The Love-Sick Court
Critical Introduction1In Act 4, Scene 1, Doris speaks of marriage as akin to the binding of leaves of paper into a book: Doris... I have heard you all this while,
And though you boast you have an interest in me,
We are not yet one volume, both bound up
And clasped together....
...No, I am yet loose paper; and ’twere good
To keep me so, for when I’m bound I must
Obey, be searched, examined and corrected.
[LS 4.1.speeches487-489]2Doris’s metaphor is particularly apt for several reasons. For one, she is speaking to one of her suitors, the bookish Geron, scholarly tutor to Philocles and Philargus, whose catchphrase is the antiquated word ‘whilom’ and method of wooing involves making learned references to ancient texts, of which Doris has no knowledge. ‘Loose paper’ is integral in the marital concerns of marriageable women in the play: both she and Eudina receive love letters which they either scorn or dismiss (Doris’s from Geron [LS 2.1.speech155] and Eudina’s from Stratocles [LS 2.1.speech221]). In Eudina’s case, throwing away Stratocles’ letter is one of her few acts of empowerment, and her accompanying words liken the paper to ‘loose wings’ and thus Stratocles to Icarus. The King also receives petitions from his people concerning Eudina’s marriage and the kingdom’s future welfare.3Doris directly likens marriage to a bound book, where the individual leaves are the man and woman: singledom is viewed as a single leaf, unbound, ‘loose paper’, which implies freedom and individuality; wedlock is the bound book, where the ritual of marriage, which involves handfasting, is compared to bookbinding. The process of binding a book is long and complicated: it involves various different stages and techniques such as pressing, hammering, stitching, squaring, and tooling. Each single stage leads towards one goal: creating a long-lasting and effective protection for the pages within. The implication is that the process of marriage also consists of many aspects in order for the union to be lasting: familial binding, financial transactions, negotiations of status, sexual attraction and mutual respect, all of which is signified in the binding itself. Just as the individual leaves of paper are stitched together to form a book, man and woman become one flesh in the eyes of the Church.4Doris additionally explains that the bound book will be ‘searched, examined and corrected’ (thus describing the process by which the very text we are reading is produced), just as married woman are judged, presented and expected to conform. The word ‘obey’ speaks to the leaf which must obey the structure decided and shaped by the binder and binding, and to the wife who is answerable to her husband. ‘Searched’ looks ahead to the marital arguments or judgements which might arise, while ‘corrected’ suggests that the woman is like the work of a novice compositor attempting to follow his copy; she is a blotted leaf, bearing the correcting marks which strike through errors (typographical and physical marks), the stain of erroneous judgement. Doris’s metaphor also neatly implies that to tear a page from the book (the parallel being adultery or divorce) is disruptive, destructive, making for an incomplete, disharmonious text. In the context of The Love-Sick Court, Eudina’s text is incomplete, and the kingdom’s future a history yet to be written. Doris acknowledges her flippant tone before signalling that she understands her duty: DorisYet this I’ll do, and now be serious,
If you will obey my rule, and try
Your fortunes who shall have me.
[LS 4.1.speech489]5This metaphor encloses within its ‘pages’ several recurring themes within the play and thus the introduction which follows. It openly acknowledges the play as a literary form, one which has its origins in the written word, and one which (if successful) will be immortalised in print for a new readership. So the introduction begins by considering the original production of the play as script, its conjectured date of performance (and composition), the theatrical circumstances of that performance by actors of Queen Henrietta Maria’s Men (with the ‘parts’ Brome had penned in their hands) standing in the Salisbury Court theatre. It considers the dramatic content of Brome’s play text, and how this might be drawn and augmented from the page. It also considers the textual material generated in response to the play by analysing its critical reception, before discussing the play’s intertextuality.6Brome weaves bookishness self-consciously into his play, principally via the character of Geron, whose references to Homer and Alexander baffle quick-witted but unschooled Doris. The brothers Philocles and Philargus also employ classical references to find analogy to their brotherly love for one another, for example, through Castor and Pollux [LS 5.1.speech686] (also referred to as the Tyndarides [LS 1.2.speech147]). Similarities between elements of Greek fiction and plot devices in other Caroline plays are discussed below, but for example include Shakespeare and Fletcher’s The Two Noble Kinsmen and Shirley’s The Coronation. Other Shakespeare plays are found to converge with Brome’s text, such as Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Richard III. As such, The Love-Sick Court, like all early modern drama, is self-conscious of the two points of its dramatic compass: the practical functionality of the playhouse script, and the literary pleasure of the print-house text, fully engaging with the dramatic intertextuality between these two media.7One way in which Brome engages with this issue is by exploring language and testing its dramatic potential. In his insightful study on Brome, Ralph J. Kaufmann observes that a ‘number of sequences in The Love-Sick Court are directed toward the ineffectiveness of precious language or overlearned language’, and this can be observed most clearly between Geron’s scholarly discourse and Matho’s exaggerated courtly language.n11488 Kaufmann suggests that Brome ‘continually attacks, through the dialogue of courtiers, the court dramatists’ inability to say simple things simply’. For Kaufmann this is exemplified in Act 2, Scene 1, in which Matho comes to enquire after Eudina’s health (after swooning in 1.2) on behalf of his master, Stratocles. When Eudina faints, Philargus’ response gives a glimpse of such language: PhilargusMadam! How fares the life of goodness?
PhiloclesShe sinks. Dear mother, sister, bring your aids.
PhilargusTo keep the world alive give your assistance.
[LS 1.2.speeches150-152]8Matho’s pompously asks his very simply question thus: MathoLord Stratocles, solicitous for glad tidings,
(Beseeching that her grace be pleased to take
The tender of his service, and affirming
Upon his honour that no rest affects him
Until he shall receive a perfect knowledge
Of her recovery) prays to be advertised
In what condition of health she fares,
Or to gain leave to visit her himself.
[LS 2.1.speech166]9Doris’s response is down to earth and witty: DorisSir, you have lost much time: you might have said,
How does the princess? And I answer thus:
She is most dangerously sick; not to be seen
By him or any man.
[LS 2.1.speech167]10Without heeding or acknowledging her hint, Matho continues in the same vein, and is mocked by Doris for his idiocy: MathoYet let her know
My lord’s obsequious care for her recovery. DorisI’ll tell my mistress, who shall certify
Unto my lady, who shall intimate
Unto the princess what you have left in trust
With me, her grace’s handmaid thrice removed. [LS 2.1.speeches168-169]11As Kaufmann points out, there is a direct contrast with Varillus’ question of ‘How fares her highness?’ [LS 2.1.speech184], also indicating his propriety as a fitting match for Doris’s hand.n11489 12Just as Brome parallels the pattern of three suitors to one woman, he also introduces a riddle to each plot. For Philocles and Philargus, this involves a visit to the Delphic oracle in an attempt to clarify which of them should marry Eudina, but it delivers a riddling answer to their question: DisaniusLet me be clerk. I hope at least to read it:
Contend not for the jewel which
Ere long shall both of you enrich.
Pursue your fortune: for ’tis she
Shall make you what you seem to be.
Apollo, thy great wisdom hath quite fooled mine.
