in The Devil's Law Case (When Women Go to Law the Devil Is Full of Business) — Webster, John
Metadata
Play
The Devil's Law Case (When Women Go to Law the Devil Is Full of Business)
Author
Webster, John
Year (catalogued)
1623
First performance
1619
Decade
1620s
Genre
Tragicomedy
Play type
Adult Professional
Company
Queen Anne's Men
Speech prefix(es)
2. Sur. | 2 Sur. | 2. Su | 2. Su.
Words
337
Characters
1708
Typicality
0.40 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A14869
BritDrama no.
1875
Cluster
Cluster 16 — Errand servants & brief parts
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
Yes sir, we are his Surgeons, But he is passed all Cure. He has, we are witness too't. A Physician? where do you practice? 'Tis a bargain sir, we are yours: Here is the Subject you must work on. At your best pleasure. Yet for all this, I will not trust this Jew. Nay prithee be a Jew still; I would not have a Christian be guilty Of such a villainous act as this is. Why look you sir, as I do weigh this business, This cannot be counted murder in you by no means. Why 'tis no more, then should I go and choke And Irish man, that were three quarters drowned, With powering Vsquebath in's throat. Is the wind in that door still? Me thinks he fetches his breath very lively. Will you not let us be men of fashion, And down with him now he's going? A couple of strange Foul, and I the Falconer, That have sprung them. This is a white Nun, Of the Order of Saint Clare; and this a black one, Yowl take my word for't. How sir? Why Rome. has the will, & in that he has given us nothing. Yes, in a bloody Roman Letter. O, I will never eat nor drink with him, Without Unicorns Horn in a hollow tooth. Why this is Like one I have herd of in England, Was cured a'th Gout, by being racked i'th Tower. Well, if we can recover him, here's reward On both sides: howsoever we must be secret. That protestation has the music of the Mint in't. He presently grow a lazy Surgeon, & ride on my footcloth; He fetch from him every eight days a policy for a hundred double Ducats; if he grumble, I'll peach. How? go to the East Indies? And so many Hollanders gone to fetch sauce for their pic keld Herrings; some have be pepperd there too lately, but I pray, being thus well recovered of your wounds, Why do you not reucale yourself?
Plot summary
Plot — The Devil's Law Case (When Women Go to Law the Devil Is Full of Business)
Contarino, who has been wooing Jolenta, asks her family’s permission to marry her, but her widowed mother Leonora misunderstands his oblique request and thinks she is herself the object of his interest. Meanwhile Jolenta’s brother, Romelio, would prefer her to marry Ercole; but she refuses him and Ercole takes offence. Contarino fights a duel with Ercole, and they wound one another. The bodies are sent to a 1618 monastery. Ercole recovers and decides to forgo his interest in Jolenta to Contarino, should he too survive. Concerned that he should not, Romelio visits the monastery disguised as a Jewish physician, and stabs Contarino’s body. He is seen by two surgeons, who plan to blackmail him; but ironically the stab clears Contarino’s wound and facilitates his recovery. Romelio’s financial situation is perilous: he has lost his mercantile carracks of spice. Contarino has named Jolenta his heir; Romelio plans to make her Ercole’s too, by fabricating the story that she is pregnant by him. Romelio himself will supply the eventual baby: he has got a nun, Angiolella, with child, and wants both to cover this up and ensure that his issue will inherit both suitors’ property. Jolenta, however, claims that she really is pregnant, by Contarino; so Romelio proposes that she should produce twins. Knowing of Leonora’s interest in Contarino, he fosters jealousy between mother and daughter. The Spanish judge Crispiano comes to Naples in disguise with three objectives: to observe his son’s lifestyle, to investigate reports of illegal gold-mining by Romelio, and to appoint the lawyer Ariosto as a judge. Blaming her son for Contarino’s death, Leonora brings a false law-case that will deprive him of his patrimony by establishing his illegitimacy: he was conceived, she claims, during his father’s absence. Crispiano sits as judge, and attributes the action to malice, but stands down when he becomes a party in the case: Leonora names him as Romelio’s natural father. Ariosto takes his place on the bench, and Crispiano demonstrates that he was not even in Europe at the time in question. To evade punishment, Leonora claims to have become a nun. Ercole, present in disguise, is arrested for killing Contarino, but accuses Romelio of the crime. In the absence of a witness, this is to be settled in a trial by combat. Contarino, incognito, agrees to fight on Ercole’s side. The news of Contarino’s survival reaches Leonora via her confessor, a Capuchin, but Romelio locks them in a tower on…