Swetnam The Woman-Hater - Synopsis

Synopsis

The play is set in Sicily, where the royal court is a grim and somber place: King Atticus is mourning the death of his eldest son and heir, Lusippus, and the prolonged absence of his second son Lorenzo. In the middle of the opening scene, news arrives that Lorenzo is missing after fighting in the Battle of Lepanto (1571), and is feared to be either dead or captured by the Ottoman Turks.

The king also has a daughter, the beautiful and spirited Leonida. Yet Atticus is displeased with her: the scions of the great royal houses of Europe have come to seek her hand in marriage, but she has imperiously refused them all. The king calls her "wanton, coy, and fickle too;" he decides to punish her by restricting her social access, and puts her in the custody of his senior courtier, Nicanor. Nicanor quickly reveals himself to be both the play's villain and its senex: though an old man himself, he wants to marry Leonida and so become king after Atticus.

The second scene introduces Swetnam and his servant Swash, the play's clown. The conceit is that Swetnam has been driven out of England by the public's righteous indignation over his anti-female slanders; he has moved to Sicily and taken to calling himself Misogynos. (The play provides the earliest known use in English of the term "misogynist.") Once in Sicily, however, he has fallen back into his old habit of traducing women, and is becoming notorious in his new country just as he was in his old.

(The play's two opening scenes create an obvious conflict in chronology: the dramatist postulates a future, post-England Swetnam, but tosses him into 1570s Sicily. Yet such anomalies are only too common in English Renaissance drama. For extreme examples of historical anomalies and chronological conflict, see The Faithful Friends and The Old Law.)

Meanwhile, the missing prince, Lorenzo, has returned clandestinely to Sicily; he wants to spy out local conditions and corruptions, unhindered by his fame and high position. Only the loyal courtier Iago is aware of his presence.

Princess Leonida's current suitor is the Spanish prince, Lisandro; when Leonida is restricted from seeing him, he decides to take the bold step of masquerading as her confessor, Friar Anthony, to see her. His ardor and persistence create an impression on the young princess, and he wins her affection. But Nicanor catches the two of them together. The young couple are put on trial for violating the king's command; in the classic fairy tale tradition, the penalty they face is death. Yet at their trial, both of the accused accept blame for the infraction and exonerate the other. The judges complain to the king that they cannot decide; the king decrees that the matter will be resolved by a debate or disputation on the question of whether men or women are the morally weaker gender.

Swetnam/Misogynos is delighted to take the male side in the dispute; the women's side is taken by Lorenzo, who has disguised himself "like an Amazon." The debate is vigorous, and Lorenzo-alias-"Atlanta" does well; but the judges are all male, and Nicanor uses his corrupting influence to turn the outcome in Swetnam's favor. True to his word, Atticus condemns his daughter to death; Lisandro is sentenced to exile. In the aftermath of the debate, Swetnam surprisingly makes romantic advances to "Atlanta." To his servant Swash, Swetnam reveals that he is in the grip of lust rather than love; but the effect is highly comic all the same. In his pursuit of "Atlanta," Swetnam exposes himself to the revenge of the Sicilian women; they capture him, imprison him, and force him to recant and repent his bigotry against them.

The play takes a specific approach to Swetnam's bias, judging his low opinion of women as a reflection of his own low quality as a human being. As Iago puts it,

He's a man,

Whose breeding has been like the Scarrabee,

Altogether upon the excrement of the time;

And being swol'n with poisonous vapors

He breaks wind in public, to blast the

Reputation of all women; his acquaintance

Has been altogether amongst whores and bawds,

And therefore speaks but in's own element.

His own unworthy foul deformity,

Because no female can affect the same,

Begets in him despair; and despair, envy.

He cares not to defame their very souls,

But that he's of the Turk's opinion: they have none.

In the main plot, Lorenzo and Iago stage a pretended execution of Leonida. When Lisandro sees a mock-up of her supposedly severed head, he stabs himself in a suicide attempt; his guards, fearing punishment, flee, and Lorenzo and Iago secure his wounded body and nurse him back to health. In the play's final scene, the disaffected court party, including Lorenzo, Iago, Leonida and Lisandro, and Queen Aurelia, stage a masque on the theme of repentance; Atticus is affected, emotionally and psychologically, by the masque, and expresses his own repentance over his course of action. Once that change of heart has been achieved, Lorenzo, Leonida, and Lisandro can reveal themselves. Nicanor's villainy is exposed, and he too repents; in the spirit of the moment, the king forgives him, and urges him to "live honestly." Leonida and Lisandro can now engage to marry, and Lorenzo is the new crown prince.