[LS 1.2.speech133] 13The riddle’s meaning is, of course, made clear by the end of the play’s action.14Kaufmann points to the sub-plot’s parallel to the oracle, which is Garrula, midwife, mother of Geron, and fond of a regular tipple from a bottle she carries at her side (for example, see the stage direction at the end of [LS 1.2.speech81], or [LS 3.1.speech291] where she takes sips throughout the scene). Alcohol dependence aside, and as her name would suggest, Garrula’s meandering contributions are ‘the very opposite to the terse and cryptic message from the oracle’.n11490 But, like the oracle, she gives clues, mostly very unsubtle yet mystical ones which linger on the significance of the tongue: Garrula’Tis such a story that could I but utter’t
With volubility of tongue! — But oh
This tongue, that fails me now, for all the helps
Of syrups and sweet sippings. I still go
Provided, as you see, to cherish it.
And yet it falters with me.
[LS 1.2.speech81] 15and the communication of something kept secret by repetition of ‘I know what I know’ (for example, [LS 1.2.speech91]) whilst also forgetting to deliver important messages (such as the safe return of Philocles and Philargus from the oracle). In this respect Garrula is much like the character of Nurse Closet in A Mad Couple Well Matched, who also has a bad head for remembering things and may also be dependent on alcohol. Both these parts are a gift in the hands of a talented actor with the opportunities given by Brome for physical comedy and exaggerated character acting.DATING THE PLAY16There has been much discussion of the date of this play but Matthew Steggle’s analysis provides the most recent, most persuasive argument for its dating.n11491 Steggle is able to make an advance on conjectural dating which places the play’s composition anywhere from 1629 to 1640, partly advantaged by the discovery of Jacob Burn’s transcript of the office-book belonging to the Master of the Revels, Sir Henry Herbert.n11492 Thanks to Burn’s transcript, Steggle is able to accept Catherine Shaw’s suggestion that The Love-Sick Court was written in 1638.n11493 Burn records: Broome, Florentine Frend, allowed 1638 Queen’s Company. Love Sick Courtier, alld for Salisbury Court, 1638n11494 17Steggle conjectures that The Love Sick Courtier is a likely error for The Love-Sick Court and there is no reason to dispute this assertion. Thus, the Burns transcript records The Love-Sick Court as a play performed by Queen Henrietta Maria’s Men in 1638 at the Salisbury Court theatre; The Florentine Friend is sadly not extant.18Furthermore, this information enables Steggle to count The Love-Sick Court among the five plays which Brome delivered between April 1636 and July 1638 to the Salisbury Court theatre according to their deposition of 1640.n11495 The other plays are identified as The Antipodes, The English Moor, The Demoiselle, and The Florentine Friend.n11496 A Mad Couple Well Matched is also dated to this period, but Steggle suggests it is not counted by the theatre (although Brome himself includes it) because it was originally written and offered to Salisbury Court but rejected by them, and thus offered to Beeston at the Cockpit instead.n11497 As Steggle notes, it is difficult to place the last three plays in order of composition, Herbert’s record notes that both The Love-Sick Court and The Florentine Friend were ‘allowed’ for performance in 1638; there has yet to be found any more precise reference to the period of composition.n11498PRACTICALITIES OF PERFORMANCE19The cast list for The Love-Sick Court boasts five female and fifteen male speaking parts; in addition, two extra Rustics are required for the arrest of Matho and detainment of Stratocles in 4.2, plus an unspecified number of Soldiers who accompany Stratocles briefly onstage with the abducted Eudina, and the Nymphs who dance in Geron’s entertainment. Act 5 Scene 3, when the majority of the cast are assembled onstage, gives the best clues as to the possibilities of doubling, so that at the end of the play twelve of the twenty speaking roles are definitely onstage (even though Placilla does not speak for much of the final scene, Philocles makes reference to her presence at [LS 5.3.speech905]). Geron’s dance presumably requires the same four speaking Rustics who appear in both the rehearsal scene (5.2) and before the King in 1.1, plus a number of Nymphs (perhaps four, to balance the number of Rustics). 20Notably absent from the stage at the end of 5.3 are Doris, Varillus and Tersulus, who are dismissed by Disanius at [LS 5.3.speech895]. This dismissal works in two ways: it clears the stage of lesser servants, leaving it to royalty, family and advisors, and perhaps also frees these three actors (along with Matho) to take the roles of the four speaking Rustics who dance at the end of the play. None of the four characters appear in scenes elsewhere with the Rustics, except for a possible clash in 4.2, when Matho is arrested by them. However, it is notable that in this scene, only three of the Rustics have speaking parts; the other three instructed to come onstage are non-speaking and could be played by actors performing roles other than Matho, Philocles, Philargus, Stratocles and Eudina. These are the only clear possibilities for doubling in the play, since the rest of the cast is required onstage during 5.3. However, if the roles of the Rustics are played by actors also playing Matho, Doris, Varillus and Tersulus, there are no further actors free to double as dancing Nymphs, suggesting either that this instruction had not been fully worked through in the theatre, or that the company was larger than sixteen. The part of the non-speaking Soldiers and Attendants could be played by other members of the company.21As a result of the Burn transcript of Herbert’s office book (mentioned in the section on ‘Dating the Play’), we know that a play called the Love Sick Courtier, thought to be The Love-Sick Court was licensed for performance at the Salisbury Court theatre in 1638. Queen Henrietta Maria’s Men would have performed the play there, and certain information concerning the members of this company survives. In part this is due to a court case mounted against Brome by several actors from the company, which was discovered by Ann Haaker, and lists the following company actors: Richard Perkins Anthony Turner Wm Sherlocke John Yonge John Sumpner Edward May Curtis Grevell Wm Wilbraham Tymothy Reade and Wm Cartwright the yonger gent her Ma:ts Comedians att the Playehouse [in Salsbury Courte].n11499 22Further information regarding these actors suggests that their estimated ages in 1638 are mostly in the 30s, with Richard Perkins in his mid-late 50s and Edward May in his mid-late 20s; very little information regarding the boy players of this company survives. Herbert mentions Perkins et al. in 1637: ‘I disposed of Perkins, Sumner, Sherlock and Turner, to Salisbury Court, and joynd them with the best of that company’.n11500 Perkins was an experienced actor who had received praise by both Webster (in the 1612 quarto of The White Devil) and Heywood (in 1633 quarto of The Jew of Malta for his performance as Barabbas). By the time The Love-Sick Court was performed, Perkins might have been best suited to the roles of either the King or Disanius, both substantial parts befitting his dignity and experience. Bentley notes that in three of his known five roles Anthony Turner plays an old man, suggesting that he might also be a good candidate for the part of the King.n11501 Also of note was Timothy Reade, who was well-known for playing comic roles; Geron is possibly the most comical role in Brome’s play, although much of the comedy results from Brome’s parodic depiction of platonic love, rather than being sited in particular characters.THE SALISBURY COURT THEATRE AND STAGING23The Salisbury Court Theatre gets its name from the land on which it stood, which had belonged to the Earl of Dorset’s Salisbury Court house. The theatre was converted from a barn on the land in July 1629.n11502 Two different sources of information provide details which relate to the theatre’s structure and facilities. David Stevens’ study of plays known to have been performed there help to identify the main features of the stage: there were two doors for entrances and exits onto or off the stage; a curtain (in the form of an arras or hangings) used to conceal an eavesdropper, or assist with the revelation of a discovery space (adequate for three actors); an above space (also able to accommodate three actors); Stevens finds no evidence for a trap.n1150324John H. Astington elects to use pictorial analysis of the two images associated with the Salisbury Court theatre as the starting point for his account of its facilities: these are engravings which appear on play title-pages of Roxana (1632) and Messalina (1640).n11504 Although there are various issues with the two drawings (for detail of which see the Introduction to A Mad Couple Well Matched [ESSAY_MC_CRIT] and Astington’s article), both share several common details: a tapered stage surrounded at the front by rails, at the back by hangings and an above space (though it is unclear in the drawing whether it is designed for audience or performance). Astington’s analysis concurs with Stevens’ study of performed plays that there were two doors onto the stage, a discovery space with hangings and an area above. Both Stevens and Astington note the high preponderance of discovery scenes in plays performed at this theatre, and although Brome makes use of this (for example, in A Mad Couple Well Matched, written for the Salisbury Court, but performed in the Cockpit),n11505 explicit directions for a discovery do not occur in The Love-Sick Court, neither does it appear to make use of the above space.25However, there are key moments in the play where this discovery space might be utilised in performance, most notably in 4.2, the scene which occurs in the vale of Tempe. Philocles and Philargus have been lured to this rural spot by Matho, who has written letters on the behalf of each, inviting the other to a duel to decide who shall gain Eudina. Matho begins the scene by sharing his wicked plan to kill the brothers with the audience, before donning his disguise, a beard. Unbeknown to him, six Rustics have been meeting nearby: 1. RusticWe are the heads of Tempe, and the chief
Swain heads of Thessaly (the King has known us)
And here we came to lay our heads together
For good of commonwealth. Here at the verge
Of this adjoining thicket is our bower
Of consultation; and from thence (regardful
Ever with eye and ear for common good)
We saw a beard pulled off; and heard that mouth,
(Which now is dumb) open a plot, unlike
The pitiful complaint he made to us.
