Early Modern Drama · Character Archetypes

FRIAR

in The Wonder of A Kingdom — Dekker, Thomas

Metadata

PlayThe Wonder of A Kingdom
AuthorDekker, Thomas
Year (catalogued)1636
First performance1631
Decade1630s
GenreComedy
Play typeAdult Professional
CompanyPrince Charles's Men (first) (?)
Speech prefix(es)Fryar. | Fryer. | Fry.
Words201
Characters1055
Typicality0.44 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP idA20093
BritDrama no.2017
ClusterCluster 19 — Grieving nobles & tragicomic sufferers

Important excerpts

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

Full speech

I will, your pleasure. Your devotion Commands my service. W'are least i'th friars stead. The Prince be your confessor; girl prepare To play the bride tomorrow, and then being laid, Oh e night passed over think never to rise a maid. I was enjoined to be her confessor, And came but then she won me to a vow, By oath of all my order, face to face, To hear her speak unto Angelo, 'twas done, He came, when falling down on both her knees, Her eyes drowned all in tears, she opens a book, Charging him read his oaths and promises, The contract of their hands, hearts, yea and souls, And asked if Angelo would marry her. He looking pale as death, said faintly no. Thrice tried: he thrice cried no; At which this Lady Desperately snatching from her side two knives, Had stabbed her self to th'heart, but that we knit Our force against it, what should I do in this? Not marry her, or rob her of heavens bliss? Which glory had been greater to have taken, A husband from her, or to have seen her slain? I have. The hands which heaven hath joined, no man can partly.

Plot summary

Plot — The Wonder of A Kingdom
The Duke of Florence has betrothed his daughter, Fiametta, to the Prince of Pisa, and, to facilitate the political marriage, banished her lover, Angelo. Fiametta sickens for her absent love, and he returns to court disguised as a French doctor, offering the Duke his services to save her life. He diagnoses sexual frustration, and proposes a cure which requires the patient to drink a potion made from the beloved’s powdered heart: she will then hate him. In order to obtain the key ingredient, Angelo must be murdered. Angelo reveals his presence to Fiametta, but she insists on identifying him to her father, in the expectation that the Duke will relent. Angelo passes this off as an insane delusion, then flees to sanctuary. He is found and brought to court with a friar. He seems to reject Fiametta, and she agrees to marry Pisa the following day, but asks for the friar to hear her confession overnight. In fact, he secretly marries her to Angelo, pre-empting Pisa; the Duke and Prince are annoyed, but recognize there is nothing to be done about it. In the sub-plot, Lord Vanni has amorous inclinations younger than his physical age, and sends a love-letter and jewel to the chaste Alphonsina Neri. Meanwhile, Alphonsina’s brother Tibaldo has fallen sick for love of Vanni’s wife Dariene. He asks Alphonsina to accept Vanni’s advances, and Vanni duly excuses himself from Dariene’s bed. Tibaldo has arranged for himself to be present disguised as Alphonsina’s sister, and offers himself as an alternative, ‘female’ bedfellow for Dariene. His plan is aborted when he learns that Vanni’s daughter Alisandra loves Trebatio and Trebatio’s son. When Vanni pays his nocturnal visit, he is scared off by Trebatio’s lute-playing, then caught by his wife and blamed for the adultery he never committed. Alphonsina and Tibaldo marry Trebatio and Alisandra. In the third plot, the hospitable Jacomo has built a house in which to entertain his guests: his uncle, who is suspected of getting rich through supernatural agency, gave him a deathbed injunction to spend his inheritance virtuously. Torrenti envies Jacomo his new house, and plans a magnificent lifestyle of his own; but whereas Jacomo entertains the poor and needy, Torrenti is only interested in luxury and guests of a high social standing. When his brother arrives, ragged and dirty after escaping from slavery in a Turkish galley, Torrenti is appalled and turns him away. He entertains the Duke with a lavishness that bankrupts him. War…