''Bonduca'' is a
Jacobean tragi-comedy in the
Beaumont and Fletcher
Beaumont and Fletcher were the English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I (1603–25).
They became known as a team early in their association, so much so that their joi ...
canon, generally judged by scholars to be the work of
John Fletcher alone. It was acted by the
King's Men c. 1613, and published in 1647 in the
first Beaumont and Fletcher folio.
The play is a dramatisation of the story of
Boudica, the British
Celtic queen who led a revolt against the
Romans
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
in 60–61 AD. Critics, however, have classified ''Bonduca'' as a "historical romance," rather than a history play comparable to those written by
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
; historical accuracy was not Fletcher's primary concern. The play constantly shifts between comedy and tragedy.
The principal hero is not Bonduca herself, but rather Caratach (
Caratacus
Caratacus (Brythonic ''*Caratācos'', Middle Welsh ''Caratawc''; Welsh ''Caradog''; Breton ''Karadeg''; Greek ''Καράτακος''; variants Latin ''Caractacus'', Greek ''Καρτάκης'') was a 1st-century AD British chieftain of the ...
), who is anachronistically depicted as her general, despite having been exiled from Britain almost a decade prior.
Nennius, the legendary British opponent of Julius Caesar, is also included. However, most of the action takes place from the Roman point of view, centring on the Roman officers Junius and Petillius, who fall in love with Bonduca's two daughters. Petillius is a fictionalised version of
Quintus Petillius Cerialis.
Characters
*Caratach, General of the Britons, brother-in-law to Bonduca.
*Nennius, a British Commander.
*Hengo, Nephew to Caratach and Bonduca.
*Suetonius, General of the Roman Army in Britain.
*Poenius, a Roman commander
*Junius, a Roman commander
*Demetrius, a Roman commander
*Decius, a Roman commander
*Petillius, a Roman commander
*Curious, a Roman commander
*Regulus, an officer under Poenius
*Drusus, an officer under Poenius
*Bonduca, Queen of the Iceni.
*Bonduca's first daughter.
*Bonduca's second daughter.
*Macer, a Roman Lieutenant.
*Judas, a Roman Corporal.
*Herald.
*Druids.
*Soldiers.
*Guides, Servants.
Plot
Bonduca, the queen of the
Iceni
The Iceni ( , ) or Eceni were a Brittonic tribe of eastern Britain during the Iron Age and early Roman era. Their territory included present-day Norfolk and parts of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and bordered the area of the Corieltauvi to the we ...
, gloats over the defeats suffered by the Romans at the hands of her forces. She predicts that the Romans will soon be crushed. Bonduca's confidence is challenged by her general
Caratach, who tells her that the Romans are not easily crushed and that the war will be very different from the tribal conflicts they are familiar with. It will be either total victory or utter defeat. Bonduca accepts Caratach's words of caution.
In the Roman camp, one of the officers, Junius, is depressed because he is in love. His friend
Petillius tries to cheer him up, but to no avail. Junius reveals that his beloved is Bonduca's younger daughter. Soldiers led by corporal Judas enter, complaining that they are starving. Petillius and Junius tell them to remember their duties. The commander
Suetonius is informed of the restive state of the troops. He tells his officers that he intends to provoke a decisive battle. An officer is sent to contact
Poenius Postumus, another Roman commander, to join his army with Suetonius' force.
In Poenius's camp the troops are keen to join their comrades, but the haughty Poenius refuses to accept orders from Suetonius, considering battle against the much larger Briton force to be suicidal. He refuses to send the troops. Back in Suetonius' camp Petillius and fellow officers make fun of the love-stuck Junius. Petillius bets another officer, Demetrius, that Poenius will refuse to join them.
In Bonduca's camp Judas and some Roman soldiers have been captured while foraging for food. The Britons ridicule the half-starved Romans. Bonduca's vengeful daughters are keen to hang the captured men, but Caratach intervenes and orders them to be well fed and sent back to the Roman camp. While plying them with food and drink he extracts information from them. Judas reveals Junius' love for Bonduca's younger daughter. She decides she will write a fake love letter to him to capture him. She gives it to Judas, who returns with the others to the Roman camp, drunk.
In the British camp Bonduca makes an impassioned appeal to the thunder god
Taranis
In Celtic mythology, Taranis (Proto-Celtic: *''Toranos'', earlier ''*Tonaros''; Latin: Taranus, earlier Tanarus) is the god of thunder, who was worshipped primarily in Gaul, Hispania, Britain, and Ireland, but also in the Rhineland and Danube r ...
, while the Druids make sacrifices and read omens. The daughters also pray for victory. Caratach gives a rousing speech to the troops. In the Roman camp Junius reads the fake love-letter, in which Bonduca's daughter tells him that he has won her love. If he meets her, she will allow herself and her family to be captured, as long as they will be well treated. Junius and his friends decide to trust the daughter's plans. Meanwhile, Suetonius gives his own speech to his troops.
