Swetnam the Woman-Hater
Encyclopedia
Swetnam the Woman-Hater Arraigned by Women is a Jacobean era stage play, an anonymous comedy
that was part of an anti-feminist
controversy of the 1615–20 period.
, in a quarto
issued by Richard Meighen
. The title page of the quarto states that the play was performed by Queen Anne's Men
at the Red Bull Theatre
; the most likely date for the first performance is considered to have been in late 1618 or 1619. The play was not reprinted in its own era (in fact, not until 1880); but it was revived onstage around 1633.
In one key respect, the Red Bull Theatre was an odd venue for the play Swetnam and its positive and genteel attitude toward women. The Red Bull had a reputation as the roughest and rowdiest of the theatres of its day, and at least one source suggests that some women avoided it. According to a contemporaneous doggerel,
Perhaps the Red Bull audience mellowed with time; or perhaps it was never as narrow and mean as reputed, as A. B. Grosart suggests in his edition of the play.
Conversely, Queen Anne's Men may have chosen the play to appeal to the "up-scale" new audience they wanted to serve. In 1617
, the Queen Anne's company moved from the open-air, "public" Red Bull to the enclosed "private" theatre the Cockpit
, which had a more "elite" clientele. But the crowds of apprentices who made up a large portion of the company's audience were outraged at the move. The private theatres' ticket prices were five or six times higher than the public theatres' admission fees. (In the Jacobean era
, the cheapest ticket to the "public" Globe Theatre
was a penny, while the minimum for the "private" Blackfriars Theatre
was sixpence.) The young men were being priced out of their basic entertainment. In the famous Shrove Tuesday
riot of 1617, the 'prentices damaged the Cockpit badly enough to delay its opening, and the Queen's Men had to remain at the Red Bull until repairs were done. Swetnam may have been the kind of play the company intended for their projected new home at the Cockpit.
with the publication of Joseph Swetnam
's crude anti-feminist tract The Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Froward, and Unconstant Women. Swetnam's work attracted abundant attention, and provoked three responses in defense of women: Rachel Speght
's A Muzzle for Melastomus (1617), and two works published under pseudonyms — Esther Hath Hang'd Haman by "Esther Sowernam" and The Worming of a Mad Dog by "Constantia Munda" (both also 1617). The pseudonyms are thought to represent other female authors, making this polemical response to Swetnam a rare cluster of early 17th-century works written by women. The play Swetnam the Woman-Hater shows internal signs of being the final response to Swetnam in the relevant period.
More generally, Swetnam the Woman-Hater is one of a long-running series of English Renaissance plays
on what can be called, very broadly, the gender question. Earlier plays in this sub-genre would include Shakespeare's
The Taming of the Shrew
and Beaumont and Fletcher
's The Woman Hater
and The Woman's Prize
. Beyond the confines of the drama, there was an abundant literature on the subject. Swetnam's tract was only one in a long series of similar attacks on women; countervailing defenses of women were less common though not unknown — as in Protection for Women (1589
), by "Jane Anger," and The Worth of Women: Wherein is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men (1600
), by "Moderata Fonte
" (both pseudonyms).
with plot material for his Women Pleased
.) De Flore's novel was popular, and had been published in English translation five times between 1556
and 1586
. It has been argued that the play also shows specific debts to earlier dramas, notably George Peele
's The Arraignment of Paris and John Lyly
's Endymion
.
The tone of de Flores' novel is strongly chivalric, a trait that carries over into the play. "Swetnam the Woman-Hater is remarkable for the unusually high moral tone it adopts with regard to women."
, Thomas Dekker, and Thomas Drue
have been proposed as candidates. (A "Thomas Drewe" acted with Queen Anne's Men in the years 1616–19; but it is not certain that Drew the actor, and Drue the playwright of The Duchess of Suffolk, were the same person.) Heywood is regarded as the best candidate for the author of Swetnam: "the language, dialogue, and clownery" of Swetnam are all typical of Heywood's style.