[LS 4.2.speech582] 26There is no explicit call for the Rustics to emerge from within the discovery space; their entrance is simply ‘Enter 6. Rust./ with Weapons.’ [MC 4.2.line1844-1845], so they could easily enter from one of the two doors onto the stage noted by Stevens and Astington. However, another option is for the Rustics to make use of the third entrance onto the stage, the discovery space, particularly since it is likely to have been utilised in this way in other plays, such as A Mad Couple Well Matched (when Lord Lovely instructs Old Bellamy to ‘walk in the long gallery a while’, but the ensuing conversation is overheard [MC 5.1.speech957]). It also makes dramatic sense for the first Rustic to gesture towards this space as he refers to ‘the verge of this adjoining thicket’ where they have their ‘bower of consultation’. When Stratocles enters with Eudina soon after, the first Rustic orders: ‘Stand close. See who comes here’ [LS 4.2.speech586]; perhaps they flatten themselves against the back wall or squeeze into the discovery space’s alcove.27Other plays in the Salisbury Court’s repertory require a maximum of fifteen actors onstage at any one time; The Love-Sick Court exceeds this number in necessitating the presence of twelve actors onstage in the final moments of Act 5, scene 3, with an additional (but unspecified) number of Rustics and Nymphs, who are required to dance. Since the above space would appear not to be big enough to host all twelve actors whilst the dance occurred on the main stage, perhaps either the discovery space (as conjectured by Astington) was made use of as standing room only, or the other characters exited the stage. The actor playing the King could ascend to the above space while the dance continued on the main stage, and deliver his final speech from up there. Another possibility would be for the speaking characters to occupy the side areas of the stage, whilst the dancers enter from the discovery space entrance and dance in the middle of the stage space. Perhaps if Brome had been having difficulty with his employers (before or after their refusal of A Mad Couple Well Matched), he had decided to write a play which could be performed in any theatre space, and did not have specific requirements. It is also possible that the copy text for the 1659 collection was some sort of pre-theatrical manuscript, although the printed text does not bear the usual hallmarks of this kind of text, the majority of errors occurring in the dramatis personae and thus most likely originating in the printing house.28Astington’s estimates of the size of the Salisbury Court stage are based on the Messalina drawing, however this comes with a warning that the precise size cannot definitely be determined from its source.n11506 Astington suggests a possible depth of 12 feet, the stage being 15 feet at the front, tapering to 20 feet in width at the back.n11507 The stage rails thus define a relatively small stage.n11508 Although this scene can easily accommodate the smaller groups of characters in The Love-Sick Court, there are also several tricky larger scenes, where issues of status and asides challenge the use of space. One of these scenes, 5.3, has already been discussed in the context of the discovery space and above area. 29Another scene, 1.1, was chosen for the actor workshop precisely for this reason, since the stage needs to be shared between the King and counsellors and four kneeling Rustics. The difficulty of staging this scene centred around the relative status of characters onstage: how to present a King in his state with four humble petitioners who also need to deliver asides to each other so the audience can overhear? Various workshopped solutions included staging the scene at an angle, with the King and counsellors up stage right and the Rustics kneeling down stage left
. Alternatively, the King could be placed centre stage with the Rustics kneeling along the front
. 30However, looking at Astington’s conjectural drawing of the Salisbury Court stage, other options begin to surface: it would be possible to seat the King and counsellors partly in the discovery space, with the Rustics kneeling in front (although this staging was not deemed wholly satisfactory by the audience in the workshop sessions); alternatively, the Rustics could enter to the centrally-seated King from either of the two doors; staging the scene with the King etc. on one side and the Rustics on the other might work in theory, but there are issues with not placing the King centre stage.n11509 Astington’s diagram does make sense when considering the staging of 5.1, where Disanius is helplessly attempting to divide himself between assisting Philargus, preventing Philocles from killing himself and detaining Varillus, the poisoner. This stage seems to be well designed for segregating groups of characters and facilitating the use of asides.CRITICAL RECEPTION31The Love-Sick Court is a play of parody and parallels, of unity and contradiction, as packed with theatrical gimmicks as it is stagnated by elaborate courtly discourse. It should not surprise the reader (perhaps already familiar with Brome’s plays) that this contrariness is part and parcel of the play’s function and design. So it is perhaps interesting that it hasn’t received much critical attention or presentation in performance.32The plot contains an arsenal of theatrical tricks and twists with which Brome assails his audience: the cryptic message of the Delphic oracle, a dream vision, a mock duel, suspected incest, attempted rape, stereotypical characters (such as Stratocles, the braggart soldier, Garrula, the drunken nurse, the learned pedant, Geron), the drawing of lots, a sleeping potion (thought to be poison), a villain who converts, a mock funeral procession, a dead lover who rises from his coffin, and the revelation of mistaken identities.n11510 It is an overwhelming inventory of dramatic weaponry, however Brome’s skill in his implementation of these tools lies in his presentation of what is superficially an extraordinarily simple plot. Catherine Shaw summarises it thus: ‘it has a main plot concerned with the members of the Thessalonian court and a subplot about their servants’.n11511 The commonsensical approach of the servants (in particular, Doris) and country Rustics is designed to critique the pretentiousness of the Court. Thus Shaw’s short discussion of the play concludes with the highest praise: ‘The Love-Sick Court is a credit to Brome’s ingenuity’.n1151233Despite this, the play was once dismissed as a rather weak attempt at courtly romance fashionably focusing on neo-platonic love. Alfred Harbage acknowledged this deviation from Brome’s normal rejection of such courtly fashions, but identified The Love-Sick Court as an exception:
