The Widow's Tears
Encyclopedia
The Widow's Tears is an early Jacobean era play, a comedy written by George Chapman
. It is often considered the last of Chapman's comedies, and sometimes his most problematic, "the most provocative and the most paradoxical of any of his dramatic works."
assigned it to the winter of 1605-6. Critics have seen the parody of incompetent justice in the play's final scene as Chapman's response to his imprisonment over the Eastward Ho
scandal of 1605 — though E. K. Chambers
demured on this point, suggesting that "It would be equally sound to argue that this is just the date when Chapman would have been most careful to avoid criticism of this kind." Chambers and others have given a dating range of 1603-9.
states that The Widow's Tears was "often presented" at both the Blackfriars
and Whitefriars
theatres. This indicates that the play was part of the repertory of the Children of the Chapel
, both when they were acting in the Blackfriars Theatre through 1608 and also later, when the company had moved to the Whitefriars Theatre. Only one specific performance is known with certainty: the Children acted the play at Court on February 27, 1613. Philip Rosseter
, the company's manager at the time, was paid £13 6s. 8d. for the Children's four Court performances that winter season, of the Chapman play and plays by Beaumont and Fletcher
.
on April 17, 1612, and was published later that year in quarto
by the bookseller John Browne. The 1612 quarto was the only edition of the play in the 17th century. The quarto bears Chapman's dedication to John Reed of Mitton, misidentifying Mitton's Worcestershire
location as Gloucestershire
. Reed was a relative of Fulke Greville.
. Chapman gives his play an unusual structure, in that he treats his two plots consecutively, rather than concurrently and in alternation as in most two-plot plays. The first three acts are mainly devoted to the subplot, while the main plot takes over in the last two acts. The two plots are united by the involvement of two siblings, Lysander and Tharsalio.
Tharsalio, the younger brother, is a romantic-comedy version of Chapman's tragic character Bussy D'Ambois
— he is a "capricous," "wild, corrupted youth." As the protagonist of the subplot, he schemes to repair his fortunes by marrying a wealthy widow, the countess Eudora. The countess has taken a vow never to remarry; nonetheless, she is courted (primarily for her money) by two contrasting suitors, Tharsalio and Rebus. Tharsalio is bold and forward, while Rebus is pompous yet timid. Tharsalio's method of wooing is unsubtle, and he is at first rejected — which provokes his brother Lysander's caustic comments. Yet Tharsalio succeeds in his courtship through an extraordinary expedient: he sends the panderess Arsace to warn Eudora about...himself. Arcase tells Eudora of Tharsalio's reputation as a relentless womanizer. In the process, however, Arsace stresses Tharsalio's "manhood" and woman-pleasing capacities: "a goddess," she claims, "is not worthy of his sweetness." Tharsalio's plan is to mount a subtle arousal and temptation of Eudora's latent romantic and erotic desires. The plan is successful, and the third act closes with the marriage of Tharsalio and Eudora.
The main plot of the last two acts (which draws upon the Ephesian Matron story in the Satyricon
of Petronius Arbiter) provides a twist to the situation of the preceding subplot. In their conversations over his plans to woo Eudora, Tharsalio resents his brother's critical attitude; to pay him back, Tharsalio makes Lysander doubt his wife. Like Eudora, Lysander's wife Cynthia has vowed not to remarry if she is ever widowed. Tharsalio goads his brother on precisely this point, and Lysander is so provoked that he decides upon an extreme strategem. Lysander fakes his own death, spreading the false report that he has been killed by bandits while travelling; Cynthia, believing these false reports, is prostrate with grief. (Eudora's servant Lycus, a confidant of Lysander and Tharsalio who is aware of the plot, is the only one to protest its emotional cruelty: "men hunt hares to death for their sports, but the poor beasts die in earnest.")
