Double Falsehood

by Lewis Theobald, Michael Dobson, John Fletcher

On December 1727 an intriguing play called Double Falshood; Or, The Distrest Lovers was presented for production by Lewis Theobald, who had it published in January 1728 after a successful run at the TheatreRoyal, Drury Lane, London. The title page to the published version claims that the play was 'Written Originally by W.SHAKESPEARE'.

 

Double Falsehood's plot is a version of the story of Cardenio found in Cervantes's Don Quixote (1605) as translated by Thomas Shelton, published in 1612 though in circulation earlier. Documentary records testify to the existence of a play, certainly performed in 1613, by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare, probably entitled The History of Cardenio and presumed to have been lost. The audience in 1727 would certainly have recognized stage situations and dramatic structures and patterns reminiscent of those in Shakespeare's canonical plays as well as many linguistic echoes.

 

This intriguing complex textual and performance history is thoroughly explored and debated in this fully annotated edition, including the views of other major Shakespeare scholars. The illustrated introduction provides a comprehensive overview of the debates and opinions surrounding the play and the text is fully annotated with detailed commentary notes as in any Arden edition.

Genres: Shakespeare, Plays, Classics, Drama, Theatre, Fiction

464 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1727

About the author

Lewis Theobald, British textual editor and author, was a landmark figure both in the history of Shakespearean editing and in literary satire. He was vital for the establishment of fair texts for Shakespeare, and he was the first avatar of Dulness in Alexander Pope's The Dunciad.

Reviews

[Alp Turgut · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Cardenio" gibi Cervantes’in "Don Quijote" başyapıtından esinlenilen bir hikaye olan "Cifte İhanet ya da Dertli Aşıklar / Double Falsehood or the Distress Lovers", Shakespeare’in John Fletcher’la yazdığı son eser olmakla beraber içlerinden en Shakespeare özelliği taşıyanı. Dostu Henriquez tarafından aldatılıp sevgilisinden olan Julio’nun trajik ama mutlu sonla biten hikayesine odaklanan oyunun sorunlu oyunlardan biri olduğunu söylemek mümkün. Özellikle başlarıyla ağırlıklı olarak Shakespeare’i hissettiğimiz eserde Fletcher’ın devreye girdiği final perdeleri ne yazık ki oyunun epik havasını dağıtıyor. Buna rağmen diğer Fletcher’lı oyunlarla kıyasla hikaye örgüsü daha akıcı ve keyif verici, dili ise daha Shakespeare-vari. Kesinlikle tavsiye ederim.

03.04.2018
Kıbrıs-İstanbul

Alp Turgut

[Metin Yılmaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mutlu sonla biten bir Shakespeare hikayesi. İhanet eden karakterin en sonda çok farklı birine dönüşmesi ve hatalarını kabul etmesi bir anda iyi biri olması abartılı gelebilir. Bana az biraz öyle gibi geldi. Gerçi daha az önce bitirdim çok sıcağı sıcağına yorum yazmamak lazım :) öyküyü tekrar canlandırıp, yaşamak lazım. Ama o zamanlarda yaşamak lazım. Onur, gurur, haysiyet, özveri, karakter gibi değerlerin olduğu zamanlarda yaşamak lazım. O zamanları özleyerek ya da öyle zamanlar varmıymış diye düşünerek değil.

[Seher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oyunun hikayesi Don Quijote de geçen bir hikaye ile neredeyse birebir aynı. Ne olacağını bilmeme rağmen zevkle okudum.

[Akhilesh Sharma · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Strongly) Believed to be a jacobean adaptation of Shakespeare's and Fletcher's lost play, The History of Cardenio, which is originally based on Cervantes' highly successful Dox Quixote.

While the original manuscript or any remnants of the original play during the Stuart period have never been found, this play, Double Falsehood, an adaptation by Theobald lacks, in my personal opinion, any strikingly Shakespearean elements.

While the play is quite simple and uncomplicated, I personally found the discussion and the arguments around the origin and the controversy surrounding the source material far more interesting than the play itself.

