The Maid in the Mill
Encyclopedia
The Maid in the Mill is a late Jacobean era stage play, a comedy
written by John Fletcher
and William Rowley
. It was initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio
of 1647
.
, on 29 August 1623
. The play was performed by the King's Men
at the Globe Theatre
. The second Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1679
provides a cast list for the original production that mentions Joseph Taylor
, John Thompson
, John Lowin
, Robert Benfield
, John Underwood
, Thomas Pollard
, and Rowley himself, who had joined the King's Men in 1623 for the final two years of his acting career, and who in this play filled the comic role of Bustopha. The play was acted at Court in 1628, though with a different cast, since both Rowley and Underwood had died in the intervening years.
, in his landmark study of authorship problems in Fletcher's canon, provided a breakdown of shares that essentially agreed with the judgements of earlier commentators:
— a source that Fletcher had exploited for The Spanish Curate
in the previous year. They took the Florimel subplot from The Palace of Pleasure by William Painter
; and they may also have been influenced by Shakespeare's
The Winter's Tale
. Fletcher, working with Philip Massinger
, would compose a play with a very similar plot a few years later, in The Fair Maid of the Inn
(1626
).
era; it was performed twice in the 1661–62 period. Samuel Pepys
saw an abbreviated version at Apothecaries' Hall
on 29 January 1661
.
The play enjoyed a rare modern production, albeit an amateur one: it was acted by a Harvard University
fraternity in 1900.
Act II introduces another set of characters: Franio is an old miller, with a wife and two children. His son, Bustopha, is the play's clown; various references to his weight — he is called a "gross compound," with abundant "flesh about him" — show that Bustopha is a fat-clown character, a type of role that Rowley the dramatist repeatedly created for Rowley the actor. When he first appears, Bustopha is reciting nonsense verse — "The gentle whale whose feet so fell / Flies o'er the mountain tops" — in preparation for his role in a local pageant, in which he is absurdly miscast as Paris
in the Judgement of Paris
. The roles of the three goddesses in the pageant, Juno
, Pallas Athena, and Venus
, are filled by Ismenia, Aminta, and the miller's daughter Florimel, who is the polar opposite of her foolish brother: Florimel is beautiful, chaste, humble, and virtuous.
Antonio and Martino flirt with the costumed girls; Martino, pretending not to known their identities, tells Ismenia that it is he, Martino, and not Antonio, who truly loves her. The pageant is ruined when Florimel is suddenly kidnapped by a local nobleman, the Count Otrante, and carried away to his castle. It so happens that King Philip
(The play calls him Don Philippo) is passing through the neighborhood on his way to Valencia; the miller goes to the King to petition for help in recovering his daughter.
Antonio and Martino continue their pursuit of Ismenia; Antonio sends Bustopha to make excuses for his absence to his uncle Julio — and Bustopha ridiculously makes up a tale of Antonio dying in a duel with Lisauro, giving Julio a good fright. This motivates Julio to seek a resolution of his quarrel with Bellides — who comes to meet him on the same errand; both of the old men have grown fearful for their young relatives' lives if the feud continues. They've heard rumors of the attraction between Antonio and Ismenia, and they decide that such a marriage would be the perfect thing to cement the new amity between them. The young people are less successful at managing their affairs; Antonio and Martino end up fighting in the street and being arrested by the night watchmen.
In his castle, Otrante attempts to seduce Florimel, blustering and threatening — but Florimel stands on her virtue and resists him. He wants her to be his mistress; she suggests marriage, which he firmly rejects — the social gap between them is an insuperable barrier for him. Otrante doesn't quite have the will to rape her; and when she pleads for a day to consider her situation, he agrees. To soften her will, he tries some psychological manipulation
: he has his servants treat her contemptuously, then intercedes as though he's concerned for her feelings. When the next day comes, Florimel turns the tables on Otrante, pretending to a lustful temperament and broad sexual experience. Otrante, who pictured himself ravishing a virgin, loses his appetite for her.
