Set at Maw, The

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Historical Records

Performance Records

Playlists in Philip Henslowe's diary

Fol. 10^v (Greg, I.20)

ye 14 of decembʒ 1594

. . . ne . . .

Res at the maw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

xxxxiiijs

Fol. 11 (Greg, I.21)

ye 2 of Jenewary 1594	. . . . . . . . .	Res at the seat at mawe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	xxiiijs
ye 17 of Jenewary 1594		Res at the mawe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	xxvs
ye 28 of Jenewary 1594		Res at the mawe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	xxvijs

Theatrical Provenance

"The Set at Maw" belonged to the Admiral's men in the winter of 1594-5, when the company was playing at the Rose. It appears nowhere else in extant theater records.

Probable Genre(s)

Harbage suggested that the play was a comedy.

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

See For What It's Worth, below.

References to the Play

None known.

Critical Commentary

Malone commented that "maw" was a game of cards, and he read the second entry of the play title as "seut, i.e., "suit" (p. 296, n.4). He also identified "The Mack" as a play entitled for a "game at cards" (p. 296, n.5).

Collier agreed about the title of "Set at Maw" as indicating a card game but rejected Malone's reading of the second entry in the manuscript as "seut" (p. 47, n.1). He agreed also that "The Mack" referred to a card game, and he conjectured that it "was perhaps written in consequence of the success of the Maw, already many times represented" (p. 49, n. 3).

Fleay, BCED [#61, 1.132-3) believed that Thomas Dekker's Match me in London (1630) belonged to 1611 and that it was "pretty clearly an alteration of The Set at Maw" because of its play on the language of card games (shuffling, dealing, cutting the cards, turning up a "Court card").

Greg II (#63, p. 172) took seriously Fleay's lumping of "The Set at Maw" with Thomas Dekker's Match me in London on the basis of its allusions to cards and "one specific reference to the game of maw." However, he couldn't find additional evidence to support the connection. He considered evidence of revision in the later play too slight to be persuasive, and he deemed the argument that the "Maw" play could have traveled with Dekker to Queen Anna's men more than a decade later to be irrelevant.

Gurr, crediting John Astington for the information, notes that "[t]he word 'mawe' inexplicably" appears in the description of a costume in Philip Henslowe's inventory of various suits" "'j mawe gowne of calleco...' (Greg, Papers, APX. I, art. 1, p. 115, l. 31)." Gurr does not link that costume to "The Set at Maw," however.

Wiggins, Catalogue (#977) likens the game of Maw to cribbage. He notes that a "set" at Maw was five tricks (which he impishly likens to "the traditional five acts of a play"). He suggests further that the action might have imitated in some ways the playing of the "maw" game "in which the knave could trump the king or queen, while in turn the five, sometimes associated with a hand's five fingers, could trump the knave."

For What It's Worth

Friend of the LPD, Cassidy Cash, volunteers that a ballad, The Groome-porter's Lawes, outlines the official rules of the game: (EBBA #37082).

The Groome-porters lawes

at Mawe, to be observed in fulfilling the

due orders of the Game.

1. If you change hands, it is the losse of the Set,

2. If you renounce, it is the losse of the Set,

3. If you leade when your Mate shoulde, it is the loss of that game and vied cardes.

4. If you lose Dealing, it is the losse of fower cardes, but if the loser of the dealing deale not againe, you acquire the fower, and no gain to either of both parties.

5. If you look either on ye asked carde, or the bottom carde, it is the losse of that game and vied cardes, in whom the fault is found.

6. If you roub (not having the Ace) you lose fower, & al the vied cards although you lay down the same carde which you took up.

7. If you make out the carde when your Mate rubbeth it is the loss of fower, for the roubber must make out the carde himself.

8. If you turne vp the Ace of Hartes you gaine fower thereby.

9. If you turne vp the Ace of Hartes, and thereby make either partie aboue xxvi, the contrary part must haue Liuings, but if the contrary part be xxv, by meanes whereof Liuings sets them out, then is he who turned vp the Ace of Hartes to make for the Set, so that he make not one Game nor the first Tricke, without the consent of both parties.

10. The partie that asketh a carde, may not vie any carde, before the first tricke be played.

11. You may not vie it after your card is led, but the contrary part may.

12. Three cardes crossed, no carde by any meanes giuen backe.

13. Neither partie may giue backe his owne vied car, though none be crossed.

14. You may not aske a carde to set the contrary parte or your selfe at Liuings or out.

15. Prouided alwaies, that if the contrary parte bee xxiii, or aboue, byreason that fower sets the other partie behinde the Liuings, it shalbe lawfull for the partie which is behinde to aske a carde, although the carde so asked put the other to Liuings.

16. Prouided also that if you meane to lead a helpe, you may vie it vpon your owne asked carde, so as it be done before the helpe be out of your hand, the contrary part may pledge you a card after he seeth your helpe vpon the boord, so it be done before his owne card be played.

Works Cited

The Groome-porters lawes," EBBA #37082 (EBBA 37082 (http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/37082/image)/

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