Early Modern Drama · Character Archetypes

ALBERTO

in Antonio's Revenge (2 Antonio and Mellida)

Metadata

PlayAntonio's Revenge (2 Antonio and Mellida)
Year (catalogued)1602
First performance1602
Decade1600s
GenreTragedy
Play typeBoys Professional;Professional
CompanyChildren of Paul's (second)
Speech prefix(es)Alb. | Al. | Alberto.
Words430
Characters2356
Typicality0.21 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP idA07064
BritDrama no.1271
ClusterCluster 23 — Gulls, fops & laughing-stocks

Important excerpts

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

Full speech

O, a horned devil would prove ominous, Unto a bridegrooms eyes, Dead? Sweet Prince, be patient. 'Tis reasons glory to command affects. Take comfort He was the very hope of Italy, Music sounds softly. The blooming honour of your drooping age. Uncle, this laughter ill becomes your grief. NAY sweet be comforted, take counsel and My Lord, we dare not leave you thus alone. Will you endeavour to forget your grief? Since you enforce us, fair prince, we are gone. Oh me most miserable. Fie, 'tis unsuiting to your elate spirit: Rather put on some transshap't cavalier, Some habit of a spitting Critic, whose mouth Voids nothing but gentile and unvulgar Rheum of censure: rather assume You can not press among the courtiers, And have access to Oh black accursed fate. Antonyo's drowned. As I do love Piero, he is drowned. Distracted and raving, from a turrets top He threw his body in the high swollen sea, And as he headlong topsy turuie dingd down, He still cried Mellida. Please you to admit his father to the Court? Please you vouchsafe him lodging in the city? I know you do forget sir, where you must be. Peace Parasite, thou burr, that only sticks Unto the nap of greatness. I, I am gone: but mark, Piero, this. There is a thing called scourging Nemesis. Exit Alb. You have lost a good son. Why weeps mine uncle? Were you but private unto what we know Indeed he's hoarse: the poor boys voice is cracked. Mellida. Antonio. Yes, and triumphant revels mount aloft. The Duke drinks deep to ouerdowe his grief. The court is racked to pleasure, each man strains To feign a jocund eye. The Florentine Even he is mighty on our partly. The States of Venice I will discourse it all. Poor honest soul, Hadst thou a beaver to clasp up thy face, Thou shouldst associate us in masquery, And see revenge. Slink to my chamber then, and Tyre thee. Yes. Yes. Yes. Eat thy black liver. Slime of all filth. This for them all. And this, and this; sink to the heart of hell. No: mine. Tush, to say truth, it all. Good tanned prince laugh not. By the joys of love, When thou dost girn, thy rusty face does look Like the head of a roasted rabbit: fie vpont. Why laugh you uncle? Thats my cuz, your son, Whose breast hangs cased in his cluttered gore. 'Twill twhart your plot, disgrace your high resolve. Please you to restore his lands & goods again? I would lost a true friend.

Plot summary

Plot — Antonio's Revenge (2 Antonio and Mellida)
The war between Venice and Genoa is over, and peace is to be sealed with a marriage between Antonio and Mellida, the children of the two dukes; Antonio's mother Maria is on her way to Venice to attend the wedding. But Duke Piero's commitment to peace is not sincere: he secretly murders Felice and Duke Andrugio, and hides Felice's body in Mellida's bedroom. When Antonio comes to wake her on the wedding morning, he finds the body hanging in the window, and Piero claims that he killed Felice in rage upon finding him and Mellida fornicating; Mellida herself is imprisoned. Andrugio in tum is reported to have died of joy. Piero's plan is to kill Antonio, marry Mellida to the heir to the duchy of Florence, and marry Maria himself, thereby extending his dominion across three Italian states. To this end, he plans to frame Antonio and establish Mellida's innocence. Antonio visits Andrugio's tomb and sees his ghost, who calls on him to avenge his death, assures him of Mellida's chastity, and warns him that Maria is going to marry Piero. Antonio murders Piero's son. The day before Maria's intended wedding, the ghost appears to her in her bedroom and reproaches her for disloyalty in widowhood. He further tells her that he was poisoned by Piero, and insists that Antonio should flee the court in order to seek revenge. Instead, Antonio stays at court disguised as a fool, and has it put about that he is dead. Mellida is put on trial, and Strozzo makes a false confession vindicating her and implicating Antonio in his father's death; Piero strangles him. On hearing that Antonio is dead, Mellida falls ill and dies herself. Letters are found in Strozzo's study which establish Piero's guilt, and opposition to him gathers head. With Maria's collusion, Antonio and his allies present a masque, which serves as cover to assault Piero: they remove his tongue, serve him a banquet of his dead son's limbs, and kill him. Contrary to expectations, the Venetian senators approve and applaud the murder, but even so the revengers declare their intention to retire to a religious order.