in The Puritan, or The Widow of Watling Street (The Puritan Widow) — Middleton, Thomas
Metadata
Play
The Puritan, or The Widow of Watling Street (The Puritan Widow)
Author
Middleton, Thomas
Year (catalogued)
1607
First performance
1606
Decade
1600s
Genre
Comedy
Play type
Boys Professional
Company
Children of Paul's (second)
Speech prefix(es)
Muck | Muck. | Muc.
Words
319
Characters
1648
Typicality
0.33 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A11264
BritDrama no.
1509
Cluster
Cluster 17 — Intriguers & schemers
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
Nay pray be patient Lady, We come in way of honourable love. To you. Lady, a shrewd answer many; the best is, 'tis but the first, and he's a blunt wooer, that will leave for one sharp answer. Well, Lady, for this time weel take our leaves, ho ping for better comfort. Sir Godfrey? here's twenty Angels more work hard for me; there's life int yet. Bless you sweet Lady. Sweet Lady? But I expect a farther comfort Lady. Oh blessed fortune! Oh monstrous unheard of forge j. Why it's impossible, dare you maintain your words? 'Tis too true, yet if the Widow be not too much be sotted on slights and forgeries, the reue'ation of their villainies will make they loathsome, and to that end, be it in private to you, I sent late last night to and honourable personage, to whom I am much indebted in kindness, as he is to me, and therefore pre fume upon the payment of his tongue, and that he will lay out good words for me, and to speak truth, for such needful occa zions, I only preserve him in bound, and sometimes he may do me more good here in the City by a free word of his mouth, then if he had paid one half in hand, and took Dooms day for to other. For you know, what such a man utters will be thought effectual and to weighty purpose, and therefore into his mouth weel put the approved theme of their forgeries. How now fellow. 'Tis easily pardoned Lady, If you vouch safe it now. But the sincere love which my heart bears you, Yet are my Hope's now fairer. Is my Lord come already; his honnours early, You see he loves me well up before seven, Trust me I have found him night captain at a eleven, Ther's good hope yet; come Jee relate all to him.
Plot summary
Plot — The Puritan, or The Widow of Watling Street (The Puritan Widow)
Lady Plus has just been widowed, but her son Edmond. does not grieve appropriately at the funeral. She mourns a good, liberal husband, who strove to make his family rich by fair means and foul; she swears not to remarry, and her elder daughter Frances renounces marriage too. Not so her younger daughter, Moll, who entertains a suitor. The other two Plus women are also being pestered by unwanted suitors, one of whom has bribed Lady Plus’s brother-in-law, Sir Godfrey, to recommend him. Captain Idle is taken to prison for highway robbery; there he is visited by his puritan kinsman Nicholas, one of. the Plus household’s servants, and also by Skirmish and Pieboard, two tricksters who plan to get him out. To that end, they persuade Nicholas to steal Sir Godfrey’s chain. Pieboard visits Lady Plus posing as a fortune teller, and tells her that her husband is in purgatory, from which he can be released only if both she and her daughters reverse their marital intentions (which he has overheard): she and Frances must marry, and Moll must not. As a puritan, Lady Plus doubts the theology of this, so he establishes his authenticity by predicting that, before the day is out, there will be bloodshed outside her door and Sir Godfrey will suffer a loss, with worse to follow for the women of the household. The first two events are prearranged: Nicholas steals Sir Godfrey’s chain, and Skirmish and Corporal Oath feign a street-fight which results in a wound for Oath and arrest for Skirmish. Pieboard gives Oath a medicine which is actually a sleeping potion, so that he appears to have been killed. Nicholas tells Sir Godfrey that Idle is a conjurer who can get his chain back for him; so Sir Godfrey arranges for Idle to be released and the charges dropped. On his way to brief Idle, Pieboard is arrested for failing to pay his rent, but he escapes by pretending that he must deliver a masque device to a gentleman, who will pay him enough to settle the debt. On arrival at the gentleman’s house (chosen at random), he escapes through the back door while the officers wait for him in the front room. The next day, Idle undertakes his fake conjuring at Lady Plus’s house, and claims that the devil has delivered the lost chain in the garden (where in reality it has been hidden all the time). He also pretends to render Edmond invisible, which gets the young man into trouble when he takes the opportunity to buffet his uncle. Two processions pass the house, taking Oath to his funeral and…