Set at Maw, The
Historical Records
Performance Records
Playlists in Philip Henslowe's diary
- Fol. 10v (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: (see 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 turn up the Ace of Hartes you gaine fower thereby. 9. If 10. The partie 11. You may not vie 12. Three cardes crossed, 13. Neither partie may giue backe his owne 14. You may not aske a carde to set 15. Prouided alwaies 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 uvpon the boord, so it be done before his owne card be played.
Works Cited
Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; 13 August 2020.