A Dictionary of Epithets and Terms of Address
This word is rarely used in modern English, ‘lady’ serving as the usual feminine form of ‘gentleman’. In former times the word was used of a woman of good birth and breeding, especially when she was an attendant on a lady of rank. ‘Call in my gentlewoman,’ says Olivia to Malvolio, in Twelfth Night ‘Gentlewoman, my lady calls,’ says Malvolio. Elsewhere in Shakespeare the vocative is used to greet or address an unknown lady.
‘Gentlewoman, good day!’ says Julia to the Duke’s daughter, in Two Gentlemen of Verona. In Romeo and juliet Mercutio greets the Nurse as ‘fair gentlewoman’. and Romeo uses the same term to her a moment later, but they are being, as the nurse well knows, ‘saucy’. Shakespeare puns on the ‘gentle’ of this word in The Taming of the Shrew (4:iii). Katherina says to Petruchio: ‘Gentlewomen wear such caps as these.’ ‘When you are gentle, you shall have one too,’ says Petruchio. ‘That will not be in haste,’ comments Hortensio to himself.
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