Early Modern Drama · Character Archetypes

AUGUR

in Gallathea — Lyly, John

Metadata

PlayGallathea
AuthorLyly, John
Year (catalogued)1592
First performance1585
Decade1590s
GenreComedy
Play typeBoys Professional
CompanyChildren of Paul's (first) (?)
Theaterbefore the Court;
Speech prefix(es)Augur
Words288
Characters1573
Typicality0.35 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP idA06619
BritDrama no.754
ClusterCluster 19 — Grieving nobles & tragicomic sufferers

Important excerpts

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

Full speech

This is the day wherein you must satisfy Neptune and save your selves, call toga there your fair Daughters, and for a Sacrifice take the fairest, for better it is to offer a Virgin then suffer ru ine. If you think it against nature to sacrifice your chil dren, think it also against sense to destroy your Con trey. If you imagine Neptune pitiless to desire such a pray, confess your selves perverse to deserve such a punishment. You see this tree, this fatal Tree, whose leaves though they glister Like gold, yet it threatens to fair virgins grief. To this Tree must the beauty fullest be bound do until the Monster Agar carry her a way, and if the Monster come not, then assure your selves that the fairest is concealed, and then your con trey shall be destroyed, therefore consult with your selves, not as father's of children, but as favourers of your Country. Let Neptune have his right if you will have your quiet; thus have I warned you to be care full, and would wish you to be wise, knowing that who so hath the fairest daughter, hath the greatest fortune, in losing one to save all, and so I depart to provide ce remonies for the Sacrifice, and command you to bring the Sacrifice. Exit Augur. Bring forth the virgin, the fatal virgin, the fairest virgin, if you mean to appease Neptune, and preserve your Country. The Monster is not come, and therefore I see Neptune is abused, whose rage will I fear me, be both infinite and intolerable: take in this Virgin, whose want of beauty hath saved her own life, and all yours. Neptune will. Go deliver her to her father.

Plot summary

Plot — Gallathea
Every five years, Lincolnshire’s fairest and chastest virgin is sacrificed to N&@ptumé; this ancient custom keeps the land safe from the monster Agat. The fathers of Galatea and PHyllidd independently attempt to preserve their respective daughters from selection for sacrifice by disguising her as a boy and sending her to hide in the woods. They meet: each takes the other for the boy she seems, and falls in love with ‘him’. Meanwhile, to make mischief among Diana’s nymphs, @upid cross-dresses too and gives them all amorous thoughts about the two disguised girls; but Galatea and Phyllida reject them all, each preferring the other. Cupid is captured, and set fiddly tasks by way of punishment. The day of the sacrifice arrives. M@be, the most suitable remaining virgin, is offered in sacrifice, but Neptune has seen through Galatea and Phyjllida’s disguises and will not take her; Hebe is relieved to-have survived and disappointed not to be the fairest virgin. WenGsS arrives to release her son, and appeals for Neptune’s help. He offers to discontinue the custom of sacrifice if Dia@iia will release Cupid, and, knowing it will save the lives of future virgins, Diana agrees. Galatea and Phyllida each discover the other's true gender, but Venus agrees to change one of them into a boy, but they are not to know which of them it is until they are married. In the sub-plot, three brothers are shipwrecked on the Lincolnshire coast, and seek their fortune by some other means than the sea. Raifé successively serves an alchemist and an astronomer, but ends up no richer than before; RGB too has little success, but Diek claims prosperity. The goddesses engage them to sing at the wedding of Galatea and Phyllida.