Early Modern Drama · Character Archetypes

CELIA

in What You Will

Metadata

PlayWhat You Will
Year (catalogued)1607
First performance1607
Decade1600s
GenreComedy
Play typeProfessional;Boys Professional
CompanyChildren of Paul's (second) (?)
Speech prefix(es)Celia. | Celi | Celea.
Words211
Characters1192
Typicality0.27 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP idA07081
BritDrama no.1283
ClusterCluster 1 — Wives, widows & intimate counsel

Important excerpts

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

Full speech

Faith sister I long to play with a feather, Prithee Luciam bring the shuttlecock. Sweet sister Meletza lets fit in judgement a little, faith of my servant Mounsier Lauerdure. Why bore troth. Whose that. Oh but your servant Quadratus the absolute Courtier. Why sister why? You post and I pillar. Down. Now sister Meletza dost mark their craft, some strag gling thoughts transport thy attentiveness from his discourse, wast Iacomos or our brother's plot? Sweet breast you would played the wag i'faith. Would would, my husband, would would. Come, come, your plots discovered, good faith kinsmen I am no skold: to shape a Perfumer Like my husband, Oh sweet jest. No good sweet love come come dissemble not, All friends, all happy friends, my veins are light, Come gallants the table spread will you to dinner? Come shall we in, infayth thou art sudden sad, Dost fear the shadow of my long dead Lord. Come sweet this is your waggery i'faith, as if you knew him not. Oh me my dearest Lord, my sweet, sweet love. For penance of your fault will you maintain a jest now, my love hath tired some fiddler Like Albano, Like the Perfumer. Pree thee to whom. Good Mell I wonder how many servants thou hast.

Plot summary

Plot — What You Will
Only three months after her husband Albano was reported dead in a sea battle, Celia has many suitors. Tomorrow she intends to marry Laverdure, a French knight; but Alban.o 's brothers, Randolfo and Adrian, disapprove. After fruitlessly petitioning the noctumal. party-loving Duke to stop the wedding, thcr decide to make it illegitimate by introducing an impostor, a perfumer named Francisco, to pose as Albano, claiming that he did not die after all; but Laverdure's page Bidet witnesses their scheming and warns his master. In fact, Albano survived. On his return to Venice he is unimpressed to hear that his supposedly faithful and loving wife is getting married again so soon; but when he accosts Laverdure, he is taken for Francisco. Even his own brothers take him for the disguised perfumer, so he begins to believe that he has indeed become Francisco by metempsychosis. He interrupts the performance of a play at court to protest at the way he has been treated, and the Duke assures everyone that he really is Albano. He decides to forgive everyone, including Laverdure and Celia. In the sub-plot, Simplicius saves the schoolboy Holofernes Pippo from a thrashing and takes him on as his page. A group of pages trick Simplicius into arranging an assignation with a merchant's wife, who turns out to be Holofemes in disguise.