A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 09 — Reading Companion

Rapid Exchanges and Moral Framing

In How a Man May Choose a Good Wife from a Bad, the dialogue often proceeds in short, clipped lines that accelerate the pace and heighten emotional tension. Young Arthur's repeated declarations—'Not in mine eye'—are met with Lusam's proverbial warnings about being 'cloy'd with dainties.' The rhythm mimics a quarrel, each line a thrust and parry. This speed is occasionally broken by longer speeches, such as Arthur's description of his wife as 'the most hated / And loathed object,' which slows the tempo to allow a fuller expression of grievance. The play's moral framework is embedded in these exchanges: the characters argue not just about marriage but about perception and judgment, with the rapid-fire format underscoring their stubbornness.

Allegorical Soliloquy and Comic Interruption

Lingua employs a markedly different pacing. The play opens with Lingua's extended soliloquy, where she describes the orators' contest in balanced, periodic sentences: 'if his were witty, / His was as wise; the third's fair eloquence / Did parallel the fourth's firm gravity.' The measured rhythm creates a stately, almost ceremonial tone. This is abruptly undercut by the entrance of Mendacio, whose short, colloquial lines—'Have I not hied me, madam?'—introduce a faster, more conspiratorial pace. The subsequent scene with Tactus shifts again: his soliloquy on the morning is interrupted by a sneeze and a stumble, and Mendacio's asides ('O, are you taken?') inject a comic, metatheatrical layer. The play thus oscillates between high-flown rhetoric and low comedy, with pace changes marking the boundary between allegory and farce.

Stage Directions and Visual Pacing

Both plays use stage directions to control tempo. In How a Man May Choose a Good Wife from a Bad, the direction 'He goes out, and comes in presently' signals a quick, farcical turn, compressing time for comic effect. In Lingua, the elaborate description of Tactus's costume—'a dark-coloured satin mantle over a pair of silk bases, a garland of bays'—pauses the action, inviting the audience to dwell on visual detail before the character speaks. The stage direction 'TACTUS stumbleth at the robe and crown' then triggers a rapid sequence of exclamations and asides. These visual cues work alongside the dialogue to create a rhythm of expectation and surprise, with the physical comedy of the stumble providing a sudden jolt after the descriptive pause.

Readers approaching this volume will benefit from attending to the interplay between speech and silence—the moments when characters pause to reflect or when stage directions dictate a change in tempo. The collection rewards those who listen for shifts in register, from the blunt prose of marital dispute to the ornate verse of allegorical debate. Each play offers a distinct experiment in dramatic pacing, and comparing them reveals how early modern playwrights manipulated language and stagecraft to control audience attention.

Leafing through these old plays, I noticed how a comic squabble could dissolve into long, thoughtful speeches, and somehow that reminded me of The Pigeon: A Fantasy in Three Acts — Reading Companion. There’s a similar way it lingers on a quiet, worried feeling after a bit of stage business, content to let the characters simply think aloud for a while.