Once, however, he weakened and paid the new fashion the tribute of imitation... In the heroic vein of the rival friends and the ethical confusion of the Princess, all of whom the author has tried valiantly to endow with the new-fangled sensibility, we discern the leaning toward courtly romance, even though Brome moves with ludicrous awkwardness amidst the emotional subtleties of his theme.n11513
34Harbage further notes how the setting, main plot and characters are all symptomatic of Cavalier drama, identifying the following themes (many of which are instantly recognisable within The Love-Sick Court): political and military strife, a Mediterranean location for the action, wedlock as a central objective with various barriers to marriage (such as rank, rivalry and the threat from villains), the death of one lover (usually of a pair) who is then restored to life, the dissipation of aforementioned barriers, and the appearance of what is known as the ‘rival friend dilemma’ from Greek fiction.n11514 It is therefore no wonder that Harbage identified The Love-Sick Court as belonging to this category of drama.35And yet Harbage’s puzzlement at Brome’s only transgression of his usual criticism of such sycophantic writing should have alerted him to Brome’s supposed intention: to write a play which closely mimicked such dramatic texts, but in doing so, cleverly and comically satirised them. In fact, it was essential for Brome’ play to boast the major features of the playwriting he was satirising in order for it to function successfully as parody.36Kaufmann is the earliest critic to note that Brome’s play is a parody and makes a full and convincing case for The Love-Sick Court as an example of ‘a parodic attack on the woolly thinking of courtly romance’.n11515 Kaufmann describes it as ‘a burlesque of excessive posturing in the role of friend and lover’, during which Brome demonstrates a ‘keen eye for absurdity and pretension’.n11516 Kaufmann particularly references examples of ‘unself-sparing friendship’ in coterie drama being taken to ‘absurd extremes’ [Kaufmann’s emphasis] by Lodovick Carlell, Thomas Killigrew, Sir John Suckling, Jasper Mayne, and William Davenant. As Shaw points out ‘It seems impossible now that The Love-Sick Court could ever have been taken as a serious tragicomedy’.n11517 Douglas Sedge shares this view: ‘that Brome’s play has only recently been recognised as a parody of the courtly mode is perhaps an indication of the degree of hyperbolical magnanimity to be found in the “straight” courtier plays. Brome is scarcely exaggerating.’n1151837For Kaufmann, Brome’s genius lies in his desire to capture and satirise the current theatrical trend, and, in doing so, also strikes a direct hit on the Court as well. Kaufmann reflects on the play’s title: it ‘is not, as the fashions of the time would normally dictate, called “The Noble Twins”, or “The Brothers Duel”, or “Philargus and Philocles”’.n11519The Love-Sick Court may be set in Thessaly, but it directly references Queen Henrietta Maria’s court and its obsession with neo-platonic love; as Shaw comments: ‘Not only is the court of Thessaly “love-sick”, but so is the court of Caroline London’.n11520 Kaufmann also acknowledges exceptional value and intelligence in this example of Brome’s writing: ‘it reminds us again that effective parody and thoughtful burlesque are complex critical acts creating as they destroy’.n11521 Steggle goes further by comparing Brome’s ‘experimentations with tragicomedy’ in The Love-Sick Court with the bridge-burning exercise that is A Mad Couple Well Matched’s last flirtation with city comedy.n11522 He is understandably surprised by Brome’s explicit parodying of the platonic system of ideals headed by Queen Henrietta Maria, the patron of the theatre company for whom he wrote the play: ‘One might wonder whether The Love-Sick Court should be construed as an extended resignation letter from Queen Henrietta’s Men’.n11523PERFORMANCE OPPORTUNITIES38The Love-Sick Court has received as much negative criticism as positive appraisal of Brome’s cunning in parodying a particular style of in vogue courtly drama. It is necessary to point out that while the scenes are sometimes static, even undramatic, they are intentionally so, mainly as part of Brome’s criticism and exploitation of the comical elements. This edition argues that the play is both funny and dramatic, and that the dramatic tension is built due to a careful balance between the main and sub-plots, the latter bringing comic relief to the pseudo-tragic tension created by the former. Kaufmann summarises Brome’s skill succinctly thus:
The play is clearly a detailed and well thought-out burlesque of the pretentious, woman-worshipping, undramatic, and overwritten plays of the courtier dramatists. Their values, dramaturgical skill, and control of language are all questioned and satirized.n11524
39The self-conscious nature of this skill is displayed in Act 4, Scene 1, where two of Doris’s suitors, Tersulus and Varillus, slip into role play with her, so that they take the role of Philocles and Philargus (their masters):
Tersulus Nay, gentle Doris, stay. For, ’tis in vainTo seek our lords. They are both rode singly forth
To take the air. Mine an hour since.
Varillus Mine even now. I came but since to call
My brother Tersulus. Doris Your brother Tersulus? Tersulus As deeply vowed in friendship as our lords are. Varillus It is with us as ’tis with them: we both
Are brothers, friends; yet rivals in your love.
Can you now, as the princess is to them,
Be equally affected to us both?
[LS 4.1.speeches467-471] 40Doris is singularly unimpressed with this idea, so Varillus attempts to persuade her of the merits of the exercise: Varillus...We love our lords! And as you love the princess
Who loves them, love you us. You are Eudina,
I, Philocles, and he Philargus is.
[LS 4.1.speech473] 41Despite Doris questioning their sanity, Varillus and Tersulus press on regardless, before she firmly puts them in their places (by speaking their true names and occupations): VarillusThe King commands you to make present choice
Of one of us, or else ambitious Stratocles
(That’s Geron) must enjoy you. Now sweet princess,
Be speedy in your choice. The kingdom’s good
Depends upon it. And in your election,
Oh make Philargus blessed: he best deserves you. TersulusAdmired friend, and brother Philocles,
Your courtesy o’ercomes me: I must sue,
Though my heart aches the while as much for you. Doris This is fine fooling —
Good barber Philocles, and tailor Philargus,
You shall not need to trim up his affection,
Nor you to stitch up his with your forced courtesies.
I know, in this, each woos but for himself,
And my affection runs as even betwixt you,
As nothing but your scissors, or your shears,
Had parted.