Franio the miller is successful in his appeal to the King: Philip and his courtiers call on Otrante in his castle, and while touring the place Philip forces the exposure of Florimel's presence. The miller's wife Gillian reveals that Florimel is actually Julio's long-lost daughter. Since Florimel is of noble birth, she is now a suitable wife for Otrante — and she assures him that her wantonness was a pretense, and that her virtue is still intact. (And Julio equips her with a dowry
too.) The confusions between Antonio and Ismenia are straightened out, and Martino ends up with Aminta, resulting in three couples matched by the play's end.
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
written by John Fletcher
John Fletcher (playwright)
John Fletcher was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's...
and William Rowley
William Rowley
William Rowley was an English Jacobean dramatist, best known for works written in collaboration with more successful writers. His date of birth is estimated to have been c. 1585; he was buried on 11 February 1626...
. It was initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio
Beaumont and Fletcher folios
The Beaumont and Fletcher folios were two large folio collections of the stage plays of John Fletcher and his collaborators. The first was issued in 1647, and the second in 1679. The two collections were important in preserving many works of English Renaissance drama.-The first folio, 1647:The 1647...
of 1647
1647 in literature
The year 1647 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* Thomas Hobbes becomes tutor to the future Charles II of England.* Plagiarist Robert Baron publishes his Deorum Dona, a masque, and Gripus and Hegio, a pastoral, which draw heavily on the poems of Edmund Waller and John Webster's...
.
Performance
The play was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the RevelsMaster of the Revels
The Master of the Revels was a position within the English, and later the British, royal household heading the "Revels Office" or "Office of the Revels" that originally had responsibilities for overseeing royal festivities, known as revels, and later also became responsible for stage censorship,...
, on 29 August 1623
1623 in literature
The year 1623 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*February 2 - The King's Men perform Twelfth Night at Court on Candlemas....
. The play was performed by the King's Men
King's Men (playing company)
The King's Men was the company of actors to which William Shakespeare belonged through most of his career. Formerly known as The Lord Chamberlain's Men during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it became The King's Men in 1603 when King James ascended the throne and became the company's patron.The...
at the Globe Theatre
Globe Theatre
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613...
. The second Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1679
1679 in literature
This article lists some of the most significant events of the year 1679 in literature.-Events:*John Locke returns to England from France.*Étienne Baluze becomes almoner to King Louis XIV of France....
provides a cast list for the original production that mentions Joseph Taylor
Joseph Taylor (17th-century actor)
Joseph Taylor was a 17th-century actor. As the successor of Richard Burbage with the King's Men, he was arguably the most important actor in the later Jacobean and the Caroline eras....
, John Thompson
John Thompson (actor)
John Thompson was a noted boy player acting women's roles in English Renaissance theatre. He served in the King's Men, the acting troupe formerly of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage.Thompson's career is notable for his length...
, John Lowin
John Lowin
John Lowin was an English actor born in the St Giles-without-Cripplegate, London, the son of a tanner. Like Robert Armin, he was apprenticed to a goldsmith. While he is not recorded as a free citizen of this company, he did perform as a goldsmith, Leofstane, in a 1611 city pageant written by...
, Robert Benfield
Robert Benfield
Robert Benfield was a seventeenth-century actor, noted for his longtime membership in the King's Men in the years and decades after William Shakespeare's retirement and death.Nothing is known of Benfield's early life...
, John Underwood
John Underwood (actor)
John Underwood was an early 17th century actor, a member of the King's Men, the company of William Shakespeare.-Career:Underwood began as a boy player with the Children of the Chapel, and was cast in that company's productions of Ben Jonson's Cynthia's Revels and The Poetaster...
, Thomas Pollard
Thomas Pollard
Thomas Pollard was an actor in the King's Men — a prominent comedian in the acting troupe of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage....
, and Rowley himself, who had joined the King's Men in 1623 for the final two years of his acting career, and who in this play filled the comic role of Bustopha. The play was acted at Court in 1628, though with a different cast, since both Rowley and Underwood had died in the intervening years.
