Restoration Comedy: Three Plays

Full Text and Introduction (NHB Drama Classics)

Aphra Behn, William Wycherley, William Congreve

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781788502245
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Drama
• Index: Literature

'One no more owes one's beauty to a lover, than one's wit to an echo.'

With the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the republican ban on organised theatre was lifted – and plays exploded back onto the public stage with newfound relish. The arrival of actresses for the first time encouraged a great sense of release, which expressed itself in the form of sophisticated comedies exploring the sexual behaviour and moralities of society.

This volume features three of the most popular Restoration Comedies:

The Country Wife by William Wycherley - a supremely bawdy comedy in which the aptly named Horner pretends to be a eunuch in order to seduce women under the noses of their husbands.

The Way of the World by William Congreve - a brilliant comedy of manners, complete with dashing suitor, rich heiress and vengeful aunt.

The Rover by Aphra Behn - the classic Restoration comedy by one of the earliest and most celebrated female playwrights.

There is also a full introduction about the plays, playwrights and the period, and a glossary of unfamiliar words.

The Drama Classic Collections bring together the most popular plays from a single author or a particular period. They offer students, actors and theatregoers a series of uncluttered, accessible editions, accompanied by comprehensive introductions.

ACT ONE

Enter HORNER, and QUACK following him at a distance.

HORNER (aside). A quack is as fit for a pimp as a midwife for a bawd; they are still but in their way both helpers of nature. – Well, my dear doctor, hast thou done what I desired?

QUACK. I have undone you for ever with the women, and reported you throughout the whole town as bad as an eunuch, with as much trouble as if I had made you one in earnest.

HORNER. But have you told all the midwives you know, the orange wenches at the playhouses, the city husbands, and old fumbling keepers of this end of the town? For they’ll be the readiest to report it.

QUACK. I have told all the chamber-maids, waiting-women, tire-women, and old women of my acquaintance; nay, and whispered it as a secret to ’em, and to the whisperers of Whitehall, so that you need not doubt ’twill spread, and you will be as odious to the handsome young women as –

HORNER. As the smallpox. Well –

QUACK. And to the married women of this end of the town as –

HORNER. As the great ones; nay, as their own husbands.

QUACK. And to the city dames as Aniseed Robin of filthy and contemptible memory; and they will frighten their children with your name, especially their females.

HORNER. And cry, ‘Horner’s coming to carry you away!’ I am only afraid ’twill not be believed. You told ’em ’twas by an English-French disaster, and an English-French surgeon, who has given me at once not only a cure but an antidote for the future against that damned malady, and that worse distemper, love, and all other women’s evils.

QUACK. Your late journey into France has made it the more credible, and your being here a fortnight before you appeared in public looks as if you apprehended the shame, which I wonder you do not. Well, I have been hired by young gallants to belie ’em t’other way; but you are the first would be thought a man unfit for women.

HORNER. Dear Mr Doctor, let vain rogues be contented only to be thought abler men than they are, generally ’tis all the pleasure they have, but mine lies another way.

QUACK. You take, methinks, a very preposterous way to it, and as ridiculous as if we operators in physic should put forth bills to disparage our medicaments, with hopes to gain customers.

HORNER. Doctor, there are quacks in love, as well as physic, who get but the fewer and worse patients for their boasting. A good name is seldom got by giving it oneself, and women no more than honour are compassed by bragging. Come, come, doctor, the wisest lawyer never discovers the merits of his cause till the trial. The wealthiest man conceals his riches, and the cunning gamester his play. Shy husbands and keepers, like old rooks, are not to be cheated but by a new unpractised trick. False friendship will pass now no more than false dice upon ’em; no, not in the city.

Enter BOY.

BOY. There are two ladies and a gentleman coming up.

Exit BOY.

HORNER. A pox! Some unbelieving sisters of my former acquaintance who, I am afraid, expect their sense should be satisfied of the falsity of the report. No – this formal fool and women!

Enter SIR JASPAR, LADY FIDGET and MRS DAINTY FIDGET.

QUACK. His wife and sister.

SIR JASPAR. My coach breaking just now before your door, sir, I look upon as an occasional reprimand to me, sir, for not kissing your hands, sir, since your coming out of France, sir; and so my disaster, sir, has been my good fortune, sir; and this is my wife and sister, sir.

HORNER. What then, sir?

SIR JASPAR. My lady, and sister, sir. – Wife, this is Master Horner.

LADY FIDGET. Master Horner, husband!

SIR JASPAR. My lady, my Lady Fidget, sir.

HORNER. So, sir.

SIR JASPAR. Won’t you be acquainted with her, sir? (Aside.) So the report is true, I find, by his coldness or aversion to the sex; but I’ll play the wag with him. – Pray salute my wife, my lady, sir.