[LS 4.1.speeches476-478] 42Doris’s naming of the occupations highlights that Tersulus and Varillus are skilled servants to their masters; furthermore, as barber and tailor their function is concerned with all-important superficial appearance, i.e. making their masters fashionable. Doris’s choice of language reflects their role in piecing together a good look, trimming hair here, putting in a stitch there. The conclusion of the play enforces a preference for the concealed truth, (e.g. Philocles’ true status as Prince and Eudina’s brother) over explicit, insincere appearances.43Nevertheless, this scene is a gift to an actor, giving wonderful opportunities for mimicry and comedy. A similarly juicy role is that of Stratocles, a fantastic stage villain whose Faustian ambition takes advantage of the King’s weakness and steals the play’s subtitle of ‘the ambitious politique’. Likewise, his sidekick, Matho, gives an actor plenty to experiment with, from the grandiloquent nonsense of 2.1 to the delivery of false letters to the Princess’s wooers and adoption of a classic stage villain’s disguise in the form of a beard. Other aspects of the play will require careful thought when considering a modern production, for example, how to present the proleptic dream vision sequence in Act 3, Scene 3.DRAMATIC INFLUENCES ON THE LOVE-SICK COURT44Whilst hearing and heeding Harbage’s warning of the difficulty in claiming sources of Cavalier plays, nevertheless there are distinct and important similarities to be discussed between The Love-Sick Court and other early modern dramas. Indeed, Brome’s play is enmeshed within an interconnecting web of dramatic writing concerned with friendship, kinship, rivalry and kingship. The most obvious analogy must be drawn with Shakespeare and Fletcher’s The Two Noble Kinsmen, itself based on Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale, which draws its theme of love rivalry between friends from Boccaccio’s Teseida. In Shakespeare and Fletcher’s play, inseparable cousins Palamon and Arcite are imprisoned having been captured fighting Theseus on behalf of their uncle Creon. Whilst in prison they see Emilia (sister to Theseus’ comrade, Pirithous) from their window and fall in love with her; this prompts a quarrel between the two. After various attempts at escape and disguise, they agree to a duel, but only once Arcite has assisted Palamon to recover his strength. Theseus interrupts their duel and sentences them to death, but they are offered the option of banishment by Emilia; she is refused and the cousins agree to fight to the death the following month. Arcite defeats Palamon; however the latter’s execution is interrupted by Pirithous’ announcement that Arcite has been crushed and fatally injured by his horse during the triumphal entry into Athens. Emilia is married to Palamon at Arcite’s bidding.45Similarities with The Love-Sick Court include the competition and indecision between two men for one woman. Brome’s parody of the tragicomic form ensures that instead of competing to win the woman (Emilia, Eudina), the related wooers go out of their way to oblige the other with a fortuitous match. However, within The Two Noble Kinsmen are the seeds of idiocy from which Brome’s play grows: for example, Arcite assists Palamon, providing him with food and the means to remove his manacles, so that he can regain strength before their duel. The twists in the tale make for a dramatic stage entertainment: duels, an escape from prison, disobeyed banishment, an epic offstage fight relayed to Emilia (and the audience), and, just when the audience thinks Arcite has been chosen by Theseus’ rather bizarre task, fate intervenes, Palamon is saved from the block and gets the girl. No wonder previous commentators on Brome’s play have overlooked its parodic qualities. One further similarity lies in 4.2., in which Emilia studies the portraits of both men, undecided as to which one she prefers; Brome goes to extremes to mock this indecision in his Thessalonian play.46There are several key differences between the portrayal of Fletcher and Shakespeare’s cousins and Brome’s supposed brothers; for one, of course, is Philocles and Philargus going out of their way to see the other triumphant (despite not actually being related by blood, as revealed in Act 5). Palamon and Arcite declare their deep-felt affiliation to one another, and, perhaps like Philocles and Philargus, are ‘dearer in love than blood’, as Arcite states to Palamon (1.2.1). In the next act, once the cousins have been captured whilst fighting Thebes for their uncle, Creon, they continue to proclaim their commitment to each other in prison: PalamonIs there record of any two that loved
Better than we do, Arcite? ArciteSure there cannot. PalamonI do not think it possible our friendship
Should ever leave us. ArciteTill our deaths it cannot,
And after death our spirits shall be led
To those that love eternally.
(2.2.112-117)47In the Oxford Complete Works edition of the play, Arcite’s last speech is given as Emilia and her woman enter the garden below. It is a wonderful piece of dramatic irony that the spoken utterance of loyalty is interrupted by the physical entrance of she who will break that pact; immediately, Palamon loses his thread, distracted by Emilia’s beauty.48It is notable how important the physical attributes of each component of the love triangle are: Palamon likens her to a goddess (l. 134), later wondering ‘She is all the beauty extant’ (l. 148). The cousins’ passionate response to Emilia’s physical attributes are echoed by their impassioned claims to have her as their wife and lover; it seems no accident that the first flower Emilia notes in the garden is the narcissus (l. 119), also the name of the boy who fell in love with himself. Palamon and Arcite have high regard for themselves, as well as professing to love each other, and Emilia. This highly-charged energy is fiery, associated with sexual possession, for which a fight to the death is only way of deciding the matter. In 4.2, Emilia has a parallel scene to the cousins watching her in the garden from their prison: she compares their two pictures, marking their physical features and the manly qualities which can be extracted from their countenances. Her conclusion echoes that of 3.6, where, in response to Theseus’ order to ‘Make choice’ (3.6.284) between Palamon and Arcite, Emilia helplessly replies: ‘I cannot, sir. They are both too excellent./ For me, a hair shall never fall of these men’ (ll. 285-6).49Emilia’s indecision is paralleled by Eudina’s difficulty in choosing in The Love-Sick Court; however, it is noteworthy that there is little physical description of Philocles and Philargus to support her argument. As readers or directors and actors, we receive little useful indication of the brothers’ appearance in terms of their hair colour or style, the set of their brows, or the look of their eyes. These details seem to be an integral part of ‘being in love’ for the cousins and Emilia, and of their passionate dedication to each other. That these details are missing in The Love-Sick Court is not unsurprising or uncharacteristic of the very different kind of love Brome’s play describes. Neo-platonic love is less concerned with appearance as a trigger for sexual desire, the latter not being an important factor. Palamon and Arcite view Emilia for the first time, both fall in love instantly and are immediately fighting like siblings: as Arcite says to Palamon, ‘You play the child extremely’ (2.2.208). While their love is decisive and passionate, Philocles and Philargus are insipid and lacking in verve.50Fletcher and Shakespeare’s characters see the prize as Emilia, sexual union and marital harmony, while Brome’s play parodies the common duel by converting it into a fight to prevent the other from committing suicide, and where the ideal conclusion would be the three living together in a neo-platonic non-sexual scenario. However this can never be: both plays integrate within their worlds the threat of war and its sorrows: Palamon and Arcite are captured during the war between Theseus and Creon which has been requested by the grieving widows of kings who were slain by Creon. Emilia’s indecision is not only prompted by her desire: What a mere child is fancy,
That having two fair gauds of equal sweetness,
Cannot distinguish, but must cry for both!
(4.2.52-4)51When Theseus urges her to make a quick decision once more, her response comes in the context of the grieving widows and the backdrop of war: I had rather both,
So neither for my sake should fall untimely.
