Summary
Act 1. Walks near the Court, Sicily. Doralice, the wife of Rhodophil, enters with Beliza, her servant, and tells her to fetch a lute so that she can sing a song that the Princess Amalthea asked her to learn. She sings it, and the lyrics are: "Why should a foolish Marriage Vow/Which long ago was made,/Oblige us to each other now/When Passion is decay'd?/We lov'd, and we lov'd, as long as we cou'd,/Till our love was lov'd out in us both:/But our Marriage is dead, when the Pleasure is fled:/'Twas Pleasure first made it an Oath." The song continues, suggesting that it is "madness" that spouses get jealous of one another.
Palamede, a courtier, enters and hears the song from inside. When Doralice and Beliza come outside, Palamede introduces himself as a man who has been absent from the court for five years, before complimenting Doralice's looks and singing voice. When Palamede suggests that he is falling in love with her on the spot, Doralice replies, "...you have been travelling in Spain or Italy, or some of the hot Countreys, where men come to the point immediately." She then informs him that she is married to a gentleman "young, handsome, rich, valiant, and with all the good qualities that will make you despair, and hang your self."
Palamede informs Doralice that he will go on loving her anyway, informing her that he himself is set to marry someone in three days. Suddenly, Beliza informs her mistress that Rhodophil, her husband, is headed that way, and might see them. Before she slips away, Doralice tells Palamede that he can find her at court, and that she is his for two more days.
Rhodophil enters and greets Palamede, who is clearly a friend of his. He asks Palamede what has brought him back home to Sicily, and Palamede tells him that he has been beckoned back by his rich father, who is marrying him off to a wealthy woman whom he has never even met. When Palamede asks Rhodophil why he has never written to him, Rhodophil tells him, "The greatest misfortune imaginable is faln upon me...In one word, I am marry'd; wretchedly marry'd; and have been above these two years."
Palamede questions Rhodophil about whether his wife is ugly or "ill-condition'd," but Rhodophil assures him that she is as beautiful as she is charming and agreeable, but that he can barely see these qualities anymore. "Ask those, who have smelt to a strong perfume two years together, what's the scent," he says. Palamede encourages his friend to get a mistress, and Rhodophil tells him he has been thinking about it.
Rhodophil confesses to his friend that he has his eye on "one of the Stars of Syracuse," but tells Palamede that her "unpardonable" fault is that she tries to get seen three or four times a day with Princes Amalthea, in spite of being a Town-Lady, and not being of the court. When Palamede asks her name, Rhodophil refuses, and says that Palamede ought to be able to identify her from his description.
After Rhodophil finishes, Palamede admits that, even though he is set to be married, he has already set his sights on a mistress. Argaleon, the king's favorite; Amalthea, his sister; and Artemis, a Court Lady, all enter.
Rhodophil tells Palamede that even though Argaleon is very ambitious and vengeful, the king has no idea because he keeps his bad qualities hidden and his father won him favor in the first place. Argaleon approaches and tells Rhodophil that the king has summoned him, before exiting in another direction. Rhodophil and Palamede leave.
Left alone, Artemis and Amalthea discuss the fact that the king, Polydamas, has come to Sicily looking for his heir, in spite of the fact that he was thought to be childless. Amalthea tells Artemis that Polydamas usurped the crown from Theagenes, "our last great King." She tells her that in a great battle, Theagenes was mortally wounded, and left his wife, and his young son—three years old at the time—in Polydamas' care. However, Polydamas went beyond the king's wishes and usurped the throne instead. After Theagenes' death, his wife and son fled with the help of Hermogenes, along with Polydamas's pregnant wife. Polydamas' wife died in childbirth, but the heir is apparently still alive, gender unknown.
Suddenly, Polydamas enters with Argaleon and some attendants, discussing the search. Soon after, Rhodophil and Palamede come in and Rhodophil introduces Polydamas to Palamede. Polydamas knew and admired Palamede's father, so greets him warmly and promises to find him some employment.
Rhodophil escorts Palamede out, then brings Hermogenes, Leonidas, and Palmyra on. Leonidas and Palmyra are two beautiful orphans who were raised by Hermogenes in a fisherman's cottage, and are potential heirs to Polydamas' throne. While the courtiers don't believe that such beautiful youths would have been produced by Hermogenes, Hermogenes insists, "Why, Nature is the same in Villages,/And much more fit to form a noble issue/Where it is least corrupted."
Polydamas asks Hermogenes what has happened to the queen and young Theagenes. When Hermogenes tells him they have all died, he doesn't believe the peasant. "Whose Son is that brave Youth?" Polydamas asks, and Hermogenes tells the king that he is the king's own. Argaleon warns Polydamas not to believe Hermogenes, accusing the peasant of being opportunistic and trying to fix his own son to the throne.
When Polydamas calls Leonidas forward, the handsome youth says, "I need not this incouragement./I can fear nothing but the Gods./And for this glory, after I have seen/The Canopy of State spread wide above/In the Abyss of Heaven, the Court of Stars,/The blushing Morning, and the rising Sun,/What greater can I see?" This eloquence is enough to convince Polydamas that the youth is his son, but Argaleon still does not believe, citing the fact that Hermogenes has kept him a secret for so long. "I stay'd a while to make him worth, Sir, of you," Hermogenes says, adding that he has loved the boy as his own.
Argaleon suggests that Leonidas and Palmyra are twins and that Polydamas ought to accept the daughter into his home as well. Polydamas asks Palmyra if she is sad to not be presented as the heir to the throne, and she replies, "I am content to be what heav'n has made me." He asks if she would like to be a princess, but she tells him that she could never be Leonidas' sister, and begins to weep. When everyone leaves except Leonidas and Palmyra, Leonidas tells Palmyra that he has so many tender thoughts towards her and that in a few hours he "shall shake off these crowds of fawning Courtiers" to meet her. When he leaves, Palmyra pines for his return.
Analysis
Playwright John Dryden wastes no time establishing the major theme of the play: marital discontent and infidelity. No sooner has the first character, Doralice, entered, than she has picked up a lute and begun singing a song about how marriage is not a good thing, that love fades quickly within marriages and that it is understandable that spouses should have affairs as they choose. No sooner has she sung this song than a young man, Palamede, enters and proclaims his love for the married Doralice, in spite of the fact that he is to be married in three days.
In spite of its rather scandalous subject matter, the play has a bubbly and lighthearted tone, portraying infidelity and dishonesty with a comic touch. From one moment to the next, characters go from announcing their married status to proclaiming their love to another. These quick shifts and outrageous juxtapositions make light of the changeability of human nature, satirizing the ways that people can say one thing and do another.
Further complicating the plot and heightening the comic appeal of the play is the dramatic irony that is established in the first scene. After Palamede declares his love for Doralice, we see that he is in fact good friends with Doralice's husband, Rhodophil. It then becomes clear to the audience that Rhodophil has his eye set on Palamede's fiancée, but no one knows of the others' identities. This creates an amusingly tangled web of misinformation that only promises to delight and raise the comic stakes in the course of the play.
In addition to the comic plotline about love and marriage, there is the question of the throne and its rightful heir. Polydamas has usurped the throne from the rightful king, and in the process lost his child and heir. He must now seek out the heir in Sicily, in spite of not knowing the child's sex. Then, he is introduced to Leonidas and Palmyra, both beautiful youths who have been brought forward as potential heirs.
The play is, at its core, a comedy, and it is filled to the brim with action and plot. In the first act, we witness numerous different scenes in which different characters reveal different bits of plot and information to one another. This sets the scene for the drama to follow, some of which will be fizzy and comic, and some of which will be more serious and dramatic.