[Tori Samar · Rating 3 out of 5]

My best understanding is that this play is thought to be an adaptation of a lost Shakespeare-Fletcher play. So how much of Shakespeare's essence carried over I don't know, but I do know I enjoyed this more than I thought I would.

(Lit Life Patreon SIAY 2023-2024)

[Robby · Rating 1 out of 5]

Shakespeare may have written part of this, but he was drunk.

[Zuzanna W · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fat waste of my time

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fine enough.

[Scout · Rating 3 out of 5]

A belated addition to the "year of Shakespeare", due to the debated authorship (a debate I find I have little actual interest in). I found the play actually quite interesting, and liked many of the characters, especially Julio, Leonora, and Camillo. A bit of the rehash of the ol' tropes, and some weird holes and pacing things, but I think it could make a great production, and there were some good lines and scenes. For some reason the whole forgiveness/reconciliation thing with Henriquez didn't ruin the rest of the play as much for me as the similar scene in Two Gentlemen of Verona did-- not sure why.

The scene with Violante and the Master may actually the scariest moment in Shakespeare (if this is Shakespeare) that I remember, because of how little I suspected it -- the convention is that nobody recognizes the girl in boy's clothing, but the Master identifies her as a girl and a potential object of lust, and turns out to have been essentially in disguise himself as a harmless unnamed extra, when instead he was a terrifying creep.

Need a prequel about whatever the hell actually happened with Don Fernand and his wife.

Thanks for the book, Neal!

[rr]

A curious play, and maybe an even curioser project to read it. The text may be an adaptation (or an adaptation of an adaptation) of a now-lost Shakespeare-Fletcher play (itself an adaptation of a story from Cervantes). As I was working through it, I realized how strange it is to be reading for glimpses of some I-know-not-what Shakespearean thing. Shakespearean echoes there are aplenty, but we can't know whether that's Shakespeare riffing on himself or later adapters building in Shakespearean resonances.

On its own, it's an odd play. I'm not sure there's a role in it that a contemporary actor would be truly excited to receive, though the female characters--Violante and Leonora--both have some good moments.

[Bettie]

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/10/ent...

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Modern authors are left to rework Shakespeare's stories; academics try to decipher who "really" wrote Shakespeare's works; however this 18th century playwright claims to have "found" a previously unpublished Shakespearean play. Theobald calls it the Double Falsehood, and indeed there are (at least) two lies/acts of falsehood that propel the plot, but nothing like the multiple plots that usually characterize the plays we generally credit to Shakespeare. And indeed there was a play called "Cardenio" with the same plot put on by the King's Men, Shakespeare's acting troupe, in 1613 and named in the 1653 register as a play by Shakespeare in collaboration with John Fletcher, but never actually published. The Cardenio story, reworked here as the Double Falsehood, appeared in Don Quixote, which had been translated into English in Shakespeare's time. The Cervantes-Shakespeare connection is a treasure trove for scholars, many of whom now authenticate Theobald's claim. There are pairs of lovers thwarted and reunited, girls disguised as boys (played by boys, of course) but in this case and uniquely in Shakespeare recognized as a girl in boy's clothing, but all comes right in the end. However tragic and cruel events occur along the way which put the play, at least chronologically, in tune with Shakespeare's romances rather than his comedies. Nevertheless the flashes of Shakespearean brilliance are not enough to overcome Fletcher and Theobald.

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

When it comes to reading, I can't resist hoaxes, forgeries, mysterious and controversial texts of all kinds. Shakesperian apocrypha is no different -- a handful of plays exists for which there is no consensus as to whether or not he wrote them, or, as is more likely in most cases, collaborated on them with fellow playwrights.

Double Falsehood is one of these. Apparently, Shakespeare cowrote a play called Cardenio in 1613, but which was never published and presumed lost. Over a hundred years later, in 1727, Shakespearean scholar Lewis Theobald published and had performed Double Falsehood, a work he claimed was a lost Shakespeare play that he salvaged from three manuscripts he found. He also apparently added some of his own content.