(4.2.68-9)52Similarly, Eudina is pushed into her difficult decision by the worsening of the King’s health, the threat of an uprising by the commons if a decision is not made, factors compounded by the historical impact of civil war on her family, during which her mother worried for the safety of her baby brother and concealed his identity. Ultimately, external forces are called upon to assist with the decision-making process: Arcite, Palamon and Emilia pray to Mars, Venus and Diana respectively; Philargus and Philocles hope that the Delphic Oracle can assist with Eudina’s problem. Both plays end after an apparently decisive competition (a duel and a lottery): one contender is triumphant, but each is usurped due to a subversive dramatic twist, so that Philargus, who was thought dead, is revived from a sleeping potion to prevent the marriage of Eudina to her newly-revealed brother; Palamon is rescued from execution at the crucial moment to replace Arcite, wounded on his triumphant entry into Thebes by being thrown from his horse.53Thomas Marc Parrott and Robert Hamilton Ball further observe that ‘The Love-Sick Court ... is an amalgamation of the themes of A King and No King and The Two Noble Kinsmen, eliminating in the process the tragic, or near tragic, element in both plays.’n11525 Beaumont and Fletcher’s A King and No King (performed 1611, published 1619; later performed at Court on 10 January 1637) contributes the plot twist which enables The Love-Sick Court to avoid the tragic showdown dramatised in The Two Noble Kinsmen. King Arbaces experiences sexual feelings for his sister, Panthea, after returning from fighting abroad. It is revealed that he is not king after all, but was placed on the throne by Grobius (Protector) and Arane (queen mother) to provide the previous king with an heir. Arbaces is therefore able to marry Panthea, but relinquishes his claim to the throne first. This plot resolution is paralleled in The Love-Sick Court where Thymele’s revelation that Philocles and Eudina are in fact brother and sister prevents their marriage, enabling Philargus to marry the princess, while Philocles marries Placilla (thus also dissipating Placilla’s worries at her incestuous feelings towards a supposed ‘brother’). It is this neat plot device which enables Brome’s play to end with a happy conclusion, in direct contrast with Shakespeare and Fletcher’s.54A similar case of sibling mistaken identity occurs in Shirley’s play The Coronation (licensed 1635). It contains an ambitious political character to rival Brome’s Stratocles: Shirley’s character, Cassander rules the kingdom of Epire as Lord Protector until Queen Sophia comes of age, at which point she will inherit the throne and hopefully wed Cassander’s son, Lisimachus. The Queen witnesses a duel between the kingdom’s two most powerful houses, fought by Arcadius (nephew of Macarius) and Seleucus (son of Eubulus). At its conclusion, instead of electing Lisimachus as her intended husband she chooses Arcadius instead. Macarius and the Bishop have to intervene, since it is revealed that Arcadius is in actual fact the Queen’s long-lost brother Demetrius, who was hidden by Sophia’s father (the previous King) along with her other brother Leonatus, in order to prevent them from being killed by the ambitious Cassander; he preserved Sophia solely in the hope that she would marry his son. It is later revealed that Seleucus is the missing other brother, but only after Cassander has attempted a coup d’état. This series of revelations bears some similarity with The Love-Sick Court’s final plot twist involving Philocles’ true identity as Eudina’s brother (therefore preventing a marriage between them) and the over-arching plot of the politically active character (Stratocles) who threatens to undermine the rule of a civilised kingdom by abducting and threatening to rape its princess (just as Cassander plots to overrule the throne’s lawful inheritance). It is interesting to note that The Coronation also has a character called Philocles.55Burnam MacLeod notes additional similarities between The Love-Sick Court and Peter Hausted’s The Rival Friends, which was disastrously performed before King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria at Cambridge University on 19 March 1631 (according to the title page).n11526 The similarities with Brome’s play are obvious: two men (friends), Lucius and Neander, are both in love with the same woman (Pandora), and each attempts to ensure that the other will have her as his wife (just as Philocles and Philargus plan to be killed during their duel so the other can marry Eudina). However, Eudina’s parallel character, Pandora, chooses neither of the competing men, electing instead to marry Endymion, Lucius’s page.56Clarence Andrews identifies a further parallel text in John Barclay’s Latin novel, Argenis, which was translated into English by Kingsmill Long in 1625 and Robert Le Grys in 1628.n11527 Again, two friends, Poliarchus and Archombrotus are in love with one woman, Princess Argenis, who marries the former when the latter is revealed to be her half-brother; Archombrotus marries Poliarchus’ sister, thus paralleling the resolution in Brome’s play, whereby Philocles (who misses out on the Princess) marries his rival’s (and his former) sister, Placilla. MacLeod notes:57Barclay employs rustics to capture a traitor and take him to the king (just as the rustics in Brome’s play do with Stratocles), and has the court poet Nicopompus compose an epithalamium for the wedding of Poliarchus and Argenis (just as Geron plans the entertainment for the double ceremony which concludes The Love-Sick Court).n1152858Similarly, The Two Noble Kinsmen features the performance of a Morris dance directed by Gerald a schoolmaster and performed by countrymen and -women. Also of note is the parallel between this and Geron’s rustic dance with which The Love-Sick Court concludes.‘WHAT A SICK COURT IS HERE’:n11529 PLATONIC LOVE AND BROME’S PLAY59It has already been noted by Kaufmann that Brome could have opted for various titles when naming The Love-Sick Court. So why choose this one? Perhaps, as MacLeod also suggests, Brome is attempting to cash in on the success of his (lost) play The Love-Sick Maid (performed in 1629).n11530 If so, it is nearly ten years on from this previous success, and Brome has had other successes in the meantime. But perhaps the period of The Love-Sick Maid supplied another clue as to Brome’s motivations: it was at this time of celebration for Brome that his mentor Ben Jonson suffered the terrible failure of another play, The New Inn. Jonson’s play was later published in 1631, the title-page broadcasting his disappointment and anger: As it was neuer acted, but most negligently play’d by some, the Kings Seruants. And more squeamishly beheld, and censured by others, the Kings Subiects. 1629. Now at last set at liberty to the Readers, his Maties Seruants, and Subiects, to be iudg’d. 1631.n11531 60Brome’s play, The Love-Sick Maid, was a great success when also performed by the King’s Men at the Blackfriars on 9 February 1629. The circumstantial information about this play survived in Henry Herbert’s now lost office book, here described by Edmund Malone: Very soon, indeed, after the ill success of Jonson’s piece [The New Inn], the King’s Company brought out at the same theatre a new play called The Love-Sick Maid, or the Honour of Young Ladies, which was licensed by Sir Henry Herbert on the 9th of February, 1628-9, and acted with extraordinary applause. This play, which was written by Jonson’s own servant, Richard Brome, was so popular that the managers of the King’s Company, on the 10th of March, presented the Master of the Revels with the sum of two pounds, “on the good success of The Honour of Ladies;” the only instance I have met with of such a compliment being paid him.n11532 61Although the play is non-extant, it has not stopped commentators from hazarding guesses as to its content: MacLeod’s inclination (based on the title) is that it was ‘a love and honour play’, while Steggle finds the subtitle suggestive of ‘a melodrama rather than a city comedy’.n11533 Whichever is closer to the mark, it would appear safe to conjecture that Brome’s judgement of the theatrical mood was better than Jonson’s at that particular time. MacLeod suggests that The New Inn attempts to satirise a new fashion for platonic love, which was increasing in popularity at Court due to the influence of Henrietta Maria, King Charles’s queen. He points to the obvious evidence of Lady Frampul as a Platonic lady whose ears wish to feast on the gentleman Lovel’s Platonic utterances: ‘Love is spiritual coupling of two souls...’ etc. (3.2.105). In his Revels edition of the play, Michael Hattaway notes that Lovel’s inspiration comes from Plato’s Symposium, a discourse which distinguishes between ‘heavenly’ and ‘earthly’ love. Hattaway furthermore queries the theory (posited by MacLeod and others) that Jonson was somehow satirising the new Court fashion because it may not have been quite so fashionable then as it was in the mid-1630s. Instead, Hattaway is convinced by E.B. Partridge’s argument that Jonson was ‘exploiting the inherent comic possibilities of Platonic love’.n1153462Henrietta Maria’s interest in Platonic love was probably inspired by Honoré D’Urfé’s pastoral romance, Astrée, which was translated into English in 1620 but available in France in the preceding decade.n11535 The cult of neo-platonism caught on, and despite references in the 1620s, it was most popular in the 1630s, so that by the time Brome parodies its main ideals it is ripe for satirising; perhaps Jonson was a little quick off the mark. One of the main characteristics of Platonic drama was the idealisation of women, which found expression in Walter Monatagu’s The Shepherd’s Paradise, in which Henrietta Maria and her ladies performed before King Charles on 9 January 1633. The following year, on 3rd June 1634, James Howell wrote to his friend in Paris, Mr Philip Warrick: The Court affords little News at present, but that there is a Love call’d Platonick Love, which much sways there of late; it is a Love abstracted from all corporeal gross Impressions and sensual Appetite, but consists in Contemplations and Ideas of the Mind, not in any carnal Fruition. This Love sets the Wits of the Town on work; and they say there will be a Mask shortly of it, whereof Her Majesty and her Maids of Honour will be part.n11536 63The masque was William Davenant’s The Temple of Love which was performed as Howell describes on 10 February 1635 at Whitehall.n11537 Davenant continued with this theme for his next play, The Platonic Lovers (1635), but his attempt at a comical approach to the subject matter was not popular. Presumably Brome felt more confident in attempting a similar approach in The Love-Sick Court three years later, although there is no record of how successful his play was either.64Brome’s play adheres to several typical plot characteristics of Cavalier drama, as identified by Alfred Harbage: its setting is Mediterranean (Thessaly) and the kingdom is on the brink of civil war (due to the King’s illness and disagreement over the succession); obstacles are present to thwart the marriage of noble men and women (Eudina and either Philocles and Philargus) in the form of rivalry (between the supposed brothers, and their ambitious ‘enemy’, Stratocles), an unknown kinship (between Eudina and Philocles) and a ‘lustful villain’ (Stratocles, who abducts Eudina in an attempt to force her into marriage, using the threat of rape as extra leverage); additionally one of the rivals apparently dies (Philargus, whom Varillus ‘poisons’, but which turns out to be a sleeping potion provided by Doris); the play ends in ‘blissful wedlock’ after surmounting all barriers (Eudina and Philargus are united, once the Princess has been prevented from marrying her own brother, Philocles, who is content to wed Placilla, formerly thought his sister; Stratocles repents). Harbage identifies the ‘child recovered’ theme as a common occurrence, in which a character discovers he is of noble birth (such as Philocles finding he is rightful heir to the throne) at an essential moment (just before marrying his own sister, Eudina). Brome leads the audience to this climax throughout the play by using Garrula’s cryptic references to concealed knowledge, and Thymele’s anxiety that she should reveal it as a source of curiosity to other characters (such as Doris and Placilla). The ‘child recovered’ theme can also be crucial to unravelling another central ingredient of the ‘love-friendship dilemma’.n1153865This particular dilemma occupies a substantial part of the play’s stage time. Philocles and Philargus’ dedication to one another is augmented through the course of the drama, and tested to various extremes. At the play’s opening, they are absent from Thessaly, a fact we learn through their joyous return from a visit to the Delphic Oracle, in an attempt to solve the issue of who should marry Eudina with external assistance from the deity Apollo. This approach is thwarted by the Oracle’s riddling response, and their efforts increased from a simple problem-solving stance, through petition to Eudina on each other’s behalf, to a physical resolution in the form of a duel. The only problem is that each has decided the other must be triumphant, so instead of a traditional fight for life and victory (as witnessed in The Two Noble Kinsmen) Philocles and Philargus each plan to become impaled on the other’s sword, thus dying and allowing his brother to win. Since this is unsuccessful, Disanius (one of the King’s advisors) becomes impatient and takes matters into his own hands, leaving the decision to chance by organising a lottery in which the winner will marry Eudina and the loser will be banished.66Two early studies of friendship in other Renaissance works give insight into the relationship between Philargus and Philocles. In writing on the Earl of Orrery’s plays, Laurens J. Mills uses The Love-Sick Court to supplement a note on Mustapha, which uses ‘the combination of the “rival friends” motif with that of the “friends more than brothers” attitude.’n11539 Mills uses Philargus and Philocles to exemplify the “friends more than brothers” theme, explaining that: ...the twin brothers regard their friendship as more sacred than their kinship. It turns out, however, that they are not brothers at all; thus their relationship is that of friends. But their thinking they are twins establishes the “friends more than brothers” attitude.n11540 67A good example of this attitude is found in Act 2, Scene 1, in which Philocles is about to ask his ‘sister’, Placilla, to woo Eudina on his behalf: PhiloclesI would entreat you be my advocate
In love unto Eudina — Oh, but hold,
Shall I be treacherous unto my brother?
A brother! What’s a brother? A mere name;
A title which we give to those that lodged
In the same womb; so bedfellows are brothers;
So men inhabiting one town or country
Are brothers too: for though the place containing
Be greater, the relation is the same.
A friend! Aye, that’s the thing I violate,
Than which, nor earth nor heaven hath aught more sacred.
’Tis my Philargus, nay, myself I injure,
If I content myself.
[LS 2.1.speech202] 68The speech gains added pertinence when one realises that at this point Placilla is battling amorous feelings for her ‘brother’; in the current circumstance she is likely to join him in dismissal of the import of ‘brother’, accepting ‘friendship’ as a more intimate bond.69In the course of his study, Mills identifies a list of ‘old motifs’ which he summaries at its conclusion: (a) friendship is more sacred than kinship; (b) a man woos for his friend; (c) friendship conflicts with love and usually is considered as having priority over love; (d) friendship is an answerable argument for a man’s confiding his troubles to a friend; (e) willingness to sacrifice self resolves quarrels between friends; (f) friendship leads to rivalry in magnanimity; (g) a man desires to die when his friend is killed; (h) a woman demands that a lover kill a previous wooer though he is the lover’s friend; (i) former enemies become close friends; (j) friends look upon themselves as one soul in two bodies; (k) a man aids his friend in trouble.n11541 70It should be clear that all but a few (d, h, i, k) of the above are true of Brome’ play and the relationship between Philocles and Philargus. Point (j) is also iterated by Charles G. Smith’s study of the legend of friendship in Spenser, in particular the Fourth Book of the Faerie Queene.n11542 Smith lists various characteristics of what he describes as ‘cosmic love’, the fourth of which is that ‘friends have but one soul’.n11543 Brome’s The Love-Sick Court is cited as an example to annotate the passage concerning Agape’s three sons (Priamond, Diamond and Triamond), who, when the first dies, his soul unites with the second, so that when the first two are dead, their souls are united in the third. Smith quotes the following passage: EudinaO, ye Gods!
