in Adrasta, or The Woman's Spleen and Love's Conquest — Jones, John
Metadata
Play
Adrasta, or The Woman's Spleen and Love's Conquest
Author
Jones, John
Year (catalogued)
1635
First performance
1635
Decade
1630s
Genre
Tragicomedy
Play type
Closet/Unacted
Speech prefix(es)
Fior.
Words
246
Characters
1295
Typicality
0.27 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A04604
BritDrama no.
2488
Cluster
Cluster 10 — Mourners, mothers & doleful voices
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
a Bridal sir; true love and greatness be divorced, and now they be both going to be married to misfortune. Indeed Sir, Beauty, Virtue, and too much faith for a woe man, are going to the cold arms of a sullen Churl, one that consumes ere he lets go: yet he is better than your other husbands are; he forsakes them not, leaves them not in misery, he wooes them not with flatteries, and poisons with unkind ness: he never swears, and lies, but continues faithful till Doomsday. Who be you? A poor Husband? then thou art a poor dissembler, a poor murderer: Oh you husbands kill more than scurvy Physiti ans, or a plaguy Summer. But art a stranger? Why that's all one, thou canst not be a stranger to her fame, if thou hast lived but a month in the world. Poor innocent Althea makes her last marriage, and I am one of her Bridemaids. To her grave for love's sake, and honest Husband: 'tis better then the Dukes son, that sent her from the City, to die in the Mountains? Ah 'twas unkindly done, not to go nor send after her! yet poor Lord he is killed, dead too now, and has met her Hearse here— So those two souls that never were born to have A Nuptial Bed, have found a Nuptial Grave. Beauty and Virtue strove Who should adorn her most, Till faith conspired with love, And all their labours crossed.
Plot summary
Plot — Adrasta, or The Woman's Spleen and Love's Conquest
Adrasta, Duchess of Florence, objects to the amours between her son Lucilio and Althea, a woman of lower rank. She forges a letter from Lucilio to Althea which describes a plan to murder the Duke; Althea’s reply provides evidence to have her arrested for treason. Lucilio visits her in prison, convinces her that the original letter was a fake, and arranges her escape. Dressed in women’s clothes, he takes her place in the cell, stands trial as her, and is sentenced to death. The substitution is discovered only just before the execution; Lucilio attempts to kill himself anyway, but is prevented by his friend Antonio. He leaves Florence, fearful of his parents’ reprisals, and asks Antonio to assume his name and go to Greece, hoping that his father’s agents will follow this false trail and so leave him in peace. Worried that he may yet take his own life, Antonio passes on the responsibility to the villainous servant Alastor, and shadowys Lucilio in disguise. Consulted by Adrasta, the witch Micale conjures up spirits, who locate Althea living as a shepherdess in the mountains and supply poison to dispose of her. Micale is magically transported there and tries to share food with her, but Althea is melancholy and only her friend Camilla will drink the poisoned wine. Micale’s second strategy entails getting her to despair and kill herself, so she claims that both Lucilio and Althea’s mother Julia have been executed. Camilla dies, and Althea covers her face with a scarf she was given by Lucilio. Shepherds find and bury her body, and show the scarf to Antonio, who infers that the dead girl is Althea and duly notifies Julia. Julia blames Lucilio for her daughter’s death and hires Assassino to murder him. Assassino tracks Lucilio to the port where he is about to take ship for Greece, not knowing it is really Alastor whom he is following; he kills the supposed Prince and disposes of the body in the sea, but is arrested and sent back to Florence for trial. The corpse is later recovered, but is so decomposed that only the clothes are identifiable. Assassino confesses, and implicates Julia in the hope of being spared himself. Antonio offers Julia his help to lie low, but plans to attend Assassino’s execution with her in disguise. Althea goes to the place of execution, intending to throw herself off the rock and be reunited with Lucilio in death; but on the edge she sees the living Lucilio coming with the same intention. They are found together when Assassino is brought…