, where the royal court is a grim and somber place: King Atticus is mourning the death of his eldest son and heir, Lusippus, and the prolonged absence of his second son Lorenzo. In the middle of the opening scene, news arrives that Lorenzo is missing after fighting in the Battle of Lepanto
(1571), and is feared to be either dead or captured by the Ottoman Turks
.
The king also has a daughter, the beautiful and spirited Leonida. Yet Atticus is displeased with her: the scions of the great royal houses of Europe have come to seek her hand in marriage, but she has imperiously refused them all. The king calls her "wanton, coy, and fickle too;" he decides to punish her by restricting her social access, and puts her in the custody of his senior courtier, Nicanor. Nicanor quickly reveals himself to be both the play's villain and its senex: though an old man himself, he wants to marry Leonida and so become king after Atticus.
The second scene introduces Swetnam and his servant Swash, the play's clown. The conceit is that Swetnam has been driven out of England by the public's righteous indignation over his anti-female slanders; he has moved to Sicily and taken to calling himself Misogynos. (The play provides the earliest known use in English of the term "misogynist.") Once in Sicily, however, he has fallen back into his old habit of traducing women, and is becoming notorious in his new country just as he was in his old.
(The play's two opening scenes create an obvious conflict in chronology: the dramatist postulates a future, post-England Swetnam, but tosses him into 1570s Sicily. Yet such anomalies are only too common in English Renaissance drama. For extreme examples of historical anomalies and chronological conflict, see The Faithful Friends
and The Old Law
.)
Meanwhile, the missing prince, Lorenzo, has returned clandestinely to Sicily; he wants to spy out local conditions and corruptions, unhindered by his fame and high position. Only the loyal courtier Iago is aware of his presence.
Princess Leonida's current suitor is the Spanish prince, Lisandro; when Leonida is restricted from seeing him, he decides to take the bold step of masquerading as her confessor, Friar Anthony, to see her. His ardor and persistence create an impression on the young princess, and he wins her affection. But Nicanor catches the two of them together. The young couple are put on trial for violating the king's command; in the classic fairy tale
tradition, the penalty they face is death. Yet at their trial, both of the accused accept blame for the infraction and exonerate the other. The judges complain to the king that they cannot decide; the king decrees that the matter will be resolved by a debate or disputation on the question of whether men or women are the morally weaker gender.
Swetnam/Misogynos is delighted to take the male side in the dispute; the women's side is taken by Lorenzo, who has disguised himself "like an Amazon." The debate is vigorous, and Lorenzo-alias-"Atlanta" does well; but the judges are all male, and Nicanor uses his corrupting influence to turn the outcome in Swetnam's favor. True to his word, Atticus condemns his daughter to death; Lisandro is sentenced to exile. In the aftermath of the debate, Swetnam surprisingly makes romantic advances to "Atlanta." To his servant Swash, Swetnam reveals that he is in the grip of lust rather than love; but the effect is highly comic all the same. In his pursuit of "Atlanta," Swetnam exposes himself to the revenge of the Sicilian women; they capture him, imprison him, and force him to recant and repent his bigotry against them.
The play takes a specific approach to Swetnam's bias, judging his low opinion of women as a reflection of his own low quality as a human being. As Iago puts it,
In the main plot, Lorenzo and Iago stage a pretended execution of Leonida. When Lisandro sees a mock-up of her supposedly severed head, he stabs himself in a suicide attempt; his guards, fearing punishment, flee, and Lorenzo and Iago secure his wounded body and nurse him back to health. In the play's final scene, the disaffected court party, including Lorenzo, Iago, Leonida and Lisandro, and Queen Aurelia, stage a masque
on the theme of repentance; Atticus is affected, emotionally and psychologically, by the masque, and expresses his own repentance over his course of action. Once that change of heart has been achieved, Lorenzo, Leonida, and Lisandro can reveal themselves. Nicanor's villainy is exposed, and he too repents; in the spirit of the moment, the king forgives him, and urges him to "live honestly." Leonida and Lisandro can now engage to marry, and Lorenzo is the new crown prince.
