VOOZH about

URL: https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/gallant.3794453/

⇱ gallant | WordReference Forums

Menu
Install the app
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.

gallant

mariana79

Senior Member
Farsi
Hi
In the play "White Devil' by John Webster, there is this part where Zanche suspects that Flamineo has a mistress, so tells him about it: ( Ay, your love to me rather cools than heats.) to which Flamineo answers: ( Marry, I am the sounder lover; we have many wenches about the town heat too fast.) Then Flamineo's friend, Hortentio, says: ( What do you think of these perfumed gallants, then?) and Flamineo replies:
Their satin cannot save them: I am confident
They have a certain spice of the disease;
For they that sleep with dogs shall rise with fleas.

My question is: who are "these perfumed gallants"? Does it refer to the wenches? or the perfumed satin-wearing men who are after these wenches? Gallant is a man, not a woman, am I right?
Yes, the gallants are men. And the world was a much stinkier place then, so the men at court could be perfumed as well as the women.
I think it means the women. The OED gives a definition of gallant – obsolete, but in use in Webster’s day – as: a fashionably attired beauty.
I think it means the women. The OED gives a definition of gallant – obsolete, but in use in Webster’s day – as: a fashionably attired beauty.
Exactly. I do not know how to read it. But later, it talks about courtiers saying: "I would have courtiers be better diners." meaning i hope our courtiers would go after a food available to them, not some shadow of a food.
👁 Confused :confused:
I don’t see what that has to do with it?

I may well be wrong, but I’m reading it like this:

Marry, I am the sounder lover; we have many wenches about the town heat too fast.​
(Then Flamineo's friend, Hortentio, says👁 Smile :)
​
What do you think of these perfumed gallants, then?​
Back
Top Bottom