They dyed their hairs and barts red, and also cut their barts in the Cadiz style Earl Essex did after his victory in Spain in '96, to show they was Essex men. And they was all attired in costly doublets and capes made special by tailors from brocade and satin and velvet for them, with silk thread points to tie them closed, and fashion sleeves slashed to make puffs, with wrist-ruffs and collars stiff from Dutch starch and ironed with hot irons in pleats. And big codpieces all wore, with embroidery and jewels set. When we left from The Globe on this carouse, I saw they took handkerchiefs favors from Court ladies they wore off their sleeves and pinned on their codpieces for indecent show, to mean they had did filthy dalliance with their ladies from Court, which maybe they did or didn't, I don't know.
I remember from a gleek on this my Will said, which was, “Marry, an'if what you sport 'neath yon codpiece were civil to sport unsheathed, ye roguish noble gallants would still pin your favors there, e'en if your pins pinked you to bleed, would ye?” To which these gallants laughed hearty and slapped Will Kempe's back and mine also, and boasted vows how what they hid behind a codpiece was so big and also fat and hard no pin could prick it, to which my Will made a gleek pun from the word prick which was of course coarse indecent and made them laugh more merry, which is always what Will Kempe could do. And also he made a gleek from these gallants only wore such big codpieces to hide the mercury salves they had to smear on their putz from a pox they all had. Which made all merry, except me, which I knew it was all indecencies. Which I remember one from these gallants had a big rash on his punim cheeks was possibly only what English call Saint Anthony's Fire if it wasn't true pox chancres.
Also jewel earrings these carpet knight gallants wore in their ears, and jewel rings, pearl and ruby, on all their fingers, all this a show they made from themselves. So they hired a boy with a link taper to light us to London Bridge and Southwark because it was full dark night now, and the jewels they wore on their ears and fingers flashed in this light from the link taper burning to make us a light to go by.
Which is when I said, “Will, we should hire us maybe two of the watch with halberds, in the city night could be whoreson rogues assault us with cudgels and daggers for our purses, nu?” Because it was dark night, and by theaters was always rogues wanted to waylay playgoers when they left to walk home, which city burghers always wanted to close theaters because of this, and also because when it was plague people catched plague, which is why sometimes in plague theaters was closed by Queen Bess. Which was why I feared from our common purse, and these gallants had also purses big with monies, which, their monies, such gallant carpet knights got from gaming and mostly borrowed because they spent so much to make shows, pawned plate and borrowed against rents if they owned country land, not like our monies, mine and Will's, which we brought from his performance and also by how I, his impresario, arranged all.
To which Will said, “Pinky, fear not! What needs the watch's halberds when our escorts of this progress wield swords and daggers eke?” Which he meant these gallants wore swords, with jeweled hilts and also scabbards, and also daggers, which was the style for fighting then, a sword in one hand you had, with a short dagger in the other, so he meant we was safe from rogues who might come against us for our purses, we didn't need the watch with halberds hired. Which these gallants laughed and drew their swords out from the fashion scabbards and waved them in the air, the polished steel flashing in the light from the burning link taper the boy we hired to light us carried, like their jewels they flashed. And they patted the daggers they carried by their belly bands and swore they'd run through any whoreson rogues and knaves dared show us their faces or even looked at us with a mean eye this night as we walked to London Bridge and Southwark's stews.
Which is another gleek, that they could protect us by their swords and daggers, because these carpet knights, which the English called because they got made knights from kneeling to Earl Essex on his carpet, which is a way to say like the English do that they kissed his arse to get made knights, not from fighting in any war heroics. Which was proved when Essex did his rebellion against Queen Bess in 1601, his men didn't most of them fight any, just ran away to escape from drawing and quartering for treason. Which is why Essex got his kopf chopped off, three strokes from the axe it took to do it, after which they parboiled his head and dipped in tar and stuck up on London Bridge, where it still was years before it rotted, you could still see it was Essex if you know his punim like I did. Which is not a merry quip gleek, but a different kind, still a gleek.
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