in Like Will to Like (Quoth the Devil to the Collier) — Fulwell, Ulpian
Metadata
Play
Like Will to Like (Quoth the Devil to the Collier)
Author
Fulwell, Ulpian
Year (catalogued)
1587
First performance
1568
Decade
1580s
Genre
Moral
Play type
Interlude
Speech prefix(es)
Honour. | Honour,
Words
191
Characters
944
Typicality
0.54 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A01353
BritDrama no.
472
Cluster
Cluster 2 — Allegory, Nature & pageant voices
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
¶ We are now come to the place where we must abide, For from you Virtuous life, I honour may not slide. ¶ Sing we have now endued him with y crown and sword, Which is endue unto him by Gods promise and word: Let us three sing unto God with one accord. ‡ To do so virtuous life it is our bounden duty, And because we must do so before we do end, To aid us therein Good fame comes verily, which daily and hourly on you doth attend. ‡ The honourable Counsel also Oh Lord preserve, The Lords both of the Clergy and of the temporality: Grant that with meekness they may thee serve, Submitting to thee with all humility. ¶ Now take this sword in hand as a token of victory, This Crown from my head to you I shall give? I crown you with it as one most worthy, And see that all vice you do punish and grieve. For in this world I honour with you shall remain. And g odd fame from you cannot refrain? And after this life a greater Crown you shall attain.
Plot summary
Plot — Like Will to Like (Quoth the Devil to the Collier)
The devil commissions the vice Nichol Newfangle to tempt men into a preoccupation with new fashions, which will lead them to hell. The ensuing action turns on the recurrent introduction of similar characters to one another. The vice introduces a dishonest collier to the devil, then Tom Tosspot to Rafe Roister; ina ~ mock trial he judges which is the bigger wastrel ===== PAGE 35 ===== 1568 (the prize, unknown to them, is to be hanged), but considers them equal. A comic drinking scene follows with Tosspot’s followers. He also sets in motion a plot to cozen two cutpurses over an inheritance of land. The vicious characters are driven off stage by the arrival of Virtuous Life, who is enthroned and crowned. Tosspot and Roister lose all their possessions: Roister gambles his away, and Tosspot has to leave his as security for his alehouse bill. Newfangle gives them the equipment to start a mew career as beggars, and they assault him. He is found injured by a judge, Severity, and betrays the two cutpurses; they are led away to execution, and Nichol and the hangman share their clothes. Tosspot’s followers end up in hospital suffering from gout. Lucifer carries the vice away on his back. The virtuous characters pray for the Queen, the Lords, and commons.