The Fatal Dowry appears to antedate the installation of Sir Henry Herbert in 1623.
It was probably written while Field was with the King’s Men; with whom he became associated in 1616, and whom he probably quitted in 1619.
The indications point to its composition during the latter part of this three-year period (1616–19), for it yields more and closer parallels to The Virgin Martyr and The Little French Lawyer, dated about 1620, than to The Knight of Malta and The Queen of Corinth, dated 1617–8,—closer, indeed, than to any work of Massinger save one, The Unnatural Combat, itself an undated but evidently early play, with which its relationship is clearly of the most intimate variety.
The following (at best hazardously conjectural) scheme of sequence may be advanced:
Fletcher and Massinger and Field together wrote The Knight of Malta and The Queen of Corinth—according to received theory, in 1617 or 1618. Thereafter, the last two collaborators (desirous, perhaps, of trying what they could do unaided and unshackled by the dominating association of the chief dramatist of the day) joined hands in the production of the tragedy which is the subject of our study. Then, upon Field’s retirement, Massinger struck off, with The Unnatural Combat, into unassisted composition; but we next find him, whether because he recognized the short-comings of this turgid play or for other reasons, again in double harness, at work upon The Virgin Martyr and The Little French Lawyer. On this hypothesis, The Fatal Dowry would be dated 1618–9.
Sources
No source is known for the main plot of The Fatal Dowry. A Spanish original has been suspected, but it has never come to light. The stress laid throughout the action on that peculiarly Spanish conception of “the point of honor” (see under [Critical Estimate], in consideration of the character of Charalois) is unquestionably suggestive of the land south of the Pyrenees, and we have an echo of Don Quixote in the exclamation of Charalois ([III, i, 441]): “Away, thou curious impertinent.” The identification, however, of the situation at Aymer’s house in [IV, ii] with a scene in Cervantes’ El viejo celoso (Obras Completas De Cervantes, Tomo XII, p. 277) is extremely fanciful. The only similarity consists in the circumstance that in both, while the husband is on the stage, the wife, who, unknown to him, entertains a lover in the next room, is heard speaking within. But this is a spontaneous outcry on the part of Beaumelle, who does not suspect the proximity of her husband, and her discovery follows, and from this the denouement of the play; whereas in Cervantes’ entremes the wife deliberately calls in bravado to her niece, who is also on-stage, and boasts of her lover,—and the husband thinks this is in jest, and nothing comes of it but comedy.
The theme of the son’s redemption of his father’s corpse by his own captivity is from the classical story of Cimon and Miltiades, as narrated by Valerius Maximus, De dictis factisque memorabilibus, etc. Lib. V, cap. III. De ingratis externorum: Bene egissent Athenienses cum Miltiade, si eum post trecenta millia Persarum Marathone devicta, in exilium protinus misissent, ac non in carcere et vinculis mori coegissent; sed, ut puto, hactenus saevire adversus optime meritum abunde duxerunt: immo ne corpus quidem eius, sic expirare coacti sepulturae primus mandari passi sunt, quam filius eius Cimon eisdem vinculis se constrigendum traderet. Hanc hereditatem paternam maximi ducis filius, et futurus ipse aetatis suae dux maximus, solam se crevisse, catenas et carcerem, gloriari potuit.
In the version of Cornelius Nepos (Vitae, Cimon I) Cimon is incarcerated against his will.