Scrib. From the sea's fury, drowneing; for last night Our shipp was splitt, wee cast upon these rocks.
Clowne. Sayd in a jest, in deede! Shipwreck by land! I perceive you tooke the woodden waggen for a ship and the violent rayne for the sea, and by cause some one of the wheels broake and you cast into some water plashe, you thought the shipp had splitt and you had bene in danger of drowneinge.
The main story of The Captives is borrowed from Plautus's Rudens, many passages being translated almost word for word. It will be remembered that in the English Traveller Heywood was indebted to another of Plautus's plays—the Mostellaria. I have not been able to discover the source of the very curious underplot of The Captives.
The MS. from which the play is printed bears every appearance of being a play-house copy. Numerous passages have been cancelled, seemingly (for the most part) by the hand of some reviser. In most instances I have restored the cancelled passages to the text—though the task of deciphering them has been cruelly difficult.
THE CAPTIVES; OR, THE LOST RECOVERED.
A Comedy by THOMAS HEYWOOD.
Licensed by Sir Henry Herbert in 1624, and now first printed from Egerton MS. 1994.
Actus primus.
SCENA PR.
Enter Mr. Raphael a younge marchaunt, Mr. Treadway his companione and frend.