[The play text presents interesting questions as to its original staging, like the mock severed head of Leonida. How was Lorenzo costumed as an "Amazon," and how did the audience interpret and understand his disguise?]
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
that was part of an anti-feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
controversy of the 1615–20 period.
Performance and publication
Swetnam the Woman-Hater was first published in 16201620 in literature
The year 1620 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*The Book of Psalmes: Englished both in Prose and Metre with Annotations by Henry Ainsworth is the only book brought to New England by the pilgrim settlers....
, in a quarto
Book size
The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from "folio" , to "quarto" and "octavo"...
issued by Richard Meighen
Richard Meighen
Richard Meighen was a London publisher of the Jacobean and Caroline eras. He is noted for his publications of plays of English Renaissance drama; he published the second Ben Jonson folio of 1640/1, and was a member of the syndicate that issued the Second Folio of Shakespeare's collected plays in...
. The title page of the quarto states that the play was performed by Queen Anne's Men
Queen Anne's Men
Queen Anne's Men was a playing company, or troupe of actors, in Jacobean era London. -Formation:...
at the Red Bull Theatre
Red Bull Theatre
The Red Bull was a playhouse in London during the 17th century. For more than four decades, it entertained audiences drawn primarily from the northern suburbs, developing a reputation for rowdy, often disruptive audiences...
; the most likely date for the first performance is considered to have been in late 1618 or 1619. The play was not reprinted in its own era (in fact, not until 1880); but it was revived onstage around 1633.
In one key respect, the Red Bull Theatre was an odd venue for the play Swetnam and its positive and genteel attitude toward women. The Red Bull had a reputation as the roughest and rowdiest of the theatres of its day, and at least one source suggests that some women avoided it. According to a contemporaneous doggerel,
-
-
- The Red Bull
- Is mostly full
- Of drovers, carriers, carters;
- But honest wenches
- Will shun the benches
- And not there show their garters.
-
Perhaps the Red Bull audience mellowed with time; or perhaps it was never as narrow and mean as reputed, as A. B. Grosart suggests in his edition of the play.
Conversely, Queen Anne's Men may have chosen the play to appeal to the "up-scale" new audience they wanted to serve. In 1617
1617 in literature
The year 1617 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*March 4 - Shrovetide riot of the London apprentices damages the Cockpit Theatre...
, the Queen Anne's company moved from the open-air, "public" Red Bull to the enclosed "private" theatre the Cockpit
Cockpit Theatre
The Cockpit was a theatre in London, operating from 1616 to around 1665. It was the first theatre to be located near Drury Lane. After damage in 1617, it was christened The Phoenix....
, which had a more "elite" clientele. But the crowds of apprentices who made up a large portion of the company's audience were outraged at the move. The private theatres' ticket prices were five or six times higher than the public theatres' admission fees. (In the Jacobean era
Jacobean era
The Jacobean era refers to the period in English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of King James VI of Scotland, who also inherited the crown of England in 1603 as James I...
, the cheapest ticket to the "public" Globe Theatre
Globe Theatre
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613...
was a penny, while the minimum for the "private" Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre was the name of a theatre in the Blackfriars district of the City of London during the Renaissance. The theatre began as a venue for child actors associated with the Queen's chapel choirs; in this function, the theatre hosted some of the most innovative drama of Elizabeth and...
was sixpence.) The young men were being priced out of their basic entertainment. In the famous Shrove Tuesday
Shrove Tuesday
Shrove Tuesday is a term used in English-speaking countries, especially in Ireland, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, Germany, and parts of the United States for the day preceding Ash Wednesday, the first day of the season of fasting and prayer called Lent.The...
riot of 1617, the 'prentices damaged the Cockpit badly enough to delay its opening, and the Queen's Men had to remain at the Red Bull until repairs were done. Swetnam may have been the kind of play the company intended for their projected new home at the Cockpit.
