Early Modern Drama · Character Archetypes

JOVINELLI

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

PlayIf It Be Not Good, the Devil Is in It (If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil Is in It)
AuthorDekker, Thomas
Year (catalogued)1612
First performance1611
Decade1610s
GenreComedy
Play typeAdult Professional
CompanyQueen Anne's Men
TheaterRed Bull;Outdoor Professional
Speech prefix(es)Iou. | Iou: | Ion. | Io:
Words507
Characters2713
Typicality0.33 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP idA20066
BritDrama no.1641
ClusterCluster 0 — Clowns, beggars & street sellers

Important excerpts

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

Full speech

Mark, the old Lords promise their hearts, but no money. Call you this Coronation day? would I were ith streets where the condu tes run claret wine, there's some good fellowship. They say Monday's Shoemakers holiday, I'll fallen to that trade. Peace, harken to your lesson. Thats more than grocers do. We shall have old breaking of necks then. All my clients, shall be women. Because they are easiest fetched over: there's some thing to be got out of them. Sunday if the week goes backward. This is a brave world for beggars, if it hold. In fish dinners. That's well: better be together byth' ears, then to go halting to hospitals. The braver they are, the sooner are mercers undone. Tyth pigs you'll smoke for this. Print Saturday in great text letters. Especially that at large if you can in read, Like a Dominical letter. My task. Your long expected happiness is arrived, The princess of Calabria. But pray Sir tell us, mean you that we indeed Shall have but one playing day through the whole week? Old Lord you rave. I can fetch twenty r ueners have done more With a bore goosequill. Your leaders before. A schoolmaster as I take it; and comes to present a we rye pretty S owe of his scholars in broken La . If her eyes be worn away, what should a man do With a blind wife? kill her with flies? Or as noblemen use their great horses, when they Are passed service: ell'em to brewers and make'em drey-horses: So use a woman. He swears, To your own hands he paid them. Heeres one storm more. Where is the King? Prepare then for the worst. Thy kingdom is a weak ship, bruizd, split, sinking, Nor hast thou any pilot to waft us over Out of this foul Sea, to some calmer shore. Thy peoples hearts are turned to rocks of flint, The Scholar, Soldier, and the Mariner, Whom (as themselves say) once thou trodst upon, Now serve as wheels of thy destruction. Flying swiftly backward, the kingly Lions quailed, What shall the weaker herds do, if he fallen? But where? Peace you S all know hight hell time enough. Zounds! Bohor! has struck two of my teeth out with his name, There spoke young love indeed. And bid the water-bearers cleanse the city Ther's many a foul thing in it. March: and give us room. We know that by your legs. Thirty men! nothing. Apollo was and Ass; he let a wench whom he lou'de to be turned into a Bay-tree, and now she's glad for a penny to stick Ale-house-windowes, and wind dead coarses. All the Barbers in N ples tell news of that Priory. Heel lay it in Lavender. Your uncle. You must hang up the laws. Hell! Nay, if any that are in Hell, skip up ever so nigh Heaven, as these Devils that spit fire did, I'll drink nothing but Gunpowder. 7. score! they are able to eat up a city in very scraps

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…