in The Fatal Dowry — Field, Nathan; Massinger, Philip
Metadata
Play
The Fatal Dowry
Author
Field, Nathan; Massinger, Philip
Year (catalogued)
1632
First performance
1619
Decade
1630s
Genre
Tragedy
Play type
Adult Professional
Company
King's Men
Theater
Blackfriars;Indoor Professional
Speech prefix(es)
Page.
Words
229
Characters
1174
Typicality
0.35 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A07251
BritDrama no.
1883
Cluster
Cluster 0 — Clowns, beggars & street sellers
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
That's his Perfumer. Baerber order his hair, That's his Taylor. Taylor sets his clothes . Here's a fine Cell; a Lord, a Taylor, a Perfumer, a Barber, and a pair of Monsieurs : 3 to 3, as little will in the one, as honesty in the other. 'Sfoot isle into the country a g ne, learn to speak truth, drink Ale, and converse with my father's Tenants; here I hear nothing all day, but upon my soul as I am a Gentleman, and and honest man. That were a miracle. You are deceived, they'll be bound to you, you must remember to trust they none. I, if he would but cut the coat according to the cloth still. And admirable lecture. O all you gallants, that hope to be saved by your clothes, edify, edify. Oth' Tailors, two such Lords were able to spre worser Tailors over the face of a whole kingdom. Oh save the gla see my Lord, and break their heads, they are the greater flatterers I assure you. Colbran d'ee call him? he'll make some of you smoke, I believe. It seems he knows you one, he bumfiddles you so 'Sfoot, I think they have the better on him though they be kicked, they talk so. le eene away with they, for this soldier beats man, woman, and child. Exeunt, Ma ent No . Rome.
Plot summary
Plot — The Fatal Dowry
. Before the start of the action, the Marshal Charolais bankrupted himself to pay the army, and died in a debtors’ prison. Now his creditors seek to detain his body, preventing it from being buried. His son appeals in the courts, but the measure is pronounced legal; however, the creditors accept Young Charolais’s offer to be imprisoned himself, and the funeral takes place. Being poor, Charolais has no hope of ever being released, but Rochfort pays the debt and, in return, asks that Charolais marry his daughter Beaumelle. Before the marriage, Young Novall paid Beaumelle’s waiting-woman Bellapert to help him seduce her. Despite now being Charolais’s wife, Beaumelle proves receptive to his continued courting, but their meeting is witnessed by Charolais’s friend Romont. He intervenes and sends Novall packing, much to Beaumelle’s displeasure, then accuses her, first to Rochfort and then to her husband, but neither will believe him. Finally he confronts Novali and forces him at gunpoint to sign a confession and undertake never to see or contact Beaumelle again. Novall does not keep his word: Charolais catches him with Beaumelle and kills him. He then presents his wife to her father as the accused in an adultery trial. As a judge, Rochfort is obliged to condemn her to death, a sentence Charolais readily carries out; but as a father, he takes her part and accuses Charolais of ingratitude. The young man is arrested and tried for Novall’s murder. He admits the killing, but pleads that the adultery extenuates it. The court accepts the argument after Romont produces the confession signed by Novall. Private revenge takes over: Charolais is killed in open court by Pontalier, Novall’s kinsman, who is himself killed in turn by Romont, whom the court banishes for the crime.