Scenes and Story
The play is divided into five scenes:
- Scene First – Court in King Hildebrand's Palace.
- Scene Second – The Gates of Castle Adamant.
- Scene Third – Grounds of Castle Adamant.
- Scene Fourth – Hildebrand's Camp before Ida's Castle.
- Scene Fifth – Inner Gate of Castle Adamant.
The plot is essentially the same as the later opera: Ida's misshapen father, King Gama, and his three hulking sons arrive at the court of King Hildebrand. They bring news that the beautiful Princess Ida, to whom Hildebrand's son, Prince Hilarion, was betrothed in infancy, will not honour her marriage vows. She rules a women's university and excludes all men from entering. Hilarion and two companions disguise themselves as female students and sneak inside the walls, but they are soon discovered, eventually causing chaos and panic, during which the prince has occasion to save Ida's life. Hildebrand agrees to give Ida a chance: The outcome of a tournament pitting her three brothers against Hilarion and his two friends will decide whether she must marry the Prince. In the battle, the Prince and his friends wound Ida's brothers, after which she accepts the Prince as her husband, admitting that she loves him (in Tennyson's poem, the Prince is defeated, but Ida, nursing him to health, comes to love him).
Read more about this topic: The Princess (play)
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