''Your Five Gallants'' is a Jacobean comedy by

Thomas Middleton Thomas Middleton (baptised 18 April 1580 – July 1627; also spelt ''Midleton'') was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. He, with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson, was among the most successful and prolific of playwrights at work in the Jac ...

. It falls into the subgenre of

city comedy City comedy, also known as citizen comedy, is a genre of comedy in the English early modern theatre. Definition Emerging from Ben Jonson's late-Elizabethan comedies of humours (1598–1599), the conventions of city comedy developed rapidly in ...

. Allusions in the play point to a date of authorship of

1607 Events January–June * January 13 – The Bank of Genoa fails, after the announcement of national bankruptcy in Spain. * January 19 – San Agustin Church, Manila, is officially completed; by the 21st century it will be the ...

. The play was entered into the

Stationers' Register The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including print ...

on 22 March

1608 Events January–June * January – In the Colony of Virginia, Powhatan releases Captain John Smith. * January 2 – The first of the Jamestown supply missions returns to the Colony of Virginia with Christopher Newport comman ...

. The

quarto Quarto (abbreviated Qto, 4to or 4º) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produc ...

published by bookseller Richard Bonian is undated, but probably followed the registration by a small gap and appeared later in 1608. The title page states that the drama was acted by the

Children of the Chapel The Children of the Chapel are the boys with unbroken voices, choristers, who form part of the Chapel Royal, the body of singers and priests serving the spiritual needs of their sovereign wherever they were called upon to do so. They were overseen ...

, and assigns the authorship to "T. Middleton." The five "gallants" of the play's title are frauds, poseurs, and con men—a pickpocket, pimp, pawnbroker, cheat, and whoremonger—who compete with the protagonist, Fitzgrave, for the affections of Katherine, a wealthy orphan. (The five conspire to woo Katherine together; the one who wins her will help out the others.) Fitzgrave manipulates them into exposing their own crimes and vices through a masque. Fitzgrave marries Katherine, while the "gallants" marry the five prostitutes who are their shadows in the play. Between the two groups of ne'er-do-wells, Middleton provides a vigorous satire on the manners and mores of London society of the day.Swapan Chakravorty, ''Society and Politics in the Plays of Thomas Middleton'', Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996; pp. 61–2.

Synopsis

A customer enters Frip's pawnshop and attempts to pawn the lower half of a

gentlewoman A gentlewoman (from the Latin ''gentilis'', belonging to a ''gens'', and English 'woman') in the original and strict sense is a woman of good family, analogous to the Latin ''generosus'' and ''generosa''. The closely related English word "gentry" ...

's gown. Frip rejects the pawn because he is afraid the garment might be infected with the plague. Another customer ("Second Fellow") enters and—after a bit of shrewd haggling on Frip's part—pawns a gentlewoman's suit. Primero (the pimp) enters. Frip asks Primero to teach him the secret of a card trick called "the twitch". Primero says he will divulge the secret of the trick if Frip will agree to supply clothing for "The Novice", a "courtesan" (prostitute) who has recently entered his brothel. Frip gives Primero the gentlewoman's suit he has just acquired. The Novice enters. Frip tells her that she is going to have to learn how to cheat and steal if she is going to do well in the brothel. In an aside, Fitzgrave says that he does not trust the gallants. He says he will disguise himself as a "credulous scholar" so he can infiltrate their group and discover their true natures. Marmaduke (Mistress Newcut's servant) tells Bungler that his cousin (Mistress Newcut) has invited him to dinner and encourages him to bring any gentleman he pleases along with him (Mistress Newcut is of course hoping that Bungler will bring Tailby to dinner). Bungler invites Goldstone to the dinner. Goldstone—attracted by the prospect of stealing whatever he can from Mistress Newcut's home—accepts the invitation. Fitzgrave/'Bowswer' enters; he asks Goldstone where his cloak is. Goldstone says that he was attacked by four men, who took the cloak from him. Fitzgrave pretends to accept this excuse; Goldstone exits. Fitzgrave makes plans to expose the five gallants. Goldstone enters with his servant, Fulk; both of them are disguised. Goldstone tells Bungler that he is also Mistress Newcut's cousin, and that he has also been invited to her home for dinner that afternoon. They make plans to go to the dinner together. The gallants perform their masque for Katherine. Frip gives Katherine the chain of pearl, which she recognizes. Frip is forced to admit that the chain of pearl was pawned to him.

References

External links

Your Five Gallants
part of ''The works of Thomas Middleton, now first collected (1840)'' at the Internet Archive {{DEFAULTSORT:Your Five Gallants English Renaissance plays 1607 plays Plays by Thomas Middleton