Henry Porter's
The First Part of
THE TWO ANGRY WOMEN OF ABINGDON
(Henslowe paid for a second part (now lost) between 22 December 1598–12 February 1599; He also paid for a work called The Two Merry Women of Abington on 28 February 1599, which may refer to the same play or to another play either left incomplete or lost)
circa 1585–1589
a synoptic, alphabetical character list
BOY
Boy is Frank's servant. He is very open in his conversation with Phillip about Frank's horses, describing in detail a particularly fine one that Frank has apparently been keeping secret. He talks to Frank about the drunken butler, Coomes. On the night of the events at the rabbit green, he butts into conversation between Frank and Coomes, asking clownlike questions. In the dark, the boy is exhausted from running and lies down to rest. Hodge steals the torch Hodge and Boy had stolen from Dick Coomes their colleague in the Gourcey family.
DICK COOMES
Dick Comes/Coomes is Goursey's chronically drunken butler/servant, who, at the Barnes house gets bowls (of drink) in the buttery while the young men, he observes are wasting their money playing bowls on the green. When they all meet again, he enters the conversation like the traditional clown, having got drunk with the other servants in Phillip's father's cellar. He engages in a witty but tedious conversation with Phillip, his master's friend. Hearing him talking, Frank, his master, tries to keep him quiet but he tries to get everybody drunk like himself. Mistress Goursey pays him an angel to accompany her that night to Mistress Barnes house, to start a fight with the servants so that he can hit Mistress Barnes. He talks of the puny rapier fighting that goes on nowadays, not like the days when he fought with a buckler and a really big sword. That night he goes with Mistress Gourcey to the Barnes house. He tells Frank to obey his mother and threatens to fight him. Later when everybody has run off into the dark fields, looking for one another, he accompanies Mistress Gourcey as she runs off to the rabbit green. He hears Frank's voice, enabling Frank's mother to nearly catch her son. All the characters spend the night in the pitch-black fields unsuccessfully looking for each other. Dick becomes exhausted looking for the boy and lies down to rest. When Hodge finds him Dick assumes Hodge is Mistress Gourcey and tries to kiss her, chasing him/her off into the dark. When Nicholas appears he threatens to fight him.
FRANK GOURSEY
Frank Goursey is the son of Master and of Mistress Goursey, one of the angry women. While the Goursey family is visiting the Barnes family, he beats Phillip Barnes at bowls while their mothers are dicing and their fathers are walking in the orchard. Frank promises that when Phillip visits his house he'll give Phillip a chance to win the ten crowns he has just lost. Phillip then asks about Frank's horses and a lengthy discussion follows, with Frank being unwilling to divulge the whereabouts of a particularly fine horse the Boy has been boasting about. When Frank's permanently drunk and belligerent butler, Dick Coomes, arrives, Frank tries to dissuade Philip from talking to him and to keep Coomes quiet. He is a thoroughly decent young man. At home, Frank discusses Coomes, who got very drunk during the Gourcey family visit to the Barnes house, and talks about his mother's hatred for Mistress Barnes, and about how his father is concerned about it. Then Nicholas arrives with the letter from Master Barnes to Master Goursey proposing that Frank marry Mall. He takes the letter to his father and spends a long time dithering, seeking advice from father and Phillip (who had just arrived) as to whether he should marry and surrender his liberty to live in misery. Will he be another Daniel in the lions' den? Nevertheless he walks back to the Barnes house with Phillip and talks to Mall. They both admire the lack of extreme in each other and agree to marry. When his mother enters to prevent the match Frank caps every argument she presents with calm reasonableness. Then follow several scenes of chaos where characters cannot see each other in the dark and several mistaken identities occur of no importance to the plot. When Dick Coomes threatens to fight Frank, Phillip persuades Frank not to, telling him to slip away. Frank and his boy do so, to look for Mall who has already slipped away. They fail to find Mall but his mother nearly finds him. He runs off into the dark again, like all the other characters, and meets Sir Raph, a gentleman hunting throughout the night, who mistakes him for his woodsman Will (a matter of no importance at all to the plot). All the characters are hallooing to each other, trying to find each other when Master Goursey, Master Barnes and Phillip all meet and wonder where Frank is. Frank enters having failed to find Mall so Goursey and Phillip reprimand him for his failure. Later Frank watches and reprimands his elders as the two mothers and two fathers all argue. When the quarrel is patched up Sir Raph enters with Mall. The wedding of Frank and Mall will take place.
