The Widow's Tears
by George Chapman
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The Widow's Tears is set on the island of Cyprus. Chapman gives his play an unusual structure, in that he treats his two plots consecutively, rather than concurrently and in alternation as in most two-plot plays. The first three acts are mainly devoted to the subplot, while the main plot takes over in the last two acts. The two plots are united by the involvement of two siblings, Lysander and Tharsalio. Tharsalio, the younger brother, is a romantic-comedy version of Chapman's tragic show more character Bussy D'Ambois -- he is a "capricous," "wild, corrupted youth." As the protagonist of the subplot, he schemes to repair his fortunes by marrying a wealthy widow, the countess Eudora. The countess has taken a vow never to remarry; nonetheless, she is courted (primarily for her money) by two contrasting suitors, Tharsalio and Rebus. Tharsalio is bold and forward, while Rebus is pompous yet timid. Tharsalio's method of wooing is unsubtle, and he is at first rejected -- which provokes his brother Lysander's caustic comments. Yet Tharsalio succeeds in his courtship through an extraordinary expedient: he sends the panderess Arsace to warn Eudora about...himself. Arcase tells Eudora of Tharsalio's reputation as a relentless womanizer. In the process, however, Arsace stresses Tharsalio's "manhood" and woman-pleasing capacities: "a goddess," she claims, "is not worthy of his sweetness." Tharsalio's plan is to mount a subtle arousal and temptation of Eudora's latent romantic and erotic desires. The plan is successful, and the third act closes with the marriage of Tharsalio and Eudora. The main plot of the last two acts (which draws upon the Ephesian Matron story in the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter) provides a twist to the situation of the preceding subplot. In their conversations over his plans to woo Eudora, Tharsalio resents his brother's critical attitude; to pay him back, Tharsalio makes Lysander doubt his wife. Like Eudora, Lysander's wife Cynthia has vowed not to remarry if she is ever widowed. Tharsalio goads his brother on precisely this point, and Lysander is so provoked that he decides upon an extreme strategem. Lysander fakes his own death, spreading the false report that he has been killed by bandits while travelling; Cynthia, believing these false reports, is prostrate with grief. (Eudora's servant Lycus, a confidant of Lysander and Tharsalio who is aware of the plot, is the only one to protest its emotional cruelty: "men hunt hares to death for their sports, but the poor beasts die in earnest.") Lysander returns to the city, disguised as a soldier of the night watch, to see the result of his ruse. In a series of somewhat macabre graveyard scenes, the disguised Lysander finds Cynthia mourning at the family tomb, where she has gone without food or sleep for the past five days. He cajoles and persuades her to take food and wine, and exploits her emotional vulnerability to seduce her and persuade her to "marry" him. Tharsalio spies upon these events, without realizing that the soldier is Lysander in disguise; he triumphs in this apparent confirmation of his cynical attitude toward women. Lysander's disguise as a soldier has fooled others as well as Cynthia, and he is apprehended for neglecting his guard duty; and Lycus is suspected of murdering Lysander. The new Governor of Cyprus, an incompetent and arrogant fool, attempts to pass judgement on these matters and only confounds them further. The countess Eudora, widow of the previous governor, intercedes to pacify the Governor and repair his bungling. Lysander is revealed to be alive, which resolves the legal issue of his murder. Tharsalio convinces his brother to accept the outcome of his plotting with equanimity; he asserts that when Cynthia loved Lysander in his soldier disguise, she was merely being "a constant wife." show lessTags
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George Chapman had a reputation in his own time for being a learned writer. On the payroll of the Elizabethan impresario, Philip Henslowe, he wrote for the Admiral's Men and was imprisoned with Ben Jonson for supposedly seditious theater. He translated the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer and completed Hero and Leander by Christopher Marlowe. Chapman's show more works are full of humanist scholarship from classical sources, while his tragedies are mostly based on contemporary French history. In Bussy d'Ambois (1607), the best known of this series, the hero is the aspiring, stoic man who is doomed to extinction in a crass world. Chapman's comedies, which are much more lighthearted, experiment in the comedy of "humours" that Jonson was to perfect. The plays are mostly written for the boy companies. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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