Why made ye them two persons, and assigned
To both but one inseparable mind?
[LS 1.2.speech148]71Smith prefaces a selection of quotations by explaining that the proverbial notion of friends having one soul is an Aristotelian concept which had been treated extensively by Plato and employed in sixteenth-century literature as a standard conceit. In Thomas Kyd’s Soliman and Perseda, Soliman asks ‘For what are friends, but one mind in two bodies?’ (4.30), n11544 and in Beaumont and Fletcher’s The Lover’s Progress, Lisander says: ...can heaven be pleas’d with these things?
To see two hearts that have been twin’d together,
Married in friendship, to the world a wonder,
Of one growth, of one nourishment, one health,
Thus mortally divorc’d for one weake woman?n11545
(2.3.51-55)72This concept is at one with Plato’s argument in The Symposium that each person is searching for their ‘other half’ or ‘better self’: ‘When the two halves find each other, their souls unite, resulting in perfect friendship’.n11546 When Eudina questions Philocles’ jealous looks, he hastily replies: PhiloclesIt is no jealousy,
Only a fear Philargus had broke friendship:
So my soul’s better part exited, left
The other languishing.
[LS 2.1.speech254]73It would appear, then, that there is no room for Eudina in this friendship. In Act 5, Scene1, when Disanius forces the rivals to a lottery in order to decide who shall marry Eudina, Philocles loses and must leave. His parting words to Philargus echo previous sentiments, but discover a way to encompass both the Aristotelian proverb and enclose Eudina within the friendship: PhiloclesWith this embrace, my brother, and my last
Of present ceremony, I now wish you
In th’arms of your Eudina —
And may my better part of soul, which now
I leave in trust with you, by you be breathed
Into her breast, that she may lively find
She has my love in yours, and that in you
She has us both.
[LS 5.1.speech726]74Taking a step back from the play’s detail, what might ‘love’ represent in the context of its title? Plain-speaking Doris summarises what she sees in Act 2: DorisWhat a sick court is here? She’s love-struck too.
I can with half a sense find her disease,
But cannot guess the object of her love.
She keeps the fire so close up in her bosom
That she will sooner perish by’t, than suffer
A spark of it fly out to make discovery.
The princess, she’s love-sick for two; and her
Despair of gaining either’s her consumption.
But what think I of their loves when mine own
Is trouble enough? Now the visitants;
My great lord’s howdies are upon the entry,
And the unwelcom’st first.
[LS 2.1.speech161] 75A ‘sick court’ indeed, as Doris can only guess at half of what ails the kingdom, and has no idea that Placilla (her mistress) is secretly in love with her own brother. In her introduction to The Queen and Concubine (this edition), Lucy Munro cites Malcolm Smuts on the Caroline period, when love served as the central metaphor for a concept of governance as a process of regulating passions and appetites’ and ‘an apt metaphor for the sentient desires and emotional forces activating social and political life, while virtuous love, represented above all by royal monogamy, stood for a well-ordered polity.n11547 76While in The Queen and Concubine, ‘disordered, adulterous love therefore stood as a metaphor for a disordered nation’, in The Love-Sick Court the kingdom is sick from the effects of neo-platonic love, reflecting the disease of the old King’s body. This love stifles the decision-making process, the buck is passed from one Thessalonian to another, until it stops with the Rustics. Out in the country, in the beautiful Vale of Tempe, the Rustics keep their country council, demonstrating that while government is frozen at Court, it continues as normal elsewhere. It is the Rustics who, recovering from their initial confusion in Act 1, return in Act 4 to remedy the sickness: they overhear Matho and see his disguise, and intercept Stratocles and the Princess, his abductee; they also assist Disanius with returning all to Court. This country interlude proves the catalyst which engineers a series of revelations and twists (the true identity of Philocles as Prince, the sleeping potion which allows Philargus to live), enabling the plot to reach its satisfying conclusion: two royal weddings, the security of an heir to inherit the throne, and the threat of disorder and civil war banished. Perhaps because neo-platonism is the true threat to the kingdom’s peace Stratocles can repent and be allowed to live, since it was this love’s inactivity which acted as a canker at the heart of governance and order, and enabled Stratocles to enact his ambitious political dreams.77In summary then, as Doris’s metaphor for marriage suggests, The Love-Sick Court is a play about love and politics, bookishness, intertextuality, and individual component ‘leaves’ which comprise the dramatic text. It is therefore also a play concerned with partition [LS 5.1.speech687], the piecing together of things [LS 4.1.speeches439-440] and the peace of kingdoms; it is a patchwork of sources (both classical and early modern, mythical and dramatic), topography (Court versus the country), and theology (classical pantheon and Christian monotheism). Its concern with dualism is reflected in relationships (both sibling and romantic, and, in Placilla’s case, both at the same time) and their exploration through parallels plots. But fundamentally it is a dramatic text, to be enjoyed in a physical manifestation on the stage, or as marks of meaning for the reader.
n11488 exaggerated courtly language.
n11489 for Doris’s hand.
n11490 from the oracle’.
n11491 for its dating.
n11492 Revels, Sir Henry Herbert.
n11493 written in 1638.
n11494 for Salisbury Court, 1638
n11495 deposition of 1640.
n11496 The Florentine Friend.
n11497 the Cockpit instead.
n11498 period of composition.
n11499 [in Salsbury Courte].
n11500 of that company’.
n11501 of the King.
n11502 in July 1629.
n11503 for a trap.
n11504 of Roxana (1632) and Messalina (1640).
n11505 in the Cockpit),
n11506 from its source.
n11507 at the back.
n11508 relatively small stage.
n11509 King centre stage.
n11510 of mistaken identities.
n11511 about their servants’.
n11512 to Brome’s ingenuity’.
n11513 of his theme.
n11514 dilemma’ from Greek fiction.
n11515 of courtly romance’.
n11516 absurdity and pretension’.
n11517 a serious tragicomedy’.
n11518 is scarcely exaggerating.’
n11519 “Philargus and Philocles”’.
n11520 of Caroline London’.
n11521 as they destroy’.
n11522 with city comedy.
n11523 Queen Henrietta’s Men’.
n11524 questioned and satirized.
n11525 in both plays.’
n11526 the title page).
n11527 Le Grys in 1628.
n11528 The Love-Sick Court).
n11529 ‘WHAT A SICK COURT IS HERE’:
n11530 The Love-Sick Maid (performed in 1629).
n11531 Subiects, to be iudg’d. 1631.
n11532 being paid him.
n11533 a city comedy’.
n11534 of Platonic love’.
n11535 the preceding decade.
n11536 will be part.
n11537 1635 at Whitehall.
n11538 the ‘love-friendship dilemma’.
n11539 more than brothers” attitude.’
n11540 more than brothers” attitude.
n11541 friend in trouble.
n11542 the Faerie Queene.
n11543 but one soul’.
n11544 in two bodies?’ (4.30),
n11545 weake woman?
n11546 in perfect friendship’.
n11547 a well-ordered polity.