: Ben Jonson
: Epicoene, Or the Silent Woman
: Seltzer Books
: 9781455351831
: 1
: CHF 0.10
:
: Dramatik
: English
: 181
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
Classic Elizabethan play. According to Prof. Felix Schelling in his introduction to the Complete Plays of Ben Jonson: 'THE greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose, satire,and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time affected the subsequent course of English letters:such was Ben Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to us almost unparalleled, at least in his age.' According to Wikipedia: 'Benjamin Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 - 6 August 1637) was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems. A man of vast reading and a seemingly insatiable appetite for controversy, Jonson had an unparalleled breadth of influence on Jacobean and Caroline playwrights and poets'

MOR: I will forgive him, rather than hear any more. I beseech you,

sir.

 

[ENTER DAW, INTRODUCING LADY HAUGHTY, CENTAURE, MAVIS,

AND TRUSTY.]

 

DAW: This way, madam.

 

MOR: O, the sea breaks in upon me! another flood! an inundation!

I shall be overwhelmed with noise. It beats already at my shores.

I feel an earthquake in my self for't.

 

DAW: 'Give you joy, mistress.

 

MOR: Has she servants too!

 

DAW: I have brought some ladies here to see and know you.

My lady Haughty--

[AS HE PRESENTS THEM SEVERALLY, EPI. KISSES THEM.]

this my lady Centaure--mistress Dol Mavis--mistress Trusty,

my lady Haughty's woman. Where's your husband? let's see him:

can he endure no noise? let me come to him.

 

MOR: What nomenclator is this!

 

TRUE: Sir John Daw, sir, your wife's servant, this.

 

MOR: A Daw, and her servant! O, 'tis decreed, 'tis decreed of me,

an she have such servants.

 

TRUE: Nay sir, you must kiss the ladies; you must not go away, now:

they come toward you to seek you out.

 

HAU: I'faith, master Morose, would you steal a marriage thus, in

the midst of so many friends, and not acquaint us? Well, I'll kiss

you, notwithstanding the justice of my quarrel: you shall give me

leave, mistress, to use a becoming familiarity with your husband.

 

EPI: Your ladyship does me an honour in it, to let me know he is

so worthy your favour: as you have done both him and me grace to

visit so unprepared a pair to entertain you.

 

MOR: Compliment! compliment!

 

EPI: But I must lay the burden of that upon my servant here.

 

HAU: It shall not need, mistress Morose, we will all bear, rather

than one shall be opprest.

 

MOR: I know it: and you will teach her the faculty, if she be to

learn it.

 

[WALKS ASIDE WHILE THE REST TALK APART.]

 

HAU: Is this the silent woman?

 

CEN: Nay, she has found her tongue since she was married, master

Truewit says.

 

HAU: O, master Truewit! 'save you. What kind of creature is your

bride here? she speaks, methinks!

 

TRUE: Yes, madam, believe it, she is a gentlewoman of very absolute

behaviour, and of a good race.

 

HAU: And Jack Daw told us she could not speak!

 

TRUE: So it was carried in plot, madam, to put her upon this old

fellow, by sir Dauphine, his nephew, and one or two mo