The Dutch Courtesan

Although it was written shortly before or after Queen Elizabeth's death

in 1603 and performed by the boy company at Blackfriars, this play

foreshadows the light ladies and callous gallants of Restoration

comedy. Passion is a scourge, love is humiliation, and friends might as

well be enemies. Freevill discards his concubine Franceschina and, for

a joke, sets his straight-laced friend Malheureux on to her, who falls

for her and promises to carry out her revenge on Freevill by killing

him. The play in the theatre, which is fully imagined in the

introduction to this edition, impresses on the audience the

spuriousness of rigid moral persuasions, especially when they are tried

by fits of sexual passion.