Authorship
In his records, Herbert assigns the authorship of the work to Fletcher and Rowley; and scholars have long recognized that the play's internal evidence confirms that attribution. Cyrus HoyCyrus Hoy
Cyrus Hoy was a literary scholar of the English Renaissance stage who taught at the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University, and was the John B. Trevor Professor of English at the University of Rochester...
, in his landmark study of authorship problems in Fletcher's canon, provided a breakdown of shares that essentially agreed with the judgements of earlier commentators:
- Fletcher — Act I; Act III, scenes 2 and 3; Act V, 2a (first part, to Antonio's entrance);
- Rowley — Act II; Act III, scene 1; Act IV; Act V, 1 and 2b (from Antonio's entrance to end).
Sources
The two playwrights took their main plot from Leonard Digges's translation of Gerardo, the Unfortunate Spaniard by Gonzalo de Céspedes y MenesesGonzalo de Céspedes y Meneses
Gonzalo de Céspedes y Meneses was a Spanish novelist.-Biography:He was born at Madrid about 1585. Nothing positive is known of him before the publication of his celebrated romance, the Poema trágico del español Gerardo, y desengaño del amor lascivo...
— a source that Fletcher had exploited for The Spanish Curate
The Spanish Curate
The Spanish Curate is a late Jacobean era stage play, a comedy written by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger. It premiered on the stage in 1622, and was first published in 1647.-Date and source:...
in the previous year. They took the Florimel subplot from The Palace of Pleasure by William Painter
William Painter
William Painter was an English author and translator.William Painter was a native of Kent. He matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1554. In 1561 he became clerk of the ordnance in the Tower of London, a position in which he appears to have amassed a fortune out of the public funds...
; and they may also have been influenced by Shakespeare's
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
The Winter's Tale
The Winter's Tale
The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, some modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics, among them W. W...
. Fletcher, working with Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger was an English dramatist. His finely plotted plays, including A New Way to Pay Old Debts, The City Madam and The Roman Actor, are noted for their satire and realism, and their political and social themes.-Early life:The son of Arthur Massinger or Messenger, he was baptized at St....
, would compose a play with a very similar plot a few years later, in The Fair Maid of the Inn
The Fair Maid of the Inn
The Fair Maid of the Inn is an early 17th-century stage play, a comedy in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators. It was originally published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647...
(1626
1626 in literature
The year 1626 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*Izaak Walton marries Rachel Floud.*John Beaumont is made a baronet.-New books:*Francis Bacon - The New Atlantis*Robert Fludd - Philosophia Sacra...
).
After 1660
The Maid in the Mill was revived early in the RestorationEnglish Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
era; it was performed twice in the 1661–62 period. Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...
saw an abbreviated version at Apothecaries' Hall
Worshipful Society of Apothecaries
The Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. Originally, apothecaries were members of the Grocers' Company and before this members of the Guild of Pepperers formed in London in 1180...
on 29 January 1661
1661 in literature
The year 1661 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* The Book of Kells is presented to Trinity College, Dublin.* Controversial author James Harrington is arrested on a charge of conspiracy....
.
The play enjoyed a rare modern production, albeit an amateur one: it was acted by a Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
fraternity in 1900.
Synopsis
Four Spanish aristocrats, members of the same family, are walking in a meadow. Lisauro and Ismenia are brother and sister, the children of Bellides; they are accompanied by their relations, Terzo and Aminta. They encounter Antonio and his friend Martino. Antonio is the nephew of Julio, and Julio and Bellides are enemies — which effects all the members of their respective families. The men in the two parties draw their swords and prepare to fight, but Ismenia and Aminta prevail on them to part peacefully. Ismenia has a special motive in this: she has fallen in love with Antonio at first sight. She sends Aminta to him with a love letter, inviting him to court her at her window that evening. Antonio is attracted to Ismenia, and taken with her invitation. His friend Martino is at first cynical about romance; but Antonio's growing passion is contagious, and Martino decides to pursue Ismenia himself.Act II introduces another set of characters: Franio is an old miller, with a wife and two children. His son, Bustopha, is the play's clown; various references to his weight — he is called a "gross compound," with abundant "flesh about him" — show that Bustopha is a fat-clown character, a type of role that Rowley the dramatist repeatedly created for Rowley the actor. When he first appears, Bustopha is reciting nonsense verse — "The gentle whale whose feet so fell / Flies o'er the mountain tops" — in preparation for his role in a local pageant, in which he is absurdly miscast as Paris
Paris (mythology)
Paris , the son of Priam, king of Troy, appears in a number of Greek legends. Probably the best-known was his elopement with Helen, queen of Sparta, this being one of the immediate causes of the Trojan War...
