Early Modern Drama · Character Archetypes

WHITE KNIGHT

in A Game at Chess — Middleton, Thomas

Metadata

PlayA Game at Chess
AuthorMiddleton, Thomas
Year (catalogued)1625
First performance1624
Decade1620s
GenreComedy
Play typeAdult Professional
CompanyKing's Men
TheaterGlobe;Outdoor Professional
Speech prefix(es)W. Kt. | VV. Kt.
Words933
Characters5210
Typicality0.35 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP idA07498
BritDrama no.2130
ClusterCluster 8 — Martial kings & Roman gravity

Important excerpts

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

Full speech

You name their Bishop, But your own Christmas bole you morning draught Next your Episcopal heart all the twelve days, Which smack you cannot leave all the year after. How. Where sets the offence, Let the faults punishment be derived from thence: We leave her to your censure. Nor thou art not lost, Let em put on their bloodiest resolutions, If the fair policy I aim at prospers: Thy counsel (noble Duke.) A man for speed now. What's this? If sin were half so wise as impudent, She'de near seek father for and advocate. En. B. Q. p. He's taken by default, By wilful negligence, guard the sacred persons, Look well to the white Bishop, for that pawn Gave guard to the queen, and him in the third place. See his goods seized on. The more noble will Truths triumphs be, When they have wound about our constant courages, The glittering serpent, that ever falsehood fashioned; And glorying most, in his resplendent poisons, Just Heaven can find a bolt to bruise his head. Why who could be without thee) Thou hast it nobly, and I long to see, the Blacke-house pleasure, state and dignity. It was too much, if it usurped a thought, Place a strong guard there. Take that prize hence (you reverend of men) Put covetousness into the bag again. How amply you endear us? Ther's a taste of the old vessel still. You have enriched my knowledge royal (sir) And my content together. I hear of the more virtue when I miss on't. Most impious Epicures. Well you are as found a spokesman for parsimony, And clear abstinance, and scarce one meal a day As ever spoke with tongue. I shall be half a fraide to feed hereafter. Your course is wondrous strict: I should transgress (sir) Were I to change my side (as you have wrought me.) Well for the food I'm happily resolved in; But for the diet of my disposition, There comes a trouble you will hardly find Food to please that. Hers meat enough in conscience for ambition You say well (sir) Buthere's the misery when I would stopped the mouth Of one vice, ther's another stands gaping for food. I'm as covetous as a barren womb, The graven, or what's more ravenous? Is it possible. One more, and I am silenc'st: But this that comes now will divide up questionless 'Tis ten times, ten times, worse then the forerunners. This of all others bears the hidden'st poison, The smoothest venom, I am and Arch-dissembler. 'Tis my nature's brain turn from me (sir,) The time is yet to come, that ere I spoke What my heart meant. There you lie then: And the Games ours, we give the check mate By discovery, King the noblest mate of all. Ambitious, covetous luxurious falsehood. O let my arms be blessed, With this deer treasure, Truths glorious Masterpiece, see Queen of sweetness He's in my bosom safe, and this fair Stucture Of comely honour, his true blessed assistant. As 'twas a Game (Sir) Wone with much hazard, so with much more triumph, I gave him check mate by discovery (sir.) Obcurity is now the fittest favour Falsehood can sue for: it well snites Perdition, 'Tis their best course that so hath lost their fame, To put their heads into the bag for shame; And there behold the bags mouth (Like hell) opens The Bag opens, the B. B. slides in it. To take her endue; and the lost sons appear, Greedily gaping for increase of fellowship In infamy, the last desire of wretches Advancing their perdition, branded foreheads Like Envies issue, or a bed of Snakes. Contention in the bag? is hell divided. You'd need have some of Majesty and Power, To keep good rule amongst you, make room Bishop. Room for the greatest Machiauill Politician, That ere the Devil hatched of a Nuns-egge. So let the Bag close now (the fittest womb For Treachery, Pride and Falshoold, while we winner Like) Destroying through Heavens power, what would destroy; Welcome our white Knight with loud peals of Joy. True noble Duke, fair virtues most endeared one, Let us prevent their rank insinuation, With truth of cause, and cunning meet their plots: With confident goodness, that shall strike them grauling. Let Heavens blessings Be no longer mine, then I am thy sure one: The Doves house is not safer in the Rock, Then thou in my firm bosom. Is it that lump of rank ingratitu de, Swelled with the poison of Hypocrisy: Could he be so malicious, has pertaken Of the sweet firtile blessings of our Kingdom, Bishop Thou hast done our White House gracious service, And worthy the fair reverence of thy place: For (thee black Holiness) that works out thy death, As the blind Moale the properest son of earth, Who in casting his ambitious hills up, Is often taken and destroyed in the amid Of his advanced work: 'twere well with thee, If Like that verminous labourer, which thou imitatest In bills of pride and malice, when death puts thee up, The silent graven might prove the bag for ever: No deeper pit then that for thy vain ho pe Of the white Knight, and his most firm assistant, Two princely pieces, which I know thy thoughts Give lost for ever now, my strong assurance Of their fixed virtues, could you let in seas Of populous untruths against that Fort, 'Twould burst the proudest billows. Fear? you were never guilty of and injury To goodness, but in that. The first mess, is hight Ambition. Thats certain (Sir.)

Plot summary

Plot — A Game at Chess
Ignatius Loyola returns to Earth to find that the Jesuits do not yet rule the world — which serves them right for ===== PAGE 93 ===== 1624 having taken so long to canonize him. Error shows him a vision of a chess game between the forces of Catholicism (the Black house) and Protestantism (the White house). The White Queen’s Pawn has broken off her engagement to the White Bishop’s Pawn after the latter was castrated by the Black Knight’s Pawn. Now the Black Queen’s and Bishop’s Pawns attempt to seduce her, in both religious and sexual terms; the Black King also hopes to use her as a way of getting at the White Queen, both to satisfy his lust and as part of the Black house’s scheme for world domination. In the event, however, she rejects the advances of the Black Bishop’s Pawn and he attempts to rape her, but is interrupted. The discovery of his hypocrisy provides ammunition for the White cause. However, the victim loses credence when the Black Knight produces forged documents purporting to show that the Black Bishop’s Pawn was not in the country at the time of the incident. The White King allows the Black house to determine her punishment, but the Black Knight's stratagem is exposed and the pawn vindicated. The Black Knight takes the White King’s Pawn, who turns out to be an agent of Black anyway; he expects to be made a cardinal, but the Black Knight double-crosses him and he ends up in the bag. The Black Queen’s Pawn pretends sympathy for her White opposite number, and tries again to win her for Black by predicting her marriage to an up-and-coming Black gentleman. The White Queen’s Pawn shows interest, and is shown her future husband in a magic mirror; in fact it is a ruse, and the man she sees is the Black Bishop’s Pawn. When they are introduced, however, she refuses to have sex until they are married; but being a Jesuit, he cannot marry. The Black Queen’s Pawn persuades her White equivalent that a contract is enough, but substitutes herself when the sexual encounter takes place; she later reveals this when the Black Bishop’s Pawn is pressing himself on his supposed bedfellow, before both Black pawns are taken. The Black Knight’s Pawn is guilt-stricken at his crime against the White Bishop’s Pawn, but he cannot buy absolution because castration is not included in the Black Bishop’s book of indulgences. Murder, however, is: the penitent pawn must kill his victim if he is to be forgiven, but he is taken when he makes the attempt. The Black Bishop attacks…