‘A POOR CHIPOCHIA’: A NEW LOOK AT AN ITALIAN WORD IN TROILUS AND CRESSIDA 4.2 GRETCHEN E. MINTON English/Division of the Humanities, University of Minnesota, Morris, 600 E. 4th St., Morris, MN 56267, USA E-mail: mintong@mrs.umn.edu PAUL B. HARVEY JR. Departments of Classical and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, and of History, and of Religious Studies, 108 Weaver Bldg., The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA E-mail: pbh1@psu.edu Abstract In Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, an obvious, but curious, Italian word – chipochia – appears in an exchange between Cressida and Pandarus (4.2.31). All modern editions print this word as capocchia, following the emendation of Lewis Theobald in 1733. Theobald posited that this word meant “simpleton” or “blockhead,” and editors since then have accepted this meaning, while many have argued for a sexual connotation here, a pun on Troilus’ penis. This study offers evidence to support the original spelling of chipochia in both the Quarto and Folio versions and proposes a new definition for chipochia, sensible to dramatic context and founded on established philological evidence. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– In Act 4, scene 2 of Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, after a short dialogue between the lovers the morning after their consummation, Pandarus eagerly joins Troilus and Cressida to tease them and express his delight at the success of his match-making. Here is the dialogue between Cressida and her uncle after the latter enters: PANDARUS How now, how now, how go maidenheads? Here, you maid! Where’s my cousin Cressid? CRESSIDA Go hang yourself, you naughty mocking uncle! You bring me to do – and then you flout me too. PANDARUS To do what, to do what? – Let her say what. – What have I brought you to do? CRESSIDA Come, come, beshrew your heart! You’ll ne’er be good, Nor suffer others. PANDARUS Ha, ha! Alas, poor wretch! Ah, poor capocchia, has ‘t not slept tonight? Would he not – ah, naughty man – let it sleep? A bugbear take him! (4.2.24–34)1 Neophilologus 88: 307–314, 2004.  2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 308 Gretchen E. Minton and Paul B. Harvey Jr. Any reader encountering this passage would surely find the word capocchia puzzling. Consulting the commentaries of various editions of the play, one can trace the long history of interpretive difficulty this apparently Italian word has caused editors. Interestingly, the word in question was originally printed as chipochia – with exactly the same spelling and italicization in both Q and F (the only difference being that F capitalizes the word). Why then do all modern editions print the word as capocchia, and what does it mean? The origin of the emendation to capocchia is Lewis Theobald, who wrote in his 1733 edition about chipochia: “This Word, I am afraid, has suffer’d under the Ignorance of the Editors, for it is a Word in no living Language I can find.” Thus Theobald began with an assumption about what the word, contextually, should mean: “Pandarus says [this] to his Niece, in a jeering sort of Tenderness. . . . He would say, I think, in English, – Poor Innocent! Poor Fool! ha’st not slept to Night?”2 Apparently, Theobald then looked for an Italian word that would have a relatively close spelling to chipochia and the meaning he was seeking. Pointing out that the word capòcchio “signifies the thick Head of a Club; and thence metaphorically, a Head of not much Brain, a Sot, Dullard, heavy Gull”, he emended the word to capòcchia, and this emendation has been followed by all subsequent editors (who either print capocchia or capocchio).3 In the Troilus and Cressida Variorum (1953), Harold Hillebrand wrote that “No one has bettered Theobald’s emendation, and it still stands.”4 Fifty years later, no one has yet “bettered” Theobald’s emendation, but opinions about what this word means have changed. Editors after Theobald suggested that, while “simpleton” was an acceptable reading, there was also a sexual meaning implicit in the word. This is a reasonable suggestion, because Pandarus’ language is charged with sexual innuendo from the moment he enters: “how go maidenheads?” (l. 24), “To do what, to do what? – Let her say what. – What have I brought you to do?” (l. 28–29) etc. In 1790, Edmond Malone5 looked up both words – capocchio and capocchia – in a dictionary roughly contemporary with the play, John Florio’s Worlde of Wordes (1598).6 Malone found that while capocchio was defined as “a loggerhead,” capocchia was defined as “the foreskin or prepuce of a mans privie member.”7 Therefore, many editors since Malone have glossed this word as “blockhead” or “simpleton”, with an added pun on the “head” of Troilus’ penis.8 Kenneth Muir’s 1982 edition of the play, for example, cites what Malone found in Florio, and goes on to say that “Theobald was clearly correct in his interpretation of his own modernization; but Pandarus, and perhaps Cressida, would relish the alternative meaning.” 