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he has to have control of the citadel which is governed by
Calianax. The old man enters again and Melantius proposes common revenge for the injuries that the King has done them both, but after he leaves Calianax resolves to go straight to the King with this information. Melantius goes to Evadne and forces her to reveal what has happened. He gets her to promise to kill the King. He leaves and Amintor enters, Evadne apologises for the situation, but doesn’t reveal she is to kill the King.
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leaves. The King's body is discovered and his brother
Lysippus is proclaimed the new King. Melantius, his brother Diphilus, and the unwilling Calianax are standing on the citadel explaining to the populace why the King was killed. The new King enters, and after some negotiation the three agree to give up the citadel in return for a pardon.
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enter and he quizzes the couple; Amintor's answers are so smooth that the King grows jealous and he dismisses everyone except Evadne and
Amintor. He satisfies himself that the couple have not slept together and he lets Amintor know the rules: he is to allow Evadne to come to him whenever he wants and is to stay away from her himself.
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forcibly made her his mistress and has arranged this marriage to cover up her ‘dishonour’. Amintor is horrified, but agrees to go through with the charade of pretending to be a married couple. He sleeps on the floor. Aspatia is talking with her maids, advising them never to love. One of them has produced a tapestry of
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Calianax has told the King of
Melantius’ plot, however the King has difficulty believing him. In the ensuing scene with the whole court, Melantius easily outfaces Calianax's accusations and leaves him looking foolish. When everyone except these two leave, Calianax tells Melantius he has no option but
181:
Melantius enters and quarrels with
Calianax again; after he leaves, not daring to challenge Melantius, Amintor enters and Melantius gets the secret out of him. He dissuades his friend from revenge and counsels patience, but once Amintor has left he begins to plot to kill the King. In order to do this
193:
Aspatia enters the palace dressed as a man seeking
Amintor. When she finds him she pretends to be a brother of hers looking to fight Amintor to avenge the insult offered to his sister. After much provocation she gets him to fight, but during the fight she drops her guard deliberately and is fatally
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The morning after the wedding night some male courtiers are talking bawdily outside the chamber and are joined by
Melantius. Evadne and Amintor emerge and continue with the pretense, but Amintor is so distressed he says various strange things and Melantius and Evadne notice. The King and courtiers
165:
Outside the chamber Evadne's maid Dula jokes bawdily with her mistress, but
Aspatia cannot join in the banter and announces she will die of grief, taking a last farewell of Amintor when he enters. Left alone with her husband Evadne refuses to sleep with him and eventually reveals that the King has
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Aspatia's aged father
Calianax and a servant are attempting to keep the populace out of the palace as the masque is for the court alone. Calianax has been ‘humorous’ since his daughter's wedding was broken off and quarrels with Melantius and then with Amintor. The masque of Night and Cynthia (the
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Melantius, a young general, returns from a military campaign which he has just concluded, winning peace for Rhodes. He is greeted by the King's brother, Lysippus. Melantius expects to have returned to witness the wedding of his friend
Amintor with Aspatia, his betrothed, but instead the King has
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The King has summoned Evadne, but when she arrives at his bed chamber she finds him asleep. She soliloquises and then ties his arms to the bed. She wakes him and tells him she is going to kill him for his rape of her. The King doesn’t believe her, but she stabs him, makes sure he is dead, then
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211:'s work will find those dislikes amply represented, even crystallised, in this play.) John Glassner once wrote that to display "the insipidity of the plot, its execrable motivation or the want of it, and the tastelessness of many of the lines one would have to reprint the play."
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wounded. Evadne then enters with the bloody knife and asks Amintor to take her as his wife in actuality. He hesitates, leaves, and she stabs herself. He reenters to find her dead and the dying Aspatia reveals herself. He then stabs himself and dies.
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Finally Melantius, the new King, and the court enter and discover the bodies; Melantius tries to kills himself too but is restrained. He promises to starve himself to death instead. The new King promises to rule ‘with temper’.
94:, in his extensive survey of authorship problems in the Beaumont/Fletcher canon, assigns only four scenes to Fletcher (Act II, scene 2; Act IV, 1; and Act V, 1 and 2), though one of those is the climax of the play (IV, 1).
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to go along with the plot and hand over the citadel. Melantius expects Evadne to kill the King that night, but at this point Amintor enters talking wildly of revenge and Melantius has to pretend that none is planned.
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ordered Amintor to marry Melantius's sister, Evadne, in order to honour her brother's military achievements. Aspatia is very melancholy at this, but the whole court is about to celebrate the wedding with a masque.
206:
Critics have varied widely, even wildly, in their responses to the play. Many have recognised the play's power, but have complained about the play's extremity and artificiality. (People who dislike aspects of
217:, one of the play's modern editors, notes that the play "has that anomaly amongst Elizabethan tragedies, an original plot." Other critics have noted that the play introduces romance into the standard
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of 1619, and the second of 1622, are usually synthesized to create modern editions, since Q2 contains eighty lines not included in Q1, plus a couple of hundred changes and corrections on Q1.
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221:, and that the play, even in its artificiality, has relevance to the disputes about authority that characterised relations between kings and
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174:, a suitable theme for Aspatia's plight. Calianax enters and is angry at the situation, breathing threats against the men of the court.
