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Captive Moor Abdelazer seeks revenge on the Spanish king who killed his father and becomes the Queen’s lover. They poison the King and Prince Ferdinand, but Abdelazer later betrays the Queen, courts Princess Leonora and falls from power; Prince Philip ascends the throne, and Abdelazer is captured and killed.
Venetian nobleman Camillo entrusts his French prisoner Fontinelle to his sister Violetta, but they fall in love and marry secretly. Camillo and Hippolito try to divert Fontinelle toward the courtesan Imperia; their plotting succeeds only temporarily, and Violetta uses a bed trick to consummate her marriage.
In the Spanish court, Moorish prince Eleazar uses the Queen Mother’s passion to advance his claim to the crown. He manipulates her into killing her son, then kills her and betrays his own wife to wound a cardinal before murdering the king; his schemes ultimately fail and he dies unrepentant.
In an imaginary Spanish court, the king takes the married Tormiella from her shoemaker husband, while his brother plots to usurp the throne and the queen plots against her rival. A revenge scheme and a succession of apparent deaths, executions, and reversals ultimately lead the king to send Tormiella back to her husband and forgive his enemies.
In London and nearby Ware, two gallants use a stolen ring to make Mayberry suspect his wife, while Mayberry and his friend Bellamont plot revenge. Parallel schemes involving a con artist, Doll, and an adulterous couple unravel as the travelers head north, exposing the deceivers and forcing them into unintended marriages.
A poor basket-maker's virtuous daughter, Grissil, marries the Marquess of Salucia, who subjects her to humiliations and cruelties to test her patience. The comedy reworks the Griselda folktale and examines marriage, social rank, and authority.
A satirical response to Ben Jonson's The Poetaster, presenting the character Horace as Jonson and mocking his claim to independent moral authority. The play combines a tragic main plot with a comic subplot.
After Edward VI’s death, Northumberland secures the throne for Lady Jane Grey, while Thomas Wyatt urges Mary to assert her claim. When Mary becomes queen and accepts a Spanish marriage, Wyatt rebels from Kent; the uprising fails, and Wyatt, Jane and Guildford Dudley are executed.
A tyrant seizes Lydia's throne and has Prince Tymethes killed after a web of courtly desire and betrayal. He forces Tymethes's lover, the Young Queen, to eat his remains at a banquet; the exiled king and Lapyrus return in disguise and overthrow the tyrant.
In Milan, Bellafront, a prostitute, resolves to leave that life after Hippolito rebukes her. In a parallel comic plot, Viola repeatedly tries to provoke her patient husband Candido into anger. The plots converge at Bethlem, where Bellafront helps reconcile Hippolito and Infelice and Candido is released.
In the second part, Hippolito develops a violent desire for Bellafront, who refuses to give up her renewed virtue despite hardship. Parallel actions by Hippolito's wife and Bellafront's father bring the story to a happy ending.
After the Spanish king repudiates Onaelia and their son to marry Paulina, the soldier Balthazar tries to make him restore Onaelia. Court factions plot against her and the child, but the conspiracies unravel at a wedding banquet, where the king dies and leaves the crown to Sebastian.
Fortunatus chooses wealth over wisdom when Fortune offers him gifts and receives a purse that supplies gold. After his death, his sons inherit the purse and a magical travel hat, but their pursuit of pleasure and power brings deception, transformation and ruin; the play ends by asking Elizabeth I to judge whether Vice or Virtue has triumphed.
To win his father's consent to marry Mary Fitz-Allard, Sebastian pretends to pursue Moll Cutpurse, a notorious cross-dressing Londoner. Moll helps the couple outwit their fathers while defending herself against slander and thieves; in parallel, a gallant manipulates a shopkeeper's wife and husband for money.
Aristocrat Rowland Lacy disguises himself as a shoemaker to remain in London and pursue Rose Otley, while shoemaker Simon Eyre rises to become Lord Mayor. Meanwhile, returned soldier Ralph reunites with Jane after she is misled into believing he died, and the King pardons Lacy and blesses the marriages.
A nobleman abducts and rapes Clara, then later seeks to atone, while a separate plot follows nobleman Don John joining a gypsy troupe to court Pretiosa. The plots converge through mistaken identities, family revelations and reconciliation.
Raybright, the Sun's child, is given a year to experience earthly pleasures across the four seasons. Led astray by Humor and Folly, he fails to find satisfaction until the Sun warns him to resist them and seek harmony.
In Diocletian’s Rome, Christian Dorothea is arrested by the persecutor Theophilus, whose aide Harpax is a devil in disguise. Dorothea’s faith converts Theophilus’s daughters, but he kills them and Dorothea is executed; an angel’s gift of heavenly fruit later converts Theophilus, who is himself tortured and dies in a state of bliss.
The ostracized Elizabeth Sawyer turns to witchcraft and gains a devil-dog familiar called Tom. In parallel, Frank Thorney enters a bigamous marriage and murders Susan while trying to escape with his first wife Winnifride. The play also follows the innocent clown Cuddy Banks, whom the dog cannot corrupt.
In a satirical London comedy, merchant Justiniano disguises himself to test his wife and manipulate a circle of citizens and their wives. The wives plan an outing to Brentford with gallants, while their husbands suspect adultery; the trip instead exposes the husbands’ jealousy and leaves the couples reconciled.
