in The Bird in a Cage (The Beauties) — Shirley, James
Metadata
Play
The Bird in a Cage (The Beauties)
Author
Shirley, James
Year (catalogued)
1633
First performance
1633
Decade
1630s
Genre
Comedy
Play type
Adult Professional
Company
Queen Henrietta Maria's Men
Theater
Phoenix/Cockpit;Indoor Professional
Speech prefix(es)
Mard. | Mar.
Words
288
Characters
1566
Typicality
0.23 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A12128
BritDrama no.
2396
Cluster
Cluster 10 — Mourners, mothers & doleful voices
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
How have we for feyted our freedom? I beseech your Grace let me be exempted, If I have committed and offence, deserves your Anger, Let one of your Lords cut off my head rather, Sign. Dondalo. Must I enter already—h m. How fares our daughter? How is't heroic Birth, what dulness cold As Saturn's, dwells on thy forehead, be bold To give thy grief a Tongue, instruct, child My paternal Nature, left I grow wild As the rude North:—thought of the makes my hairs Silver, my blood is curdled with my cares. Is thy Organ dumb Or am I grown cheap in Majesty, trivial Fool Shall I reap crabbed Thistles in neglect for rich Love? And you get me to play and old man again.— I Like it, will be new. So:—I'll fit you for a Vinegar King. Winter and Summer? By my faith that's w ll, there's but half a year between, there be some call them selves Poets, make their Rhymes straddle so wide, a 12. Month will hardly reconcile they, and I hope, a Lady may straddle a little by Poetical Licence. Weep no more, thy eyes pave the ground with pearl. My power is raced, My Crown thy Tribute Girl Here is nothing to want. Curse not thy soft Stars, but take thy fair Bliss With comfort, free from loud noise and Fear, is Thy gawdy Station, when I have unskrew'd Mystic Oracles, which not understood, Do perplex with involved sense,- I shall then Enlarge thy person Danae, till when If ought else do clog thy Thoughts, with unkind Thoughts, unload the dark burden of thy mind. Pronounce thy grief aloud my amorous Darling And I will— Uh, uh—cold phlegm obstructs my Language—barling, carling.
Plot summary
Plot — The Bird in a Cage (The Beauties)
After rumours of Philenzo’s interest in Eugenia, her father the Duke banishes him and shuts her up in a newly-built palace, attended only by ladies, until he can find her a husband of suitable rank. Orpiano is sent to Florence with her picture to negotiate a marriage treaty; her fiancé will be the Great Duke’s son. Rolliardo, an unemployed wit, comes to court looking for work. The Duke gives him the task of gaining access to Eugenia in her new quarters within a month, with the proviso that he will be executed if he fails; he agrees, subject to the condition that the Duke gives him enough money to do the job—meaning, in effect, unlimited access to the exchequer. Pursued by creditors, the artist Bonamico sets up business disguised as a mountebank, Altomaro, offering to teach people the secret of invisibility. Rolliardo sceptically rejects this as a method of penetrating Eugenia’s palace, preferring to trust in the corruptibility of the captain of the guard—who refuses to help, but keeps the bribe anyway. ‘Altomaro’ tries to encourage prospective clients by dressing up as a series of customers entering his shop; they are not seen leaving because, he says, they have become invisible. Dondolo and Grutti decide this would be a good way to get to see their girlfriends, two of Eugenia’s attendants, and pay ‘Altomaro’ for a demonstration: he will be invisible, save only for his hand. And so he is—the ‘hand’ being a handwritten letter from him. The courtiers realize they have been cheated; Bonamico’s assistant Carlo tells them his true identity and helps them find and imprison him pending the repayment of their demonstration fee. Morello attempts to get into the palace prison posing as a woman, but one of the guards wants a sexual fee and discovers his true gender. He is taken to the Duke and sentenced to wear his women’s clothes for a month. An ambassador arrives from Florence to finalize the marriage contract; Fulvio tells him about Philenzo’s love for Eugenia. Rolliardo uses his access to the exchequer to buy all debtors out of prison; one of the beneficiaries is Bonamico, who again offers his help. He brings the Duke a large cage of birds, which the Duke sends as a present to Eugenia. It arrives while the ladies are putting on a play, The New Prison, about Jupiter and Danaë, imprisoned by her tyrannous father. Eugenia feels sorry for the birds and opens the cage. Rolliardo is hidden inside. He woos her, but she refuses him: her heart belongs to Philenzo. He…