in The Insatiate Countess — Machin, Lewis; Barkstead, William; Marston, John
Metadata
Play
The Insatiate Countess
Author
Machin, Lewis; Barkstead, William; Marston, John
Year (catalogued)
1613
First performance
1607
Decade
1610s
Genre
Tragedy
Play type
Boys Professional
Company
Children of the Queen's Revels (?); Children of the King's Revels (?)
Theater
Whitefriars;Indoor Professional
Speech prefix(es)
Medina. | Medina | Med.
Words
390
Characters
2170
Typicality
0.47 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A07067
BritDrama no.
1605
Cluster
Cluster 22 — Ghosts, curses & horror voices
Important excerpts
Passages from this character's speech that contain the most distinguishing words for Cluster 22 (broom, tiff, loathsome, snakes, hercles, dismal…). Matches are highlighted.
nee'r knew murder yet, but it did bleed. Canst thou after so many fearful conflicts, Between this object, and thy guilty conscience, Now thou art freed from out the serpents Jaws, That vild Adultress, whose sorceries Does draw chaste men into incontinence: Whose tongue flows over with harmful eloquence. Canst thou I say repent this
Full speech
Done Sago quakest thou not to behold this spectacle, This innocent sacrifice murdered nobleness, When blood the maker ever promises, Shall though with slow yet with sure vengeance rest. I'tis a guerdon earned, and must be paid, As sure revenge, as it is sure a deed: I nee'r knew murder yet, but it did bleed. Canst thou after so many fearful conflicts, Between this object, and thy guilty conscience, Now thou art freed from out the serpents Jaws, That vild Adultress, whose sorceries Does draw chaste men into incontinence: Whose tongue flows over with harmful eloquence. Canst thou I say repent this heinous Act, And learn to loath, that killing Cockatrice? But hopeful Lord, we do commiserate, Thy bewitched Fortune's a free pardon give: On this thy true and noble penitence. With all we make thee Colonel of our horse; Levied against the proud Venecian state. God pardon thee, we do. Oh Heavens! Is she not weary yet of lust and life? Had it been Cressus wealth, she should have died; Her goods by law, are all confiscate to us, And die she shall: her lust Would make a slaughter house of Italy. Ere she attained to four and twenty years, Three Earls, one Viscount, and this valiant Spaniard, Are known to abeene the fuel to her lust: Beside her secret lovers, which charitably I judge to have been but few, but some they were. Here is a glass, wherein to view her soul, A Noble, but unfortunate Gentleman, Cropped by her hand, as some rude passenger Does pluck the tender Roses in the bud, Murder and lust, the least of which is death, And hath she yet any false hope of breath? Oh shameless woman! Here Isabella. What would you? Mine honours passed, you may not. Thine honours passed indeed. For that your holy Confessor will tell you, Be dead to this world, for I swear you die, Were you my father's daughter. Up to the scaffold with her, it's late. The fitter to meet you. Head's man, do thine office. To funeral with her body, and this Lords: None here I hope can tax us of injustice: She died deservedly, and may Like fate, Attend all women so insatiate. Exeunt omnes. Upon my soul, brave Spaniard, I believe thee. I'll be gone: off with her head there. Exit.
Plot summary
Plot — The Insatiate Countess
Suitors visit Isabella, who is in open mourning for her dead husband, but secretly glad to be free of his jealousy and restrictions. She accepts Count Roberto’s suit and they are married the following day; but when she dances with Count Rogero in the wedding masque, her affections turn. She woos Rogero by letter and elopes with him to Pavia; Roberto enters holy orders. At Pavia, Rogero is visited by his friend Gniaca; Isabella falls in love with the newcomer, and feigns illness to give herself an opportunity to seduce him. After bedding Gniaca, she then feigns penitence to free herself from Rogero. The spurned lover takes his revenge by circulating bitter satires on Isabella’s promiscuity, so she sets on Gniaca to kill him. In the attempt, Gniaca is reconciled with his former friend, so Isabella seduces Don Sago, colonel in the Spanish power occupying Pavia, to murder both Rogero and Gniaca. Sago kills Rogero, and is arrested, but pardoned by the Duke of Medina. Isabella’s attempt to bribe the Duke fails to secure her freedom, and she is beheaded after a scaffold reconciliation with Roberto. In the sub-plot, the enemies Claridiana and Mizaldus are both married on the same day. They quarrel when they meet, and Mizaldus’s wife Abigail and Lady Lentulus, who are close friends, compare notes and swap places: each receives her own husband in the other’s bedroom. Meanwhile their friends Mendosa and Lady Lentulus, attracted to one another, try to circumvent the latter’s vow not to admit a man through her front door: he climbs up to her window by rope ladder, but falls into the street, where the watch find him injured and send him to a surgeon. Claridiana and Mizaldus are arrested in each other’s house; appalled at the thought of being cuckolded, they both confess to murdering Mendosa. Mendosa in turn tries to save Lady Lentulus’s honour with a false confession that he was attempting to burgle her house. In court, the Duke establishes that Claridiana and Mizaldus are telling incompatible stories about the ‘murder’, and they are sentenced to death in jest; in Mendosa’s case, however, the sentence is genuine. Claridiana and Mizaldus are determined to die until confronted with evidence of their wives’ chastity; with reconciliation comes reprieve.