Lysander returns to the city, disguised as a soldier of the night watch, to see the result of his ruse. In a series of somewhat macabre graveyard scenes, the disguised Lysander finds Cynthia mourning at the family tomb, where she has gone without food or sleep for the past five days. He cajoles and persuades her to take food and wine, and exploits her emotional vulnerability to seduce her and persuade her to "marry" him. Tharsalio spies upon these events, without realizing that the soldier is Lysander in disguise; he triumphs is this apparent confirmation of his cynical attitude toward women:
Lysander's disguise as a soldier has fooled others as well as Cynthia, and he is apprehended for neglecting his guard duty; and Lycus is suspected of murdering Lysander. The new Governor of Cyprus, an incompetent and arrogant fool, attempts to pass judgement on these matters and only confounds them further. The countess Eudora, widow of the previous governor, intercedes to pacify the Governor and repair his bungling. Lysander is revealed to be alive, which resolves the legal issue of his murder. Tharsalio convinces his brother to accept the outcome of his plotting with equanimity; he asserts that when Cynthia loved Lysander in his soldier disguise, she was merely being "a constant wife."
George Chapman
George Chapman was an English dramatist, translator, and poet. He was a classical scholar, and his work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman has been identified as the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Minto, and as an anticipator of the Metaphysical Poets...
. It is often considered the last of Chapman's comedies, and sometimes his most problematic, "the most provocative and the most paradoxical of any of his dramatic works."
Date
The play is universally dated to sometime in the first decade of the 17th century, based on all the available data. Many scholars favor the year 1605; leading Chapman scholar T. M. ParrottThomas Marc Parrott
Thomas Marc Parrott was a prominent twentieth-century American literary scholar, long a member of the faculty of Princeton University in New Jersey....
assigned it to the winter of 1605-6. Critics have seen the parody of incompetent justice in the play's final scene as Chapman's response to his imprisonment over the Eastward Ho
Eastward Hoe
Eastward Hoe or Eastward Ho, is an early Jacobean era stage play, a satire and city comedy written by George Chapman, Ben Jonson, and John Marston, printed in 1605. The play was written in response to Westward Ho, an earlier satire by Thomas Dekker and John Webster...
scandal of 1605 — though E. K. Chambers
Edmund Kerchever Chambers
Sir Edmund Kerchever Chambers was an English literary critic and Shakespearean scholar. His four-volume history of Elizabethan theater, published in 1923, remains a standard resource for scholars of the period's drama....
demured on this point, suggesting that "It would be equally sound to argue that this is just the date when Chapman would have been most careful to avoid criticism of this kind." Chambers and others have given a dating range of 1603-9.
Performance
The title page of the first edition of 16121612 in literature
The year 1612 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*January 6 - Ben Jonson's masque Love Restored is performed.*January 12 - The King's Men and Queen Anne's Men unite for the first of two Court performances in January, with Thomas Heywood's The Silver Age*January 13 - The King's...
states that The Widow's Tears was "often presented" at both the Blackfriars
Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre was the name of a theatre in the Blackfriars district of the City of London during the Renaissance. The theatre began as a venue for child actors associated with the Queen's chapel choirs; in this function, the theatre hosted some of the most innovative drama of Elizabeth and...
and Whitefriars
Whitefriars Theatre
The Whitefriars Theatre was a theatre in Jacobean London, in existence from 1608 to the 1620s — about which only limited and sometimes contradictory information survives.-Location:...
theatres. This indicates that the play was part of the repertory of the Children of the Chapel
Children of the Chapel
The Children of the Chapel were the boys with unbroken voices, choristers, who formed part of the Chapel Royal, the body of singers and priests serving the spiritual needs of their sovereign wherever they were called upon to do so....
, both when they were acting in the Blackfriars Theatre through 1608 and also later, when the company had moved to the Whitefriars Theatre. Only one specific performance is known with certainty: the Children acted the play at Court on February 27, 1613. Philip Rosseter
Philip Rosseter
Philip Rosseter was an English composer and musician, as well as a theatrical manager. From 1603 until his death in 1623 he was lutenist for James I of England. Rosseter is best known for A Book of Aires which was written with Thomas Campion...
, the company's manager at the time, was paid £13 6s. 8d. for the Children's four Court performances that winter season, of the Chapman play and plays by Beaumont and Fletcher
Beaumont and Fletcher
Beaumont and Fletcher were the English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I ....
.
Publication
The play was entered into Stationers' RegisterStationers' Register
The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including printers, bookbinders, booksellers, and publishers in England...
on April 17, 1612, and was published later that year in quarto
Book size
The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from "folio" , to "quarto" and "octavo"...
by the bookseller John Browne. The 1612 quarto was the only edition of the play in the 17th century. The quarto bears Chapman's dedication to John Reed of Mitton, misidentifying Mitton's Worcestershire
Worcestershire
Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...
location as Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
. Reed was a relative of Fulke Greville.
