Early Modern Drama · Character Archetypes

PRIDE

in All for Money — Lupton, Thomas

Metadata

PlayAll for Money
AuthorLupton, Thomas
Year (catalogued)1578
First performance1577
Decade1570s
GenreMoral
Play typeInterlude
Speech prefix(es)Pride.
Words203
Characters1006
Typicality0.27 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP idA06480
BritDrama no.621
ClusterCluster 22 — Ghosts, curses & horror voices

Important excerpts

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

Full speech

Our Lord and master I pray you turn back again, Our father can not be merry, if you his company refrain. Thou canst thy lery pope to call me Lord and master, For I am thy chief head and thou art of me a member. ¶ We pray you most heartily to forgive that is passed, And we never hereafter will misuse you again: If you forsake our father for sorrow he will braced, Therefore from your fury we hope you will abstain. ¶ I would not have you to take all the pains alone, I my self will entice many to pride, That in hell (our habitation) they continually may groan: To help you at all times I will be at your side. ¶ If you had not returned for ought we could have done Our father without doubt would have fallen in a sown. ¶ Well let us talk no more of the pains and sorrow, But seeing we are prepared in that place to dwell, Let us take pains both even and morrow: To enlarge our dominion the kingdom of hell. I am so esteemed throughout the world wide, That they had rather dwell in hell then lay me aside.

Plot summary

Plot — All for Money
The play satirizes the domination of money in a sequence of discrete episodes. Theology, Science, and Art lament that they are now primarily studied out ofa desire for money. Money becomes ill and vomits up Pleasure, who in turn gives birth to Sin in the same manner, whose progeny in turn is Damnation. Satan is pleased that Money’s wide popularity will consign so many souls to hell, and asks Sin to assist in the process. The relative values of money and learning are assessed in an encounter between four characters who have or lack them in various permutations: learning is shown to be superior to money, and poverty in this world carries the promise of a heavenly reward in the next; the clinching point is that Learning with Money gives alms to the poor where Money without Learning refuses. Money feels overworked and Sin gives him an associate, All for Money, who presides over a corrupt court: he pardons theft and assault, infanticide, and bigamy, but hangs a poor thief who is unable to bribe him. He also advises two suitors to procure false witnesses to support their causes, and protects a corrupt and incompetent cleric. Judas and Dives, two souls damned for monetary sins, lament their situation; Damnation drives them off to hell. Godly Admonition warns the audience not to repent too late, and to give up cupidity.