Early Modern Drama · Character Archetypes

ASOTUS

in The Muses' Looking Glass — Randolph, Thomas

Metadata

PlayThe Muses' Looking Glass
AuthorRandolph, Thomas
Year (catalogued)1638
First performance1630
Decade1630s
GenreMoral
Play typeBoys Professional
CompanyKing's Revels Company
Speech prefix(es)Asot.
Words326
Characters1647
Typicality0.53 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP idA10411.1
BritDrama no.2313
ClusterCluster 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

I was in hope you would have said a Bawdy house. No, to the Tavern Father. Your counsel? No dad, take you mine And be a good fellow—shall we go and roar? Slid Father I shall never live to spend That you have God already—Pox of attorneys, Merchant's, and Scriveners, I would hear you talk Of Drawers, Punks, and Panders. Nor you the pleasure that I take in spending it. To feed on Caveare, and eat Anchoves! Trust me Sir, I am ashamed la—now to call you Father, Never trust me now I'am, come be a Gentleman: One of your havings, and thus cark and care? Come, I will send for a whole coach or two Of Bankside Ladies, and we will be Jovial! Shall the World say you pine and pinch for nothing? Well do your pleasure, keep me short of moneys, When you are dead, as die I hope you must, I'll make a shift to spend one half at least Ere you are coffined, and the other half Ere you are fully laid into your grave. Were not you better help away with some of it? But you will starve your self, that when you're rotten, One—Have at all of mine may set it flying. And I will have your bones cut into dice, And make you guilty of the spending of it: Or I will get a very handsome bowl Made of your scull, to drink't away in healths. Marry I will brood upon it, And hatch it into chickens, capons, hens, Larks, thrush's, quails, woodcocks, snites & pheasants The best that can be God for love or money. There is no life to drinking! Be a fine silly Ass to keep it. To see if it can show him his lost ears. Now to your Lecture. Gramercy, thou shalt be Doctor o'th' chair. Here—it's too little, but it's all my store, I'll in to pump my dad, and fetch thee more.

Plot summary

Plot — The Muses' Looking Glass
Bird and Mistress Flowerdew, Puritan residents of Blackfriars, bring their wares to the theatre, but are appalled when Roscius tells them they have been ordered for use as props in a filthy stage play. Roscius argues that they themselves make a living from the vice of vanity, and invites them to see the play before they condemn it; he will give them a running commentary on its moral import. Despite Roscius’ high claims, Comedy and Tragedy seem initially more concerned about the order of their precedence; they agree to spend a year in competition, staging examples of their respective genres, and whichever is adjudged the better will thereafter have the theatre to herself. The play is a series of episodes showing specific virtues to be the mean: an excess or a deficiency constitutes a vice. A lack of courtesy makes Dyscolus churlishly ready to pick quarrels, whereas too much of it makes Colax sycophantic, to such an extent that he hangs around for the rest of the play flattering all the other vices. Aphobus is over-confident and Deilus cowardly, afraid of his own shadow: they have respectively too much fortitude and too little. Temperance is the next example, illustrated by Acolastus the epicure and Anaisthetus the ascetic, followed by liberality, missing in Aneleutherus the miser and carried to excess in Asotus the prodigal. The over-ostentatious Banausus, full of extravagant schemes for public works, overdoes magnificence, whereas Microprepes balks at replacing a church steeple. (The Puritans in the audience 1630 approve.) Chaunus overvalues himself, and seeks inappropriate high offices, whereas Micropsychus thinks himself unsuited to even the meanest position. Meekness is quite absent from quarrelsome Orgylus, who persistently tries to provoke patient Aorgus to a fight, without success. The arrogant Alazon and the modest Eiron deviate from truth: one falsely claims personal qualities he lacks, the other denies those he does have. Philotimia is unduly fastidious about her appearance, whereas her slovenly husband Luparus would rather clothes had never been invented. The impudent bawd Anaiskyntia brings Kataplectus to visit Philotimia, but he is too bashful to speak to her in English. Philotimia appoints him her gentleman usher, and they go off together; it looks as if Luparus is going to be cuckolded, but he doesn’t care. The extremes of justice are next: Nimis is worldly and prone to accept bribes, adjudicating between litigants according to which can…