Caratach watches the movements of the armies. Poenius also observes from a distance. Junius and the others are brought to Bonduca's daughters in captivity, having been lured into the trap. Junius is taunted by the younger daughter. Her viciousness cures him of any feelings for her. The daughters intend to kill the Romans, but again Caratach intervenes and insists that honourable adversaries should not resort to such tricks. He frees them.
Poenius watches as the small Roman army is apparently overwhelmed by the British forces, but the fog of the battle conceals things. In the midst of the struggle Suetonius and Petillius keep the Romans together. Junius and the others arrive back just as the battle is turning in favour of the Romans. Watching from the hill Caratach berates Bonduca for launching a mass-attack, as the British superiority in numbers is turned against them, creating a crush between the Romans and the baggage train. Victorious, Suetonius pursues the retreating Britons. Caratach and his young nephew Hengo escape after a fight with Junius.
After the battle Petillius continues to ridicule Junius for his former love-sickness. Suetonius tells Petillius to contact Poenius, who he intends to forgive for failing to join the battle. Caratach and Hengo encounter Judas and other soldiers. In the fight Judas is humiliated by the brave boy, while the other soldiers flee from Caratach. Petillius goes to meet Poenius, who is depressed. He tells him of Suetonius' forgiveness, but also gives away his own view that Poenius' honour is irretrievable. Poenius says he will kill himself. Petillius agrees. Poenius stabs himself. His friends blame Petillius for his death.
Bonduca and her daughters are surrounded in a fortress. Suetonius asks them to surrender, but Bonduca refuses. The Romans attempt to breach the defences. The younger daughter now pleads with her mother to surrender, but her mother and her sister scorn her. When the wall is breached, Bonduca forces her younger daughter to kill herself. The older daughter gives a grand speech of self-sacrifice, leading Petillius to fall in love with her. She and Bonduca kill themselves.
Caratach and Hengo watch the funeral of Poenius. Meanwhile, Petillius can't stop thinking about Bonduca's older daughter, and Junius takes the opportunity to play tricks on him in revenge for the ridicule he had received. The Romans make the capture of Caratach a priority. Junius is promoted, but Petillius is not because of his role in Poenius' suicide. Depressed Petillius asks Junius to kill him, but Junius tells him that Suetonius has only put off the promotion to placate Poenius' friends. In fact he has put Petillius in charge of capturing Caratach. Judas plans to trick Caratach by leaving food and drink for him. Caratach and Hengo find the provisions, but when Hengo comes out into the open Judas shoots him. He dies in Caratach's arms. With a single stone-throw, Caratach kills Judas. Petillius and Junius arrive and fight Caratach but he surrenders only when Suetonius appears. Caratach is sent to Rome and Petillius is promoted.
Text
''Bonduca'' has a two-way relationship of influence or borrowing with other plays before and after it. Arthur Sherbo discovered a range of parallels and commonalities between the play and
Christopher Marlowe's ''Tamburlaine, Part I'' (c. 1587). In the opposite chronological direction, S. W. Brossman identified borrowings from ''Bonduca'' in
John Dryden
''
John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate.
He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the per ...
's ''Cleomenes'' (1692).
A list of the cast members survives from the original production of ''Bonduca'' by the King's Men. The list includes:
Richard Burbage
Richard Burbage (c. 1567 – 13 March 1619) was an English stage actor, widely considered to have been one of the most famous actors of the Globe Theatre and of his time. In addition to being a stage actor, he was also a theatre owner, entr ...
,
Henry Condell
Henry Condell ( bapt. 5 September 1576 – December 1627) was a British actor in the King's Men, the playing company for which William Shakespeare wrote. With John Heminges, he was instrumental in preparing and editing the First Folio, the col ...
,
John Lowin
John Lowin (baptized 9 December 1576 – buried – 24 August 1653) was an English actor.
Early life
Born in St Giles-without-Cripplegate, London, Lowin was the son of a tanner. Like Robert Armin, he was apprenticed to a goldsmith. Whil ...
,
William Ostler
William Ostler (died 16 December 1614) was an actor in English Renaissance theatre, a member of the King's Men, the company of William Shakespeare.
Ostler started out as a boy player in the Children of the Chapel troupe; he was cast in their 1 ...
,
John Underwood,
Nicholas Tooley
Nicholas Tooley (c. 1583 – June 1623) was a Renaissance actor in the King's Men, the acting company of William Shakespeare.
Recent research has shown that Tooley was born in late 1582 or early 1583; his birth name was not Tooley but Wilkin ...
