Lowlife character Quotes

Question 1

Lucio calls Madam Overdone

‘Madam…

Answer 1

Mitigation.’

Madam as a prostitute and she helps to mitigate the pangs of desire. A mock title

Question 2

Lucio about Madam Overdon

‘I have purchased many …

Answer 2

diseases under her roof’

STI’s a big problem at this time, spread though prostitutes

Question 3

Madam Overdone and Pompey having a conversation about Claudio

MO: Well what has he done?
P: A woman.
MO: But what’s his offence
P: Groping for trouts in a peculiar river
MO: What is there a maid with child by him?
P: No, but there’s a woman with maid by him.

Answer 3

Pompey- sexual jokes

Question 4

Pompey

‘All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be …

Answer 4

plucked down.’

This mimics a law James 1 put out but that was to stop plague not prostitution

Question 5

How does Lucio greet Isabella?

Answer 5

‘Hail, virgin, if you be_ as those cheek-roses proclaim you are no less’

inappropriate to a nun, sexual Lucio

Question 6

When Lucio how does he assure her he is not messing around? (lapwings and saints)

Answer 6

’ ‘tis my familiar sin to seem the lapwing and to jest, tongue far from heart, play with all virgins so. I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted, By your renouncement an immortal spirit, And to be talked with in sincerity, As with a saint.’

lapwings and proverbial for deceit and hypocrisy as they can deceive predators

Question 7

what lewd joke does Lucio make about Claudio impregnating Julietta?

Answer 7

‘her plenteous womb expresses his full tilth and husbandry’
using farming metaphors, tilth means ploughing (sexual connotations. husbandry is a play on words, means both cultivation of soil and behaviour of a husband

Question 8

What does Lucio say about Liberty with mice and lions?

Answer 8

‘liberty, which have for long run by the hideous law as mice by lions.;

Question 9

What does Lucio say about Angelo making Claudio an example?

Answer 9

Angelo ‘follows close the rigour of the statute to make him an example’

Question 10

What does Lucio say to convince Isabella to go to Angelo?

Answer 10

’ when maidens sue Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel All their petitions are freely theirs.’

Question 11

What Elbow quote is a good example of misplacing?

Answer 11

Elbow: I bring in here before your honour two notorious benefactors.

Angelo: Benefactors? Well, what benefactors are they? Are they not malefactors?

Question 12

What joke does Pompey make about stewed prunes?

Answer 12

says Elbow’s wife is ‘longing’ for ‘stewed prunes’

stewed prunes were recommended to those who suffered venerial disease and were often served at brothels. This joke suggests Madam Overdone’s hot house is a brothel but also jokes that Elbows wife uses brothels or is a prostitute.

Question 13

How does Elbow misplace using the word suspect?

Answer 13

mixes it for respect

‘the house is a respected house; next. this is a respected fellow, and his mistress is a respected woman.’

Question 14

What does Pompey accuse Elbow of?

What does Elbow call him in response?

Answer 14

pre-nuptial fornication

‘she was respected with him, before he married her.’

‘caitiff’ and ‘wicked Hannibal’ (mistaken for cannibal.)

Question 15

Why is Madam Overdone called her name?

Answer 15

overdone could mean sexually exhausted

overdone also means ‘carried to excess’ so could refer to her many marriages

Question 16

What does Pompey say to Escalus about the new strict laws against fornication?

Answer 16

‘Does your worship mean to geld and splay all the youth of the city?’
- suggests ending fornication is impossible unless everyone is castrated

'’If this law hold in Vienna ten year, I’ll rent the fairest house in it after three pence a bay.’
-suggests everyone will leave the city if these laws hold. and thus renting the houses is going to be ridiculously cheap.

Question 17

What does Pompey say to Escalus about the lawfulness of being a bawd?

Answer 17

Escalus: ‘What do you think of the trade Pompey? Is a lawful trade?’

Pompey: ‘If the law would allow it, sir.’

sees the law as something flexible and bending

Question 18

What is Elbow’s mistake about Pompey’s ‘strange picklock

Answer 18

Elbow naively assumes that Pomey is a thief due to this picklock but in fact it is a lock to pick chastity belts intended to prevent women from being unfaithful

Question 19

What does the Friar say Pomepy is and what does he tell him to do?

Answer 19

‘A bawd, a wicked bawd!’

‘Go mend, go med.’ - reform himself

Question 20

What joke does Pompey make about Madam Overdone becoming a prostitute again?

