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)
Cataplasma. | Catap. | Cata.
Words
404
Characters
2256
Typicality
0.40 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A13840
BritDrama no.
1625
Cluster
Cluster 1 — Wives, widows & intimate counsel
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
COme Soquette; your work! let's examine your work. What's here? a Medlar with a Plumtree growing hard by it; The leaves of the Plumtree falling off; the gum issuing out of the perished joints; and the branches some of they dead, and some rotten; and yet but a young Plumtree. In good sooth, very pretty. Yes my Lord. My Lord; I am a Gentlewoman: yet I must con fesse my poverty compels my life to a condition lower then my birth or breeding. Certain Ladies at my house (Madame) detained me; otherwise I had attended your Ladyship sooner. He shall instantly wait on your Ladyship. How conceited you are! But here th'ast made a Tree to bear no fruit. Why's that? Forsooth you are a little too witty in that. Monsieur Sebastian! in good sooth very uprightly welcome this evening. No Sir. Only examining whither it be done to the true nature and life of the thing? Moral for you that love those wanton running uva ters. Her purpose promised us her company ere this. Lirie! your Lute and your Book. Solemnizing, fa, mi, la.—Mi, mi mi.—Precious! Dost not see mi between the two Crochets? Strike me full there.—So—forward.—This is a sweet strain, and thou finger'st it beastly. Mi is a laerg there; and the prick that stands before mi, a long; always half your note.— Now—Run your division pleasingly with those quam vers. Observe all your graces i'the touch.—Here's a sweet close—strike it full, it sets off your music deli cately. T'is now entered; and welcome with your good La diship. Wil't please your Ladyship go up into the Closet? There are those Falls and Tires I told you of. With all my heart Sir. Go Soqu item; give ear to his instructions; you may get understanding by his company I can tell you. Good Monsieur Snuff! —I will attend your return. I wonder Frisco stays so long. Enjoy your pleasure (Madame) without fear. I ne ver will betray the trust you have committed to me. And you wrong your self, to let consideration of the sin; molest your conscience. Mc thinks t'is unjust, that a reproach should be inflicted on a woman for offending but with one; when t'is a light offence in Husbands to commit with many. Nay by Saint With fred; a woman's love lasts as long as Winter fruit. Passion of me. What bouncing's that? Madame! withdraw your self.
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.…