15991604
(see IV.i.330) (printed 1605)
full synopsis available, click here
Go to "Notes of Interest"
Go to "Plays to be Compared"
Valerio enters and boasts of how he has deceived his father into believing that he is a pious and dutiful son when in fact he is a rioter and has secretly married Gratiana.
When Gostanzo enters, everyone leaves but Rinaldo. Rinaldo, playing the Machiavel, tells Gostanzo that his brother Fortunio has secretly married Gratiana. Gostanzo gloats that Marc Antonio would be so deceived in his son. Gostanzo is proud that this calamity did not befall his son Valerio, who is too shy (he believes) even to look at a woman.
When Marc Antonio enters, Gostanzo (even though he promised to keep secret not a moment earlier) tells Marc Antonio of Fortunio's deception. Marc Antonio takes the news with good grace, which inflames Gostanzo. Gostanzo instructs Marc Antonio to act enraged and so keep Fortunio from further mischief. Marc Antonio agrees to allow Fortunio and Gratiana to live with Gostanzo while he pretends to be displeased with his son. Gostanzo assures him that Valerio's example will work a change for the better on Fortunio.
Gostanzo then returns to Rinaldo (who has secretly heard the whole conversation) and tells him that Marc Antonio is enraged by the news. Gostanzo claims it is common knowledge throughout Florence, claiming that Antonio had already heard of Fortunio's marriage. He tells Rinaldo to have Fortunio and Gratiana come live at Gostanzo's until Marc Antonio settles down.
Rinaldo sees this as an opportunity to gull the proud Gostanzo and goes to tell Fortunio and Valerio how he has arranged to have both men live under the same roof with their lovers.
I.ii: The three women, Gratiana, Bellanora, and Gazetta bemoan their lot. Gratiana is married to Valerio but cannot live with him. Bellanora loves Fortunio, but Gostanzo forbids them to meet. Gazetta is married to Cornelio, a jealous man newly risen in court, who brings courtiers home to entertain them and then upbraids her for being seen in their company.
Cornelio enters and orders Gazetta into the house.
Valerio and Fortunio enter and embrace Gratiana and Bellanora. Rinaldo enters and tells them how he has arranged their future happiness. But he admonishes them to behave in front of Gostanzo as if it is Fortunio and Gratiana who are married.
II.i: Gostanzo again encourages Marc Antonio to behave as if he is angry with Fortunio about the marriage. Marc Antonio is reluctant, but agrees. Gostanzo has Marc Antonio hide to overhear his discussion with Valerio. Valerio enters in a pose of pure virtue, telling a page to trouble him no longer, that he will not bail a friend for his gambling debts. Gostanzo approves of his son's virtue. Fortunio enters with Rinaldo and Gratiana. Fortunio acts surprised that his father should have reacted badly to the news of his "marriage." Gostanzo bids Valerio to welcome Fortunio and Gratiana to their house. Valerio welcomes Fortunio, but he behaves bashfully and will not kiss Gratiana. Bellanora enters and welcomes them into the home.
When the children leave, Gostanzo boasts to Marc Antonio that he has a virtuous and dutiful son.
Valerio and Rinaldo congratulate themselves for their success in the plot. They see Cornelio and Gazetta enter and discuss his ill-reasoned jealousy of her over the courtier Dariotto. Cornelio wrongly believes that she is cuckolding him with Dariotto.
After the couple leaves, Dariotto enters and teases Valerio about his wit at deceiving his father Gostanzo. We learn that Valerio has great gambling debts and has recently fought his way out of an army of creditors, lawyers, and sergeants. The courtiers flatter Valerio into plying the theorbo and singing. When Valerio does, and does it badly, they make fun of him and laugh at the ease with which Valerio is gulled by flattery. Valerio tells Rinaldo that he will be revenged for this embarrassment.
III.i: Gostanzo watches the lovers in Gostanzo's house. He is surprised to see his son Valerio embracing Gratiana. He believes his son is a fast learner and is about to cuckold his friend Fortunio. When he tells Rinaldo about his fears, Rinaldo comes up with a plan. Gostanzo is to send Gratiana to Marc Antonio's house on the pretext of learning that she is really Valerio's wife. To keep the pretext strong, Fortunio is to remain at Gostanzo's house and Valerio is to be allowed to "secretly" sneak out and meet Gratiana at Marc Antonio's. Gostanzo thinks it will be an excellent jest on old Antonio.