Cue the controversies. Is Double Falsehood a Theobald forgery? Was he taken in by a hoax? Is this the same play as Cardenio, or at least based on it? This Arden edition makes a good case that the play should be viewed as a century-long "collaboration" among Shakespeare, John Fletcher, and Theobald, and that much of the first three acts comes from the Bard himself.

But is it worth reading? Yes, absolutely. First, it ils based on a section of Don Quixote, which is interesting in its own right. It's also a solid work involving wayward sons, cross-dressing maidens, and humbled fathers. And it ends with marriages, as we would expect. Oh, and a surprisingly relevant plotline in this era of Me Too.

[Daniel Callister · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not Shakespeare exactly, but a later [100+ years] adaptation by Lewis Theobald of a [now lost] play written collaboratively by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher. Also, Cervantes maybe came up with the original story.

I like this. It was short, fairly tight, and enjoyable. If you've read all of Will's plays and wish there was something more, this fits the bill well.

The story does come across as fairly typical of Shakespeare's themes, but nobody would confuse the wording as being Shakespeare's. The story, of course, involves lots of women dressing as men, but unlike Shakespeare, 2 of the 3 instances are seen right through by the men that the disguised women are trying to fool.

**spoiler alert** In the end, the slighted lover, of course, readily forgives the false turd and everyone marries happily.

"But Pleasure is too strong for Reason's curb; And Conscience sinks o'erpower'd with Beauty's sweets"

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few years ago, some linguists compared Shakespeare's writing thumbprint to Double Falsehood and concluded that he was involved in writing this play. I mean...I guess? Perhaps in the same way that Dr. Frankenstein had someone assemble the skeleton of the monster and he applied the skin and muscles. I can see Dr. Shakespeare composing the skeleton (and maybe whole limbs!) but this is a super skinny version of what The Bard might normally write, maybe even a first draft. There are simply too few layers to be a final draft written by Shakespeare.

Not a bad play but far too simple.

Favorite line:
The voice of parents is the voice of gods
For to their children they are heav’n’s lieutenants:
Made fathers, not for common uses merely
Of procreation; ...but to steer
The wanton freight of youth through storms and dangers,
Which with full sails they bear upon

[Marta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Double Falsehood or The Distrest Lovers

Avevo sentito parlare di questa opera in W. di Jennifer Carrell (come Cardenio) ed ero molto curiosa, però per prenderla ho dovuto aspettare una super offerta dei reminders (chissà come mai non lo hanno venduto, forse perché costava 17,50€?). Non mi ha poi fatta impazzire, ci sono delle pecche nella caratterizzazione dei personaggi, che fanno cose senza senso\contraddittorie (a volte riscontrato anche negli Shakespeare ufficiali eh), tipo Leonora che allontana Julio e poi lo vuole assolutamente, oppure momenti poco chiari\assurdi, tipo Violante che non si capisce se e quando ha subito violenza da Henriquez o Julio che travestito non lo riconosce manco il padre. Insomma, niente di che.

[Mer ve Ötesi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ağustos ayının ilk kitabını bitirmiş oldum böylelikle. Sınavım bittiği için rahatça kitap okurum artık diyordum ama resmen işten güçten kırptığım vakitlerde ucu ucuna okuyabildim. Nasıl olursa olsun kitap okumak bana iyi geldi ve yaralarımı sardı diyebilirim.
Kitabın konusuna gelirsek eğer birbirlerini seven iki gencin ayrılması ve bu ayrılığa bir soylunun ihanetinin sebep olması. Bu soylu aynı zamanda kendisini seven başka bir kadına da ihanet ediyor ve olaylar bir düğüm halini alıyor. Sonrasında işler tatlıya bağlanıyor, öğütler veriliyor ve mutlu son. Bir Shakespeare klasiği tabiri caizse.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, it’s only partly by Shakespeare. I looked at it because my students wanted to do everything Shakespeare wrote, and he supposedly collaborated on this one. Unless a scholar wants to follow a story from Cervantes through its echoes in Shakespeare, Fletcher, Theobald, and others, it won’t replace. a good many comedies of the 17th century. Gary Taylor has the most scholarly reproduction. By the time it reaches Theobald, characters have changed names and events are added. The Arden edition may be better.

