The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 11.0287  Thursday, 10 February 2000.

[1]     From:   Alexander Houck <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Wednesday, 09 Feb 2000 13:50:53 -0800
        Subj:   SHK 11.0276 Re: Money and Prostitution

[2]     From:   Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Wednesday, 09 Feb 2000 19:08:09 -0500
        Subj:   Re: SHK 11.0276 Re: Money and Prostitution


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Alexander Houck <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Wednesday, 09 Feb 2000 13:50:53 -0800
Subject: Re: Money and Prostitution
Comment:        SHK 11.0276 Re: Money and Prostitution

This talk of money in Shakespeare and how it translates to modern times
has reminded me of a scene in The Winter's Tale.  We're still in the
rehearsal process, so inquiries are still being made to the meaning of
certain phrases.  Act 4 Sc. 3 has caught my eye in this vein of money
not only because Autolicus steals the Clowne's money, but because of a
certain phrase in the Clowne's grocery list speech. According to Neil
Freeman's First Folio version, the section in question is as follows:

I cannot do't without Compters.  Let mee see,
what am I to buy for our Sheep-shearing-Feast? Three
pound of sugar, five pound of Currence, Rice: What
will this sister of mine do with rice?  (WT IV.3.40-45)

I am curious about the term "Currence".  I looked it up in the Schmidt
Lexicon and was unable to find a reference.  Is it a reference to
currency?  If so, this could help in supplying a form of comparison in
the form of the price of sugar of then and now.

Alex Houck
Santa Clara University

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Wednesday, 09 Feb 2000 19:08:09 -0500
Subject: 11.0276 Re: Money and Prostitution
Comment:        Re: SHK 11.0276 Re: Money and Prostitution

Clifford Stener wrote

>Just where, I'd like to know, is any
>conspiracy so much as implied in my purely statistical account of the
>recent history of prostitution prices in New York?

Sorry Cliff.  I thought a conspiracy theory was fairly implied in your
last post.

>I suppose it comes naturally to a fan of Giulianni to toss accusations
>of hysterical paranoia around to avoid the acknowledgement of the
>fundamentally conspiratorial nature of capitalist interests

Thank you for now making it explicit.

>Such measures were always aimed at ridding certain neighborhoods of
>their unaesthetic features like prostitutes, drug addicts, and the
>homeless, and were always timed to coincide with that neighborhood's
>becoming desirable real estate.  <snip>.  There were people selling heroin
>on the street of
>Alphabet City since the days of William Borroughs until the trendy set
>started eying the shooting galleries for their loft space.  Now you can
>stroll around with your family

Who doesn't have nostalgia for the good old days; but what has any of
this got to do with Shakespeare?

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