Shakespeare Electronic Conference, SHK 8.0144. Wednesday, 29 January 1997.
(1) From: Patricia Southard Gourlay <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 28 Jan 1997 11:38:57 -0400 (EDT)
Subj: Re: SHK 8.0122 Q: A Very Drab
(2) From: Don Foster <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 28 Jan 1997 15:23:00 -0500 (EST)
Subj: Re: SHK 8.0122 Q: A Very Drab
(1)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Patricia Southard Gourlay <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 28 Jan 1997 11:38:57 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: 8.0122 Q: A Very Drab
Comment: Re: SHK 8.0122 Q: A Very Drab
The whore has no power or status, and no way to respond to wrongs (like abuse
or= being cheated?) except by screaming and cursing. Hamelt could be expressing
both self-contempt and his sense of helplessness.
(2)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Don Foster <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 28 Jan 1997 15:23:00 -0500 (EST)
Subject: 8.0122 Q: A Very Drab
Comment: Re: SHK 8.0122 Q: A Very Drab
Re: Diana Smith's query.
cf.
"...get thee hence, and pack like a lout.
*Huf.* Adieu like a whore." <T. Preston, *Cambises* [1570?]
"Pack, counterfeit, pack away, dissembling drab!" T. Heywood, *Edward IV*,
pt. 2 (pub. 1599);
Prostitutes were (1) forever forced to push off, to change their place of
residence, depending on available houses (hence, in part, pack/unpack/pack
away); (2) and (more importantly here) whores were proverbially temperatmental
shrill of tongue when upset. Needless to say, Hamlet is having some anxieties
about his masculinity--having a self overfull of words but evidently lacking in
potent virtu. (Branagh, no Coleridgian thinker or Nietzchean seer, has
remedied that with a Hamlet chock-full of transcendent masculinity.)
As for the question of what a male or female whore or drab is "like," here are
a few representative remarks by male authors:
"*Conscience*. What, Lucar, thou lookest like a whore full of deadly hate."
<Robert Wilson, *The Three Ladies of London* (1584)>
"like a whore in changeable array, / With painted cheeks / And coral lips,..."
<Thomas Moffet, *The Silkeworms and their Flies* (1599)>
"I came running to see them, who like a whore spoils every good thing that
comes into his hand." <T.Dekker, *If It be Not Good* (1612)>
Middleton has a satirical account of an encounter with a gorgeous and
effeminate cross-dressed male drab. See "Ingling Pyander," in T.M., *Six
Snarling Satires* (1599). Also of interest: John Taylor's, "A Comparison
betwixt a Whore and a Book."
Don Foster