In the meantime, Valerio has told Cornelio that Dariotto is indeed cuckolding him. Cornelio is at the point of divorcing Gazetta. Valerio is now trying to dissuade Cornelio from divorcing. A Page exclaims that women cannot help themselves from cuckolding their husbands, which only enrages Cornelio the more, and Cornelio runs off to kill Dariotto. When the innocent Dariotto enters, he tells Valerio that he only likes the chase--he has no desire to taste forbidden fruits, only to seek them. The danger in the hunt is all he really longs for, not the quarry.
The enraged Cornelio enters and wounds Dariotto. A surgeon is fetched. The surgeon, Pock, takes Dariotto to his house for treatment.
Rinaldo tells Valerio of the bizarre turn of events at Gostanzo's. They are now "pretending" that Gratiana is Valerio's wife, and she will be living with Marc Antonio under that pretense. Valerio looks forward to further gulling his father with his secret bride.
IV.i: Gostanzo, unable to take the ribbing of Marc Antonio that Valerio has really deceived him, tells Marc Antonio that the whole reason that Gratiana is being moved to his house is to keep her from cuckolding Fortunio. He tells Marc Antonio to keep the deception alive and pretend that he believes Valerio is the husband (as the children "pretend" now).
Rinaldo says that Gostanzo has proof that Gratiana is a noble maid. He says that Gostanzo had tried her virtue earlier in his house and had been rebuffed. Valerio enters and begs his father's blessing in the marriage. Gostanzo, still believing the whole scene to be a ruse, gives Valerio his wholehearted blessing for the marriage. Valerio is left to wonder, "Gull'd I my father, or gull'd he himself?"
Cornelio enters with Gazetta and a Notary for the divorce. Just when he is ready to sign the bill of divorce his nose bleeds, which he takes to be an omen and refuses to sign the paper. He has the Notary take Gazetta and the bill of divorce to his house for safekeeping. Claudio, a courtier, privately tells Cornelio that Gazetta has not been untrue to him, that the whole thing is a fabrication by Valerio and Rinaldo. Cornelio promises to gull the gullers.
V.i: Cornelio tells Rinaldo that Valerio has been arrested for debt. Because both Rinaldo and Cornelio are guarantors of Valerio's debt they stand to lose substantially by his arrest. Also, because they are parties in interest, they cannot themselves go to bail Valerio. He has Rinaldo run to Gostanzo, asking to meet him at the Half Moon Tavern where Valerio is being held until bail can be raised. Rinaldo runs for Gostanzo. Cornelio gloats that his plan is working.
V.ii: At the Half Moon Tavern Valerio is gambling and drinking heavily. Rinaldo brings Gostanzo in, unseen. Cornelio enters to watch the fun. Rinaldo, seeing that Valerio is not in custody, chastises himself for being gulled by Cornelio into exposing his friend to his father. Gostanzo halts the merriment and expresses indignation at his son's behavior. Marc Antonio enters. He tells Gostanzo of his certain knowledge that Gratiana is Valerio's wife indeed. The enraged Gostanzo swears he will leave all his belongings to Belladora. When Fortunio thanks him for the benefice and tells him that he has married
Belladora secretly, Gostanzo sees that he cannot control his children and good-naturedly gives in to their gulling of him and accepts them into his good graces again.
They then turn their attention to Cornelio and try to convince him not to divorce. They tell him that his mother cuckolded his father, and she was nonetheless a virtuous and well-respected woman; his father had the wisdom to go out of his way NOT to catch her in the act. They assure him that it is better in this world to live in a fool's paradise, allowing oneself to be deceived in those areas one wishes to be deceived, than it is to play the jealous ass.
Cornelio then makes a shocking statement. He acts jealous so he may ensure his wife's unfaithfulness. By spicing the forbidden fruit with the danger of his feigned wrath he is assured of drawing fools such as Dariotto into his wife's bed--all this to "bridle her stout stomach"--that is, to relieve himself of the husband's duty. He is weary of her insatiable lust. He is commended by all for his wisdom.