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based on the resemblances he perceived between the two works. Scholars generally assign the Beaumont/Fletcher play to c. 1608–1611.
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The Later Jacobean and Caroline Dramatists: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama,
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Beaumont and Fletcher's Rhodes: Early Modern Geopolitics and Mythological Topography in The Maid's Tragedy,
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Moon) is held with various songs, and Evadne and Amintor are taken to their wedding chamber.
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Scholars and critics generally agree that the play is mostly the work of Beaumont;
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on 28 April 1619, and published later that year by the bookseller
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The play's date of origin is not known with certainty. In
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4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923; Vol. 3, p. 224.
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Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1978; p. 25.
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The play has provoked divided responses from critics.
1048:† = Not published in the Beaumont and Fletcher folios
1057:
492:The Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn
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282:Terence P. Logan and Denzell S. Smith, eds.,
854:Four Plays, or Moral Representations, in One
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356:
16:Play by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
308:Early Modern Literary Studies 16.2 (2012)
237:military expansion in the Mediterranean.
20:
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229:. Due to its setting on the island of
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134:. The play was later included in the
904:with Massinger, Chapman & Jonson
1086:Plays by John Fletcher (playwright)
13:
914:with Massinger, Ford & Webster
327:Article from Literary Encyclopedia
136:second Beaumont and Fletcher folio
110:. Subsequent editions appeared in
14:
1102:
315:
225:in the decades leading up to the
485:The Knight of the Burning Pestle
331:
1091:Plays by Beaumont and Fletcher
322:Full text in Gutenberg Project
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289:
276:
260:
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102:The play was entered into the
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1:
1026:(Shakespeare & Fletcher?)
801:with Beaumont & Massinger
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995:Beaumont and Fletcher folios
49:. It was first published in
7:
985:English Renaissance theatre
691:Rule a Wife and Have a Wife
341:public domain audiobook at
295:Logan and Smith, pp. 26–27.
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79:The Second Maiden's Tragedy
10:
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825:with Massinger & Field
1081:Plays by Francis Beaumont
1066:English Renaissance plays
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740:The Custom of the Country
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948:(Middleton & Rowley)
919:The Fair Maid of the Inn
830:The Honest Man's Fortune
719:The Little French Lawyer
593:The Faithful Shepherdess
255:Studies in Bibliography,
1023:The History of Cardenio
909:Rollo, Duke of Normandy
656:The Humorous Lieutenant
145:The texts of the first
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945:Wit at Several Weapons
271:The Elizabethan Stage,
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872:The Two Noble Kinsmen
806:Thierry and Theodoret
380:Beaumont and Fletcher
209:Beaumont and Fletcher
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899:The Maid in the Mill
837:The Queen of Corinth
747:The Lovers' Progress
677:The Wild Goose Chase
104:Stationers' Register
74:Master of the Revels
1035:(possibly based on
844:The Knight of Malta
733:The Double Marriage
663:The Island Princess
575:The Noble Gentleman
420:William Shakespeare
754:The Spanish Curate
684:A Wife for a Month
554:A King and No King
547:The Maid's Tragedy
338:The Maid's Tragedy
304:Lindsay Ann Reid,
202:Critical responses
38:The Maid's Tragedy
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30:The Maid's Tragedy
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1005:Humphrey Robinson
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953:The Laws of Candy
889:Wit Without Money
775:The Elder Brother
642:The Loyal Subject
600:The Woman's Prize
568:The Scornful Lady
561:Love's Pilgrimage
257:VIII–XV, 1956–62.
227:English Civil War
108:Francis Constable
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1032:Double Falsehood
1000:Humphrey Moseley
882:The Night Walker
859:with Shakespeare
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430:Thomas Middleton
407:Philip Massinger
393:Francis Beaumont
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978:and publication
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512:The Woman Hater
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41:is a play by
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877:with Shirley
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415:Nathan Field
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1076:1610s plays
1071:1600s plays
976:Performance
940:(Middleton)
894:with Rowley
820:Love's Cure
670:The Pilgrim
635:The Chances
607:Valentinian
540:The Captain
526:The Coxcomb
215:Andrew Gurr
98:Publication
70:George Buck
1060:Categories
990:King's Men
865:Henry VIII
849:with Field
795:and others
445:Ben Jonson
241:References
223:Parliament
86:Authorship
26:Title page
964:(Shirley)
712:Barnavelt
703:Massinger
533:Philaster
440:John Ford
92:Cyrus Hoy
32:(detail).
1037:Cardenio
793:Fletcher
585:Fletcher
502:Beaumont
477:Beaumont
343:LibriVox
153:Synopsis
76:, named
1014:Related
614:Bonduca
382:" Canon
235:Ottoman
172:Ariadne
168:Theseus
956:(Ford)
929:Others
231:Rhodes
147:quarto
130:, and
72:, the
68:, Sir
466:(some
464:Plays
378:The "
170:and
140:1679
132:1661
128:1650
124:1641
120:1638
116:1630
112:1622
66:1611
60:Date
51:1619
45:and
138:of
28:of
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269:,
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126:,
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1039:)
1029:†
1020:†
862:†
780:†
709:†
371:e
364:t
357:v
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