The Three Ladies of London is an Elizabethan era stage play, first published in 1584

1584 in literature

-Events:*Master Thomas Giles takes charge of the Children of Paul's; this is the start of a close association with the works of John Lyly.-New books:*A Booke of Cookry*Giordano Bruno - La Cena de le Ceneri ...

. It is unusual and noteworthy as a philo-Semitic

Philo-Semitism

Philo-Semitism or Judeophilia is an interest in, respect for, and appreciation of the Jewish people, their historical significance and the positive impacts of Judaism in the history of the western world, in particular, generally on the part of a gentile...

 response to the prevailing anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism

Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...

 of Elizabethan drama

English Renaissance theatre

English Renaissance theatre, also known as early modern English theatre, refers to the theatre of England, largely based in London, which occurred between the Reformation and the closure of the theatres in 1642...

 and the larger contemporaneous English society.

Date, authorship, publication

The 1584 quarto

Book size

The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from "folio" , to "quarto" and "octavo"...

 was published by the bookseller Roger Warde; a second edition appeared in 1592

1592 in literature

-Events:*Ulysses Redux, a Latin play by William Gager, is staged by the students of Christ Church, Oxford on February 5. Two days later, on February 7, the students revive Gager's 1583 Latin play Rivales...

, published by John Danter. The title page of the first edition assigns the play to an "R. W." The consensus of modern scholarly and critical opinion identifies R. W. as the comic actor and playwright Robert Wilson

Robert Wilson (dramatist)

Robert Wilson , was an Elizabethan dramatist who worked primarily in the 1580s and 1590s. He is also believed to have been an actor who specialized in clown roles....

; strong commonalities among three plays, The Three Ladies of London, it sequel The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London (printed 1590

1590 in literature

-Events:*The Children of Paul's perform at Court twice in the first week of January; one of the plays they acted may have been John Lyly's Midas. Later in the year, however, they are banned from performing because of the involvement of their chief script-writer, Lyly, in the Marprelate...

), and The Cobbler's Prophecy (printed 1594), indicate that all three dramas were written by the same person. Three Ladies appears to date from the year 1581; an allusion to the (temporary) restoration of Peter's pence

Peter's Pence

Peter's Pence is payment made more or less voluntarily to the Roman Catholic Church. It began under the Saxons in England and is seen in other countries. Though formally discontinued in England at the time of the Reformation, a post-Reformation payment of uncertain characteristics is seen in some...

 by the Roman Catholic Queen Mary

Mary I of England

Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...

 in the winter of 1554–55, as having occurred 26 years earlier, favors that dating. The proclamation controlling usury

Usury

Usury Originally, when the charging of interest was still banned by Christian churches, usury simply meant the charging of interest at any rate . In countries where the charging of interest became acceptable, the term came to be used for interest above the rate allowed by law...

 issued on May 19, 1581 would have made the play's subject topical at that time; Queen Elizabeth

Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...

's 1571 statute against usury was scheduled to expire in 1581, making the topic a matter of public interest.

In his Plays Confuted in Five Actions (1582

1582 in literature

-Events:*Meleager, a Latin play on the mythological figure by "Gulielmus Gagerus" , is performed by students at Christ Church, Oxford in February.-New books:*George Buchanan - Rerum Scoticarum Historia...

), Stephen Gosson

Stephen Gosson

Stephen Gosson was an English satirist.He was baptized at St George's church, Canterbury, on 17 April 1554. He entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1572, and on leaving the university in 1576 he went to London...

 provided a description of the story of The Three Ladies of London that does not match the extant version of the play — perhaps indicating that Wilson revised the work between its premier and its first publication. The revision might have been provoked by negative reactions to the original — Gosson's, and the play London Against the Three Ladies (see below).