Valerio, horribly drunk, delivers a long exegesis upon the latest age--the HORNED AGE (falling after the first six ages of the world, golden; silver; brass; iron; leaden; and wooden.)
Gostanzo ends by saying, "Horns cannot be kept off with jealousy."
Valerio thinks he is a wise schemer, but he can barely keep a step ahead of his father and is easily gulled by the flattery of the courtiers.
Gostanzo thinks he is a wholly wise man, but he is gulled by Valerio (in both demeanor and marriage), Belladora (in marrying Fortunio), by Fortunio, Gratiana, and Rinaldo.
Gostanzo gulls Marc Antonio, but he is easy-going and apparently does not mind surprises. He is the complacent fool in the play.
Rinaldo believes he is the perfect Machiavel, twisting others to his will, but in the end Cornelio gulls him into betraying Valerio's secret life to Gostanzo.
Cornelio is gulled into believing Gazetta is cuckolding him, though his final speech (depending upon whether one believes him or not) either makes him out to be a wittol-fool or a gulled fool (who is only trying to save face).
Gazetta is gulled into believing that Cornelio really is jealous and means divorce.
Go Back to Top
As in Widow's Tears, Chapman enjoys examining the human necessity of self-deception. In both plays he seems to say that the only way to be happy is by not looking into the truth of things.
At II.i.170-79 Chapman could be using the foolish Gostanzo's voice to express his own feelings that the state of poetry had declined greatly from the Elizabethan golden age, or even from classical antiquity, to the time when he was writing (1599). Then again, one must keep the speaker in mind--it could also be a foolish statement made by a foolish man and no more.
Rinaldo's self-deception that he is the "Machiavel" of the play (as he boldly announces at II.i.201) is Chapman's conscious parody of the other playwrights who tap into that popular vein and end up producing foolish villains unwittingly.
The entire play has a misogynistic tone. Woman hating is most evident in the page's speeches in III.i, but the whole structure lends itself to a certain hatred of women. Gazetta is not to be trusted despite her protestations of faithfulness (even where it is not deserved). Gratiana is a pawn with no wit of her own in the schemes involving her. Bellanora might be as duplicitous as Valerio in her marriage to Fortunio, but her character is not developed enough to tell. Even a character who doesn't appear--Cornelio's mother--is a notable whore who cuckolded his father to the town's general knowledge.
"Gulling" is the operative word in this play--everyone is out to gull everyone else in this play. Everyone is a fool, as the title suggests, and fools are best at gulling. A simple word-count of "gull" and its forms in this play would prove an interesting exercise.
"Cuckoldry" and "horns" would prove to be the other most mentioned motif in this play, I believe.
Chapman, at V.ii.16, seems to have nodded by placing the Rialto in Florence. It could be that Valerio is so drunk that he does not notice this slip, and thus may be intended by Chapman, but it seems highly unlikely that even drunk a man would mistake areas from other cities as being part of his hometown.
The changes in action are rather poorly (that is, artificially) accomplished. A change from one plot to another generally consists of one character saying "I wonder what that subplot character is up to--oh, here he comes now" and the subplot then taking its next step. This device is especially apparent at IV.i. 220-230 et seq. Synopsis:
I.i: Rinaldo, disenchanted by love and vowing to live a Machiavel, talks to his elder brother Fortunio. They discuss the current state of affairs. Valerio, whose father believes him to be a virtuous son, has secretly married his love--a beautiful but poor girl named Gratiana. Additionally, Fortunio is in love with Valerio's sister Bellanora. The problem is Valerio and Bellanora's father, Gostanzo. He wants his children to marry well and has forbidden Fortunio to court Bellanora (even though Gostanzo has a best friend in Marc Antonio, the father to Fortunio and Rinaldo). Characterization:
All the characters, as the title suggests, are fools. They are each self-deluded, but can see the delusion only in the people around them. Notes of Interest:
This play is considered by many critics to be Chapman's finest comedy. It deals more with characters than with plot--and Chapman's notorious shunning of plot is here overcome to make an interesting, well-integrated structure.