Controversy
The play was one item, and apparently the final one, in a controversy that erupted in 16151615 in literature
The year 1615 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*January 6 - Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists, a masque written by Ben Jonson and designed by Inigo Jones, is performed at Whitehall Palace....
with the publication of Joseph Swetnam
Joseph Swetnam
Joseph Swetnam was a Renaissance author and Jacobean fencing master, author of the first complete English fencing treatise.- The Pamphlet Wars :...
's crude anti-feminist tract The Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Froward, and Unconstant Women. Swetnam's work attracted abundant attention, and provoked three responses in defense of women: Rachel Speght
Rachel Speght
Rachel Speght was a poet and polemicist. She was the first Englishwoman to identify herself, by name, as a polemicist and critic of gender ideology. Speght, a feminist and a Calvinist, is perhaps best known for her tract A Mouzell for Melastomus...
's A Muzzle for Melastomus (1617), and two works published under pseudonyms — Esther Hath Hang'd Haman by "Esther Sowernam" and The Worming of a Mad Dog by "Constantia Munda" (both also 1617). The pseudonyms are thought to represent other female authors, making this polemical response to Swetnam a rare cluster of early 17th-century works written by women. The play Swetnam the Woman-Hater shows internal signs of being the final response to Swetnam in the relevant period.
More generally, Swetnam the Woman-Hater is one of a long-running series of English Renaissance plays
English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre, also known as early modern English theatre, refers to the theatre of England, largely based in London, which occurred between the Reformation and the closure of the theatres in 1642...
on what can be called, very broadly, the gender question. Earlier plays in this sub-genre would include Shakespeare's
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1591.The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself...
and Beaumont and Fletcher
Beaumont and Fletcher
Beaumont and Fletcher were the English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I ....
's The Woman Hater
The Woman Hater
The Woman Hater is an early Jacobean era stage play, a comedy by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. One of the earliest of their collaborations, it was the first of their plays to appear in print, in 1607.-Date and publication:...
and The Woman's Prize
The Woman's Prize
The Woman's Prize, or the Tamer Tamed is a Jacobean comedy written by John Fletcher. Its initial publication occurred in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647, though it was obviously written much earlier...
. Beyond the confines of the drama, there was an abundant literature on the subject. Swetnam's tract was only one in a long series of similar attacks on women; countervailing defenses of women were less common though not unknown — as in Protection for Women (1589
1589 in literature
-Events:*The Children of Paul's perform twice at the English royal court during the first two weeks of January.-New books:*"Jane Anger" - Protection for Women*Giovanni Botero - Della ragione di Stato ...
), by "Jane Anger," and The Worth of Women: Wherein is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men (1600
1600 in literature
The year 1600 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*January 1 - The Admiral's Men perform Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday at Court....
), by "Moderata Fonte
Moderata Fonte
Moderata Fonte, pseudonym of Modesta Pozzo was an Italian writer from Venice. Besides the posthumously-published dialogue, Il merito delle donne for which she is best known, she wrote a romance and religious poetry...
" (both pseudonyms).
Plot source
The play's subplot deals with Swetnam, who is brought to trial before a court of women for his offenses against the gender and ends up recanting his bias. The play's main plot, a story of political intrigue and courtly love, derives from a novel by Juan de Flores called the Historia de Aurelio e Isabella (also known as Grisel y Mirabella), written c. 1495. (The same novel provided John FletcherJohn Fletcher (playwright)
John Fletcher was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's...
with plot material for his Women Pleased
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.-Date and performance:...
.) De Flore's novel was popular, and had been published in English translation five times between 1556
16th century in literature
See also: 16th century in poetry, 15th century in literature, other events of the 16th century, 17th century in literature, list of years in literature.-Events:1508...
and 1586
1586 in literature
-New books:*John Knox - Historie of the Reformatioun of Religioun within the Realms of Scotland*John Lyly - Pappe with an hatchet, alias a figge for my Godsonne*Jerónimo Osório - De rebus Emmanuelis...
