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Women Pleased
Women Pleased is a late Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy by John Fletcher that was originally published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.
The play's date is uncertain; it is usually assigned to the 1619–23 period by scholars. It was acted by the King's Men; the cast list added to the play in the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1679 cites Joseph Taylor, Nicholas Tooley, John Lowin, William Ecclestone, John Underwood, Richard Sharpe, Robert Benfield, and Thomas Holcombe – the same cast list as for The Little French Lawyer and The Custom of the Country, two other Fletcherian plays of the same era. The inclusion of Taylor dates the play after the March 1619 death of Richard Burbage.
As he often did, Fletcher depended on a Spanish source for the plot of his play; in this case, Grisel y Mirabella (c. 1495) by Juan de Flores supplied part of the main plot. He also appears to have been influenced by Geoffrey Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Tale from The Canterbury Tales for the riddle which Silvio is set to solve by the Duchess within a year's time as well as Belvidere's disguise as an old hag and demand to marry him as boon for providing him with the answer to the riddle. Fletcher drew material for the subplot from three tales in the Decameron of Boccaccio, another dependable resource. Scholars attribute the play to Fletcher alone, since his characteristic pattern of stylistic and textual preferences is continuous throughout the text; but some critics favor the view that the extant text is a revision by Fletcher of an earlier play of his own authorship. See his Monsieur Thomas for a comparable case of Fletcher revising himself. He also borrowed from himself: Women Pleased shares a plot point (the heroine dressing up as an old woman to influence the plot) that also occurs in The Pilgrim, in a way that suggests Women Pleased is the earlier work.
In subject matter and source material, Fletcher's play parallels the anonymous drama Swetnam the Woman-Hater, which was first printed in 1620. It is unclear which play had priority over the other.
Like many of Fletcher's plays, Women Pleased was revived during the Restoration era; Samuel Pepys saw it on 26 December 1668. David Garrick would borrow from Fletcher's play for his pantomime A Christmas Tale, staged at Drury Lane in 1773.
Set in Florence, the play focuses its main plot on the love match between its protagonists, Silvio and Belvidere. Belvidere is the daughter and only child of the reigning Duchess, and so a highly desirable marital partner; when the Duke of Milan, one of her suitors, goes so far as to try to kidnap her, the Duchess's guards drive his party off by force. Belvidere is then lodged in the duchy's fortress, where she can be protected; but she is now isolated from Silvio and other would-be suitors. Silvio exploits a family connection – the wife of the citadel's keeper is his aunt – to meet his beloved; but he is caught and brought before the angry Duchess. (As a mere private gentleman, Silvio is not considered a fit partner for the duchy's heir.) Silvio faces a penalty of death; but the two lovers compete to claim responsibility before the council that tries Silvio, leaving the judges confused. The Duchess decides to be merciful, and banishes Silvio for a year; she furthermore gives Silvio a chance at marrying Belvidere – if he can solve the riddle she poses him.
With Silvio gone, Belvidere pretends to be cured of her infatuation with him; she seems to acquiesce to her mother's plan to marry her to the Duke of Siena. (In the process, Belvidere discovers the riddle and its answer from her mother.) Before the arranged marriage can take place, however, Belvidere vanishes from the court. The Duke of Siena, feeling he's been played for a fool, withdraws in anger and prepares a military response.
Silvio wanders about the country in disguise; he consults "Diviners, dreamers, schoolmen, deep magicians" in search of an answer to the Duchess's riddle, but without much success. In the countryside, he falls in with a set of farm people and morris dancers; he also meets an old woman who claims special insight, and who he considers a Sibyl. The old woman, in fact, is Belvidere in disguise. She advises Silvio to join the fight against the invading Duke of Siena; he does so, and becomes the great hero of the Florentine victory when he captures the Duke.
Women Pleased
Women Pleased is a late Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy by John Fletcher that was originally published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.
The play's date is uncertain; it is usually assigned to the 1619–23 period by scholars. It was acted by the King's Men; the cast list added to the play in the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1679 cites Joseph Taylor, Nicholas Tooley, John Lowin, William Ecclestone, John Underwood, Richard Sharpe, Robert Benfield, and Thomas Holcombe – the same cast list as for The Little French Lawyer and The Custom of the Country, two other Fletcherian plays of the same era. The inclusion of Taylor dates the play after the March 1619 death of Richard Burbage.
As he often did, Fletcher depended on a Spanish source for the plot of his play; in this case, Grisel y Mirabella (c. 1495) by Juan de Flores supplied part of the main plot. He also appears to have been influenced by Geoffrey Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Tale from The Canterbury Tales for the riddle which Silvio is set to solve by the Duchess within a year's time as well as Belvidere's disguise as an old hag and demand to marry him as boon for providing him with the answer to the riddle. Fletcher drew material for the subplot from three tales in the Decameron of Boccaccio, another dependable resource. Scholars attribute the play to Fletcher alone, since his characteristic pattern of stylistic and textual preferences is continuous throughout the text; but some critics favor the view that the extant text is a revision by Fletcher of an earlier play of his own authorship. See his Monsieur Thomas for a comparable case of Fletcher revising himself. He also borrowed from himself: Women Pleased shares a plot point (the heroine dressing up as an old woman to influence the plot) that also occurs in The Pilgrim, in a way that suggests Women Pleased is the earlier work.
In subject matter and source material, Fletcher's play parallels the anonymous drama Swetnam the Woman-Hater, which was first printed in 1620. It is unclear which play had priority over the other.
Like many of Fletcher's plays, Women Pleased was revived during the Restoration era; Samuel Pepys saw it on 26 December 1668. David Garrick would borrow from Fletcher's play for his pantomime A Christmas Tale, staged at Drury Lane in 1773.
Set in Florence, the play focuses its main plot on the love match between its protagonists, Silvio and Belvidere. Belvidere is the daughter and only child of the reigning Duchess, and so a highly desirable marital partner; when the Duke of Milan, one of her suitors, goes so far as to try to kidnap her, the Duchess's guards drive his party off by force. Belvidere is then lodged in the duchy's fortress, where she can be protected; but she is now isolated from Silvio and other would-be suitors. Silvio exploits a family connection – the wife of the citadel's keeper is his aunt – to meet his beloved; but he is caught and brought before the angry Duchess. (As a mere private gentleman, Silvio is not considered a fit partner for the duchy's heir.) Silvio faces a penalty of death; but the two lovers compete to claim responsibility before the council that tries Silvio, leaving the judges confused. The Duchess decides to be merciful, and banishes Silvio for a year; she furthermore gives Silvio a chance at marrying Belvidere – if he can solve the riddle she poses him.
With Silvio gone, Belvidere pretends to be cured of her infatuation with him; she seems to acquiesce to her mother's plan to marry her to the Duke of Siena. (In the process, Belvidere discovers the riddle and its answer from her mother.) Before the arranged marriage can take place, however, Belvidere vanishes from the court. The Duke of Siena, feeling he's been played for a fool, withdraws in anger and prepares a military response.
Silvio wanders about the country in disguise; he consults "Diviners, dreamers, schoolmen, deep magicians" in search of an answer to the Duchess's riddle, but without much success. In the countryside, he falls in with a set of farm people and morris dancers; he also meets an old woman who claims special insight, and who he considers a Sibyl. The old woman, in fact, is Belvidere in disguise. She advises Silvio to join the fight against the invading Duke of Siena; he does so, and becomes the great hero of the Florentine victory when he captures the Duke.