SOPHONISBA, or
1605–1606
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Go to "Notes of Interest"
Go to "Plays to be Compared"
I.ii begins on the wedding night of Sophonisba and Massinissa. As they are about to get into bed, a messenger enters with news of Scipio's attack not five leagues from the city. Massinissa determines to leave his wedding bed (and his still-virginal wife) to go and meet the enemy. Sophonisba, contrary to expectation, encourages him. Massinissa only then realizes what a special woman he has married—a woman who puts patriotism before personal desire.
II.i opens in the Carthaginian Senate. The senators are trying to convince Gelosso to sign a pact that will remove allegiance from Massinissa and give Sophonisba to Syphax. Their hope is to remove Syphax's strong army from Scipio's force and join it to their own.
Knowing that Massinissa will never accept such an arrangement, the senators have devised a plan whereby Sophonisba's father, Asdrubal, will join with Syphax in killing Massinissa. The senate has arranged for an "impoisoner," one Gisco, to kill Massinissa quietly.
Gelosso, a man of honor, insists that Carthage keep faith with Massinissa. He is overborne, and Sophonisba is called in and told of the plan. She says she is willing to do anything for Carthage's aid but insists that this false dealing is not going to help Carthage. But because her body (though not her soul or mind) is subject to the order of the Carthage elders, she submits to being sent to Syphax.
II.ii Massinissa is on the battlefield with his nephew Jugurth. Massinissa has an arrow in his arm but refuses to withdraw from the fight. The arrow does not hurt him, he insists, because he cannot bleed enough for his city and wife. Asdrubal enters and orders a respite from fighting. Gisco, the impoisoner, whom he calls "our best surgeon", accompanies him. He leaves Gisco to dress Massinissa's wound. Gelosso enters disguised as an old soldier and in a letter secretly warns Massinissa of the plot to kill him and of Gisco's true identity. Massinissa stops Gisco before he can dress the wound, unmasks him, but shows him mercy and sends him away. Massinissa then learns from Gelosso that Syphax has left the field for the city of Cirta and that his troops are slowly coming to join the Carthaginian army. With swift action, Gelosso advises, Syphax's troops may be destroyed and Scipio—made weaker by their loss—may be defeated.
II.iii finds Asdrubal with the senators. He is now made powerful in return for his treachery to Massinissa. Gisco enters and tells them of his failure to kill Massinissa. Asdrubal, drunk with his newfound power, orders Gisco's throat slit. Asdrubal is unashamed of his conspiracy against his son-in-law. Gelosso is brought in. His betrayal of the senators's plot to Massinissa is revealed, and he is taken away in chains. The next we hear of Gelosso he has been tortured to death. A soldier relates how the enraged Massinissa decimated Syphax's leaderless troops. Massinissa has joined, we are told, with Scipio in reaction to Carthage's betrayal of him.
III.i finds Syphax in his palace at Cirta dragging Sophonisba into his chamber by the hair. He insists upon having her and says he will rape her if she will not yield to him. She tells him she has made a vow to Massinissa that, should he die, she would make an observance to his soul before giving herself to another man. She begs an hour to free herself of the obligation, which Syphax grants. Syphax leaves his servant, Vangue, to guard Sophonisba and her maid, Zanthia.
Sophonisba learns by a letter that Massinissa is not dead. She goes through the ceremony, making sacrifice in Massinissa's memory, during which time she discovers a trap door that leads to a tunnel. Vangue tells her that it leads to a forest a mile beyond the city and was used to allow the king to escape in the event of a siege. Sophonisba drinks a toast with Vangue. Sophonisba has spiked his drink with Opium, and he falls asleep. The women put Vangue into Syphax's wedding bed. Sophonisba makes Zanthia swear that she will not betray Sophonisba's escape, then slips into the tunnel. When Syphax comes to reap Sophonisba's bounty he finds Vangue in his bed. He stabs him to death. Zanthia tells Syphax where Sophonisba has gone and leads him through the tunnel after her.
III.ii finds Scipio and Massinissa together. Massinissa explains why, because of Carthage's betrayal, he has joined forces with Rome. Massinissa makes a vow that will later haunt him:
IV.i begins at the mouth of the cave in the woods. Zanthia has caught up with Sophonisba. She tells her mistress to relax while she goes to gather food for them. While she is gone, Syphax emerges from the cave and seizes Sophonisba. He swears to rape her, but she pulls a knife and swears she will kill herself if he tries. She wishes to be buried unspoiled by any but Massinissa. Syphax tells her he will defile her dead body, and so she is convinced not to kill herself. Syphax is persuaded not to force her chastity; he is persuaded to woo her instead and have her a willing partner to his bed. She gives him some reason to hope and asks who gave away her escape plans. She learns from him that Zanthia is false. When Zanthia returns, Sophonisba asks that Syphax do away with her. Zanthia is seized and taken away.
