in The Atheist's Tragedy, or The Honest Man's Revenge — Tourneur, Cyril
Metadata
Play
The Atheist's Tragedy, or The Honest Man's Revenge
Author
Tourneur, Cyril
Year (catalogued)
1611
First performance
1611
Decade
1610s
Genre
Tragedy
Play type
Adult Professional
Company
Unknown
Speech prefix(es)
1. Iudg. | 1. Iud.
Words
294
Characters
1644
Typicality
0.34 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A13840
BritDrama no.
1625
Cluster
Cluster 14 — Law & judgment
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
Bring forth the malefactors to the Bar. Are you the Gentlewoman in whose house The murders were committed? But under colour to profess the Sale Of Tires and toys for Gentlewomen's pride; You draw a frequentation of men's wives To your licentious house; and there abuse Their Husbands.— Here is no evidence accuses you, For accessaries to the murder; yet Since from the Spring of lust which you preserved; And nourished; ran the effusion of that blood: Your punishment shall come as near to death. As life can bear it. Law cannot inflict Too much severity upon the cause Of such abhorred effects. No Sir; it cannot: but yet give me leave To tell you, that I hold your wary answer, Rather premeditated for excuse; Then spoken out of a religious purpose. Where took you your degrees of Scholarship? His Lordship did but paint a rotten post; Or cover foulness fairly. Monsieur Snuff! Back to your candle-making. You may give The world more light with that, then either with Instruction or example of your life. My Lord; we will resolve you of your question. In the mean time vouchsafe your place with us. Oh good my Lord! Let Charity forbear To vex the spirit of a dying Man. A cheerful eye upon the face of Death; Is the true court'nance of a noble mind. For honour's sake (my Lord) molest it not. Prepare to die. That worthy attribute of Gentry, which Your habit draws from ignorant respect; Your name deserves not: nor your self the name Of woman. Since you are the poison that Infects the honour of all womanhood. No more; away with they. He is distracted. What's that my Lord? Be patient and you shall. Restrain his fury. Good my Lord forbear.
Plot summary
Plot — The Atheist's Tragedy, or The Honest Man's Revenge
Montferrers has forbidden his son Charlemont from going to war and refused him the money necessary to equip himself. Charlemont gets a subvention from his uncle, D’Amville, and this persuades Montferrers to change his mind. But D’Amville is an atheist who believes that he must make his happiness in this world rather than wait for reward or punishment in the next, and he has an ulterior motive for wanting his nephew out of the way. Castabella loves Charlemont, and has privately agreed to marry him when he returns. They entrust their secret only to the Puritan Languebeau Snuffe. D’Amville bribes Snuffe to betray them and persuade Belleforest, her father, to make her marry Rousard, his son. Castabella is pressured into the match, despite the protestations of Sebastian, Rousard’s younger brother. As soon as he is married, Rousard falls ill with symptoms which include impotence. On the wedding day, D’Amville’s accomplice Borachio brings false news that Charlemont has been killed in battle. Montferrers makes a new will in D’Amville’s favour. D’Amville gets Montferrers’s torchbearers drunk at the wedding celebrations, and tricks them into quarrelling with one another when lighting their master home; the torches go out in the fight, allowing Borachio to murder Montferrers under cover of darkness. Montferrers’s ghost appears to Charlemont, tells him of the murder, and enjoins him not to take revenge. Charlemont returns to France to find himself presumed dead and his fiancée unhappily married. He confronts D’Amville and has an altercation with Sebastian, but another appearance by the ghost prevents him from getting carried away. D’Amville fabricates an unpaid debt in order to have Charlemont imprisoned, but Sebastian, who has been slightly injured, asks for money to pay a surgeon and uses it to pay the supposed debt and get Charlemont released. D’Amville takes steps to secure the future of his estate. Reasoning that Rousard will beget no son and that Sebastian, a libertine, will never marry, he decides that he will have to produce a bastard to be his heir, and selects Castabella as the mother. He commissions Borachio to murder Charlemont in the churchyard, but Charlemont kills Borachio instead. Snuffe uses the same churchyard for an assignation, intending to scare off any unwanted attention by disguising himself as the ghost of Montferrers, but he is himself frightened by Charlemont and runs away leaving the disguise behind. Charlemont hides in the charnel house.…