let's be honest, the existing plot was rather derivative to begin with). In "Burning Pestle" it is made clear that the middle class is in charge, but for such a supposed "anti-bourgeois" work they seem to bring an awful lot of positivity to the proceedings.
The best example of the positive nature of the Citizens' meddling comes in Act III. Rafe, unable to pay a bill, is threatened with arrest. The Citizen leaps into action, leaving his seat, implicating himself directly into the scene, and paying Rafe's bill, stating to the Host: "Have you anything to say to Rafe now? Cap Rafe?" To which his Wife adds: "I would you know it, Rafe has friends that will not suffer him to be capped for ten times so much, and ten times to the end of that" (III, 178-183). The message is clear: The middle class looks out for their friends and underlings. Sure the middle class is bumbling and self obsessed, Beaumont seems to be saying, but they're nothing to be worried about.

Setting the Stage

In the [editor's] introduction, the editor sums up the point of the play in just a few sentences. However, it is not just the point of the play that is being revealed, whether how the play functions as a satirical piece as well as portraying “the citizens’ over-blown pride in their craft, city, and country.” He says that this play is “a parody of the uncritical patriotism celebrated in plays from the public theatre.” Looking at the map of London, it is simple to identify the changing of the times. London’s population was growing at a rapid rate, thus there was an abundance of “citizenry” jobs needed in order to accommodate this growth. Instead of the aristocrats being the only celebrated ones in the city, the common people were being recognized as a very important aspect of the city. One act that solidifies this very notion is when the grocer brings his wife to the side of the stage to sit with him-which is in violation of decorum. Even though this is just the opening of the play, it sets the tone for the entire play. The citizen says "Why, present something notably in honour of the commons of the city." The grocer makes a very valid point-protesting that if the common people are in fact the ones spending money on these plays, why not have a play to glorify the commoner? After all, it was the commoners who made London possible as a booming and thriving city. This act of rebellion is key to the entire play, which in itself functions to shed light on the citizens.

A play for the citizens-the aristocrats stayed home

The Knight of the Burning Pestle is a tribute to the common man and his trade. The citizen wanted to see a play “in honour of the commons of the city (Prologue 25-26)” and Beaumont delivers exactly that. If the actors are played by young boys, we can assume that there is a certain sense that the action of the play will not be as realistic as if it were played by adults. These young boys would not have had the skill set to meet the impromptu acting demands set on them by The Citizen and his Wife if this impromptu performance change we see in the play were real. We see Beaumont promote this absurdity by having the wife continually prescribe and intervene for the “health” of the children. “…withal carry him this stick of liquorice. Tell him his mistress sent it him, and bid him bite a piece; ‘twill open his pipes the better, say. (Act 1 69-72)” Almost all of the “real” action of the play surrounds the children attempting to meet the demands of the Citizen and Wife and the professions of the common man being presented in absurdity. This is a play about common people for common people. It’s strange to me to see such a blatant attempt at audience participation scripted directly into a play this early in history. I can imagine how easily this play could have flopped, having thrown all normal convention out of the door. Beaumont was beholden to his audience to either “participate” and enjoy the performance or look at it as a deviation from “normal plays” and try to look at it critically. History points to the more critical reception of the play and it can be easy to understand considering the way Beaumont sets the theatre itself on its head and not just the play being performed. If the Citizen and the Wife are to come on stage, sit and begin to direct-Where do the aristocrats who paid for seating on the stage as a means of show “fit in”. How uncomfortable would it be as a high paying customer to sit next to or even across from the Wife and Citizen? How might an aristocrat react to being put on display with the likes of the “common” Grocer and Citizen?

Though Beaumont's Knight of the Burning Pestle is often read as a critique of the middle classes of early modern England, there are many points in the play that point to the exact opposite.  Rather than critiquing the middling class, one could argue that Beaumont is celebrating the city of London and its citizens by examining his treatment of the Citizen and his Wife, as well as their apprentice, Rafe.