HODGE
Hodge is a clownish servant with, evidently, a high voice, in the Goursey household and colleague of Dick Coomes. When all the characters meet at Barnes's house and Mall, her mother, and her potential mother-in-law run off into the dark, Hodge gets permission to follow them and play Blind Man's Buff with Mistress Goursey. In the dark, he exclaims at the fun he has had dressed as Dick Coomes teasing Mistress Barnes. When he finds Dick lying down resting Dick tries to kiss him thinking Hodge is Mistress Goursey. Hodge, pretending to be Mistress Gourcey, invites Dick to kiss her/him and keeps fleeing from him. He meets Boy and watches Nicholas and Coomes preparing to fight. Hodge and Boy plan to wait till the men have started fighting and then run off with their torch. Later, Hodge steals the torch from Boy.
HUGH
A "ghost character". Hugh is a servant who is mentioned but never appears. The name may be a misprint.
LADY SMITH
Lady Smith accompanies her husband while he is hunting during the day but dislikes anyone killing deer. She returns home when night falls.
MALL BARNES
Mall (Mary, Marie) Barnes is the daughter of Master and Mistress Barnes and sister of Phillip. Her father proposes she should marry Frank Goursey, the son of Master Goursey his friend and of Mistress Goursey, the woman whom his wife despises. Her reaction at first is lukewarm but after describing at length the history of her attitude to marriage from the time she was 14, she decides she wants a husband quickly. When her mother tells her she is too young she vehemently rejects her mother's notion explaining that when alone young girls think of ways of losing their maidenheads. Phillip tells her she is to marry Frank. Her father contacts Master Goursey to get Frank's father's permission before going any further with the business. When Phillip and Frank go back to the Barnes house that night Frank and Mall talk, each discovering and admiring the lack of extreme in the other. They kiss and after she agrees to marry him. Then Mistress Barnes enters to stop the relationship getting any further, Mistress Goursey enters prepared to fight with Mistress Barnes, and Master Barnes and Master Goursey enter looking for their wives. It is pitch dark. When it becomes clear that Mistress Barnes will not remove her objection to the marriage, Phillip, at his father's instructions, tells Mall to run to the rabbit green where she is to wait for Frank. She does so, describing her state of mind in a speech full of sexual ambiguity (that she seems unaware of). Her mother follows her, but she refuses to return and keeps running away. After many scenes in which the male characters have crossed and recrossed each other in the dark, looking for each other and for Mall, Mall appears, without Frank and lost. She expresses her wish to run through briars if she could only meet him, the lord of her desires. Sir Raph, a local gentleman who has chosen to hunt throughout the night, finds her and tries to seduce her. When, however, he discovers who she is, he swears he will do everything he can to help her find Frank. Meanwhile Mistress Barnes and Mistress Goursey meet each other and quarrel, their husbands arrive and threaten to fight each other, and Phillip persuades all four to make up. Sir Raph arrives just as the quarrel has been patched up. Sir Raph hands her to Frank and all agree they should be married immediately. Mall ends the play talking about her wedding feast and addressing the audience, appealing to it not to hiss the performance.
