Double Falshood; or, The Distrest Lovers (sometimes erroneously listed as "The Double Falshood") is a play newly attributed to William Shakespeare, but formerly known as a 1727 play by English writer and playwright Lewis Theobald, which he claimed to have based on three manuscripts of an unnamed lost play by Shakespeare.
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Source
The play is clearly based on the "Cardenio" episode in Don Quixote, specifically in Thomas Shelton's 1612 English translation.[1] Theobald's play changes the names of the main characters from the Spanish original; Cervantes' Cardenio becomes Julio, his Lucinda becomes Leonora; Don Fernando is turned into Henriquez, and Dorothea into Violante.
Authorship
Theobald's claim of a Shakespearean foundation for his Double Falshood met with suspicion, and even accusations of forgery, from contemporary skeptics like Alexander Pope, and from subsequent generations of critics as well. Until recently the current scholarly consensus judged the play to be an 18th-century rewriting of the lost Cardenio by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher.[2][3] The evidence of Shakespeare's connection with a dramatization of the Cardenio story comes from entries in the Stationers' Register; Theobald could not have known of this evidence, "since it was not found until long after his death."[4] However on 15 March 2010, the Arden Shakespeare editors attributed the authorship to William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, including it in Shakespeare's canon.[5]
Performance and publication
The play was first produced on 13 December 1727 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and published in 1728. The drama was revived at Covent Garden on 24 April 1749, and performed again on 6 May of the same year. Later performances occurred in 1781 and 1793, and perhaps in 1770 also.
After the first edition of 1728, later editions appeared in 1740 and 1767. A new edition of the play published by The Arden Shakespeare was published in March 2010.
Cast
The 1728 edition provided a cast list for the main speaking parts in the original production:
| Role | Actor |
|---|---|
| Duke Angelo | Mr Corey |
| Roderick, his Elder Son | Mr. Mills |
| Henriquez, his Younger Son | Mr. Wilks |
| Don Bernardo, Father to Leonora | Mr. Harper |
| Camillo, Father to Julio | Mr. Griffin |
| Julio, in love with Leonora | Mr. Booth |
| Citizen | Mr. Oates |
| Master of the Flocks | Mr. Bridgwater |
| First Shepherd | R. Norris |
| Second Shepherd | Mr. Ray |
| Leonora | Mrs. Porter |
| Violante | Mrs. Booth |
The play's minor roles, of servants, messengers, and others, were omitted from the dramatis personae.
The cast's Wilks and Booth were Robert Wilks and Barton Booth, both prominent actors of their generation. The Mrs. Booth who played Violante was the former Hester Santlow; Mary Porter played Leonora.
Synopsis
The play is set in "the province of Andalusia in Spain". The opening scene introduces Duke Angelo and his elder son and heir, Roderick. Roderick is the dutiful and virtuous son; the Duke also has a younger son, Henriquez, a scapegrace and prodigal who is absent from the ducal court, pursuing his own interests. Henriquez has just written his father a letter, requesting gold to buy a horse; Henriquez will send his friend Julio to court to receive payment. The Duke and Roderick decide to use Julio for their own purposes: they will detain him at court "some few days...and assay to mould him / An honest spy" upon Henriquez's "riots."
Julio's father Camillo is not happy about his son's mission to court. Julio wants to arrange a marriage with Leonora; his intended bride is agreeable, but cool, and the call to court delays Julio's plan to obtain the consent of both their fathers. Julio leaves Henriquez behind him to further his suit with Leonora — a foolish trust. Henriquez has developed an infatuation with Violante, a beautiful and virtuous local girl of humble birth; she rejects his inappropriate solicitations. Henriquez forces himself upon her. Afterward, confronting his guilty conscience over his "brutal violence," Henriquez tries to convince himself that his act wasn't a rape, with the feeble rationalization that Violante did not cry out, however much she struggled physically.