Beaumont places the Citizen and his Wife on the stage, and allows them to comment, interrupt and intercede with the action of the play being performed for them, The London Merchant.  By placing the Citizen and his Wife on the stage (a position customarily reserved for the aristocracy), Beaumont symbolically places them above everyone else, including the aristocracy.  Also, he gives them a voice.  The Wife in particular, is constantly interrupting the story of Jasper and Luce and even Rafe with her opinions, disagreements, and even some of her herblore.  And though the Wife's constant intervention may initially appear annoying, one cannot ignore how funny, and ultimately, endearing she and her husband are.  Often times, they are the funniest part of this whacky play, interrupting with comments such as "Faith, the child hath a sweet breath, George, but I think it be troubled with the worms.  Carduus benedictus and mare's milk were the only thing in the world for't" that often had me roaring with laughter (Act III, 308-310).  Furthermore, the Citizen and his Wife order the players around, almost serving as directors, suiting the play to their particular tastes.  When they do not wish to see a particular character, they order him off, such as when they send off Mistress Merrythought before she even begins to speak.  The fact that their directions are attended further upholds them in a position of power.

Another specific moment within the play where one could very well argue that Beaumont is upholding London and its middle class is Rafe's rejection of the princess Cracovia, in favor of his love at home.  When he arrives in Cracovia, he emphasizes his Englishness, as well as his "middlingness" proclaiming, "I am an Englishman, as true as steel, a hearty Englishman, and prentice to a grocer in the Strand," differentiating himself from the Cracovians (Act IV, 71-73).  When the Princess of Cracovia offers herself to him, he declares, "I am a knight of religious order, and will not wear a favour of a lady's that trusts in Antichrist and false traditions... Besides, I have a lady of my own in merry England... a cobbler's maid in Milk Street whom I vow never to forsake whilst life and pestle last," (Act IV 92-94, 96-100)  Rafe, and so it seems Beaumont, upholds England and resists foreignness.  Rafe is dutifully tied to his England, and to his middling class.  He cannot forsake England anymore than he can forsake his simple love, the daughter of a cobbler.  Indeed, even the Citizen and his Wife resist foreignness, giving Rafe money to give to the King of Cracovia, so he is not "beholden" to him, but rather, to stand alone, a proud representative of England and all that is English.

I think a key part of Beaumont’s play, especially when considering the attitudes of The Knight of the Burning Pestle toward the citizenry, are the characters of the grocer and his wife. While the interpretation that the role these characters play demonstrates an affection toward the middling class is a valid argument, I don’t necessarily agree with this viewpoint. I think that what is more likely is that Beaumont’s critical use of these characters reveals a slightly different idea—that these characters show the rising importance of the middling class in the early modern period. The grocer and his wife together both interject in the middle of the play to make dramatic changes in the plotline, object to what is already going on, and make various demands. For instance, the entire induction is the grocer and his wife deciding which play they would rather see performed. The grocer even requests a play that should be done “notably in the honour of the commons [freemen] of the city.” (Induction, lines 25-26) He is using his power, within the play (a sort of “metatheater”), to make the play more about something he (a middling man) feels is important: the “commons of the city.” Beaumont gives such power to these characters, allowing them to create this metatheater experience, and this control is an excellent example of the rise of the middling class. One might assume that this power within the play is representative of a power these kinds of citizens were beginning to gain in the early modern period. As discussed in class, members of the audience sometimes sat on the stage itself, which was a flaunting of wealth and power. Because Beaumont allows for the grocer and his wife to sit onstage, one can assume that likewise, these characters—the middling class—finally have a bit of wealth and power.

Theatre Of the People, By the People, For the People

Although Beaumont subjects the public to his unblinking criticism, he still dedicates a substantial portion of Knight to a populist uprising in their honor. The play opens with a member of the theatre status quo delivering the play’s prologue: “From all that’s near the court, from all that’s great/ within the compass of the city walls, / We now have brought our scene” (Prologue 1-3). These are words that we as readers should not take lightly as they are certainly not taken lightly by one member of the theatre-going citizenry.

The Citizen (it’s interesting that he isn’t given a name, but only the title of ‘citizen’) takes these words literally and, considering himself part of ‘all that’s great within the city walls,’ answers the call of the stage. He stands up to the actor and demands that the theatre, “present something notably in honour of the commons of the city” (Prologue 25-26). The actor resists his initial attempts to take control of the play, but eventually surrenders power and retreats into insulting puns that go over the head of the common Citizen.