Syphax, left alone onstage, calls up the sorceress Erictho to cast a spell on Sophonisba to make her a willing partner to his bed. The enchantress says she will do so, but Syphax must not speak to her or have any light in the room when he makes love to her. He agrees. Erictho leaves to cast the spell and returns disguised as Sophonisba. The two go to bed and draw the curtains.
V.i begins with the curtains of the bed being parted and Syphax discovering that he has bedded Erictho. The enchantress tells him that no magic can force love, but that she has used him in order to sap away some of his strength in order to make her young again. She exits laughing at his distress.
Syphax kneels at an altar of black powers. As he prays for help in acquiring Sophonisba (he prays to the underworld, because he has forsaken heaven), the ghost of Asdrubal emerges from the altar. He recounts how, after his treachery to Massinissa and his daughter was discovered, he was chased from the town, how he sought refuge in his family vault where he poisoned himself—there to rest in peace. But the mob tore open the vault and threw his carcass to wild beasts. Now his ghost wanders. Syphax asks him to look into the future for him, but the ghost of Asdrubal says that "spirits of wrath know nothing but their woes." At that he disappears.
A Nuntius comes in to tell Syphax that Scipio and Massinissa are marching on his palace. He exits arming himself for battle.
V.ii Massinissa asks Scipio to give him the vanguard of the attack because the fight is a personal one between him and Syphax. Scipio grants this. Syphax enters, and he and Massinissa agree to single combat. Massinissa defeats Syphax, but (as with Gisco) he shows his foe mercy and gives him to Scipio as prisoner. Massinissa then goes off to regain Sophonisba. Scipio questions Syphax asking why he left Scipio to return to Carthage in the first place. Syphax tells Scipio that Sophonisba has charm enough to sway any man's allegiance and that, if Scipio does not act quickly, she will sway Massinissa away from Rome. With this news Scipio sends a soldier with orders that Massinissa is to deliver Sophonisba to Scipio as prisoner, and sends a reminder to Massinissa of his vow of allegiance to Rome.
V.iii Massinissa comes to Sophonisba with his helmet on to prevent her recognizing him. She sees he is a Carthaginian and begs to be spared being taken prisoner—either by hiding her or killing her. She fears most being at the mercy of Rome. Massinissa reveals himself and vows to her that she will be free. As the lovers embrace, the Roman soldier enters and demands upon Massinissa's vow to Rome that he deliver Sophonisba to Scipio.
Massinissa is caught between two vows. Sophonisba helps him keep both vows. She poisons herself that she might always be free, and gives Massinissa leave to give her body to Scipio in fulfillment of his vow of allegiance. This he does and is given high reward for his service to Rome. He adorns the body of Sophonisba with his honors. All exit but for Massinissa.
Syphax, next to Sophonisba, is often considered the center of the play. He is the interesting character, the Iago-type. Although the play is not about him, per se, it does focus upon his character quite sharply. He can be said to be the dramatic center of the play.
Massinissa is, as his wife, a stoic. Historically the king of the Moritanians, he was a Moor, but there is no textual evidence in Sophonisba that he is a black Moor as was Othello. He is a less-perfect stoic than is Sophonisba. He allows himself to be overcome with grief and even cries at one point in the play. As such, he is able to survive in an imperfect world, whereas Sophonisba, the perfect stoic, can find no niche in a world of imperfections. A point of interest in his stoicism vis-à-vis Sophonisba's stoicism is that, when it comes to matters of state, Massinissa is the better stoic. Stoicism in its purest sense does not recognize statehood—being, as it is, an ancient form of mondolism. This becomes evident when Massinissa readily joins Scipio's Roman army. Sophonisba, contrariwise, is highly patriotic.
Asdrubal (and the other Carthaginian Senators) are the trueMachiavellian characters, doing whatever is necessary for the good of the state. They are to be contrasted to Syphax, the theatrical Machiavel (cf. Barabas from Marlowe's Jew) who is comically villainous in the furtherance of his own ends with no real thought of the betterment of the state. They are also to be contrasted with the stoical characters, Sophonisba and Massinissa (q.v.), who, while understanding the necessities of the state, are more interested in stoical precepts.