in the Judgement of Paris
Judgement of Paris
thumb |right |460px |[[The Judgment of Paris |The Judgment of Paris]], [[Peter Paul Rubens]], ca 1636...
. The roles of the three goddesses in the pageant, Juno
Juno (mythology)
Juno is an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counselor of the state. She is a daughter of Saturn and sister of the chief god Jupiter and the mother of Mars and Vulcan. Juno also looked after the women of Rome. Her Greek equivalent is Hera...
, Pallas Athena, and Venus
Venus (mythology)
Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...
, are filled by Ismenia, Aminta, and the miller's daughter Florimel, who is the polar opposite of her foolish brother: Florimel is beautiful, chaste, humble, and virtuous.
Antonio and Martino flirt with the costumed girls; Martino, pretending not to known their identities, tells Ismenia that it is he, Martino, and not Antonio, who truly loves her. The pageant is ruined when Florimel is suddenly kidnapped by a local nobleman, the Count Otrante, and carried away to his castle. It so happens that King Philip
Philip IV of Spain
Philip IV was King of Spain between 1621 and 1665, sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands, and King of Portugal until 1640...
(The play calls him Don Philippo) is passing through the neighborhood on his way to Valencia; the miller goes to the King to petition for help in recovering his daughter.
Antonio and Martino continue their pursuit of Ismenia; Antonio sends Bustopha to make excuses for his absence to his uncle Julio — and Bustopha ridiculously makes up a tale of Antonio dying in a duel with Lisauro, giving Julio a good fright. This motivates Julio to seek a resolution of his quarrel with Bellides — who comes to meet him on the same errand; both of the old men have grown fearful for their young relatives' lives if the feud continues. They've heard rumors of the attraction between Antonio and Ismenia, and they decide that such a marriage would be the perfect thing to cement the new amity between them. The young people are less successful at managing their affairs; Antonio and Martino end up fighting in the street and being arrested by the night watchmen.
In his castle, Otrante attempts to seduce Florimel, blustering and threatening — but Florimel stands on her virtue and resists him. He wants her to be his mistress; she suggests marriage, which he firmly rejects — the social gap between them is an insuperable barrier for him. Otrante doesn't quite have the will to rape her; and when she pleads for a day to consider her situation, he agrees. To soften her will, he tries some psychological manipulation
Psychological manipulation
Psychological manipulation is a type of social influence that aims to change the perception or behavior of others through underhanded, deceptive, or even abusive tactics. By advancing the interests of the manipulator, often at the other's expense, such methods could be considered exploitative,...
: he has his servants treat her contemptuously, then intercedes as though he's concerned for her feelings. When the next day comes, Florimel turns the tables on Otrante, pretending to a lustful temperament and broad sexual experience. Otrante, who pictured himself ravishing a virgin, loses his appetite for her.
Franio the miller is successful in his appeal to the King: Philip and his courtiers call on Otrante in his castle, and while touring the place Philip forces the exposure of Florimel's presence. The miller's wife Gillian reveals that Florimel is actually Julio's long-lost daughter. Since Florimel is of noble birth, she is now a suitable wife for Otrante — and she assures him that her wantonness was a pretense, and that her virtue is still intact. (And Julio equips her with a dowry
Dowry
A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...
too.) The confusions between Antonio and Ismenia are straightened out, and Martino ends up with Aminta, resulting in three couples matched by the play's end.