The Citizen’s coup illustrates the growing influence of London’s new middle class. The Prologue scene can be read as a parable about the middle class laying claim to the theatre and taking (quite literally in the seats on stage) the throne of power once held by the aristocracy.

It's hard to express a joke in written form and it's even harder to convey a delicate combination of affection and irony without an actual voice behind it. Interpreting the precise tone Beaumont intended is a real problem readers face when reading The Knight of the Burning Pestle.

Are the Citizen and his wife's an early incarnation of the two old guys on The Muppet Show or are they rather the Christopher Sly-esque characters [from The Taming of the Shrew] that are mocked and paraded about with the intent to humiliate their real-life equivalents?

It's possible Beaumont truly enjoys the foibles of the well-meaning but utterly clueless middle class representations he embeds in his play. The Citizen and his wife are perhaps most affectionately depicted at the very end of the play. As the Citizen tries to chivvy his wife out the door, the actor playing her turns to the audience and addresses them: “I thank you all, gentlemen, for your patience and countenance to Rafe… I thank you with all my heart. G-d give you good night. – Come George,” (5.3-4, 10-12). The wife teases the audience, jokes with them, even winks at them – her character is simply too much fun to be an outright mean-spirited caricature. Her eagerness to direct the action of the play is something that audiences could relate to – endearing because she mirrors them.

Likewise, her husband’s affection and care for Rafe seems unfeigned and exceptional. To Rafe he says, “Hark you, Rafe, do not strain yourself too much at the first,” (1.213-214). This is, according to the plot and the traditions of the time, a boy who would have lived in his house with the Citizen and his wife, learning the trade of a grocer as the Citizen’s apprentice. Clearly, in the relationship that is depicted here, Rafe is like a son to this couple. They are proud of him, delight in him, and still treat him like the child he is – and was played by.

A Tell-Tale Love of Citizenry

The very fact that Beaumont uses a Citizen, and, in fact, a grocer, as the person sitting on the stage and disrupting the play seems to indicate that “The Knight of the Burning Pestle” can be read in two different ways: anti-bourgeois and citizen-loving. In once sense Beaumont is presenting a very satirical drama by having two people sitting on the stage, interrupting the play, and making comments about the play; however, he uses common people in this representation. What I would like to suggest is that Beaumont was trying to indicate a sense of affection for the “middling” people. The dialogue used between the Citizen and his Wife seems to imply that they are in a very loving and affectionate relationship; this is a very positive representation of the middle class (the common people).
Furthermore, the Citizen and his Wife are very concerned with honoring the common people. When the Citizen states, “I will have Rafe do a very notable matter now, to the eternal honour and glory of all grocers,” Beaumont seems to place an emphasis on the fact that the “middling” people should be honoured in the plays instead of the upper class or bourgeois (int. IV, ln. 4-5). This line from the play indicates to me that Beaumont might not be an elitist but, rather, focused on bringing all groups of people up. From using “common” people to push the play forward to wanting to honor the “middling” people (the grocers and the workers), Beaumont is using this play to reveal his affection for the citizenry.

Respectable Citizens

Although many argue that Beaumont uses the Citizen and his Wife to critique London’s audiences, these two obnoxious, yet highly symbolic, characters represent the growing respect for London citizenry. Beaumont places the Citizen and his Wife directly on stage, allowing them to place input and commentary on the actions occurring in the play. This seat on stage is normally reserved for high class and wealthy aristocrats. This simple, but insightful, difference clues the reader into the elevated status Beaumont grants these citizens.

Even the character Rafe depicts and portrays in the play demonstrates how everyday normal citizens are respected in The Knight of the Burning Pestle. Rafe, the apprentice to the Citizen, acts out the part of the knight, and although the character seems silly and quite obvious, his actions are noble and sincere.

