The Double-Dealer: A Comedy
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
William Congreve
William Congreve was an English playwright and poet of the Restoration period. He is known for his clever, satirical dialogue and influence on the comedy of manners style of that period. He was also a minor political figure in the British Whig Party.
Read more from William Congreve
The Way of the World: "Say what you will, ’tis better to be left than never to have been loved." Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mourning Bride: "Grief walks upon the heels of pleasure; married in haste, we repent at leisure." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mourning Bride Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mourning Bride Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLove for Love Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLove for Love: A Comedy Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Way of the World: A Comedy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love For Love: "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned." Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Old Bachelor: A Comedy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Way of the World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Old Batchelor: "Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Double-Dealer: "Courtship is to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play." Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Way of the World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLove for Love: A Comedy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Comedies of William Congreve Volume 1 [of 2] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Old Bachelor Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCongreve's Comedy of Manners: A Play in Five Acts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Double-Dealer: A Comedy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIncognita; Or, Love and Duty Reconcil'd Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Double-Dealer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete William Congreve Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Library of William Congreve Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Old Bachelor: A Comedy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Double-Dealer
Related ebooks
Lo (or Dear Mr. Wells) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTan Tarn How: Six Plays: Playwright Omnibus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Queen of Queen Street Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrecious Little Talent & Hot Mess (NHB Modern Plays) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBody Politic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMisfits: Written by Anne Odeke, Guleraana Mir, Kenny Emson, Sadie Hasler Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Tina Howe's "Coastal Disturbances" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThis Is How We Got Here Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJesus Christ is Alive and Well and Living in Sweden: A One-Act Play Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Clandestine Marriage: 'I vow and protest there's more plague than pleasure with a secret'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Well of the Saints Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGordon Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Me, As a Penguin (NHB Modern Plays) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Trojan Women Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTormented Minds: Tormented Minds Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAs You Like It Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrologues and Epilogues of Restoration Theater: Gender and Comedy, Performance and Print Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStorm Warning Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlack Plays 1980s Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFive Political Plays: 1997 / Cheap Thrill / Zero Hour / Learning to Live with Personal Growth / Sisters in the Great Day Care War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfterimage Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Salt Baby Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFirebird (NHB Modern Plays) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/53712: A One-Act Zombie Play Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI'm Getting Murdered In The Morning: Play Dead Murder Mystery Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsContemporary Duologues Collection: Two Men | Two Women | One Man & One Woman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Lee Blessing's "Eleemosynary" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Marita Bonner's "The Purple Flower" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKyotopolis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChicken Burger N Chips Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Performing Arts For You
Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Sherlock Holmes Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hollywood's Dark History: Silver Screen Scandals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Diamond Eye: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Romeo and Juliet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Star Wars: Book of Lists Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConfessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quite Nice and Fairly Accurate Good Omens Script Book: The Script Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hamlet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Trial Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lucky Dog Lessons: From Renowned Expert Dog Trainer and Host of Lucky Dog: Reunions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Our Town: A Play in Three Acts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Robin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The World Turned Upside Down: Finding the Gospel in Stranger Things Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count Of Monte Cristo (Unabridged) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fifth Mountain: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Strange Loop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Woman Is No Man: A Read with Jenna Pick Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Agatha Christie Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCoreyography: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unsheltered: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Your Huckleberry: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mash: A Novel About Three Army Doctors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Double-Dealer
5 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Young, handsome Mellefont is about to marry Cynthia, daughter of Sir Paul, and the couple is very much in love. Trouble happens because Mellefont's aunt by marriage, Lady Touchwood, is also in love with him and determined to keep the marriage from going through. She employs her lover, lower-born Maskwell, to ruin Mellefont's reputation with Cynthia's parents. Maskwell is the double dealer, claiming to be both Lady Touchwood's agent and Mellefont's friend, while scheming for himself.This is a comedic play first produced in 1693, yet it's still pretty sharp and easy to follow for a modern reader, and is still performed.
Book preview
The Double-Dealer - William Congreve
DRYDEN.
PROLOGUE
Spoken by Mrs. Bracegirdle.
Moors have this way (as story tells) to know
Whether their brats are truly got or no;
Into the sea the new-born babe is thrown,
There, as instinct directs, to swim or drown.
A barbarous device, to try if spouse
Has kept religiously her nuptial vows.
Such are the trials poets make of plays,
Only they trust to more inconstant seas;
So does our author, this his child commit
To the tempestuous mercy of the pit,
To know if it be truly born of wit.
Critics avaunt, for you are fish of prey,
And feed, like sharks, upon an infant play.
Be ev’ry monster of the deep away;
Let’s have a fair trial and a clear sea.
Let nature work, and do not damn too soon,
For life will struggle long e’er it sink down:
And will at least rise thrice before it drown.
Let us consider, had it been our fate,
Thus hardly to be proved legitimate:
I will not say, we’d all in danger been,
Were each to suffer for his mother’s sin:
But by my troth I cannot avoid thinking,
How nearly some good men might have ’scaped sinking.
But, heav’n be praised, this custom is confined
Alone to th’ offspring of the muses kind:
Our Christian cuckolds are more bent to pity;
I know not one Moor-husband in the city.
I’ th’ good man’s arms the chopping bastard thrives,
For he thinks all his own that is his wives’.
Whatever fate is for this play designed,
The poet’s sure he shall some comfort find:
For if his muse has played him false, the worst
That can befall him, is, to be divorced:
You husbands judge, if that be to be cursed.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
MEN.
Maskwell, a villain; pretended friend to Mellefont, gallant to Lady Touchwood, and in love with Cynthia,—Mr. Betterton.
Lord Touchwood, uncle to Mellefont,—Mr. Kynaston.
Mellefont, promised to, and in love with Cynthia,—Mr. Williams.
Careless, his friend,—Mr. Verbruggen.
Lord Froth, a solemn coxcomb,—Mr. Bowman.
Brisk, a pert coxcomb,—Mr. Powell.
Sir Paul Plyant, an uxorious, foolish old knight; brother to Lady Touchwood, and father to Cynthia,—Mr. Dogget.
WOMEN.
Lady Touchwood, in love with Mellefont,—Mrs. Barry.
Cynthia, daughter to Sir Paul by a former wife, promised to Mellefont,—Mrs. Bracegirdle.
Lady Froth, a great coquette; pretender to poetry, wit, and learning,—Mrs. Mountfort.
Lady Plyant, insolent to her husband, and easy to any pretender,—Mrs. Leigh.
Chaplain, Boy, Footmen, and Attendants.
The Scene: A gallery in the Lord Touchwood’s house, with chambers adjoining.
ACT I.
SCENE I.
A gallery in the Lord Touchwood’s home, with chambers adjoining.
Enter Careless, crossing the stage, with his hat, gloves, and sword in his hands; as just risen from table: Mellefontfollowing him.
MEL. Ned, Ned, whither so fast? What, turned flincher! Why, you wo’ not leave