. It has been argued that the play also shows specific debts to earlier dramas, notably George Peele
George Peele
George Peele , was an English dramatist.-Life:Peele was christened on 25 July 1556. His father, who appears to have belonged to a Devonshire family, was clerk of Christ's Hospital, and wrote two treatises on bookkeeping...
's The Arraignment of Paris and John Lyly
John Lyly
John Lyly was an English writer, best known for his books Euphues,The Anatomy of Wit and Euphues and His England. Lyly's linguistic style, originating in his first books, is known as Euphuism.-Biography:John Lyly was born in Kent, England, in 1553/1554...
's Endymion
Endymion (play)
Endymion, the Man in the Moon is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy by John Lyly. The play provides a vivid example of the cult of flattery in the royal court of Queen Elizabeth I, and has been called "without doubt, the boldest in conception and the most beautiful in execution of all Lyly's...
.
The tone of de Flores' novel is strongly chivalric, a trait that carries over into the play. "Swetnam the Woman-Hater is remarkable for the unusually high moral tone it adopts with regard to women."
Authorship
No external evidence indicates the identity of the play's author; Thomas HeywoodThomas Heywood
Thomas Heywood was a prominent English playwright, actor, and author whose peak period of activity falls between late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre.-Early years:...
, Thomas Dekker, and Thomas Drue
Thomas Drue
Thomas Drue or Drewe was an English playwright.He wrote The Life of the Duchess of Suffolk and The Bloody Banquet.Drue is the author of a historical play, ‘The Life of the Dvtches of Svffolke,’ 1631, 4to, which has been wrongly attributed by Langbaine and others to Thomas Heywood...
have been proposed as candidates. (A "Thomas Drewe" acted with Queen Anne's Men in the years 1616–19; but it is not certain that Drew the actor, and Drue the playwright of The Duchess of Suffolk, were the same person.) Heywood is regarded as the best candidate for the author of Swetnam: "the language, dialogue, and clownery" of Swetnam are all typical of Heywood's style.
Synopsis
The play is set in SicilySicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, where the royal court is a grim and somber place: King Atticus is mourning the death of his eldest son and heir, Lusippus, and the prolonged absence of his second son Lorenzo. In the middle of the opening scene, news arrives that Lorenzo is missing after fighting in the Battle of Lepanto
Battle of Lepanto (1571)
The Battle of Lepanto took place on 7 October 1571 when a fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of Catholic maritime states, decisively defeated the main fleet of the Ottoman Empire in five hours of fighting on the northern edge of the Gulf of Patras, off western Greece...
(1571), and is feared to be either dead or captured by the Ottoman Turks
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
.
The king also has a daughter, the beautiful and spirited Leonida. Yet Atticus is displeased with her: the scions of the great royal houses of Europe have come to seek her hand in marriage, but she has imperiously refused them all. The king calls her "wanton, coy, and fickle too;" he decides to punish her by restricting her social access, and puts her in the custody of his senior courtier, Nicanor. Nicanor quickly reveals himself to be both the play's villain and its senex: though an old man himself, he wants to marry Leonida and so become king after Atticus.
The second scene introduces Swetnam and his servant Swash, the play's clown. The conceit is that Swetnam has been driven out of England by the public's righteous indignation over his anti-female slanders; he has moved to Sicily and taken to calling himself Misogynos. (The play provides the earliest known use in English of the term "misogynist.") Once in Sicily, however, he has fallen back into his old habit of traducing women, and is becoming notorious in his new country just as he was in his old.