9 Some recent dictionaries of sexual terminology in Shakespeare have included the word capocchia, recognizing that, considering the context of this scene in Troilus and Cressida, the sexual meaning is surely the ‘A Poor Chipochia’: in Troilus and Cressida 4.2 309 primary one. Citing Adriano Politi’s Dittionario Toscano (1613) as well as Florio, Gordon Williams confirms the phallic implications of this term and explains that ‘Troilus is chaffed after a first night of love: “poor capocchia, hast not slept tonight?’ ”10 Frankie Rubinstein adds that Cressida’s next line, “ ‘Did not I tell you? Would he were knock’d i’ the head!’, reinforces the pun on prepuce, since KNOCKed is 16th century for screwed, and the ‘head’ is the maidenhead and the prepuce. In addition, it is the capocchia, the head of a nail, that would get knocked.”11 The philological evidence for how the word capòcchia could mean penis or foreskin in the Renaissance is fairly easy to trace. The root of capòcchio/ia is the common Italian noun capo, deriving from Latin caput, -itis, a neuter noun meaning “head”, hence any prominent, elevated part of something (e.g., the chief person in a group; a match-head).12 Considering, in particular, the meaning of capòcchia as “match-head”,13 little imagination is required to hypothesize a metaphorical usage from (reddish-yellow) match-head to a cudgel or penis. Although the word does have phallic connotations according to Florio, and might have had them to a Shakespearean audience (if this were the word Shakespeare had written – see below), and although these sexual definitions are plausible and survive in various usages in modern Italian vernacular, they are not recorded in modern Italian dictionaries as attested historical usages.14 We suggest that the problem with these interpretations of capòcchia is that, while they recognize the sexual implications of this term, they do not recognize the context of this passage. Those who have followed Malone in recognizing the phallic implications of this word have never adequately explained how this interpretation works, given the fact that Pandarus is addressing Cressida from his entrance in line 21 to the lovers’ exit at line 42. Theobald’s “simpleton” reading recognizes this fact, for he seems to assume that Pandarus is calling Cressida a capòcchia. However, if capòcchia is also slang for the head of a penis, it is difficult to understand why Pandarus would be addressing her as a penis or foreskin. The emphasis that Malone and others (e.g. Rubinstein) have placed on the phallic reading do not account for the basic problem of the addressee. The only solution to accepting the phallic reading is that Pandarus is not calling Cressida a capòcchia, but merely teasing her about Troilus’ member, saying that the “naughty man” would not let his penis sleep on this night of consummation. If that is the case, however, how can capòcchia also mean “simpleton” and be applied to Cressida herself? We suggest that there is another explanation to this conundrum that makes much more interpretive sense, and also better philological sense. Pandarus is not, in fact, talking about Troilus’ “priuie member”, but about Cressida’s. 310 Gretchen E. Minton and Paul B. Harvey Jr. Given the context of this passage, it is surely much more plausible that the word in question refers to Cressida’s anatomy rather than to Troilus’ parts. The philological precedent for this reading of capòcchia cannot, however, be established firmly.15 But what of the word that appeared in Q, F – the word Shakespeare actually seems to have written? Frankie Rubinstein argues that “since Shakespeare chose to use capocchia, (foreskin) [as opposed to capocchio] . . . we should explore the possibility that that is what he intended.” 