In Act III, readers witness Rafe’s greatest victory yet, the triumph and fight with the giant, Barber. In a particular scene right before Rafe fights the Barber, the Citizen and Wife stop the appearance of Mistress Merrythought to the stage. Not only in this scene do Citizen and Wife seem to control the order of the scenes, but they are genuinely concerned with the giant and his effect on his victims, for the Wife says, “Mistress Merrythought, if it please you to refrain your passion a little till Rafe have dispatched the giant out of the way, we shall think ourselves much bound to you” (page 115, Lines 290-292). Although their interference seems unnecessary, for the play or characters are not real or harmful, this concern of the citizens says a lot of their character as people. They both are constantly worried about Rafe throughout the play, especially during the giant scene. Beaumont undoubtedly sketches a realistic portrait of the London citizen in The Knight of the Burning Pestle. He gives more raw emotion and feeling to the citizens, making them both more relatable and charming than an aristocratic character.

“Plot me no Plots”: The Theatre as Local Pride

In our previous posts on Galatea and AWKK, we discussed the ways those plays complicate our understanding of early modern English constructs of gender, patriarchy and class by holding up to view unexpected kinds of affective relations—romantic, familial, hierarchical (between masters and servants, for instance) etc. As Orlin and Bynum argue, these work of performed fiction give us a new vantage on everyday life in bygone ages. As we work through The Knight of the Burning Pestle, one way of getting past the habitual (and limiting) reading of the play as anti-bourgeois satire is to ponder its tendency to hail the “everyday” world that exists outside of the dramatic plot, and the affection with which it does so.  

The contrast I am after is basically this: while critics tend to chalk up the Citizens’ interruptions of The London Merchant to Beaumont’s disdain for his audience’s tastes, we shouldn’t overlook the way that these moments celebrate the everyday life of average Londoners. The Morris Dance in Interlude IV is one example of the way Beaumont indulges in “something done for the honor of the city” and the pleasure of its multitude (Interlude IV, 15-6).

William Kempe (a famous comic player) dancing the morris, from a woodcut frontispiece in his book Kempe’s Nine Days’ Wonder, 1600.

We can put this civic-mindedness in context: in John Norden’s 1653 Map of London, notice the coats of arms representing particular guilds (including the grocers) that frame the layout of the streets. Historically, maps would be marked by the insignia of royal or aristocratic patrons. But London in the early modern period is increasingly becoming a site framed by the citizenry. Tradespeople and men and women in service (like Rafe and his sweetheart, Susan) are the folk who avail themselves of London's services and who inhabit its streets, churches, theatres, and households. They are the community that constitutes--in a roughly egalitarian way--and embodies the city. 


For this prompt, I want you to think about how the play, like Norden's map, represents the nation’s capital to favor and please the middling sort. Your job is to find specific evidence for the argument that despite its elitist reputation, The Knight of the Burning Pestle reserves its greatest affections for the City and the citizenry. (Of course, well-supported counter-arguments are welcome, too). Note: the best kind of proof usually comes in the form of either 1) a subtle reading of a big moment or 2) a provocative extrapolation from a telling detail. 

"Let Rafe come out on May Day in the morning" (Interlude 4.2)

A Morris hobby-horse. Not to be confused with the pantomime horse:

"my horse's back is sorely galled" (4.66)--an indication of some fun horse-play in 

The Knight of the Burning Pestle?

Despite the Puritan hatred for it, the Morris dance continues, particularly in former colonies of the UK. Above is a Torontonian Morris troupe. 

From Charles Knight, Old England: A Pictorial Museum, 1845.

The Morris Dance, the hobby-horse, and a dragon for Saint George (as Janelle pointed out).

The Ballad Culture

"A pleasant new ballad of Tobias wherin is shewed: the wonderfull things which chanced to him in his youth; and how he wedded a young damsell that had had seven husbands and never enjoyed their company: who were all slaine by a wicked spirit." Printed at London : for F. Coules dwelling in the Old-Baily, [ca. 1640]

Ballads are a variety of cheap print that feature gossip, scandalous 'newes' (often of criminals executed) and proverbs set out in object lessons, usually about the conduct of wives, husbands and widows. Merrythought constantly sings snatches from popular songs of this type. 

The Romance Tradition

One of Walter Craine's 19th century illustrations for Spenser's The Fairie Queen

Britomart is an allegorical figuration of Queen Elizabeth: a representation of 

chastity as a heroic, martial virtue. 

Title page of a 1533 edition of Amadis de Gaul, a popular work of knight-errantry featuring a battle with a noxious-smelling giant and a lot of mooning over the princess Oriana. See 2.2.122.