Answer 20

‘she hath eaten up all her beef, and she is herself in the tub.’

beef- meat, referring to prostitutes, all the other prostitutes in her establishment are used up or worn out

tub is the barrel in which beef is stored but also refers to a tub used to treat venereal disease

Question 21

How does Lucio describe Pompey’s bawd activities?

Answer 21

’ Bawd he is doubtless and of antiquity too.’

Question 22

What joke does Lucio make about Pompey being imprisoned?

Answer 22

‘I will pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage; if you take it not patiently, why, your mettle is the more.’

play of the Elizabethan mettle/metal ambiguity. a) you will show your courage more clearly b) you will receive more metal in the form of shackles

Question 23

What does Lucio say about the Duke leaving? to the Friar

Answer 23

Lucio: ‘It was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from the state, and usurp the beggary he was never born to. Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence, he puts transgression to’t’ (He sees the way the Duke left Vienna as unfitting for his high birth, despises the Duke for this)

Friar: He does well in’t

Lucio: ‘A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in him. Something too crabbed in that way, Friar’ (too harsh and severe)

Friar: It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it.(The Duke sees severity as the only way

Question 24

What is the prostitute called that Lucio gets pregnant, promises to marry, but doesn’t?

Answer 24

Kate Keepdown

this is a pun, she keeps on lying down

Question 25

What does the name Abhorson mean?

Answer 25

portmanteau word combining abhor and whoreson

this shows the repulsion with which executioners were treated

Question 26

How does Pompey joke about the way Abhorson looks?

Answer 26

‘you have a hanging look.’

grim appearance but also a joke on his profession

Question 27

How does Pompey joke about executing Abhorson?

Answer 27

‘if you have occasion to use me for your own turn, you shall find me yare. For truly, sir, for your kindness I owe you a good turn.’

yare- prepared

Question 28

How is Barnadine described by the Provost

Answer 28

‘Drunk many times a day, if not many days entirely drunk.’

not great in a prison

Question 29

What jokes does Pompey make about the people he sees in prison who used to frequent the brothel?

Answer 29

allegorical name types

Master Rash- cocky and hasty

Master Dizzy - mentally confused

Master Deep Vow- a lover who swears fidelity to his mistresses

Question 30

How does Barnadine argue he is not ready of death?

Answer 30

‘I have been drinking all night, I am not fitted for it.’

’ I will not consent to die this day, that’s certain.’

the Duke: ‘Unfit to live or die, O gravel heart.’
-sad heart

Duke ‘ A creature unprepared, unmeet for death, And to transport him in the mind he is were damnable.’

Question 31

How does the provost describe Ragozine?

Answer 31

‘a most notorious pirate.’

Question 32

How does Lucio describe the prostitute he got pregnant?

Answer 32

‘I was fain to foreswear it. They would else have married me to the rotten medlar.’

rotten medlar- rotten fruit, medlar fruit not edible until it has decayed to a soft pulpy state.

Question 33

What joke does Lucio make when Mariana says she is neither maid nor married?

Answer 33

( to the Duke)
‘My lord, she may be a punk, for many of them are neither maid nor widow nor wife.’

punk- prostitute

Question 34

How does Lucio say the hood does not make the monk? why is this ironic?

Answer 34

Cucullus non facit monachum

he is referring to the Duke but thinks that the Friar is evil and bad he lies saying the Friar ‘hath spoke most villainous speeches of the Duke.’

Question 35

When the Duke is being the friar in Act 5 What does Lucio accuse the friar of having said?

Answer 35

‘And was the Duke a fleshmonger, a fool, a coward, as you then reported him to be?

Duke: You must, sir, change persons with me, ere you make that my report

Question 36

When the Duke is going to take off his cloak what does Lucio say?

Answer 36

’ Show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour.’

a dog who bites or worries sheep, figuratively sneaking and thieving

dogs who worried sheep were hanged

sheep-biting is also one who ruins after mutton and thus prostitures

Question 37

What does Lucio remark aside when the Duke reveals himself as the Friar?

Answer 37

‘This may prove worse than hanging.’

Question 38

What does the Duke initially say will be Lucio’s punishment for slander?

Answer 38

‘Whom he before with child- let her appear, And he shall marry her. The nuptial finished, let him be whipped and hanged.’

James 1 hated slander

Question 39

How does Lucio react to being forced to marry Kate Keepdown?

Answer 39

‘Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping and hanging.’

Duke: ‘slandering a prince deserves it’