,
William Ecclestone
William Ecclestone or EgglestoneDNB ( fl. 1610 – 1623) was an actor in English Renaissance theatre, a member of Shakespeare's company the King's Men.
Life
Nothing is known with certainty about Ecclestone's early life. There was an Eccles ...
, and
Richard Robinson.
In addition to the 1647 printed text, the play exists in manuscript form. The manuscript was written by
Edward Knight, the "book-keeper" or
prompter of the King's Men, probably c. 1630. In a note appended to his transcript, Knight explains that the original prompt-book that supported the stage performances had been lost, and that he had re-copied the author's "
foul papers
Foul papers are an author's working drafts. The term is most often used in the study of the plays of Shakespeare and other dramatists of English Renaissance drama. Once the composition of a play was finished, a transcript or " fair copy" of the f ...
" into the existing manuscript. Knight, however, was unable to transcribe the entire play (he had to summarise the first two and a half scenes in Act V), because the set of foul papers from which he worked was itself incomplete – a useful demonstration of the difficulties in textual transmission that plagued
English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre, also known as Renaissance English theatre and Elizabethan theatre, refers to the theatre of England between 1558 and 1642.
This is the style of the plays of William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson ...
. (The missing scenes are present in the 1647 printed text, though their order, as Knight describes it, is reversed: his V,i comes second and his V,ii comes first.)
Adaptations
Henry Purcell's last major work, composed in 1695, was music for an adaptation entitled ''Bonduca, or the British Heroine'' (Z. 574). Selections include "To Arms", "
Britons, Strike Home!" and "O lead me to some peaceful gloom". An adaptation of the play was made by
George Colman the Elder
George Colman (April 1732 – 14 August 1794) was an English dramatist and essayist, usually called "the Elder", and sometimes "George the First", to distinguish him from his son, George Colman the Younger. He also owned a theatre.
Early lif ...
in the 18th century.
In the
alternate history novel ''
Ruled Britannia
''Ruled Britannia'' is an alternate history novel by Harry Turtledove, first published in hardcover by New American Library in 2002.
The book is set in the years 1597–1598, in an alternate universe where the Spanish Armada is successful in 158 ...
'' by
Harry Turtledove
Harry Norman Turtledove (born June 14, 1949) is an American author who is best known for his work in the genres of alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and mystery fiction. He is a student of history and completed hi ...
,
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
writes a play entitled ''Boudicca'' to incite the people of Britain to revolt against Spanish conquerors. The speeches supposedly written by Shakespeare are taken from ''Bonduca''.
Critical views
Many scholars have argued that Fletcher's sympathies seem to lie more with the Romans than the Britons, though it has also been argued that the play constantly parallels the two sides.
Claire Jowitt in her article ''Colonialism, Politics, and Romanization in John Fletcher's "Bonduca"'' explores the ways in which the play engages with Britain's early-seventeenth-century colonial ambitions – in particular the Virginia colony. She also highlights the topical political allegories in the play. Jowitt argues that the play's sympathies are ambiguous. The Britons in part stand for the Native Americans of the Virginia colony, and are depicted as savage pagans. Nevertheless, the play invites the reader to patriotically identify with their resistance to Rome.
Ronald J. Boling and Julie Crawford argue that the nominal hero Caratach is portrayed in a satirical fashion, and that this probably represents contemporary ambivalence about the court of King
James I James I may refer to:
People
*James I of Aragon (1208–1276)
*James I of Sicily or James II of Aragon (1267–1327)
*James I, Count of La Marche (1319–1362), Count of Ponthieu
*James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347)
*James I of Cyprus (1334–13 ...
.
[Ronald J. Boling, "Fletcher's Satire of Caratach in Bonduca," ''CompD'' 33, 3 (Fall 1999): 390–406; Julie Crawford, "Fletcher's The Tragedie of Bonduca and the Anxieties of the Masculine Government of James I," ''Studies in English Literature'' 39, 2 (Spring 1999): 357–81.]
Notes
References
* Fletcher, Ian. ''Beaumont and Fletcher.'' London, Longmans, Green, 1967.
* Halliday, F. E. ''A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964.'' Baltimore, Penguin, 1964.
*
Hoy, Cyrus. "The Shares of Fletcher and His Collaborators in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon," ''Studies in Bibliography,'' VIII-XV, 1956–62.
* Ioppolo, Grace. ''Dramatists and Their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton and Heywood: Authorship, authority and the playhouse.'' London, Routledge, 2006.
* Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith. ''The Later Jacobean and Caroline Dramatists: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama.'' Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1978.
{{Authority control
English Renaissance plays
1613 plays
Cultural depictions of Boudica
Fiction set in Roman Britain
Plays by John Fletcher (playwright)
Plays set in the 1st century
Plays set in England
Plays based on real people
Plays based on actual events
Plays set in ancient Rome
Tragicomedy plays