[Josephine · Rating 1 out of 5]

i understand i read this fast but violante makes a whole ass DEATH speech, then just reappears as a man, but not a convincing man, and then goes to the CAVE OF DEATH with julio, but just reappears as a man, and then gets back together with henriquez?

“and violante grieves, or we’re mistaken” is the most ACCURATE description of this play in the epilogue, nobody knows what that girl is up to

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading all the editorial matter and the play I do believe that This is the lost Cardenio by Wm. Shakespeare and John Fletcher. There has probably been some tampering by Theobald; as to where and how, that is not always obvious.

[Cletus Van · Rating 5 out of 5]

I truly found the scholarly work and history enthralling. This edition was really helpful in helping our actors put this show together.

[Fabiola · Rating 3 out of 5]

3-*
(Perché ci sia il nome di Shakespeare e non quello di Theobald in copertina, non me lo spiego.)

[Katsuro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perfectly decent, but to be honest, I prefer the original Cervantes version.

[Joyce · Rating 1 out of 5]

Only read this in the arden complete works so lacked the full introductory material but this is so bad that simply on reading it I don't feel a spark of Shakespeare's presence

[Bardfilm · Rating 2 out of 5]

Terrible play; pretty good introduction and accompanying apparatus.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

So so play, very sketchily based on a rediscovered play that Shakespeare may have had a hand in

[Chless · Rating 4 out of 5]

𐙚 ‧₊˚ Çifte İhanet ya da Dertli Aşıklar bitti. Klasik bir Shakespeare kitabıydı yine ihanetlerle doluydu tabi bu sefer mutlu son diyebiliriz.
4/5 veriyorum severek okudum ✨

[Rabia Harm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Diğer Shakespeare kitapları kadar iyi değil ama güzel ve akıcı.

[Will · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enter Henriquez, and Servants with Lights.

Henr. Bear the Lights close: --Where is the Musick, Sirs?

Serv. Coming, my Lord.

Henr. Let ‘em not come too near This Maid,
For whom my Sighs ride on the Night’s chill Vapour,
Is born most humbly, tho’ she be as fair
As Nature’s richest Mould and Skill can make her,
Mended with strong Imagination.
But what of That? Th’ Obscureness of her Birth
Cannot eclipse the Lustre of her Eyes,
Which make her all One Light. –Strike up, my Masters;
But touch the Strings with a religious Softness;
Teach Sound to languish thro’ the Night’s dull Ear,
‘Till Melancholy start from her lazy Couch,
And Carelessness grow Convert to Attention. [Musick plays.
She drives me into Wonder, when I sometimes
Hear her discourse; The Court, whereof Report,
And Guess alone inform her, she will rave at,
As if she there sev’n Reigns had slander’d Time.
Then, when the reasons on her Country State,
Health, Virtue, Plainess, and Simplicity,
On Beauties true in Title, scorning Art,
Freedom as well to do, as think, what’s good;
My Heart grows sick of Birth and empty Rank,
And I become a Villager in Wish.
Play on; --She sleeps too sound: --Be still, and vanish:
A Gleam of Day breaks sudden from her Window:
O Taper, graced by that midnight Hand!

Violante appears alone above at her Window.

Viol. Who is’t, that wooes at this late Hour? What are you?

Henr. One, who for your dear Sake—

Viol. Watches the starless Night!
My Lord Henriquez, or my Ear deceives me.
You’ve had my Answer, and ‘tis more than strange
You’ll combat these Repulses. Good my Lord,
Be Friend to you own Health; and give me Leave,
Securing my poor Fame, nothing to pity
What Pangs you swear you suffer. ‘Tis impossible
To plant your choice Affections in my Shade,
At least, for them to grow there.

Henr. – Why, Violante?