MASTER BARNES
Master Barnes is the neighbor of Goursey and father of Mall. His wife is one of the two angry women of the title. He dismisses Goursey's thanks for entertaining him, pointing out it is all part of good neighborliness, and that good neighborliness is next to wedded love. He tries to dissuade his wife from gambling so much money per game when she and Mistress Goursey play at dice, and he tries to get her to control her poisonous tongue when she speaks to Mistress Goursey. After Mistress Barnes has left in a huff and Mistress Goursey shown such good humor, he praises Mistress Goursey's reasonableness. The two men lament that they, like all men, have cursed wives, yet they have to try to keep them friendly at home. At home he mildly reprimands his wife for being so rude to Mistress Goursey who, he claims, is noble, and expresses his wish that the two women should be friends. After Mistress Barnes leaves, angry once more, he wonders if his daughter, Mall, will behave in the same way as her mother. This prompts him to think of her being married and married to Frank Goursey, his neighbors' son. Barnes will provide a good dowry and the two mothers will become friends. He questions Mall who is pleased at the proposal. When asked, Phillip, his son, excitedly tells Barnes that Frank Goursey is a very fine young man, but Barnes points out that they must show patience and wait to hear what Frank's father says about the proposed marriage. When the servant Nicholas Proverbs enters, Barnes is amused at Phillip's imitation of Nicholas's manner of constantly speaking in proverbs. Barnes sends Nicholas to Master Goursey with a letter proposing the marriage between Mall and Frank, his neighbor's son, and tells Phillip to strengthen the proposal by arriving at the house when Master Goursey is reading the letter. He himself will meditate to purge himself of treacherous thoughts. That night when Frank arrives in the dark to meet Mall, followed by his angry mother and her servants, Barnes tries to persuade his wife to approve their marriage. When it is clear she will not, he instructs Phillip, his son, to tell Mall to escape to a rabbit field where she will meet up later with Frank. A great deal of running in and out and false identification ensues with no one able to see anything and everyone hallooing to contact the person each is seeking. As Master Goursey, who has followed his wife, meets Master Barnes, they comment on the hallooing and regret not being able to find the people they had set out to meet. Of the many people who appear and disappear is Sir Raph, a gentleman who is planning to hunt throughout the night. Another is Phillip, followed by Frank who has been unable to find Mall. Goursey and Phillip reprimand Frank for not finding her. Master Goursey and Master Barnes decide on a policy to make their wives friends. When they find their wives fighting in the dark over a torch Mistress Barnes has set on the ground, the two men appear to take offence at each other and prepare to fight. To prevent the men damaging each other, the women kiss and make up. Sir Raph then re-appears with Mall, and the women agree that the marriage between her and Frank can go forward.
MASTER GOURSEY
Master Goursey is the neighbor of Master Barnes and the father of Frank. His wife is one of the two angry women. The play begins as he fulsomely thanks Barnes for entertaining him and his wife in his house and agrees that good neighborliness is next to wedded love. He tries to dissuade his wife from gambling so much per game when she dices with Mistress Barnes but fails. After the two women quarrel the two men lament that they, like all husbands, have such cursed wives yet they have to try to make them friendly at home. Later, Goursey receives a letter from Barnes proposing the marriage of Frank to Mall, Barnes's daughter, to heal the rift between their two wives. He approves the idea and tries to persuade Frank to agree to it, describing at length how his own father had had to act similarly when marriage was suggested to him. He tries to dissuade his wife from hating Mistress Barnes so much, but she rejects the suggestion. When she steals Barnes's letter from him he is so adamant that she not read it (since she will oppose it) that he becomes pale, and she, fearing he will have a serious attack, hands it back. That night after his wife has gone to the Barnes house to prevent Frank and Mall from meeting, Gourcey follows. There, Barnes tells him that Frank and Mall have run off together and it becomes clear that the mothers will pursue them to prevent the marriage, so Goursey gives Hodge leave to follow Mistress Goursey in the dark and hinder her by playing Blind Man's Buff. A great deal of running in and out and false identification follows, with no one able to see anything and everyone hallooing to contact the people each is seeking. As Master Goursey meets Master Barnes they comment on the hallooing and regret not being to find the people they set out to meet. One of the many wandering around is Sir Raph, a gentleman who has chosen to hunt throughout the night. He appears, mistakes them and disappears. When Frank and his boy appear Goursey and Phillip, Mall's brother, reprimand Frank for not finding Mall. Master Goursey and Master Barnes decide on a second policy to make their wives friends. When they find their wives together fighting in the dark over a torch Mistress Barnes had set on the ground, the two men appear to take offence at each other and prepare to fight. To prevent their husbands hurting each other the women kiss and make up. The marriage of Mall and Frank will go forward.
