The Plot
Fidele is an Italian gentleman who returns from a journey abroad to find that his lover Victoria has fallen in love with his friend Fortunio who loves her in his turn. However, Fortunio is unsure of Victoria's love and the play opens with his asking an opportunist called Captain Crackstone to investigate this, though Crackstone is himself secretly in love with Victoria. Victoria in her turn is unsure of Fortunio's love for her and employs a sorceress named Medusa to enchant him into loving her. Fidele's schoolmaster, Pedante, and Victoria's maid, Attilia are brought into the plot. Another character Virginia is in love with Fidele, and Fortunio turns his attentions on her after he is persuaded falsely that Victoria has betrayed him. After further entanglements and misadventures, the play ends happily with Fortunio marrying Virginia and with further marriages between Fidele and Victoria, Crackstone and Attilia, and Pedante and Medusa.Influence on Shakespeare
Shakespeare may have been influenced by the play, for example, in the ingredients used by the witch Medusa which are remarkably similar to the ingredients used by the witches in ''Macbeth'' in casting their spells, for example:Sources
* Renata Oggero, ''"Translated out of Italian". From Pasqualigo to Munday: Rewriting Italian Comedy in Elizabethan England.'' Available at http://dspace.unitus.it/bitstream/2067/93/1/Oggero_Translated_out_of_Italian.pdf * Richard Hosley, ''A Critical Edition of Anthony Munday's Fedele and Fortunio'' (Renaissance Drama) Garland Publishing, 1981. * Martin Wiggins and Catherine Richardson, ''British Drama - 1533-1642: A Catalogue'', (Oxford: OUP, 2012), Vol. III, 1567-1589, 'Fedele and Fortunio', pp. 325–327.References
{{ReflistExternal links
* The book of this play is available at this www.archive.org website: https://archive.org/details/fideleandfortuni00munduoft 1584 in England Plays by Anthony Munday 1580s plays Comedy plays William Shakespeare Macbeth