The Widow's Tears

''The Widow's Tears'' is an early Jacobean play, a comedy written by George Chapman. It is often considered the last of Chapman's comedies, and sometimes his most problematic, "the most provocative and the most paradoxical of any of his dramatic works."

Date

The play is universally dated to sometime in the first decade of the 17th century, based on all the available data. Many scholars favour the year 1605; leading Chapman scholar T. M. Parrott assigned it to the winter of 1605–6. Critics have seen the parody of incompetent justice in the play's final scene as Chapman's response to his imprisonment over the ''Eastward Ho'' scandal of 1605 – though E. K. Chambers demured on this point, suggesting that "It would be equally sound to argue that this is just the date when Chapman would have been most careful to avoid criticism of this kind." Chambers and others have given a dating range of 1603–9.

Performance

The title page of the first edition of 1612 states that ''The Widow's Tears'' was "often presented" at both the Blackfriars and Whitefriars theatres. This indicates that the play was part of the repertory of the Children of the Chapel, both when they were acting in the Blackfriars Theatre to 1608, and also later when the company had moved to the Whitefriars Theatre. Only one specific performance is known with certainty: the Children acted the play at Court on 27 February 1613. Philip Rosseter, the company's manager at the time, was paid £13 6''s.'' 8''d.'' for the Children's four Court performances that winter season, of the Chapman play and plays by Beaumont and Fletcher.

Publication

The play was entered into Stationers' Register on 17 April 1612 and was published later that year in quarto by the bookseller John Browne. The 1612 quarto was the only edition of the play in the 17th century. The quarto bears Chapman's dedication to John Reed of Mitton, misidentifying Mitton's Worcestershire location as Gloucestershire. Reed was a relative of Fulke Greville.

Synopsis

''The Widow's Tears'' is set on the island of Cyprus. Chapman gives his play an unusual structure, in that he treats his two plots consecutively, rather than concurrently and in alternation as in most two-plot plays. The first three acts are mainly devoted to the subplot, while the main plot takes over in the last two acts. The two plots are united by the involvement of two siblings, Lysander and Tharsalio.

Tharsalio, the younger brother, is a romantic-comedy version of Chapman's tragic character Bussy D'Ambois – he is a "capricous," "wild, corrupted youth." As the protagonist of the subplot, he schemes to repair his fortunes by marrying a wealthy widow, the countess Eudora. The countess has taken a vow never to remarry; nonetheless, she is courted (primarily for her money) by two contrasting suitors, Tharsalio and Rebus. Tharsalio is bold and forward, while Rebus is pompous yet timid. Tharsalio's method of wooing is unsubtle, and he is at first rejected – which provokes his brother Lysander's caustic comments. Yet Tharsalio succeeds in his courtship through an extraordinary expedient: he sends the panderess Arsace to warn Eudora about...himself. Arcase tells Eudora of Tharsalio's reputation as a relentless womanizer. In the process, however, Arsace stresses Tharsalio's "manhood" and woman-pleasing capacities: "a goddess," she claims, "is not worthy of his sweetness." Tharsalio's plan is to mount a subtle arousal and temptation of Eudora's latent romantic and erotic desires. The plan is successful, and the third act closes with the marriage of Tharsalio and Eudora.

The main plot of the last two acts (which draws upon the Ephesian Matron story in the ''Satyricon'' of Petronius Arbiter

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