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In the vernacular of early modern English, the word “maid” was frequently used to refer to a female virgin. The explicitly gendered nature of the word points to the double standards around male versus female sexuality, which are also evident in the text: Jasperino has no qualms about having pre-marital sex, for example, while Beatrice is lambasted for doing so. This gendered term is especially important in The Changeling because Alsemero’s virginity-testing potion is labeled “M” for “maid.”
Maid Quotes in The Changeling
The The Changeling quotes below are all either spoken by Maid or refer to Maid. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act 3, Scene 4
Quotes
DEFLORES: Look but into your conscience, read me there,
‘Tis a true book, you'll find me there your equal.
Push! Fly not to your birth, but settle you
In what the act has made you, y’are no more now;
You must forget your parentage to me:
Y’are the deed’s creature; by that name
You lost your first condition, and I challenge you,
As peace and innocency has turn’d you out, and made you one with me […]
Though thou writ’st made, thou whore in thy affection!
‘Twas changed from thy first love, and that's a kind
Of whoredom in thy heart.
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Act 4, Scene 1
Quotes
DIAPHANTA: Are you serious still? Would you resign
Your first night’s pleasure, and give money too?
BEATRICE: As willingly as live. [Aside.] Alas, the gold
Is but a by-bet to wedge in the honor […]
Y’are too quick, I fear, to be a maid.
DIAPHANTA: How? Not a maid? Nay, then you urge me, madam;
Your honorable self is not a truer
With all your fears upon you—
BEATRICE [Aside.]: Bad enough then.
DIAPHANTA: Than I with all my lightsome joys about me.
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Get the entire The Changeling LitChart as a printable PDF.
Maid Term Timeline in The Changeling
The timeline below shows where the term Maid appears in The Changeling. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act 4, Scene 1
...Beatrice, as it claims to reveal whether or not a woman is a virgin (a “maid”). To use this potion, a man is supposed to give a woman water in a...
(full context)
Beatrice wonders if Diaphanta’s enthusiasm means that she is not really a maid, but Diaphanta promises that her excitement is just as much a proof of virginity as...
(full context)
Act 4, Scene 2
...then turns sad, Alsemero rejoices, assuring Jasperino that this reaction proves Beatrice to be a maid. Delightedly, Alsemero embraces Beatrice, extoling her for being “chaste as the breath of heaven or...
(full context)