(The play's two opening scenes create an obvious conflict in chronology: the dramatist postulates a future, post-England Swetnam, but tosses him into 1570s Sicily. Yet such anomalies are only too common in English Renaissance drama. For extreme examples of historical anomalies and chronological conflict, see The Faithful Friends
The Faithful Friends
The Faithful Friends is an early seventeenth-century stage play, a tragicomedy associated with the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators...
and The Old Law
The Old Law
The Old Law, or A New Way to Please You is a seventeenth-century tragicomedy written by Thomas Middleton, William Rowley, and Philip Massinger...
.)
Meanwhile, the missing prince, Lorenzo, has returned clandestinely to Sicily; he wants to spy out local conditions and corruptions, unhindered by his fame and high position. Only the loyal courtier Iago is aware of his presence.
Princess Leonida's current suitor is the Spanish prince, Lisandro; when Leonida is restricted from seeing him, he decides to take the bold step of masquerading as her confessor, Friar Anthony, to see her. His ardor and persistence create an impression on the young princess, and he wins her affection. But Nicanor catches the two of them together. The young couple are put on trial for violating the king's command; in the classic fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
tradition, the penalty they face is death. Yet at their trial, both of the accused accept blame for the infraction and exonerate the other. The judges complain to the king that they cannot decide; the king decrees that the matter will be resolved by a debate or disputation on the question of whether men or women are the morally weaker gender.
Swetnam/Misogynos is delighted to take the male side in the dispute; the women's side is taken by Lorenzo, who has disguised himself "like an Amazon." The debate is vigorous, and Lorenzo-alias-"Atlanta" does well; but the judges are all male, and Nicanor uses his corrupting influence to turn the outcome in Swetnam's favor. True to his word, Atticus condemns his daughter to death; Lisandro is sentenced to exile. In the aftermath of the debate, Swetnam surprisingly makes romantic advances to "Atlanta." To his servant Swash, Swetnam reveals that he is in the grip of lust rather than love; but the effect is highly comic all the same. In his pursuit of "Atlanta," Swetnam exposes himself to the revenge of the Sicilian women; they capture him, imprison him, and force him to recant and repent his bigotry against them.
The play takes a specific approach to Swetnam's bias, judging his low opinion of women as a reflection of his own low quality as a human being. As Iago puts it,
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- He's a man,
-
-
-
-
-
- Whose breeding has been like the ScarrabeeDung beetleDung beetles are beetles that feed partly or exclusively on feces. All of these species belong to the superfamily Scarabaeoidea; most of them to the subfamilies Scarabaeinae and Aphodiinae of the family Scarabaeidae. This beetle can also be referred to as the scarab beetle. As most species of...
, - Altogether upon the excrement of the time;
- And being swol'n with poisonous vapors
- He breaks wind in public, to blast the
- Reputation of all women; his acquaintance
- Has been altogether amongst whores and bawds,
- And therefore speaks but in's own element.
- His own unworthy foul deformity,
- Because no female can affect the same,
- Begets in him despair; and despair, envy.
- He cares not to defame their very souls,
- But that he's of the Turk's opinion: they have none.
-
-
In the main plot, Lorenzo and Iago stage a pretended execution of Leonida. When Lisandro sees a mock-up of her supposedly severed head, he stabs himself in a suicide attempt; his guards, fearing punishment, flee, and Lorenzo and Iago secure his wounded body and nurse him back to health. In the play's final scene, the disaffected court party, including Lorenzo, Iago, Leonida and Lisandro, and Queen Aurelia, stage a masque
Masque
The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio...
on the theme of repentance; Atticus is affected, emotionally and psychologically, by the masque, and expresses his own repentance over his course of action. Once that change of heart has been achieved, Lorenzo, Leonida, and Lisandro can reveal themselves. Nicanor's villainy is exposed, and he too repents; in the spirit of the moment, the king forgives him, and urges him to "live honestly." Leonida and Lisandro can now engage to marry, and Lorenzo is the new crown prince.
[The play text presents interesting questions as to its original staging, like the mock severed head of Leonida. How was Lorenzo costumed as an "Amazon," and how did the audience interpret and understand his disguise?]