Theatrical connections

The limited survival of historical materials prevents certainty on matters of dramatic influence and interconnection; yet many critics have seen relationships among a set of Elizabethan plays on the subjects of Jews and usury in this historical era. In this view, The Three Ladies of London may have been a response to the prior anonymous lost play The Jew (1579 or earlier), which portrayed the conventional social attitude toward "the bloody minds of usurers." Three Ladies is thought to have prompted a hostile response in another anonymous lost play, London Against the Three Ladies (c. 1582). In turn, these plays influenced the important later plays on the subject, like Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May...

's The Jew of Malta

The Jew of Malta

The Jew of Malta is a play by Christopher Marlowe, probably written in 1589 or 1590. Its plot is an original story of religious conflict, intrigue, and revenge, set against a backdrop of the struggle for supremacy between Spain and the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean that takes place on the...

. It has been argued that The Jew may have influenced Shakespeare

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"...

's The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic...

. Wilson's play itself has been perceived as, if not a source, then an "analogue" of Shakespeare's play.

Form and plot

In its form and structure, The Three Ladies of London looks back to the medieval

Medieval literature

Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages . The literature of this time was composed of religious writings as well as secular works...

 allegory

Allegory

Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...

 and the morality play

Morality play

The morality play is a genre of Medieval and early Tudor theatrical entertainment. In their own time, these plays were known as "interludes", a broader term given to dramas with or without a moral theme. Morality plays are a type of allegory in which the protagonist is met by personifications of...

, with characters who are personifications of abstract qualities rather than distinct individuals. The three ladies of the title are the Ladies Lucre, Love, and Conscience; the story shows Lady Lucre gaining control over Love and Conscience with the help of Dissimulation, Fraud, Simony, and Usury. Their regime of greed and deception penetrates the Baker's house, the Chandler's, Tanner's, and Weaver's houses too. Lady Lucre forces Lady Love into a marriage with Dissimulation; Lady Conscience protests vainly when Usury murders Hospitality ("Farewell, Lady Conscience; you shall have Hospitality in London nor England no more"). When Lady Conscience is reduced to selling brooms to survive, Lucre makes Conscience her keeper of a house of sexual assignation. Diligence, Simplicity, Sincerity, Tom Beggar, Peter Pleaseman the parson, and similar figures populate the play. In the final scene, the upright judge Nicholas Nemo ("Nemo" being Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 for "No one") attempts to restore order to society, through harsh punishments of the three Ladies.

The Levantine Jewish moneylender Gerontius is a supporting character; but his portrayal as an honest businessman and a generous, good-natured, moral person is diametrically opposed to the standard image of the grasping and ruthless Jewish usurer. In contrast, it is the Christian Italian merchant Mercadorus, who borrows money from Gerontius but refuses to repay, who is the economic villain. Gerontius is shocked by Mercadorus's assertion that he would convert to Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

 to avoid repayment.

Curiously, Wilson makes his personified Usury an Englishman of Jewish descent. The play's villains tend to be cosmopolitan foreigners: Dissimulation is a "Mongrel," half Italian and half Dutch, while Fraud is half French and half Scottish; Simony is a Roman.

The play is written in a very rough and uneven verse, a jumble of alexandrine

Alexandrine

An alexandrine is a line of poetic meter comprising 12 syllables. Alexandrines are common in the German literature of the Baroque period and in French poetry of the early modern and modern periods. Drama in English often used alexandrines before Marlowe and Shakespeare, by whom it was supplanted...

 and heptameter

Heptameter

Heptameter is one or more lines of verse containing seven metrical feet .An example from Lord Byron's Youth and Age:...

 or fourteener

Fourteener (poetry)

A Fourteener, in poetry, is a line consisting of 14 syllables, usually having 7 iambic heptametric feet, most commonly found in English poetry produced in the 16th and 17th centuries...

meter:

But senior Mercadorus tell me, did ye serve me well or no?

That having gotten my money would seem the country to forego:

You know I sent you two thousand ducats for three months' space,

And ere the time came you got another thousand by flattery and your smooth face.

So when the time came that I should have received my money,

You were not to be found but was fled out of the country:

Surely if we that be Jews should deal so one with another,

We should not be trusted again of our own brother....

External links

E-text of play