MISTRESS BARNES
Mistress Barnes is one of the two angry women. She reacts with bitter suspicion when Mistress Goursey expresses a wish to invite her and her husband over to the Goursey house. When the dicing tables are set up the women agree to play for a pound a game, despite their husbands' attempts to make the purse smaller. Mistress Barnes, using bawdy innuendo, chooses to play only because she believes Mistress Goursey will seduce her husband if she doesn't remain close to her. She rejects her husband's wish to control her tongue and walks off in a huff. Later, when her husband again reprimands her for treating Mistress Goursey so rudely, she leaves again, angrily rejecting her husband's accusation, pointing out that Mistress Goursey is a strumpet, and accusing her husband of being in love with her. Soon after, when she finds out that her husband is planning to find Mall a husband, she tells Mall she is too young to marry. Then she scorns Phillip, her son, for walking home with Frank Goursey, saying he is not Goursey's servant. When she tells him her husband wastes his money on the harlot Mistress Goursey, Phillip points out that Barnes loves her and that she is to blame for misunderstanding her husband. She turns on her son in anger, pointing out to her husband, who has just entered, that it's bad enough having him accusing her unjustly of bad behaviour, without having her son do the same. That night, in the dark, she finds Mall pledging marriage to Frank and refuses to allow the match. Mistress Gourcey arrives with her servants and quarrels violently with Mistress Barnes, a quarrel in which Mistress Barnes both criticizes Mall for disobeying her and defends Mall against Mistress Goursey's insults. When Mall runs to the rabbit green to await Frank, Mistress Barnes follows, trying to find her. Later, alone in the pitch black and frightened, she hides but leaves her torch on the ground to see what happens. When Mistress Goursey enters and picks it up a physical struggle takes place as the two women fight for ownership. Their husbands then appear and as a result of what the women say (and of a policy the men have agreed earlier) the men prepare to fight each other. The women are frightened the men will damage each other and agree to make friends if their husbands will abandon their fight. They agree. When Sir Raph brings in Mall, the women agree to allow the marriage of Mall and Frank to go ahead.
MISTRESS GOURSEY
Mistress Goursey is one of the two angry women of the title. She hates Mistress Barnes and tries to prevent her son Frank from marrying Mall, Mistress Barnes's daughter. When the play opens she thanks Master Barnes for entertaining her and her husband at the Barnes house and promises to return the courtesy, prompting Mistress Barnes to utter suspicions about her husband's behavior with Mistress Gursey. When the dicing tables are set up the two women agree to play for a pound a game, despite their husbands' attempts to make the purse smaller. Mistress Goursey claims they will be bad house wives just once in playing for so much, while the men are bad husbands often. She stays good humored when Mistress Barnes insults her and commends Master Barnes and her own husband for their kind-heartedness. Nevertheless, at the end of the first scene Master Goursey and Master Barnes agree that they have two cursed wives. At home Mistress Goursey admits to hating Mistress Barnes for all the scandal the latter has spread about her. She steals the letter in which Barnes proposes to Goursey the marriage of their son, Frank, to Barnes's daughter but hands it back when it looks as though Goursey is going to be seriously ill. For money, their belligerent servant Dick Coomes is persuaded to accompany her as she visits Mistress Barnes that night, and while pretending to fight Mistress Barnes's servants, to hit Mistress Barnes herself. At the Barnes house she immediately quarrels with Mistress Barnes, trying to bribe Frank to withdraw from the match with Mall, insulting Mall in doing so. She tells Coomes to strike her son. When it is clear that Frank has slipped away into the dark she and Dick follow after. After just missing him, she later appears alone. She is lost in the fields and wishes Mistress Barnes as dreadful a time as she herself is having. She takes up a torch (which Mistress Barnes has left on the ground while she hides to watch what will happen) and the two women struggle over ownership of it. Their husbands appear and as the result of what the women say (and of a policy the men have agreed earlier) they prepare to fight each other. The women are alarmed that they will hurt each other and agree to make friends if their husbands will abandon their fight. The men agree. The women also agree that the wedding of Mall and Frank should take place.
NAN
A "ghost character." Nan is Will's girlfriend. He imagines she is the object of Sir Raph's lust.