16 This note illustrates a frequent problem in the commentaries on this term: Shakespeare did not write capocchia or capocchio; he wrote chipochia. Because Q and F exhibit identical orthography for chipochia, we should form a theory for the meaning of this word based on its original spelling, not upon Theobald’s (suspect) emendation. That is, the appropriate editorial and philological task is to account for textually-secure evidence, not emend that evidence into ambiguity. We propose that the word chipochia should be understood not as a single word, but as a contraction: chi + poccia. This (proposed) contraction may well have had its origin as an Italian slang term. This reading is suggestive, because chipochia may thus be a contraction or a misunderstood/miscopied phrase on the order of chi/che póccia. (Anomalies in the transcription of Italian – and French – relative particles and relative pronouns can be readily demonstrated elsewhere in Shakespeare.)17 Póccia is defined in standard lexographic references as vernacular for “nipple, teat”.18 Indeed, Florio included póccia in his dictionary with exactly that definition.19 Surely little imagination is required to comprehend how a vernacular term for a woman’s nipple could (by the common process of applying one sexual term to another bodily part) be employed for the clitoris and, hence, female genitalia in general. But while the precise etymology of póccia is far from certain,20 what is certain is that by 1535, the meaning we propose for póccia at Troilus and Cressida is attested in Italian texts: the póccia dell’amore is a woman’s genitalia.21 There are other possibilities for less-plausible explanations of -pochia, with meanings similar to póccia,22 but we propose that chipochia reflects a simple phrase: che póccia! The author of Troilus and Cressida may very well have heard that Italian phrase, but misheard or simply misunderstood the exclamatory che as the relative demonstrative chi,23 and understood it not as an exclamatory synecdoche of sexuality, but as one word connoting the most desirable sexual part of a woman. 24 We suggest that this hypothesis is sensible both contextually and philologically. The -h- in -pochia we explain as a simple Anglicized phonetic spelling, analogous to (for example) Brachiano for Bracciano, Petruchio for Petruccio.25 ‘A Poor Chipochia’: in Troilus and Cressida 4.2 311 We should learn from this analysis that we need to re-examine accepted eighteenth- and nineteenth-century emendations. In this case, accepting the word as chipochia (because it is written this way in both Q and F) makes much more sense. The supporting philological evidence makes the dominant meaning clear. Yet there are other aspects of this passage that are also made clearer by this explanation of chipochia. The first issue is the critical controversy around “hast” in the line “has’t not slept to-night?” Editors from the time of Walker (Cambridge, 1957)26 have recognized that this is a contraction for “has it”, and obviously the antecedent of “it” is chipochia/capocchia. With a clearer understanding of the meaning of chipochia, however, it is not necessary to argue, as do Bevington and Muir, that Pandarus is using the impersonal pronoun “it” to refer to Cressida by employing a sort of “baby talk.”27 Here, the “it” refers not to Cressida herself, but to a specific part of her anatomy.28 Secondly, some editors have posited that the “A” before “poor chipochia” should be written as an exclamatory “Ah”. This standard modernization also makes more sense with the “simpleton” reading. 29 With the “female genitalia” reading of chipochia, however, while the interjection “Ah” is still a perfectly acceptable modernization, “A” could also be retained as an article. In conclusion, the primary meaning of this word is the sexual one; both context and philological evidence support the assertion that chipochia is addressed to Cressida, and about her sexual anatomy. The reason that no one has “bettered” Theobald’s emendation is that the word need not have been emended at all – merely to be understood. Acknowledgements A condensed version of this argument will appear in the forthcoming New Cambridge edition of Troilus and Cressida, Ed. Anthony B. Dawson, where, for the first time, an edition prints chipochia and explains the word as meaning “vagina or clitoris”. We profoundly thank Professor Dawson, without whom we would never have encountered this interpretive puzzle, and with whom we have frequently consulted. We are also grateful to David Bevington for a careful reading of a draft of this study and for his suggestions for strengthening the argument and to Philip Baldi for discussion of Latin and Italian semantics. The Special Collections Department of the Pennsylvania State University Libraries offered opportunity to study a fine copy of John Florio’s A Worlde of Wordes. 312 Gretchen E. Minton and Paul B. Harvey Jr. Notes 1. All citations from Troilus and Cressida, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the Arden III edition: Troilus and Cressida. Ed. David Bevington. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1998. 2. Lewis Theobald, Works, 7 vols. (1733). See also the New Variorum edition of Troilus and Cressida, Ed. Harold N. Hillebrand; supplemental editor T. W. Baldwin (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1953) (Hereafter cited as Variorum). 3. For a list of editorial choices, see the Variorum. More recent editions printing capocchia include Walker (Cambridge, 1957), Evans (Riverside, 1974), Muir (Oxford, 1982), Palmer (Arden Second Series, 1982), and Bevington (Arden Third Series, 1998). 4. Variorum: 206. 5. Edmond Malone, Plays and Poems, 10 vols. (1790). 6. In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, John Florio’s works were popular lexica for Italian words and phrases. His A Worlde of Wordes: a most copious and exact Dictionarie in Italian and English was published in London (for E. Blount) in 1598, and dedicated to Henry, Earl of Southampton; Roger, Earl of Rutland; and Lucy, Countess of Rutland. In 1611, it was re-published as Queen Anna’s New World of Words, for Florio was the Italian tutor of James I’s queen. (We cite below from the 1611 edition.) Florio also published two bi-lingual (English-Italian) dialogue manuals: Firste Fruites (London, 1578) and Second Fruites (1591). None of the dialogues in Firste or Second Fruites employ vernacular Italian or English sexual vocabulary. Southampton was Shakespeare’s patron as well as Florio’s, and the two writers certainly met. See Sidney Lee, in Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1921–1922), vol. 7: 336–339, “John Florio”, and Jonathan Bate, The Genius of Shakespeare (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998): 54–58. 7. Florio (1611): 82. 8. Interestingly, the editions that acknowledge the sexual meaning of capòcchia tend to maintain it as the secondary reading, with ‘simpleton’ as the primary reading. See, e.g. Muir (1982): 139, and Bevington (1998): 268. 9. See Muir (1982): 139, note on T&C IV.ii.31. 10. Gordon Williams, A Glossary of Shakespeare’s Sexual Language (London: Athlone, 1997). 11. Frankie Rubinstein, A Dictionary of Shakespeare’s Sexual Puns and Their Significance (London: MacMillan, 1984). Eric Partridge’s Shakespeare’s Bawdy: A Literary and Psychological Essay and a Comprehensive Glossary (New York: Dutton, 1969) does not include capocchia/chipochia at all. 12. Giacomo Devoto and Gian Carlo Oli, Il dizionario della lingua italiana (Florence: Le Monnier, 1990), s.v. “capo” (306: a full and detailed discussion). See also Dizionario Garzanti della lingua italiana (ed. 15: Milan: Garzanti, 1963), s.v. “capo” and derivatives. 13. Garzanti (1963): 148; Devoto and Oli (1990): 307. 14. “Penis” is not attested as a vernacular or dialectical usage for capòcchia in Devoto and Oli (1990), Garzanti (1963), or (of especial importance) in Valter Buggione & Giocanni Casalegno, Dizionario storico del lessico erotico italiano (Milan: Longanesi, 1996). 15. While we may imagine a usage of capòcchia to connote “the reddish, engorged female genitalia” – that is, the clitoris – that usage of capòcchia cannot be documented. 16. Rubenstein (1984), s.v. “capocchia”. 17. For analogous confusion, see Henry V, IV.i.35. Here, Pistol says, “Qui vous là?” However, the spelling in F is “Che” and in Q it is “Ke” (obviously phonetic for “che”). In the Oxford edition of Henry V (1982), Gary Taylor points out a similar situation in 1 Henry 6, III.ii.13, where “Qui là” is once again spelled “Che la” in F. At III.ii.13 of 1 Henry VI, a watchman says, “Qui la?” Again, the F reading for “Qui” is “Che”. These ‘A Poor Chipochia’: in Troilus and Cressida 4.2 313 instances demonstrate how difficult was the transcription into English of French and Italian exclamatory particles and relative pronouns and how readily they could be confused. 18. For example: Devoto and Oli (1990): 1428. 19. Florio (1611), s.v., 407. 