in If It Be Not Good, the Devil Is in It (If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil Is in It) — Dekker, Thomas
Metadata
Play
If It Be Not Good, the Devil Is in It (If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil Is in It)
Author
Dekker, Thomas
Year (catalogued)
1612
First performance
1611
Decade
1610s
Genre
Comedy
Play type
Adult Professional
Company
Queen Anne's Men
Theater
Red Bull;Outdoor Professional
Speech prefix(es)
Cha. | Char. | Ch • . | Cha:
Words
347
Characters
1839
Typicality
0.43 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A20066
BritDrama no.
1641
Cluster
Cluster 22 — Ghosts, curses & horror voices
Important excerpts
Passages from this character's speech that contain the most distinguishing words for Cluster 22 (broom, tiff, loathsome, snakes, hercles, dismal…). Matches are highlighted.
one. Scurvy fare, isle first cry garlic. I'll Ferret out more. Not touch a Scull. For money: I'll have ij. worser. for each soul I ferry over; Im'e old, crazed, Stiff, and lam'de, That soul thats not worth ijd. wou'ld it damned. I will have it, or lie still, If Charon fill hell, hell shall Charon fill: For Ghosts now come not
Full speech
So. I'll be thy slave no longer. Hels drudge, her Galleyslave. I ha'wore, My fl sh toth' bones, bones marrowles, at the Oaer Tugging to waft to'thy Stygian empire, Souls, Which (but for Charon) never had come in Shoal, Yet (swarmde they never so,) them on shore I set, Hell gets by Charon, what does Charon get? If I do! Some Like that smell, my boat to shore isle pull; Not work a stroke more. I have no doings: Graues-end-barge has more, And car es as good as any are in hell; I fear the infernal rivers are frozen over So few by water come: else the whores that dwell Next door to hell, go about: beside, 'tis thought, That m n to find hell, now, new ways have sought, S Sp nirards did to the Indies. Pluto, mend My wages, or row thy self. Why: Gingerly: See See, One of thine own promoters, (with hawks eyes, That should for prey be watching) here suoring lies. Another: look: dancing abaw'de on's knee. Two of thy Summer's dead drunk here too. I come: If I must work, let these Thy Prentices, ply their occupation, TO uphold hells Kingdom, more must work then one. Scurvy fare, isle first cry garlic. I'll Ferret out more. Not touch a Scull. For money: I'll have ij. worser. for each soul I ferry over; Im'e old, crazed, Stiff, and lam'de, That soul thats not worth ijd. wou'ld it damned. I will have it, or lie still, If Charon fill hell, hell shall Charon fill: For Ghosts now come not thronging to my boat, But drop by one and one in; none of note Are fares now: I had wont brave fellows to ply, Who, (hacked and mangled) did in battles die. But now these gallants which do walk hells Rounds, Are fuller of diseases, than of wounds. If wounded any take my boat, they roar, Being stabbed, either drunk, or slain about some whore. Thats all the fight now. Ball not. I'll come anon. Hags of hell gnaw thee with their fowl furd-gummes.
Plot summary
Plot — If It Be Not Good, the Devil Is in It (If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil Is in It)
Hell has a population problem: so few new souls are arriving that Charon’s earnings are in decline, but Pluto is reluctant to allow him to raise his fare lest the new price should prove a deterrent. Instead, he sends devils to Naples in human disguise to tempt people into sin in the court, the abbey, and the city. They are later to rendezvous in a grove to report their progress. Ruffman goes to court, assuming the identity of the foreign courtier Bohor. The newly crowned King of ===== PAGE 144 ===== Is In It Naples, Alfonso, intends to be a just and godly ruler, and plans out his week to devote each day toa different state task. Bohor persuades him to spend more time on pleasure and less on duty, so Saturday is designated a day of hedonism. Alfonso proclaims a reward for whoever entertains him best, and Bohor wins with a display of airborne fireballs. Alfonso’s devotion to pleasure starts to extend beyond Saturdays, and he neglects his state duties. He also breaks off his engagement with Princess Ermenhild, who retires to a convent and lets it be known that she is dead. Shackle-Soul becomes Friar Rush, a novice in the abbey. On learning that the friars eat frugally, he tempts them to gluttony and is appointed the abbey cook. Only Clement, the Sub-Prior, dissents, and Rush identifies him as an enemy who will have to be dealt with. He also makes an enemy of Scumbroth, his predecessor as cook, when he lays an untrue accusation of unchastity. Obtaining gold from a spirit, he tempts Clement: when Clement goes to fetch water, he finds his pot filled instead with gold, which he gives away to Scumbroth. After squandering the money, Scumbroth returns to the grove to get more, witnesses the diabolic rendezvous there, and realizes that Friar Rush is a devil. Ermenhild hears that her father, the Duke of Calabria, has declared war on Naples over her apparent death. She asks Friar Clement to deliver him a letter establishing that she is in fact alive. Clement continues to withstand Rush’s temptations, proving insensible to the pleasures of music, dancing, and voluptuous women, and is steadfast even when Rush reverts to diabolic form and tells him he is to die that night. Grumball adopts the name Lurchall and enters the service of the corrupt merchant Bartervile, who attempts to cheat his client Innocentio: the terms of Innocentio’s loan require him to repay it at a set time, or else his mortgaged estate will revert to Bartervile; so Bartervile tries unsuccessfully to…