in The Love of David and Fair Bathsheba — Peele, George
Metadata
Play
The Love of David and Fair Bathsheba
Author
Peele, George
Year (catalogued)
1599
First performance
1594
Decade
1590s
Genre
Biblical History
Play type
Adult Professional
Company
Queen Elizabeth's Men (?)
Speech prefix(es)
Thamar. | Tham. | Thama.
Words
283
Characters
1577
Typicality
0.47 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A09228
BritDrama no.
870
Cluster
Cluster 22 — Ghosts, curses & horror voices
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
What aileth Ammon with such sickly looks, To daunt the favour of his lovely face? That hath the King commanded at my hands Then come and rest thee, while I make thee ready Some dainties, easeful to thy crazed soul. Whither alas, ah whither shall I fly With folded arms, and all amazed soul, Cast as was Evam from that glorious soil (Where all delights sat bating winged with thoughts, Ready to nestle in her naked breasts) To bore and barren vales with floods made wast, To desert woods, and hills with lightning scorched, With death, with shame, with hell, with horror fit, There will I wander from my father's face, There Absolon, my brother Absolon, Sweet Absolon shall hear his sister mourn, There will I live with my windy sighs, Night Ravens and Owls to rend my bloody side, Which with a rusty weapon I will wound, And makee them passage to my panting heart: Why talkest thon wretch, and leaust the deed undone. Rend hair and garments as thy heart is rend, With inward fury of a thousand griefs, And scatter them by these unhallowed doors. To figure Ammon's resting cruelty, And Tragic spoil of Thamars chastity. The cause that Thamar shameth to disclose. Ammon our father's son hath forced me, And thrusts me from him as the scorn of Israel. Nor God nor Time will do that good for me. Unkind, unprincely, and unmanly Ammon To force, and then refuse thy sisters love: Adding unto the fright of thy offence, The baneful torment of my published shame, Oh do not this dishonour to thy love, Nor clog thy soul with such increasing sin, This second evil far exceeds the first.
Plot summary
Plot — The Love of David and Fair Bathsheba
PLOT King David sees Bathsheba bathing and falls in love, but she resists his advances. To check his desires, he recalls her husband, Uriah, from the war, where his army has just conquered a town. Uriah returns, refuses to see his wife, and becomes embarrassingly drunk at a royal feast. David sends him back to the war, with orders that he should be placed in the vanguard. Uriah is killed in battle, removing the obstacle to David's liaison with Bathsheba; but he is rebuked by the prophet Nathan and the child of their union falls sick and dies. David believes that this removes Bathsheba's shame, and enables him to legitimize their relationship and beget another child. Amnon falls in love with his half-sister Tamar and feigns sickness in order to be alone with her. He rapes her and then throws her out. She complains to her brother Absalom, who plots revenge. Despite David's injunction to leave justice to the crown, Absalom goes to Amnon's pastoral feast and has him murdered. Now that Israel is about to conquer the Ammonite enemy, Joab asks David to come to the war, so that the triumph will belong to him rather than to his general. The Israelites are celebrating their victory when David hears of Amnon's murder. He banishes Absalom. A widow tells him how she stands to lose both sons because one murdered the other; he pronounces in favour of the surviving son, then applies the case to his own circumstances and recalls Absalom — which is what Joab intended in sending the woman to him. Absalom becomes ambitious and rises in rebellion. His associate Ahitophel encourages him to send men to kill David by night, but Hushai advises raising a much larger army so that he can overwhelm David by force of numbers; Absalom prefers Hushai's advice. In fact, Hushai is a spy seeking to drive a wedge between Absalom and Ahitophel; he reports Ahitophel's assassination plans to David, and advises him to withdraw out of harm's way across the Jordan. Having lost his influence with Absalom, Ahitophel hangs himself. The rebellion is crushed in battle. Absalom gets his hair caught in a tree as he flees, and is trapped hanging between heaven and earth. Although David has ordered that Absalom be spared, Joab kills him where he hangs. David is distressed, but takes comfort in the new heir he has begotten on Bathsheba, Solomon.