''The False One'' is a late
Jacobean stage play by
John Fletcher and
Philip Massinger, though formerly placed in the
Beaumont and Fletcher
Beaumont and Fletcher were the English dramatist
A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between characters and is intended for theatrical performance rather t ...
canon. It was first published in the
first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.
This classical history tells of the meeting and romance of
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caesar's civil wa ...
and
Cleopatra
Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (; The name Cleopatra is pronounced , or sometimes in both British and American English, see and respectively. Her name was pronounced in the Greek dialect of Egypt (see Koine Greek phonology). She was ...
, and the betrayal and death of
Pompey the Great at the hands of one of his own officers, the "false one" of the title.
Date
Scholars date the play to the 1619–20 period, partly because of parallels with the political situation in
Jacobean era
The Jacobean era was the period in English and Scotland, Scottish history that coincides
with the reign of James VI and I, James VI of Scotland who also inherited the crown of England in 1603 as James I. The Jacobean era succeeds the Elizabeth ...
England at the time. It was originally staged by the
King's Men; the cast list provided in the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1679 names
John Lowin,
Joseph Taylor,
John Underwood,
Nicholas Tooley,
Robert Benfield,
John Rice,
Richard Sharpe, and
George Birch. The presence of Taylor, who replaced
Richard Burbage
Richard Burbage (6 January 1567 – 13 March 1619) was an English stage actor, widely considered to have been one of the most famous actors of the Globe Theatre and of his time. In addition to being a stage actor, he was also a theatre owne ...
after Burbage's death in the spring of 1619, indicates a date after that time.
Authorship
Given Fletcher's highly distinctive pattern of stylistic and textual preferences, scholars have found it fairly easy to distinguish the shares of the two authors in the play. Commentators from E. H. C. Oliphant to
Cyrus Hoy have agreed that Massinger wrote Act I and Act V, while Fletcher wrote Acts II, III, and IV – the same division of labour as in ''
The Elder Brother.''
Characters
*Julius Cæsar, Emperor of Rome.
*Ptolomy, King of Egypt.
*Achoreus, an honest Counsellor, Priest of Isis.
*Photinus, a Politician, minion to Ptolomy.
*Achillas, Captain of the Guard to Ptolomy.
*Septimius, a revolted Roman Villain.
*Labienus, a Roman Soldier, and Nuncio.
*Apollodorus, Guardian to Cleopatra.
*Antony,}
*Dolabella} Cæsar's Captains.
*Sceva, a free Speaker, also Captain to Cæsar.
*Guard.
*Three lame Soldiers.
*Servants.
*Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. Cæsar's Mistress.
*Arsino, Cleopatra's Sister.
*Eros, Cleopatra's waiting Woman.
Plot
The dramatists chose to portray only the beginning of the story of Caesar and Cleopatra in their play; they concentrate on the events of 48 BC. The play is set in
Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
; at its start, the
Pharaoh
Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''wikt:pr ꜥꜣ, pr ꜥꜣ''; Meroitic language, Meroitic: 𐦲𐦤𐦧, ; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') was the title of the monarch of ancient Egypt from the First Dynasty of Egypt, First Dynasty ( ...
Ptolemy XIII
Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator (, ''Ptolemaĩos''; c. 62 BC – 13 January 47 BC) was Pharaoh of Egypt from 51 to 47 BC, and one of the last members of the Ptolemaic dynasty (305–30 BC). He was the son of Ptolemy XII and the brother of and co ...
has sequestered his sister/wife/queen Cleopatra and has assumed sole rule of the kingdom, and the
Battle of Pharsalia has not yet occurred. By the play's end, Caesar has deposed Ptolemy and placed Cleopatra in sole possession of the Egyptian crown. The play's Prologue specifically states that the work shows a virginal "Young Cleopatra...and her great Mind / Express'd to the height...." Some of the famous aspects of the story are reproduced in the play: Cleopatra has herself delivered to Caesar in Act III, though enclosed in a "packet" rather than rolled up in a rug.
The playwrights chose to concentrate much of their attention on the figure of
Lucius Septimius, the Roman officer who betrayed, murdered, and decapitated
Pompey the Great when Pompey landed in Egypt after his Pharsalia defeat (events depicted in Act II). Septimius is the "false one" of the title, and his prominence comes close to turning the work into a "villain play." Yet Septimius is portrayed as lacking any redeeming or sympathetic quality, making him a weak prop on which to mount a drama. The authors' choice in this matter may have been dictated by their desire to comment on contemporaneous political events; in this interpretation, the Pompey of the play represents Sir
Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh (; – 29 October 1618) was an English statesman, soldier, writer and explorer. One of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era, he played a leading part in English colonisation of North America, suppressed rebell ...
, executed in 1618, while the loathsome reprobate Septimius stands for Raleigh's primary accuser, Sir
Lewis Stukeley.
Critics have seen the influence of
Shakespeare's ''
Antony and Cleopatra
''Antony and Cleopatra'' is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The play was first performed around 1607, by the King's Men at either the Blackfriars Theatre or the Globe Theatre. Its first appearance in print was in the First Folio published ...
'' in ''The False One,'' and have suggested that the portrayal of Septimius was partially modelled on Shakespeare's Enobarbus. ''The False One'' is heavily dominated by political material, rather than dramatic realisations of its characters; for some critics, the split in the play's focus among Cleopatra, Caesar, and Septimius prevents the play from cohering into an effective dramatic whole.
Related works
The collaborators' primary source for their play was the ''
Pharsalia
''De Bello Civili'' (; ''On the Civil War''), more commonly referred to as the ''Pharsalia'' (, neuter plural), is a Latin literature, Roman Epic poetry, epic poem written by the poet Lucan, detailing the Caesar's civil war, civil war between Ju ...
'' of
Lucan.
The historical characters of the play – primarily Caesar and Cleopatra, but also Pompey and even Septimius – have attracted the attention of various dramatists. Apart from the famous works of Shakespeare and
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...
, other instances can be noted.
George Chapman
George Chapman ( – 12 May 1634) was an English dramatist, translator and poet. He was a classical scholar whose work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman is seen as an anticipator of the metaphysical poets of the 17th century. He is ...
's ''
Caesar and Pompey,'' perhaps his most obscure play, may date from c. 1613. It was followed by
Thomas May's ''The Tragedy of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt'' (1626), Sir
Charles Sedley's ''Antony and Cleopatra'' (1677), and
John Dryden
John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate.
He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration (En ...
's ''
All for Love'' (1678) – the last, one of Dryden's great successes. Similarly,
Katherine Philips's translation of
Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille (; ; 6 June 1606 – 1 October 1684) was a French tragedian. He is generally considered one of the three great 17th-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine.
As a young man, he earned the valuable patronage ...
's ''La Mort de Pompée'' (1643)
[Eugene M. Waith, "The Death of Pompey: English Style, French Style," in: ''Shakespeare and Dramatic Tradition,'' William R. Elton and William B. Long, eds., Newark, DE, University of Delaware Press, 1989; pp. 276–85.] was a stage hit in London in 1663. As late as 1910,
John Masefield
John Edward Masefield (; 1 June 1878 – 12 May 1967) was an English poet and writer. He was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate from 1930 until his death in 1967, during which time he lived at Burcot, Oxfordshire, near Abingdon ...
treated Pompey and Septimius in his ''The Tragedy of Pompey the Great.''
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:False One, The
English Renaissance plays
Depictions of Cleopatra in plays
Depictions of Julius Caesar in plays
1610s plays
Plays by John Fletcher (playwright)
Plays by Philip Massinger
Plays by John Fletcher and Massinger