in The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London — Wilson, Robert
Metadata
Play
The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London
Author
Wilson, Robert
Year (catalogued)
1590
First performance
1588
Decade
1590s
Genre
Moral
Play type
Adult Professional
Company
Queen Elizabeth's Men (?)
Speech prefix(es)
Loue. | Loue, | loue.
Words
411
Characters
2141
Typicality
0.46 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A15517
BritDrama no.
821
Cluster
Cluster 22 — Ghosts, curses & horror voices
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
Yet never dead, and yet Love doth not that , Love that to lose in life her folly lent, Folly the food whereon her frailty fed, Frailty the milk that Nature's breast did gi e, Life, lose and folly, frailty, food and kind, Worm, sting, thorns, fire and torment to the mind, Life but a breath, and folly but a flower, Frailty clay, dust the food, that fancy scorns, Love a sweet bait to cover losses Sour. Flesh breeds the fire that kindles lustful thorns, Lust, fire, bait, scorn, dust, flower, and feeble breath Die, quench, deceive, fly, fade, and yield to death, To death? Oh good, if death might finish all, We die each day, and yet for death we call. Sorrow remains when joy is but a blast. Oh Conscience, thou hast most tormented me. and on my seat my self I frozen fin . No flint more harden, no y e more cold then this. My double face is single grown again. Hail cheerful air and clearest crystal sky. And on this Flint in led is Charity. Love on the flint of frozen Charity, Ladies alas, what tattered souls are we? then will their sighed that knew us heretofore Draw ruth and help from them for our relief: Oh gall in honey, serpent in the grass, Oh bifold fountain of two bitter streams, Dissimulation fed with Vipers flesh, Whose words are oylt, whose deeds the darts of death: Thy tongue I know, that tongue that me be guiled, Thy self a Devil, madest me a Monster vild. From thee well known, well may I bless my self, Dear bought repentance bids me shun thy snare. Oh sharp and cold, I freeze unto my seat, The Flint holds fire, and yet I feel no heat, But am benumbed and frozen every joint. Friend, I am Love, what bringest thou there to me? To meet them coming will not be amiss, But what know we how they will take such work, Lord policy, well met, and welcome home again. Oh Conscience thou wouldst led me to despair, But that I see the way to hope is fair, And Hope to heaven directs a ready way, And heaven to help is pressed, to them that pray. I will no more by thee be so disguised. Those found affections wrought me soul disgrace, Who once are burned, the fire will ever shun. Not at thy fire, I will be perfect love ?
Plot summary
Plot — The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London
The three lords of London, in want of wives, plan to marry the three ladies. There are two complications. ===== PAGE 450 ===== First, it emerges that they all want the same lady, Lucre. More pressingly, all three ladies are in prison. The lords agree to secure their freedom and worry later about who marries whom. But Judge Nemo has heard petitions for the ladies’ release before: many men wanted Lucre, some wanted Love, and nobody cared about Conscience. His conditions are that either all three ladies go free or none of them, and that, if they do, he shall decide which lady marries which lord. The ladies are taken from prison and sat on uncomfortable penitential stones. They are visited by Lucre’s former servants, who were banished from London but now want their old jobs back; Lucre is unable to accommodate them. Falsehood and Double- Dealing offer the ladies clothes to replace their prison rags, but they refuse. Nemo arranges for them to have more virtuous garments, the first stage in their rehabilitation. When the three lords continue to quarrel over which of them should have Lucre, Nemo agrees to give up his right to make the marital dispositions, on condition that the lords accept the lady’s own choice. He then has Conscience pose as Lucre. Each lord offers her a different benefit — power, magnificence, and hedonism - and she eventually bestows herself on Pleasure. He is happy with his fiancée even when he learns of the deception. Conscience declares that Policy should marry Love and that Lucre is best suited to Pomp. Before the lords can proceed with their marriages, however, they must repel a Spanish invasion. Three lords of Spain arrive and plan to take the ladies for themselves. The London lords defeat them and present their captured shields to their ladies. Nemo grants the two remaining ladies to the appropriate lords, but three lords of Lincoln intervene, claiming pre-contracts with the ladies. The London lords outface their rivals, who are sent away with the penitential stones in lieu of the ladies. In the sub-plot, Fraud sells Simplicity some cheap ‘gold’, which turns out to be mere copper, so Simplicity repeatedly attempts to have him arrested. Posing as Skill and Fair Semblance, Fraud and Dissimulation seek jobs with the lords, but are recognized. Dissimulation is branded, and Fraud is taken to prison, but bribes Diligence to release him on the way; the bribe money is later found to be counterfeit. Fraud attends the lords’ wedding in…