Synopsis
The Widow's Tears is set on the island of CyprusCyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
. Chapman gives his play an unusual structure, in that he treats his two plots consecutively, rather than concurrently and in alternation as in most two-plot plays. The first three acts are mainly devoted to the subplot, while the main plot takes over in the last two acts. The two plots are united by the involvement of two siblings, Lysander and Tharsalio.
Tharsalio, the younger brother, is a romantic-comedy version of Chapman's tragic character Bussy D'Ambois
Bussy D'Ambois
The Tragedy of Bussy D'Ambois is a Jacobean stage play written by George Chapman. Classified as either a tragedy or "contemporary history," Bussy D'Ambois is widely considered Chapman's greatest play, and is the earliest in a series of plays that Chapman wrote about the French political scene in...
— he is a "capricous," "wild, corrupted youth." As the protagonist of the subplot, he schemes to repair his fortunes by marrying a wealthy widow, the countess Eudora. The countess has taken a vow never to remarry; nonetheless, she is courted (primarily for her money) by two contrasting suitors, Tharsalio and Rebus. Tharsalio is bold and forward, while Rebus is pompous yet timid. Tharsalio's method of wooing is unsubtle, and he is at first rejected — which provokes his brother Lysander's caustic comments. Yet Tharsalio succeeds in his courtship through an extraordinary expedient: he sends the panderess Arsace to warn Eudora about...himself. Arcase tells Eudora of Tharsalio's reputation as a relentless womanizer. In the process, however, Arsace stresses Tharsalio's "manhood" and woman-pleasing capacities: "a goddess," she claims, "is not worthy of his sweetness." Tharsalio's plan is to mount a subtle arousal and temptation of Eudora's latent romantic and erotic desires. The plan is successful, and the third act closes with the marriage of Tharsalio and Eudora.
The main plot of the last two acts (which draws upon the Ephesian Matron story in the Satyricon
Satyricon
Satyricon is a Latin work of fiction in a mixture of prose and poetry. It is believed to have been written by Gaius Petronius, though the manuscript tradition identifies the author as a certain Titus Petronius...
of Petronius Arbiter) provides a twist to the situation of the preceding subplot. In their conversations over his plans to woo Eudora, Tharsalio resents his brother's critical attitude; to pay him back, Tharsalio makes Lysander doubt his wife. Like Eudora, Lysander's wife Cynthia has vowed not to remarry if she is ever widowed. Tharsalio goads his brother on precisely this point, and Lysander is so provoked that he decides upon an extreme strategem. Lysander fakes his own death, spreading the false report that he has been killed by bandits while travelling; Cynthia, believing these false reports, is prostrate with grief. (Eudora's servant Lycus, a confidant of Lysander and Tharsalio who is aware of the plot, is the only one to protest its emotional cruelty: "men hunt hares to death for their sports, but the poor beasts die in earnest.")
Lysander returns to the city, disguised as a soldier of the night watch, to see the result of his ruse. In a series of somewhat macabre graveyard scenes, the disguised Lysander finds Cynthia mourning at the family tomb, where she has gone without food or sleep for the past five days. He cajoles and persuades her to take food and wine, and exploits her emotional vulnerability to seduce her and persuade her to "marry" him. Tharsalio spies upon these events, without realizing that the soldier is Lysander in disguise; he triumphs is this apparent confirmation of his cynical attitude toward women:
-
-
- She, she, she, and none but she.
- She, only queen of love and chastity;
- O chastity, this women be.
-
Lysander's disguise as a soldier has fooled others as well as Cynthia, and he is apprehended for neglecting his guard duty; and Lycus is suspected of murdering Lysander. The new Governor of Cyprus, an incompetent and arrogant fool, attempts to pass judgement on these matters and only confounds them further. The countess Eudora, widow of the previous governor, intercedes to pacify the Governor and repair his bungling. Lysander is revealed to be alive, which resolves the legal issue of his murder. Tharsalio convinces his brother to accept the outcome of his plotting with equanimity; he asserts that when Cynthia loved Lysander in his soldier disguise, she was merely being "a constant wife."