Fidele and Fortunio by Anthony Munday
Three Ladies of London - Anonymous.
Two plays from 1584/5 which Shakespeare might have seen when he first came to London in the mid 1580’s. Fidele and Fortunio as presented by Munday looks forward to the great drama that was to come at the end of the 16th century while Three ladies of London looks back towards an earlier era of morality plays. Both plays were popular enough to go into print and both have survived through the intervening centuries. I read them back to back on a misty, rainy afternoon in the French winter countryside and they lightened the gloom.

Anthony Munday (1560-1633) had a long career as a playwright, novelist, translator, entertainments for Lord Mayors shows, pamphleteer and spy. He was a man who seemed to have lived by his pen in what could be described as the popular media. He could certainly put words together and over 200 works have been attributed to him, but critical opinion says he was no poet. Fidele and Fortunato was registered in 1585 and described as a translation, which is probably why it has been attributed solely to Munday at a time when many plays for the London playhouses were collaborations. Munday’s play was more like a construction or interpretation from ‘Il Fedele’ which was an Italian Renaissance comedy by the Venetian playwright Pasqualigo.

For the London Stage Munday made some significant alterations. He excluded many of the minor characters adapting the plot to fit the reduced number of players. He removed much of the misogyny which was a feature of Italian comedy at the time and developed the characters a little better, while maintaining the touch of a light frothy comedy. The skeleton of the plot remains close to the original with its intrigues, star crossed lovers, magic charms, disguises and misunderstandings and it is set in Italy. It also has a standard funny character in the blustering, self important, but ultimately stupid Captain Crackstone. The play starts with the sad faced Fidele returning from the wars wanting to marry the woman he loves Victoria, however Fortunio has also fallen in love and in Fidele’s absence has been wooing Victoria for himself. Fortunio fearing Fidele’s return enlists the help of Captain Crackstone, but Crackstone hatches a plot to discredit Victoria with Fidele and Fortunio so that he can have her for himself. Victoria loves Fortunio and she hires the sorceress Medusa to use her magic, meanwhile Fidele asks his old schoolmaster Pedante for his help and he promptly falls in love with Victoria’s maid. Fortunio is fooled by Pedante in disguise and turns his attentions to Virginia who is in love with Fidele. The climax of the play is when Crackstone overplays his hand and ends up caught in a net by the city guards while he is disguised as Pedante. It all ends happily with the lovers getting the partners of their choosing.

The action has been speeded up from the original by Munday and there is hardly a dull moment with some witty dialogue and asides to the audience.

This is one of Crackstones asides to the audience when he is disguised as Pedante the schoolmaster; it is amusing as well as serving to move the plot along:

Crack-stone.
Softe, for it is night, I must not make any noyse I trowe:
Me thinks this apparell makes me learnd,
which of all these Starres doo I knowe.
Yonder is the gréen Dog, and the blew Beare,
Harry Horners Girdle, and the Lyons eare.Me thinkes I should spowt Lattin before I beware,
Argus mecum insputare?
Cur Canis tollit poplitem,
Cum mingit in parietem?
Alice tittle tattle Mistres Victoriaes Maid:
If I speake like the Schoolmaister, shée will neuer be afraid.
As soon as she opens the doore to let mée in:
With my Ropericall aliquanci I will begin.
Swinum, Velum, Porcum. Graye-goosorum iostibus:

Enter Fede¦le and Pe∣dante.
Rentibus dentibus, lofadishibus, come after vs.
I haue berayed my selfe I think with speaking so high:
This is Sir Fedele that is so nigh.
Till he be past it were not good for mée to appéere:
Therfore Ile slip into the Temple, and hide me in the Tombe that standeth héere.

Of course the scene ends with Crackstone rising from the tomb in which he has been hiding and frightening everyone to death.

The Three ladies was entered into the registry by author unknown in 1585 and it has the trappings of a morality play, while ignoring any religious connotations. The three ladies in question are. Fame, Love and Conscience and they are all in pursuit of Lucre. The characters of Dissimilation and Simplicity do battle with Fraud and Userie. Mercadore an Italian merchant arrives and he speaks in Pidgin English, he attempts to use Fraud and Userie to gain Lucre as do a Lawyer and an Artificier. Hospitality a dry old man appears on the scene and he is promptly murdered by Userie and so it goes on……….. The plot is threadbare to say the least and serves to highlight the dangers of Fraud, Userie and the pursuit of Lucre, There are no real characters and while some of the dialogue is fairly well written and probably was written to amuse as well as instruct the audience, it feels heavy and leaden beside Fidele and Fortunio.

The two plays serve to show the variety and development of drama in late Tudor England and paved the way for the explosion of talented playwrights who were just round the corner. While reading the plays it is interesting to imagine them being performed on stage and while Fidele and Fortunio would provide some entertainment, I cannot see how Three Ladies of London would be made to work and so I rate Fidele and Fortunio as 3 stars and Three Ladies of London as 2 stars. ( )