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)
Soqu. | Saq. | Sequ.
Words
210
Characters
1085
Typicality
0.38 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A13840
BritDrama no.
1625
Cluster
Cluster 20 — Conjurers, witches & physicians
Important excerpts
Passages from this character's speech that contain the most distinguishing words for Cluster 20 (ithimore, nat, invisible, notary, glycerie, humfrey…). Matches are highlighted.
The Plumtree (forsooth) grows so near the Med lar, that the Medlar sucks and draws all the sap from it; and the natural strength of the ground, so that it cannot pros per. There grows a Savin-tree next it forsooth. Nay good Sir; I dare not. In good sooth I come of a generation
Full speech
The Plumtree (forsooth) grows so near the Med lar, that the Medlar sucks and draws all the sap from it; and the natural strength of the ground, so that it cannot pros per. There grows a Savin-tree next it forsooth. Nay good Sir; I dare not. In good sooth I come of a generation both by Father and Mother, that were all as fruit full as Costard-mongers wives. I must put my understanding to your trust Sir. I would be loath to be deceived. Yet me thinks Sir, your want of use should rather make your body Like a Well, the lesser t'is drawn, the sooner it grows dry. But we want place and opportunity. You purpose i'the dark to make me light. Pulls out a sheet, a hair, and a beard. But what have you there? God me there? No. Not with child. Yet your word was better then than your deed. But, steal up into the little matted chamber o'the left hand. 'Precious quickly; So soon as my Mistress shall be in bed I'll come to you. So Like a Ghost that notwithstanding I have some before knowledge of you, you make my hair stand almost and end. Nay, if you get me any more into the Churchyard.
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.…