"Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends that it will receive no coaches nor carts nor any of these common noises."
The description of the place where Morose lives is relevant because it shows his desire for silence. This is also related to the fact that the play is a city comedy and to the problems it presented when it was performed during Ben Jonson’s time because of the theaters. Most were open (such as the Rose, which had an open ceiling and thus was quite noisy) or were located in very crowded areas. For a performance like Epicene, the theater required a much quieter venue.
"Marry, that he will disinherit me, no more. He thinks I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous acts and monuments are told of him."
This is Dauphine’s explanation of why his uncle, Morose, disinherits him. Dauphine explains that Morose already has an ill reputation and that he blames Dauphine and his friends for that fact. Here, Dauphine also alludes to a famous treatise, John Foxe's Acts and Monuments or Foxe's Book of Martyrs. In it, Foxe describes a number of martyrs from English history who died heroically for the Protestant cause. By asserting that Morose has his own version of "acts and monuments," Dauphine pokes fun at Morose's sense of self-importance.
"Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him."
This quote serves to see Truewit’s animosity towards Daw (and towards La Foole, who shares Daw’s arrogance and silliness). Throughout the play, Daw and La Foole quote books erroneously and use Latin terms incorrectly, which further proves Truewit’s assessment of the knight and criticism of pseudo-intellectual performance.
"There’s Aristotle, a mere commonplace fellow; Plato, a discourser; Thucydides and Livy, tedious and dry; Tacitus, an entire knot, sometimes worth the untying, very seldom."
This quotation shows not only how Daw thinks himself to be above philosophers and poets, criticizing them, but also a lack of understanding of their different areas of expertise as he mixes different types of poets in the list and dismisses their texts. As the scene progresses, he also mistakes books’ titles with authors' names, showing that not only has he not read the acclaimed texts, but he is also ignorant of the writers themselves.
"Friend! If the most malicious enemy I have had studied to inflict an injury upon me, it could not be a greater."
Upon learning that Truewit has gone to Morose to try to talk him out of getting married to Epicene, Dauphine is dismayed and feels his plan has been curtailed. This not only shows that he did not trust his friend to tell him his plan but also how he is angry about the potential obstacle that Truewit created. While Dauphine is an alleged victim in the play due to his uncle’s greed, the way he makes fools of everyone — and keeps Epicene's true identity a secret — shows that he is more of a vengeful mastermind than an innocent victim after all.
"’Fore heav’n, you have undone me. That which I have plotted for and been maturing now these four months, you have blasted in a minute. Now I am lost, I may speak. This gentlewoman was lodged here by me o’ purpose, and, to be put upon my uncle, hath professed this obstinate silence for my sake, being my entire friend, and one that for the requital of such a fortune as to marry him, would have made me very ample conditions; where now all my hopes are utterly miscarried by this unlucky accident."
Dauphine describes his long developed and ongoing plan to deceive his uncle, but only because Truewit has almost foiled the ordeal. Here the audience can see that he is conniving and that he has been planning for months to try to get his inheritance back. The revelation that Epicene is not actually a silent woman comes early in the play, suggesting that the fallout will be an ongoing source of entertainment.
"Ay, sir. Why, did you think you had married a statue? Or a motion only? One of the French puppets with the eyes turned with a wire? Or some innocent out of the hospital, that would stand with her hands thus, and a plaice-mouth, and look upon you?"
Upon confirming the marriage, Epicene speaks, and the first lines of dialogue between them show not only that Morose is dismayed by what he is discovering about his wife, but also that Epicene is quite opinionated and possesses the tools to address him with abandon. Here, she mocks the qualities of obedience and meekness that Morose desired, comparing them to traits in inanimate objects.
"O yes, Morose: how should we maintain our youth and beauty else? Many births of a woman make her old, as many crops make the earth barren."
When Epicene reveals that she is not, in fact, a silent woman, she is taken in by Lady Haughty and the Ladies Collegiates. Here, Lady Haughty describes a rudimentary form of birth control (after Epicene asks if they use recipes to prevent pregnancy) in order to maintain her youth. This quotation showcases how the Ladies Collegiates are representative of a "new" type of woman who prioritizes education and independence over domesticity and child-rearing.
"I answer then, the canon−law affords divorce but in a few cases; and the principal is in the common case, the adulterous case: But there are duodecim impedimenta, twelve impediments, as we call them, all which do not dirimere contractum, but irritum reddere matrimonium, as we say in the canon−law, not take away the bond, but cause a nullity therein."
In this quotation, Cutbeard is disguised as a lawyer who has been sent to help Morose acquire a divorce. He uses a number of Latinate terms in succession to dramatize his disguise while also confusing Morose and entertaining the audience. This performance is also reminiscent of the way that both Daw and La Foole behave naturally, drawing more attention to the absurdity of their own characters.
"You are they that, when no merit or fortune can make you hope to enjoy their bodies, will yet lie with their reputations, and make their fame suffer. Away, you common moths of these, and all ladies' honours. Go, travel to make legs and faces, and come home with some new matter to be laugh'd at: you deserve to live in an air as corrupted as that wherewith you feed rumour."
Truewit concludes the play with this final speech after it has been revealed that Epicene is actually a boy in disguise. While lighthearted in nature due to the genre of comedy, Truewit's concluding remarks chastise Daw and La Foole for making erroneous claims to have slept with Epicene. Truewit instructs Lady Haughty to beat Daw and La Foole for their transgressions at the same time he notes that women's reputations are often marred by the words of men. While this is not the central concern of the play, one could argue that Epicene ends on a proto-feminist note in which foolish men are condemned for tarnishing women's lives with claims about sexuality.
