: Aphra Behn
: The Rover Or, The Banished Cavaliers
: Renard Press
: 9781913724535
: 1
: CHF 3.60
:
: Dramatik
: English
: 160
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
The Rover, or, The Banished Cavaliers is the most popular play by the Restoration playwright (and spy) Aphra Behn, first performed in 1677. Although Behn's work as a spy for Charles II came to a sudden end with a spell in debtor's prison, she was a stout Royalist, and the title refers to Charles' supporters, who were living in exile on the Continent. In the tradition of Restoration comedy, the play follows the wild exploits of a group of English gentlemen in Naples at Carnival time, although many of the tropes of the genre are subverted to an extent which sent shockwaves through the theatre world. Behn's infamous libertine Willmore was an instant hit, and The Rover catapulted her to overnight fame, and brought her an income from the box office, making her one of the first women to earn a living by their pen.

Aphra Behn (c.1640-89), or Astrea, was a poet, author and playwright, best remembered today as being one of the first English women to earn a living with her pen, as well as for her work as a spy for Charles II.

scene i

A chamber. Enterflorindaandhellena.

florinda:What an impertinent thing is a young girl bred in a nunnery! How full of questions! Prithee10no more,Hellena, I have told thee more than thou understand’st already.

hellena:The more’s my grief – I would fain11know as much as you, which makes me so inquisitive; nor is’t enough to know you’re a lover, unless you tell me too who ’tis you sigh for.

florinda:When you are a lover I’ll think you fit for a secret of that nature.

hellena:’Tis true, I was never a lover yet – but I begin to have a shrewd guess what ’tis to be so, and fancy it very pretty to sigh, and sing, and blush and wish, and dream and wish, and long and wish to see the man; and, when I do, look pale and tremble, just as you did when my brother brought home the fine English colonel to see you – what do you call him? Don Belvile.

florinda:Fie, Hellena.

hellena:That blush betrays you – I am sure ’tis so. Or is it Don Antonio, the Viceroy’s son? Or perhaps the rich old DonVincentio, whom my father designs for your husband? Why do you blush again?

florinda:With indignation! And how near soever my father thinks I am to marrying that hated object, I shall let him see I understand better what’s due to my beauty, birth and fortune – and more to my soul – than to obey those unjust commands.

hellena:Now hang me if I don’t love thee for that dear disobedience! I love mischief strangely, as most of our sex do who are come to love nothing else. But tell me, dear Florinda, don’t you love that fineAnglese?12For I vow, next to loving him myself, ’twill please me most that you do so, for he is so gay and so handsome.

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