His pangs of guilt do not prevent Henriquez from pursuing another scheme: in Julio's absence he is courting Leonora. (Henriquez admits in a soliloquy that he sent Julio away with this in mind. His pursuit of both Violante and Leonora is the "double falsehood" of the title.) The young woman is appalled and repelled by this, but her father Don Bernardo wants the family connection with the nobility that their marriage will produce. Leonora sends a letter to Julio, and he returns in time to frustrate the wedding. Julio challenges Henriquez with his sword but is overwhelmed and ejected by Bernardo's servants; Leonora faints and is carried out. Bernardo discovers a dagger and a suicide note on his daughter's person, revealing her final determination to resist the forced marriage.
Julio and the two young women, each in a distraught state of mind, depart mysteriously; the fathers Camillo and Bernardo are left to confront their own distress. Roderick arrives, and comforts the two old men. Their unhappiness works something of a reversal in each man's character: the formerly mild Camillo hardens his nature, while the formerly harsh Bernardo dissolves in tears.
In Act IV the scene shifts from court and town to the wilds where the shepherds keep their flocks (the same shift to the pastoral mode that Shakespeare employs in Act IV of The Winter's Tale). Violante has disguised herself as a boy, and has become a servant to a master shepherd. Julio is also in the neighborhood, wandering distractedly, fighting with shepherds and stealing their food. The Master shepherd is a rare character in traditional English drama, who can actually recognize a woman when she's disguised as a boy. He makes a crude and unwelcome sexual advance toward Violante, which is interrupted by the arrival of Roderick. Henriquez has learned that Leonora has taken refuge in a nearby nunnery, and has gained his brother's help in a plan to retrieve her. Roderick has agreed, in part to keep an eye on his younger brother; he insists that Leonora be treated honorably, and given her choice whether to return with them.
Roderick is also clever enough to piece together the larger situation; he manages to bring Julio, Leonora, Violante, and Henriquez back home altogether. He engineers a grand confrontation and reconciliation scene at the play's end: Julio and Leonora and happily re-united, and a now-repentant Henriquez wants to marry Violante to make up for his crime. The three fathers acquiesce to this arrangement.
Versions of pastoral
Theobald takes a very different approach to the pastoral genre and theme, compared to Shakespeare and Fletcher. In the pastoral tradition exploited by the earlier dramatists, the retreat to the primitive world of nature is a return to a rough but morally benign innocence. Theobald worked a century later in a different social and cultural frame; his shepherds are tougher, their life more bleak. Violante is surprised at the Master shepherd's sexual advances:
-
- Who would have thought, that such poor worms as they,
- (Whose best feed is coarse bread; whose bev'rage, water),
- Should have so much rank blood?
In traditional pastoral, it is only the well-fed denizens of court and city that are morally corrupt and sensual.
Pragmatic morality
To a modern sensibility, the idea of a woman marrying her rapist is repulsive; and the concept of this as a morally acceptable outcome is hard to comprehend. Pre-modern and early-modern European culture judged the matter very differently; in marrying his victim, the offender was compensating for the damage he had done to her. Fletcher's The Queen of Corinth uses this same plot element, as does Arthur Wilson's The Swisser.
References
- ^ A. Luis Pujante, "Double Falsehood and the Verbal Parallels with Shelton's Don Quixote," Shakespeare Survey, Vol. 51 (1998), pp. 95–106.
- ^ John Freehafer, "Cardenio, by Shakespeare and Fletcher," Papers of the Modern Language Association, Vol. 84 (1969), p. 509.
- ^ Stephan Kukowski, "The Hand of John Fletcher in Double Falsehood," Shakespeare Survey, Vol.43 (1990), p. 27.
- ^ Pujante, p. 95.
- ^ Mike Collett-White (2010-03-16). "A new William Shakespeare play? Long lost play to be published.". The Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/From-the-news-wires/2010/0316/A-new-William-Shakespeare-play-Long-lost-play-to-be-published. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
External links
- Full text of the play
- "'Lost' Shakespeare play Double Falsehood published; William Shakespeare collaborated on two other plays with Fletcher; A play which was first discovered nearly 300 years ago has been credited to William Shakespeare," BBC News website, 15 March 2010
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