Early Modern Drama · Character Archetypes

IGNORANCE

in Enough Is as Good as a Feast — Wager, William

Metadata

PlayEnough Is as Good as a Feast
AuthorWager, William
Year (catalogued)1570
First performance1560
Decade1570s
GenreMoral
Play typeInterlude
Speech prefix(es)Ignorance. | Ignorance | Ignorance, | Enter Ignorance.
Words415
Characters1986
Typicality0.24 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP idA14627
BritDrama no.468
ClusterCluster 7 — Pedants, satyrs & Latin wit

Important excerpts

No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).

Full speech

Cham faint by gisse, would ich had a little more buni. No, I can drink a Galon and eat never a bit. I can expound good ale from fair water. I can do it as well as any Bishop I am sure. I have spouted with the Genevians xx. on a row: Thou shalt if y u wilt promise to give me a pot of beer Magistrorum clericium inkepe miorum Totus perus altus yongus et oldus Multus knauoribus et quoque fasorum Pick pursus omnius argentus shauus & polus. Let me see what they are all able to say to this. Marry it was time indeed for us silence to keep. Passion of me Sira, he dreameth me think: Nay it is some wurser thing truly I fear. So me thinks for he dreameth of going to Hell. Good Lord seest thou not? behold how he doth weep Marry God forbid, why where is your grief? Is it not best that I call hither a Physician? That he may of your sickness declare y e disposition. It shall not be long or he be here, you shall see. Exit. Stand away foolish knave and let master Physician come: Here is drink and all things ready at hand: It is time in deed, for death in you doth appear. Your mind in this thing undoubted is not ill: Now as for other things it is best you make a will. Here is Ink and Paper, what shall I write? In the name, in, in, in, in the name, what more? P ssion of me Covetous he is gone me think. Hold, hold him, let us see if any life in him be: Passion of me he is dead, how shall we do now? Tush, God: a straw, his mind was other ways ocupied: All his study was who should have his goods when he died. Indeed all men may perceive his mind to be corrupt and ill: For God would not suffer him to name him in his will. A strange matter, when men have given over God: They may be sure to be scourged with his sharp rod. Was I? yea faith that I was you shall under stand With a piece of Latin I set them all one dry land. A man may as much edifying out of my Latin take: As you may out of exposicio ̄ S y to many ministers make Why? how now? what is the matter? how doth he Policy?

Plot summary

Plot — Enough Is as Good as a Feast
Remembering his father’s bankruptcy, the Worldly Man hoards treasure for the future, seeing such behaviour as provident thrift, whereas the Heavenly Man relies on God to look after him and regards wealth as a distraction from spiritual things. He and Contentation persuade the Worldly Man to change to a godly lifestyle, but the vices, using innocuous aliases to inveigle their way into his confidence, cause him to backslide into covetous materialism. He becomes a miser and maltreats his tenants, servants, and hirelings: he raises rents, fails to pay the wages he owes, and seizes property adjacent to his own. After a bad dream about God’s punishment, he falls ill and dies. Satan carries him to hell on his back, advising the audience to live their lives in the same way. The virtues advise the contrary.