The Widow (play)

"The Widow" is a Jacobean stage play first published in 1652, but written decades earlier.

The play was entered into the Stationers' Register on April 12, 1652, and published later that year in quarto by the bookseller Humphrey Moseley. The title page assigns "The Widow" to Ben Jonson, John Fletcher, and Thomas Middleton, though the consensus of modern scholarship judges the play to be the work of Middleton alone.

The play is known to have been in the repertory of the King's Men. The tripartite attribution is repeated in Alexander Gough's address "To the Reader" prefacing the quarto text; Goughe acted with the King's Men in the 1626–36 era. [Oliphant, p. 492.] Nineteenth and early twentieth century critics, like E. H. C. Oliphant, made attempts to defend the original authorial attribution; but modern techniques of textual analysis find no evidence of the hands of either Jonson or Fletcher in the play, and a consistent pattern of evidence favoring Middleton. [Lake, pp. 38-43.] (Interestingly, "The Widow" is included in the 1656 play lists of Rogers and Ley [see "The Careless Shepherdess"] and Edward Archer [see "The Old Law"] as the work of Middleton alone.)

On the limited evidence available, the play is usually dated to c. 1615–17, partially on the basis of a "yellow bands" reference to the execution of Mrs. Anne Turner (November 15, 1615) for her part in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. [Mrs. Turner had started a fashion for wearing ruffs and cuffs dyed yellow instead of the standard white. At the gallows her executioner wore these "yellow bands." White, p. 125. See also: "The World Tossed at Tennis".]

ynopsis

The plot centers on the household of Brandino, an elderly judge, his wife Philippa, and her widowed sister Valeria (the title character). A young gentleman named Francisco has developed an infatuation for Philippa; he regularly comes to the judge's house under the pretense of obtaining warrants from Martino, the judge's clerk. Philippa retrieves a love letter that Francisco has dropped for her, proposing a clandestine meeting; but Philippa is conscious of her reputation and her virtue, and gives the letter to her husband. The judge and clerk are not brave enough to fight Francisco, however; and Philippa begins to regret her action, and to long for an assignation with her young paramour. Francisco, the son of an old friend of the judge, manages to patch up his quarrel with Brandino.

Francisco is shown with his two friends Ricardo and Attilio. Unlike the bashful Francisco, Ricardo is a ladies' man who by his own boast has had "a thousand" lovers; he is currently one of the suitors in pursuit of the wealthy widow Valeria. Ricardo tries to trick his way into winning the widow's hand: while Francisco and Attilio watch from hiding, he manipulates a conversation with Valeria to make it appear that she has agreed to be his wife. The two friends are now potential legal witnesses to the supposed contract. Valeria is outraged at the trickery; she seeks help from two elderly suitors (identified only as the First and Second Suitors). The First Suitor agrees to help Valeria defend herself at law and to persecute Ricardo and friends; but the Second Suitor, a willful old man, sees that his rival has gained an advantage with Valeria, and spitefully tries to frustrate him by helping Ricardo. The two old suitors engage in a back-and-forth conflict over the affair: the First Suitor has the three young men arrested for their debts (real or supposed), but the Second Suitor bails out Ricardo so that he can continue his pursuit of the Widow.

A group of thieves, led by Latrocinio, is shown planning and executing nocturnal assaults; they rob a young traveler called Ansaldo, stripping him to his shirt and leaving him tied to a tree. Ansaldo escapes, and approaches a nearby country house in search of help — a house that happens to belong to Brandino, and is occupied by Philippa and her maid Violetta. Francisco approaches the same house for an arranged meeting; but in the darkness he mistakes the shirt-clad Ansaldo for a ghost, and retreats. Ansaldo is taken in by the women, and given an old and out-of-fashion suit of Brandino's to wear. The two women are taken with Ansaldo's youth, good looks, and gracious manner; Francisco is disparaged and forgotten.

Ansaldo goes into town to attend pressing business; but he has the bad luck to encounter Brandino and Martino at the newly-opened establishment of a doctor. This "doctor" is actually Latrocinio; when pickings on the highways are thin, he and his cronies turn to confidence schemes like quack doctoring to fill their pockets. Brandino recognizes his old suit, assumes Ansaldo stole it, and has the young man arrested. Meanwhile, the real thieves rob Brandino and Martino of their purses. In addition to his funds, Martino's purse contains several blank warrants already signed and sealed. The thieves happily use the warrants to free people from jail — including Ansaldo.

Ansaldo seeks refuge with Philippa and Violetta; they disguise him as a young woman. Brandino and Martino arrive with Francisco; so does Valeria, followed by Ricardo and the Suitors. Francisco is immediately taken with the disguised Ansaldo; Philippa and Violetta find this a good joke, and allow Francisco to court his new infatuation. Valeria signs over her property to her brother-in-law Brandino; once she is without her fortune, the old Suitors instantly lose interest. Only Ricardo still wants to marry her. His debts are a barrier; but the willful and capricious Second Suitor goes so far as to rip up Ricardo's bonds of debt to facilitate the marriage. His sentiments are gleefully malevolent:

::And ever since I knew what malice was,::I always led it sweeter to sow mischief,::Than to receive money; 'tis the finer pleasure.

He wants the couple to marry, to be united in beggary; he predicts that Ricardo will soon "give her a black eye" and "Beat half her teeth out," and that they'll

::...break the little household-stuff they have,::With throwing at one another: O, sweet sport!

Yet once the debts are shredded, Valeria reveals that her deed to Brandino is conditional, a "deed in trust" — it is null and void when she marries, so that she brings her wealth intact to her marriage with Ricardo.

Francisco and "Ansaldo" also agree to marry — though "Ansaldo" reveals that "he" is actually a woman who has been maintaining a disguise as a man. She is Martia, the absconded daughter of the First Suitor. Father and daughter repair their rift, and the play ends with two happy couples on their way to the altar. Martino closes the proceedings with word that the thieves have been apprehended.

Notes

References

* Lake, David J. "The Canon of Thomas Middleton's Plays." Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1975.
* Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith, eds. "The Popular School: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama." Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1975.
* Oliphant, E. H. C. "The Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher: An Attempt to Determine Their Respective Shares and the Shares of Others". New Haven, Yale University Press, 1927.
* White, Beatrice. "Cast of Ravens". London, John Murray, 1965.