Vangue is interesting insofar as he is unequivocally referred to as being black—the dramatis personae lists him as "An Ethiopian Slave." One is left to conjecture if Blackfriars' boys (the Children of the Queen's Revels) had a black child in their number (and, if so, why he wasn't used so conspicuously in other plays), or rather, whether make-up was used.
Erictho, the enchantress, is described as "yellow," indicating that the Blackfriars' company may, indeed, have used make-up, but possibly only for this play (?)—which observation, if demonstrable, would only tend to indicate Marston's theatrical experimentation at work. She is a succubus and can therefore be favorably compared to Middleton's A Mad World, My Masters where another succubus appears. Her name appears, as an enchantress, in Lucan's "The Pharsalia" (De Bello Cieili), but there she is not a seductress.
Because Marston probably wanted Sophonisba to be considered a "serious" tragedy, he had to follow certain conventions. One such convention was the necessity of placing the tragedy in antiquity. Perhaps under a Jonsonian influence, Marston believed that a tragedy must be presented in a Roman context and also be philosophically unambiguous.
T.S. Eliot saw this play as a "sincere and economical presentation of Senecan drama." This has led to speculation that Sophonisba was a "closet drama" in the French Senecan mode—intended for reading more than playing. But the highly theatrical stage directions seem to belie that conjecture (see especially the action ending Act IV and beginning Act V with Syphax mistakenly bedding Erictho). At best Marston may have thought to making it palatable to the scholarly "closet drama" crowd while obviously writing Sophonisba for the stage.
Ure sees the play as a conflict between bad (Machiavellianism) and good (Stoicism) fighting in a world of failed policy and overweening lust. Put otherwise, good stoics come to grief in a lustful, politic world of Machiavels. It is, by this black/white morality, a Romanesque play for him.
Finklepearle sees Sophonisba as the perfect stoic and Massinissa as the struggling stoic in the world. Sophonisba is so perfect she dies without experiencing the world—she dies a virgin. In her only "passionate" action—when Massinissa returns to her and they are reunited—she faints, thus depriving herself even of joy in life. It is highly Senecan to display a character too perfect to survive in an imperfect world. Finklepearle describes this play as "thoughtful, earnest, high-minded, tedious." But perhaps it is not such a bad thing for Sophonisba to leave a world in which a Syphax can survive (even if he survives in bondage).
Marston, as usual with him, is fascinated by stage mechanism and makes significant use of the trap and the arras as well as a set piece altar from which the ghost of Asdrubal appears—and perhaps he has a bed, surrounded by a curtain, set in front of the actual double door opening at the upstage center for this play.
The pre-Christian setting of the play—while giving Marston a "pure" tragic context—also allows for Sophonisba's "self slaughter" without any negative moral (read Christian) implications attaching.
Synopsis:
I.i Syphax, a rival to the hand of Sophonisba of Carthage, has been refused in favor of Massinissa, another king in Libya (of the Moritanians—the Moors). Syphax determines to join league with Rome, with Scipio, to crush Carthage in revenge for Sophonisba's rejection.
[W]hen I desist
Scipio tells Massinissa that Sophonisba has been sent to Syphax. The news wounds Massinissa deeply. He swears enmity to Syphax.
To be commaunded by thy virtue, (Scipio)
Or fall from frend of Romes, revenging Gods
Aflict me worth your torture.
Characterization:
Sophonisba, the wonder of women, is the pure stoic in the Marston canon. Although other stoics (notably Pandulpho from Antonio's Revenge, Malheureux from The Dutch Curtezan, and Massinissa from Sophonisba) attempt to maintain a high stoical posture, they each give way to some passion. Sophonisba is wholly relenting throughout. The material world holds no bars to her soul. Her only weakness, speaking stoically, lies in her patriotic stance—"What's safe to Carthage shall be sweete to me"—true stoics did not recognize the boundary of political entities. But this stoical slip of Sophonisba cannot be enough to mar her otherwise pure stoicism for Marston. Because of the perfection of her being, and because she is pliant to the will of others, she is a rather uninteresting character dramatically—though a highly interesting character psychologically and intellectually, which observation has led several commentators to suggest that Sophonisba is a closet drama, following the French Senecan school of drama.
Notes of Interest:
This play represents a departure for Marston from his satiric works. It may be a working out of an earlier idea to develop a "perfect woman" character (cf. Beatrice in Dutch Curtezan). Ure has seen it as Marston's "successful" stoic play—succeeding in doing what he had attempted in the Antonio plays. The departure from satire here may be explained by the fact that the stoical tenor of the play provides its own contrast between the worlds of good and evil, thus obviating the necessity for satire.