All's Lost by Lust

So, our "Holzknecht Redivivus" is in some serious need of rediviving. Basically, we proposed it about a year ago, and then never did anything about it. Well, I'm here to try and get the ball rolling, with a play Karl Holzknecht never even thought about including in his book: All's Lost by Lvst -- "Written by William Rowley," "Divers times Acted by the Lady Elizabeths Servants" (London, 1633). The play was probably written and performed around 1619. Dramatis Personae Roderigo -- The king of Spain Muly Mumen -- "King of the Moores" Zacharia -- a Moor Medina -- a Spanish Duke Julianus -- the Spanish general in the wars against the Moors Jacinta -- his daughter Antonio -- a "Don," "Lord of Barcelona"; he marries Margaretta, has an affair with Dionysia Dionysia -- see above; Alonzo's daughter Margaretta -- Pedro's daughter, affianced to Antonio at the beginning of the play Fidella -- Margaretta's Moorish servant Alonzo -- a knight, governor of a castle near the Moorish army at the play's opening Piamentelli -- one of Roderigo's court Pedro -- Margaretta's father; a poor man Iaques -- "a simple clownish Gentleman," Pedro's son, "personated by the Poet" Cloveele -- "a Rusticke" Lothario -- a go-between, sent by Roderigo to pursue Jacinta Lazarello -- Antonio's servant Cob -- a page Malaena -- a bawd ACT ONE The play opens with Roderigo in pursuit of Jacinta, asking his pander Lothario whether she will "be woman" -- to which Lothario replies that Jacinta has threatened to stab herself rather than give in to Roderigo's sexual importunities. Roderigo says, fine, I have another way; he then calls to the other lords on the stage, inquires about an intended "hot invasion" of "barbarous and tawney Affricans," and appoints Julianus as his general against the Moors. Julianus accepts, and announces that he will leave his daughter Jacinta behind at court; Roderigo promises to protect her, since "We love Iacinta more then you must know." A second plot entwined with this one: Antonio, a knight, is betrothed to Margaretta, the daughter of a poor man, Pedro; Antonio calls her a "beggar," while praising her virtues. But Pedro, Margaretta's father, is suspicious of this union, and suspects that Antonio's "gay outside" conceals "a ragged lining." The act ends with Margaretta and Antonio arriving together onstage, preparing to be secretly married by a friar, "one Benedicke." ACT TWO After both Lothario and Malena fail to persuade Jacinta, Roderigo confronts her himself; but she resists his advances, insisting that lust and love are "an Antipathy as dissonant / As heaven and hell." Roderigo turns from persuasion to command -- "we speake a king to you, you must." The scene shifts to a castle at the front, governed by Alonzo, who lives there with his daughter Dionysia; Alonzo describes his daughter as undaunted by life so close to an enemy army, saying that "Were there a band of buskind Amazons" here, Dionysia would be "formost" among them. Lazarello comments: "Why, heres a wench now, I had rather lie with her / Witt, then with the best piece of flesh in Christendome, / I could beget young Mercuries on her, with / The very conceit." Antonio is clearly still more struck with Dionysia. At this point the Moorish army arrives and is promptly defeated, after an "Alarum." After the Moors beat a retreat, Antonio receives a letter from Dionysia, the very sight of which prompts Lazarello to convince him to abandon Margaretta, calling his marriage to her "A mistake in private." The act ends with Antonio and Dionysia exchanging kisses, and Antonio lamenting his "backe slid[ing]." ACT THREE Jacinta is imprisoned by Lothario, being now "neither / Maid, wife, nor ... widow." She escapes, fleeing to her father, and Roderigo, fearing Julianus's response, orders him to stay away from the court but to send all his prisoners there. The scene shifts to Margaretta, who has just learned of Antonio's marriage to Dionysia, and sends a letter to him by way of her brother Jaques, having been persuaded by her servant Fydella not to reveal her anger. In the following scene, Jaques (called "Clowne" in the stage directions and speech prefixes) arrives in the middle of an awkward conversation between Dionysia and a moping, anxious Antonio, who reads the letter and promises a response. The letter, it seems, congratulates him on his wedding, but asks that Margaretta may still be his "Concubine," secretly, twice a week. Lazarello, hearing this, proposes that he will slip into Margaretta's bed in Antonio's place. Antonio gives him his clothes and ring, to make the counterfeit take. ACT FOUR Julianus wonders why he's being kept from court, after his victories; then Jacinta arrives and reveals what has been done to her. What to do? "[D]oes Maiesty extenuate a crime?" Jacinta asks, and her father answers, "Augment it rather." After a fairly brief debate about treason and loyalty, Julianus sends for his prisoners -- "I have no friends / But these my enemies" -- and announces himself "a vowd foe" to Roderigo. The Spanish promise loyalty to him, and he then extends friendship to the Moors, asking them to join him in the fight against Roderigo. The Moorish king agrees, but demands Jacinta for a wife; Julianus responds, "Ile not compell her heart, wooe, win, and wed her." Next we see a bed, with Lazarello in it, dressed as Antonio; Margaretta and her servant Fydella approach with a halter. They kill him. ACT FIVE Roderigo, in desperation, decides to open the doors of an enchanted castle that supposedly contains treasure with which he could pay an army, but about which an old prophecy threatens that when the castle is opened, Spain will fall. He opens the first forbidden door, and there is thunder; the second, and there is both thunder and lightning. At this point, he sees Julianus, Antonio, Alonzo, and the Moorish king arrive, in what seems to be a dumb-show-hallucination of his own deposition. The army of Julianus and Muly Mumen arrives two scenes later. In the intervening scene, Lothario persuades Jaques to hang him. We then see Muly pursuing Jacinta exactly as Roderigo had, even using the same arguments ("I am thy King"). Margaretta arrives at court to turn herself in for the supposed murder of her husband, but Antonio then enters with Dionysia. He has been mortally wounded by one of Julianus's soldiers, but before he dies, he reveals everything that has happened, including the death of Lazarello. Dionysia moralizes his death for us ("Let every wise man take heed of too wives"). Margaretta then stabs herself and dies kissing Antonio's corpse, followed closely by Dionysia ("I must dye one day, and as good this day as another"). Muly calls this whole scene an "Excellent pastime." Julianus enters, in the final scene, calling Muly a tyrant and condemning rebellion ("Tis the peoples sinnes that makes tyrants Kings"). Muly proposes a duel; in what follows, Julianus, trying to stab Muly, apparently mistakenly kills his own daughter, before Muly then stabs him -- after making fun of him for a little while. The play ends with Muly proclaimed king: "Let Chroniclers write, here we being our raigne, / The first of Moores that ere was King of Spaine."