20. Póccia has been explained as deriving from cioccia (= “nipple, teat”) or reflecting a contamination of poppa (vernacular for “nipple, teat”) and cioccia Devoto and Oli (1990): 1428; Carlo Battisti and Giovani Alessio, Dizionario etimologico italiano (Florence: Barbèra Editore, 1968), vol. 4: 3160. For póccia < cioccia, we must assume a disassociation of an initial consonant with substitution of a labial (p-) for a palatal (c-), a phenomenon not easily paralleled in Italian dialects nor readily-explicable by normative linguistic rules. Póccia as a hybrid form (póccia < poppa + cioccia) may be plausible, but we suggest another etymology: póccia derives ultimately from Latin puteus = “ditch, furrow”, by way of standard Italian pozzo = “well, shaft, ditch” and vernacular pòtta = “hole; well”; hence, “vulva”: see Garzanti (1963), 620; Devoto and Oli (1990): 1456. In which instance, póccia = “nipple, teats” is a true homonym or (better) a secondary meaning, with transference of significance from the primary sexual part (female genitalia) to secondary characteristics (teats, breasts). As for the latter possibility, we cite a parallel from classical Latin: the primary meaning of the verb fello -are is “to suck at the nipple” (<*fela = “nipple, breast”; cf. Greek θηλή = “nipple, breast”, θηλώ = “wet nurse”), as we may observe in two citations from Varro’s Menippean Satires: “lac humanum fallasse” (fragm. 261 ed. R. Astbury [Teubner 2002]); “ubi quod lupam alumni [= Romulus and Remus?] fellarunt olim” (fragm. 476). By the mid first-century BCE, fello -are acquired a metaphorical connotation of orfal sexual activity (Catullus 59:1 “. . . Rufa Rufulum fellat”), which became the primary meaning of the verb. The agent and abstract nouns fellator, fellatrix, fellatio were employed solely with reference to oral sexual activity. Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968): 684; J.N. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (London: Duckworth, 1982): 130–132. 21. Buggione and Basalegno (1996): 474 & 640. 22. For example: che po – might be a linguistic deformation of the exclamation che pudicizia. Pudicizia derives from the Latin pudicitia, “chastity”, which connotes in Italian as in classical Latin a young, desirable woman: see also the entry on pudicizia in Devoto and Oli (1990): 1508; see also Pasquale Stoppelli, Dizionario Garzanti dei sinomini e dei contrari (Milan: Garzanti, 1991), s.v. castità, 128; Buggione and Casalengo (1996): 100, 459, 483, on pudore and pucchiacca (variants: purchiacca, purchiacchia), a south Italian word meaning (ploughed) furrow, ditch, trench. Compare Anglo-American slang for an available woman: “a slit”, which is, of course, a prevalent sexual idea in Shakespeare’s works. Relevant here is the word placket, which occurs in several of Shakespeare’s plays, including Troilus and Cressida (II.iii.20). According to E. A. M. Colman (The Dramatic Use of Bawdy in Shakespeare [London: Longmann, 1974]: 208), a placket is “The opening in a petticoat or skirt, at the crotch. By extension, the female pudendum itself; by further extension, the whole woman”. See also Partridge (1969): 161–162. 23. For transcription curiosities of Italian and French particles in the Shakespearean scripts, see above, note 17. In standard Italian (but vernacular usage to this day differs), exclamatory che is an adverb (= quanto) or adjective, while chi is a pronoun. For usages of the Italian interrogative and exclamatory adjectives and pronouns, see Devoto and Oli (1990): 363. 24. Compare Partridge (1969): 21: “To judge by the number of synonyms, the pudend was, to Shakespeare, of considerably greater importance, and significance singly than all the rest of woman’s sexual features collectively: it would appear to have been the one unfailing lodestar, the one sexual objective.” 25. We thank David Bevington for these apposite Shakespearean examples. 314 Gretchen E. Minton and Paul B. Harvey Jr. 26. Walker followed the conjecture of Samuel A. Tannenbaum, “Notes on Troilus and Cressida.” Shakespeare Association Bulletin 7 (1932): 72–81. 27. Bevington’s note (1998) on this word reads: “The neuter pronoun is often used in speaking to or about children, as in German (e.g. das Mädchen, the little girl). Pandarus’ talk is deliberately jocuse and condescending. QF’s ‘hast’ is defensible, since Pandarus is addressing her directly, but it is also quite plausibly a way of representing ‘has it,’ in anticipation of ‘let it’ in 34.” Muir (1982: 139) also agrees with this reading; his note to the “it” reading says that this pronoun is “Often used in talking to or of children, e.g. Romeo 1.4.30ff.” 28. Of course “hast” can be a contraction for either “have you” or “has it”. However, the presence of “it” in the continuation of Pandarus’ speech necessitates a third person reading. Editors who recognize this have attempted, as Bevington does, to account for the awkward you/it shift in Pandarus’ address to Cressida. 29. For example, Palmer’s note (1982: 230) reads: “Pandarus’ arch facetious form of speech seems to justify reading Q’s a as ah; cf. IV.iv.11 (Ah, sweet ducks!), where ah again appears as a in Q”. The origin of this emendation may be traced to Alexander Dyce, Works (1857).