[Scene II.] A Grove.
[Scene III.] The Lodgings of Curtius.
[ARGUMENT.]
Frederick, ‘the Amorous Prince,’ a mercurial young gallant, son to the Duke of Florence, under a solemn promise of marriage debauches Cloris, sister to his friend and confidant, Curtius. The girl has always led a secluded country life, and this relationship is unknown to the Prince, who upon hearing the praises of Laura, beloved by Curtius, straightway resolves to win this lady also. Laura’s brother Lorenzo, a wanton madcap favourite of Frederick’s, gladly effects the required introduction, and when Curtius interrupts and forbids, Salvator, father to Laura and Lorenzo, promptly turns the quondam lover out of the house. Lorenzo himself is idly pursuing Clarina, wife to a certain Antonio, an abortive intrigue carried on to his own impoverishment, but the enrichment of Isabella, Clarina’s woman, a wench who fleeces him unmercifully. Antonio being of a quaint and jealous humour would have his friend Alberto make fervent love to Clarina, in order that by her refusals and chill denials her spotless conjugal fidelity may be proved. However, Ismena, Clarina’s sister, appears in a change of clothes as the wife, and manifold complications ensue, but eventually all is cleared and Ismena accepts Alberto, whom she has long loved; not before Isabella, having by a trick compelled Lorenzo to declare himself her husband, enforces the bargain. Cloris, meanwhile, disguised as a boy under the name of Philibert, attaches herself to Frederick, first succouring him when he is wounded in a duel by Curtius. Curtius to avenge his wrongs disguises himself, and as a pandar entices Frederick into a snare by promises of supplying the amorous Prince with lovely cyprians. Bravos, however, are in waiting, but these prove to be in the service of Antonio, who appears with Alberto and their friends, completely frustrating the plot, whilst Clarina, Ismena, and other ladies have acted the courtezans to deceive Curtius, and at the same time read the Prince a salutary lesson. He profits so much by this experience that he takes Cloris, whose sex is discovered, to be his bride, whilst Laura bestows her hand on the repentant and forgiven Curtius.
[SOURCE.]
Mrs. Behn has taken her episode of Antonio’s persuading Alberto to woo Clarina from Robert Davenport’s fine play, The City Night-Cap (4to 1661, but licensed 24 October, 1624) where Lorenzo induces Philippo to test Abstemia in the same way. Astrea, however, has considerably altered the conduct of the intrigue. Bullen (The Works of Robert Davenport, 1890) conclusively and exhaustively demonstrates that Davenport made use of Greene’s popular Philomela; the Lady Fitzwater’s Nightingale (1592, 1615, and 1631), wherein Count Philippo employs Giovanni Lutesio to ‘make experience of his wife’s [Philomela’s] honesty’, rather than was under any obligation to Cervantes’ Curioso Impertinente, Don Quixote, Book IV, ch. vi-viii. Read, Dunlop, and Hazlitt all had express’d the same opinion. The Spanish tale turns upon the fact of Anselmo, the Curious Impertinent, enforcing his friend Lothario to tempt his wife Camilla. Such a theme, however, is common, and with variations is to be found in Italian novelle. Recent authorities are inclined to suggest that the plot of Beaumont and Fletcher’s The Coxcomb (1610), much of which runs on similar lines, is not founded on Cervantes. Southerne, in his comedy, The Disappointment; or, The Mother in Fashion (1684) and ‘starch Johnny Crowne’ in The Married Beau (1694), both comedies of no little wit and merit, are patently indebted to The Curious Impertinent. Cervantes had also been used three quarters of a century before by Nat Field in his Amends for Ladies (4to, 1618), where Sir John Loveall tries his wife in an exactly similar manner to Lorenzo, Count Philippo and Anselmo.
The amours of the Florentine court are Mrs. Behn’s own invention; but the device by which Curtius ensnares Frederick is not unlike Vendice and Hippolito’s trapping of the lecherous old Duke in The Revenger’s Tragedy (4to, 1607), albeit the saturnine Tourneur gives the whole scene a far more terrible and tragic catastrophe.
In January, 1537, Lorenzino de Medici having enticed Duke Alessandro of Florence to his house under pretext of an assignation with a certain Caterina Ginori, after a terrible struggle assassinated him with the aid of a notorious bravo. Several plays have been founded upon this history. Notable amongst them are Shirley’s admirable tragedy, The Traitor (licensed May, 1631, 4to 1635) and in later days de Musset’s Lorenzaccio (1834).