Captive Moor Abdelazer seeks revenge on the Spanish king who killed his father and becomes the Queen’s lover. They poison the King and Prince Ferdinand, but Abdelazer later betrays the Queen, courts Princess Leonora and falls from power; Prince Philip ascends the throne, and Abdelazer is captured and killed.
Venetian nobleman Camillo entrusts his French prisoner Fontinelle to his sister Violetta, but they fall in love and marry secretly. Camillo and Hippolito try to divert Fontinelle toward the courtesan Imperia; their plotting succeeds only temporarily, and Violetta uses a bed trick to consummate her marriage.
In the Spanish court, Moorish prince Eleazar uses the Queen Mother’s passion to advance his claim to the crown. He manipulates her into killing her son, then kills her and betrays his own wife to wound a cardinal before murdering the king; his schemes ultimately fail and he dies unrepentant.
In an imaginary Spanish court, the king takes the married Tormiella from her shoemaker husband, while his brother plots to usurp the throne and the queen plots against her rival. A revenge scheme and a succession of apparent deaths, executions, and reversals ultimately lead the king to send Tormiella back to her husband and forgive his enemies.
In London and nearby Ware, two gallants use a stolen ring to make Mayberry suspect his wife, while Mayberry and his friend Bellamont plot revenge. Parallel schemes involving a con artist, Doll, and an adulterous couple unravel as the travelers head north, exposing the deceivers and forcing them into unintended marriages.
A poor basket-maker's virtuous daughter, Grissil, marries the Marquess of Salucia, who subjects her to humiliations and cruelties to test her patience. The comedy reworks the Griselda folktale and examines marriage, social rank, and authority.
A satirical response to Ben Jonson's The Poetaster, presenting the character Horace as Jonson and mocking his claim to independent moral authority. The play combines a tragic main plot with a comic subplot.
After Edward VI’s death, Northumberland secures the throne for Lady Jane Grey, while Thomas Wyatt urges Mary to assert her claim. When Mary becomes queen and accepts a Spanish marriage, Wyatt rebels from Kent; the uprising fails, and Wyatt, Jane and Guildford Dudley are executed.
A tyrant seizes Lydia's throne and has Prince Tymethes killed after a web of courtly desire and betrayal. He forces Tymethes's lover, the Young Queen, to eat his remains at a banquet; the exiled king and Lapyrus return in disguise and overthrow the tyrant.
In Milan, Bellafront, a prostitute, resolves to leave that life after Hippolito rebukes her. In a parallel comic plot, Viola repeatedly tries to provoke her patient husband Candido into anger. The plots converge at Bethlem, where Bellafront helps reconcile Hippolito and Infelice and Candido is released.
In the second part, Hippolito develops a violent desire for Bellafront, who refuses to give up her renewed virtue despite hardship. Parallel actions by Hippolito's wife and Bellafront's father bring the story to a happy ending.
After the Spanish king repudiates Onaelia and their son to marry Paulina, the soldier Balthazar tries to make him restore Onaelia. Court factions plot against her and the child, but the conspiracies unravel at a wedding banquet, where the king dies and leaves the crown to Sebastian.
Fortunatus chooses wealth over wisdom when Fortune offers him gifts and receives a purse that supplies gold. After his death, his sons inherit the purse and a magical travel hat, but their pursuit of pleasure and power brings deception, transformation and ruin; the play ends by asking Elizabeth I to judge whether Vice or Virtue has triumphed.
To win his father's consent to marry Mary Fitz-Allard, Sebastian pretends to pursue Moll Cutpurse, a notorious cross-dressing Londoner. Moll helps the couple outwit their fathers while defending herself against slander and thieves; in parallel, a gallant manipulates a shopkeeper's wife and husband for money.
Aristocrat Rowland Lacy disguises himself as a shoemaker to remain in London and pursue Rose Otley, while shoemaker Simon Eyre rises to become Lord Mayor. Meanwhile, returned soldier Ralph reunites with Jane after she is misled into believing he died, and the King pardons Lacy and blesses the marriages.
A nobleman abducts and rapes Clara, then later seeks to atone, while a separate plot follows nobleman Don John joining a gypsy troupe to court Pretiosa. The plots converge through mistaken identities, family revelations and reconciliation.
Raybright, the Sun's child, is given a year to experience earthly pleasures across the four seasons. Led astray by Humor and Folly, he fails to find satisfaction until the Sun warns him to resist them and seek harmony.
In Diocletian’s Rome, Christian Dorothea is arrested by the persecutor Theophilus, whose aide Harpax is a devil in disguise. Dorothea’s faith converts Theophilus’s daughters, but he kills them and Dorothea is executed; an angel’s gift of heavenly fruit later converts Theophilus, who is himself tortured and dies in a state of bliss.
The ostracized Elizabeth Sawyer turns to witchcraft and gains a devil-dog familiar called Tom. In parallel, Frank Thorney enters a bigamous marriage and murders Susan while trying to escape with his first wife Winnifride. The play also follows the innocent clown Cuddy Banks, whom the dog cannot corrupt.
In a satirical London comedy, merchant Justiniano disguises himself to test his wife and manipulate a circle of citizens and their wives. The wives plan an outing to Brentford with gallants, while their husbands suspect adultery; the trip instead exposes the husbands’ jealousy and leaves the couples reconciled.