Viol. Alas! Sir, there are Reasons numberless
To bar your Aims. Be warn’d to Hours more wholesome;
For, These you watch in vain. I have read Stories,
(I fear, too true ones;) how young Lords, like you,
Have thus besung mean Windows, rhymed their Sufferings
Ev’n to th’Abuse of Things Divine, set up
Plain Girls, like me, the Idols of their Worship,
Then left them to bewail their easie Faith,
And stand the World’s Contempt.

Henr. – Your Memory,
Too faithful to the Wrongs of few lost Maids,
Makes Fear too general.

Viol. – Let us be homely,
And let us too be chast, doing your Lords no Wrong;
But crediting your Oaths with such a Spirit,
As you profess them: so no Party trusted
Shall make a losing Bargain. Home, my Lord,
What you can say, is most unseasonable; what sing,
Most absonant and harsh: Nay, your Perfume,
Which I smell hither, cheers not my Sense
Like our Field-violet’s Breath.

Henr. – Why, this Dismission
Does more invite my Staying.

Viol. – Men of your Temper
Make ev’ry Thing their Bramble. But I wrong
That which I am preserving, my Maid’s Name,
To hold so long Discourse. Your Virtue’s guide you
T’effect some nobler Purpose! [Ex. Violante.

Henr. Stay, bright Maid!
Come back, and leave me with a fairer Hope.
She’s gone: -- Who am I, that am thus contemn’d?
The second Son to a Prince? – Yes; well; What then?
Why, your great Birth forbids you to descend
To a low Alliance: -- Her’s is the self-same Stuff,
Whereof we Dukes are made; but Clay more pure!
And take away my Title, which is acquir’d
Not by my self, but thrown by Fortune on Me,
Or by the Merit of some Ancestour
Of singular Quality, She doth inherit
Defects t’outweigh me. – I must stoop to gain her;
Throw all my gay Comparisons aside,
And turn my proud Additions out of Service,
Rather than keep them to become my Masters.

The Dignities we wear, are Gifts of Pride;
And laugh’d at by the Wise, as meer Outside. [Exit.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 2 out of 5]

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1418060.html

The play was produced in 1727 by Lewis Theobald, who claimed to have somehow come by a lost manuscript of Shakespeare's late play Cardenio, based on an episode from Don Quixote. It's a little odd that there is no character called Cardenio in Double Falshood, the name of the character having been changed to Julio - by Shakespeare, or by Theobald? The manuscript itself has been long lost, believed destroyed in a fire in 1808. So a reasonable doubt has been hanging around the play since 1727.

Myself, though not an expert, I'm reasonably convinced that most of the first half is by Shakespeare - no particularly memorable quotes, but there's a feeling of the old master keeping his hand in. But I also suspect that Theobald edited it down - the play is much shorter, and the plot less convoluted, than we normally get with Shakespeare. A lot of the second half is clearly Theobald rather than Shakespeare or Fletcher, and the switch to eighteenth-century rather than seventeenth-century idiom is occasionally jarring.

To today's reader, the most disturbing aspect of the play is the rape of Violante by Henriquez, which takes place off stage between Act One and Act Two. Act Two then follows both Henriquez, full of guilty bluster, and Violante, injured and looking for escape, and it's in this very uncomfortable pair of scenes that one actually feels Shakespeare at work to convey the characters and feelings of two people, one of who has done something brutal and awful to the other. The rape is Shakespeare's invention; in the original Cervantes story, Dorothea is quite clear that she was seduced (and indeed married) by Fernando, who has deceived and abandoned her, but is not accused of assault. Today's readers will be squicked by the ending of Double Falshood, in which Henriquez is made to marry his victim Violante; they will be even more squicked by the eighteenth-century epilogue wondering what Violante was making such a fuss about.

I do wonder if this very uncomfortable theme was part of the reason that the play was lost. The First Folio includes several Shakespeare plays for which there is no contemporary record of performance, whereas it is known that Cardenio had several stage runs in 1614 and after; if Heminge and Condell had wanted to include it, they surely could have tracked it down. On the other hand a couple of the other late plays are also missing, so it may simply be that Heminge and Condell had better access to the earlier archives (or indeed that our records of missing plays are better for the later period).