HORNER. I will kiss no man’s wife, sir, for him, sir; I have taken my eternal leave, sir, of the sex already, sir.

SIR JASPAR (aside). Ha, ha, ha! I’ll plague him yet. – Not know my wife, sir?

HORNER. I do know your wife, sir, she’s a woman, sir, and consequently a monster, sir, a greater monster than a husband, sir.

SIR JASPAR. A husband! How, sir?

HORNER (makes horns). So, sir. But I make no more cuckolds, sir.

SIR JASPAR. Ha, ha, ha! Mercury, Mercury.

LADY FIDGET. Pray, Sir Jaspar, let us be gone from this rude fellow.

DAINTY. Who, by his breeding, would think he had ever been in France?

LADY FIDGET. Foh! he’s but too much a French fellow, such as hate women of quality and virtue for their love to their husbands, Sir Jaspar. A woman is hated by ’em as much for loving her husband as for loving their money. But pray let’s be gone.

HORNER. You do well, madam, for I have nothing that you came for. I have brought over not so much as a bawdy picture, new postures, nor the second part of the Ecole des Filles, nor –

QUACK (apart to HORNER). Hold for shame, sir! What d’ye mean? You’ll ruin yourself for ever with the sex –

SIR JASPAR. Ha, ha, ha! He hates women perfectly, I find.

DAINTY. What pity ’tis he should.

LADY FIDGET. Ay, he’s a base rude fellow for’t; but affectation makes not a woman more odious to them than virtue.

HORNER. Because your virtue is your greatest affectation, madam.

LADY FIDGET. How, you saucy fellow! Would you wrong my honour?

HORNER. If I could.

LADY FIDGET. How d’you mean, sir?

SIR JASPAR. Ha, ha, ha! No, he can’t wrong your ladyship’s honour, upon my honour; he, poor man – hark you in your ear – a mere eunuch.

LADY FIDGET. O filthy French beast! foh, foh! Why do we stay? Let’s be gone. I can’t endure the sight of him.

SIR JASPAR. Stay but till the chairs come. They’ll be here presently.

LADY FIDGET. No, no.

SIR JASPAR. Nor can I stay longer. ’Tis – let me see – a quarter and a half quarter of a minute past eleven. The Council will be sat, I must away. Business must be preferred always before love and ceremony with the wise, Mr Horner.

HORNER. And the impotent, Sir Jaspar.

SIR JASPAR. Ay, ay, the impotent, Master Horner, ha, ha, ha!

LADY FIDGET. What, leave us with a filthy man alone in his lodgings?

SIR JASPAR. He’s an innocent man now, you know. Pray stay, I’ll hasten the chairs to you. – Mr Horner, your servant; I should be glad to see you at my house. Pray come and dine with me, and play at cards with my wife after dinner; you are fit for women at that game yet, ha, ha! (Aside.) ’Tis as much a husband’s prudence to provide innocent diversion for a wife as to hinder her unlawful pleasures, and he had better employ her than let her employ herself. – Farewell.

Exit SIR JASPAR.

HORNER. Your servant, Sir Jaspar.

LADY FIDGET. I will not stay with him, foh!

HORNER. Nay, madam, I beseech you stay, if it be but to see I can be as civil to ladies yet as they would desire.

LADY FIDGET. No, no, foh! You cannot be civil to ladies.

DAINTY. You as civil as ladies would desire!

LADY FIDGET. No, no, no! foh, foh, foh!

Exeunt LADY FIDGET and DAINTY.

QUACK. Now I think, I, or you yourself, rather, have done your business with the women.

HORNER. Thou art an ass. Don’t you see already, upon the report and my carriage, this grave man of business leaves his wife in my lodgings, invites me to his house and wife, who before would not be acquainted with me out of jealousy?

QUACK. Nay, by this means you may be the more acquainted with the husbands, but the less with the wives.

HORNER. Let me alone; if I can but abuse the husbands, I’ll soon disabuse the wives! Stay – I’ll reckon you up the advantages I am like to have by my stratagem. First, I shall be rid of all my old acquaintances, the most insatiable sorts of duns, that invade our lodgings in a morning. And next to the pleasure of making a new mistress is that of being rid of an old one, and of all old debts; love, when it comes to be so, is paid the most unwillingly.

QUACK. Well, you may be so rid of your old acquaintances, but how will you get any new ones?

HORNER. Doctor, thou wilt never make a good chemist, thou art so incredulous and impatient. Ask but all the young fellows of the town, if they do not lose more time, like huntsmen, in starting the game, than in running it down. One knows not where to find ’em, who will, or will not. Women of quality are so civil you can hardly distinguish love from good breeding, and a man is often mistaken. But now I can be sure she that shows an aversion to me loves the sport, as those women that are gone, whom I warrant to be right...