Hung up my picture in a market place,
And sold me to vile bawds.
Scene 3. Page 540.
Bawd. ... to scatter his crowns in the sun.
"There is here," says Mr. Malone, "perhaps, some allusion to the lues venerea, though the words French crowns in their literal acceptation were certainly also in Boult's thoughts." Mr. Mason sees no allusion whatever to the above disease. That a French crown did signify the lues venerea cannot be doubted; but Mr. Mason's difference of opinion might be further supported by reflecting that if the Frenchman came to renovate[18] his malady, he could not well be said to scatter it. It must therefore be inferred that he was to scatter nothing but his money. As Mr. Mason has not favoured us with an explanation of the coins in question, it is necessary to state that they were crowns of the sun specifically so called, écus du soleil; and in this instance, for the sake of antithesis, termed crowns in the sun. They were of gold, originally coined by Louis XI. Their name was derived from the mint mark of a sun; and they were current in this kingdom by weight, in the same manner as certain English coins were in France.
Scene 3. Page 541.
Boult. ... we should lodge them with this sign.
This sign is properly referred by Mr. Malone to the person of Marina, and cannot, for the reasons in the last note, allude to the sun, according to Mr. Mason's second explanation. Nor is this gentleman's argument supported by the instance adduced of the sun having been used as the sign of a brothel. It was by no means exclusively, or even particularly so. The following passage from Dekker's Villanies discovered, or the belman's night walks, may throw some light on the subject before us. "He saw the doores of notorious carted bawdes (like hell gates) stand night and day wide open, with a paire of harlots in taffata gownes (like two painted posts) garnishing out those doores, being better to the house then a double signe."
Scene 6. Page 567.
Mar. Thou 'rt the damn'd door-keeper to every coystrel
That hither comes enquiring for his tib.