Early Modern Drama · Character Archetypes

MONSIEUR

in A Maidenhead Well Lost — Heywood, Thomas

Metadata

PlayA Maidenhead Well Lost
AuthorHeywood, Thomas
Year (catalogued)1634
First performance1633
Decade1630s
GenreComedy
Play typeAdult Professional
CompanyQueen Henrietta Maria's Men
TheaterPhoenix/Cockpit;Indoor Professional
Speech prefix(es)Moun. | Mounsieur
Words365
Characters1949
Typicality0.36 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP idA03240
BritDrama no.2289
ClusterCluster 15 — Devils, vices & grotesques

Important excerpts

No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).

Full speech

Behold my Lord two sad dejected Creatures Thrown on the humble verdure. How now my Lord, remember pray, What you are to this poor dejected Maid. How now sirrah, what are you? Your bottle quickly sirrah, come I say. There's Gold sir. Lady, thanks: I fear me he is caught, But if he be, my counsel must divert him. TO cie's more Gold for you. Your purpose Sir, is to love this Lady, And hazard all your Hope's. But for your love. Then 'twere more dishonourable To strumpet her. Brave Prince I'm glad That ere I kept thy Company. Faith my Lord, I never love a woman for her habit, When sir I love, I'll fee my lone stark naked. I thank you Sir: See, you would make me a sir Panderus, Yet far as I can see you, I will trust you. Sweet Lady, how long is't—nay keep that hand, Since those fierce wars betwixt Florence and great Milan Nay that hand still. Good Sir make haste, lest I be challenged for you. Ambassadors my Lord. How's this my Lord? They offer love and beauty, which being both So freely offered, do deserve acceptance, Come my Lord, Lay by these idle thoughts, and make you ready To entertain your Bride. Fled my Lord. He's fled upon a milk white Gennet Sir, Seeming t'out strip the wind, and I—lost him. What means this passion Sir? It confounds me my Lord. Right. It's certain. My Lord, yield to your father, lest you draw His wrath upon you. What do you not Like your bedfellow, my Lord; That you are up so soon? Milan should know, were it my case my Lord, A better Prince then he should not wrong me. Excellent Villain! I shall my Lord. None my Lord. Why, was confessed. I can forbear no longer; Impudent Stroza, Thou art a Villain, perjured, and forsworn: That Duke dishonourable; and she unchaste: Beside, thou hyredst a Virgin in her room; (Slave as thou art) to bosom with the Prince; Gavest her five hundred Crowns. That this is true, I will maintain by combat. Yield thy self recreant villain, or thou diest. I shall Sir. My Lord.

Plot summary

Plot — A Maidenhead Well Lost
Julia has given herself sexually to her flance, the Prince of Parma, but is now concerned that he mav have fost interest in her: she has been told of a dalliance between him and Lauretta. When lulia publicly strikes Eauretta, Parma breaks off the engagement. In fact, Julia’. informant, Stroza, was lying: he has a grudge agamoat ===== PAGE 406 ===== Lauretta’s father, General Sforza, and has also been working to secure his downfall by delaying the shipment of money and supplies to the front. News arrives that the war is won, but that Sforza, unable to pay his men, gave them everything he had and died of grief. His widow pays the soldiers’ arrears out of her estate and leaves Milan with Lauretta. Fearful of dishonour, Julia tries to persuade Parma to stay by telling him she is pregnant. He denies paternity — she consented so readily to pre-marital sex that, misled by Stroza, he believes she must also have had other men - and leaves anyway. Her father the Duke learns of the situation, and sends Stroza to fetch Parma back, dead or alive. Julia’s unborn child saves her from execution for her misdeed, and she goes into hiding until the baby is born. When it is, the Duke orders Stroza to dispose of it, and plans to conceal her shame with a hasty marriage to another foreign prince. Stroza leaves the baby in a grove to be found by passers-by; sure enough, when he returns a few hours later, it has gone, found by Parma and recognized as his own true issue. Lauretta and her mother are found in the forest by the Prince of Florence, and installed by him in a ducal hunting lodge. She falls in love with him, but, knowing herself too low-born, gives cryptic answers to his questions about her love-life. Stroza arrives in Florence as an ambassador to negotiate a marriage between the Prince and Julia. The Duke of Florence accepts, and the Prince is obliged to consent. When he tells Lauretta about it, she initially assumes herself to be the bride, and continues her cryptic answers, telling him that she too will be marrying a prince at the exact same time; on learning he is to wed Julia, she faints. The Prince receives a letter from Parma warning him that Julia is unchaste, and he interrupts the wedding to raise the matter; only on receiving assurances of the bride’s virginity does he allow the ceremony to be completed. To avoid the deception being exposed on the wedding night, Stroza plans to put a substitute bride in the Prince’s bed, and bribes Lauretta to undertake the…