NICHOLAS PROVERBS
Nicholas Proverbs is Master Barnes's servant. He tells Barnes the time and gets the tables so that the women can play at dice, but speaks constantly in proverbs, to the irritation of Barnes's son, Phillip, who amuses his father by imitating him. Phillip claims that Nicholas chooses to talk in proverbs so that he will always speak the truth. He takes a letter from Master Barnes to Master Gourcey proposing a marriage between Mall, Barnes's daughter and Frank, Gourcey's son. He gives the letter to Frank to pass on to the father. On the eventful night when everybody is running in and out of the dark, looking for each other, he utters more proverbs but does nothing .
PHILLIP BARNES
Phillip Barnes is the son of Master Barnes, brother of Mall, and friend of Frank. He constantly tries to introduce reason into the disagreements that take place in the play. At the opening of the play, he loses to Frank Goursey at bowls while their mothers are dicing and their fathers are in the orchard. He asks about Frank's horses but during a lengthy discussion never discovers the whereabouts of the excellent horse that Frank's boy describes to Phillip. When Frank tries to keep the boisterously drunken servant Dick Coomes quiet, Phillip announces he has a similar servant, amusing and eccentrically dressed, who speaks nothing but proverbs because he always wants to speak the truth. When Master Barnes proposes marrying his daughter to Frank, his neighbour's son, he checks with Phillip to ensure his judgement of Frank's character is correct. Phillip is very enthusiastic about his friend, and tells his sister who it is her father wishes her to marry. Later he distresses his mother by pointing out that her husband loves her, despite her accusations of disloyalty, and blames her for misunderstanding her husband. He amuses his father by imitating their servant Nicholas who speaks in proverbs and agrees to give strength to the marriage proposal by following Nicholas the servant when he takes a letter describing the proposal to Frank's father. At Frank's he tries to persuade the vacillating Frank to marry Mall and accompanies Frank back to Mall's house. He calls Mall from her room and then makes the nervous Frank take over the discussion with her. He witnesses the marriage agreement between Frank and Mall and refuses to cooperate when his mother appears and tries to get Mall to withdraw. When Mistress Gourcey and her servants arrive, he tries to get the two mothers to agree to the marriage. When it is clear they will not agree, at his father's instruction Phillip tells Mall to escape in the pitch black night to a rabbit green and wait there for Frank. Later he tells Frank to run off into the night to meet Mall and when Mistress Barnes runs off into the night to find Mall and Mistress Goursey and Dick Coomes go off looking for Frank (who left looking for Mall) he informs his father of what has happened. He later looks for them himself and meets Will the woodsman who is looking for Sir Raph but who because of the dark mistakes him for Frank The scene becomes more complicated as all four get lost, call out to each other, enter and exit, to be followed by many more characters. As all the people are hallooing to each to try to find each other Master Goursey meets Master Barnes and they comment on the hallooing, regretting they cannot find any of the people they set out to meet. Sir Raph appears, mistakes them and disappears, followed by Phillip, lamenting the difficulties of walking in the dark in the fields. Phillip, Will, Barnes and Goursey all disclose themselves to each other and wonder where Frank is, whereupon he enters, but without Mall for whom he had gone off into the dark in the first place. Goursey and Phillip reprimand him for not finding Mall. When at the end both husbands are preparing to fight each other, Phillip tries to get them to see reason, which they eventually do and which prompts the women to stop quarrelling.
SIR RAPH SMITH
Sir Raph Smith is out hunting for deer with his wife and Will, his woodsman, but, having caught nothing, resolves hunt throughout the night. He meets Frank Goursey, who is trying to find Mall, the woman Frank wants to marry, in the dark and mistakes him for his woodsman.. The scene becomes more complicated, and some might say more comical, as a wide range of characters, Sir Raph included, all halloo to each other in the dark, trying to find the others, and making mis-identifications. When he discovers Mall, alone and lost, Sir Raph tries to seduce her, but on discovering who she is swears he will do everything he can to help find Frank for her. At the end, when the quarrelling Gourceys and Barneses have made friends, he appears with Mall and gives her to Frank. The marriage can now take place.
WILL
Will, the woodsman, accompanies Sir Raph during the day and the night as he hunts a buck. Looking for Sir Raph in the dark he meets various characters all lost. He assumes Sir Ralph is with a whore. The wide range of characters, Will included, halloo to each other in the dark, trying to find the others, and mis-identifying each other. Will tells Gourcey and Barnes that Raph is looking for Nan, Will's girlfriend.
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