One of the things I love about The Knight of the Burning Pestle (c.1607) by Francis Beaumont is that it sports with all these aspects of chivalry.
The original play is actually two-plays-within-a-play. In The London Merchant, one of the sub-plays, we have a romance between a merchant's apprentice Jasper and his master's daughter Luce. For a Jacobean play, I am quite impressed by the friendship and witty equality between the two characters, especially in the more original scenes when we first meet them.
In the other sub-play, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, grocer's apprentice Rafe transforms into the eponymous knight, and recruits a squire and a dwarf to be his page. Together they head off on chivalrous adventures in far-off lands such as Waltham Forest and Moldavia, seeking to fight evil-doers and rescue distressed damsels.
These two sub-plays are tied together in the overarching main play by the Citizens - the grocer George and his wife Nell. This pair of characters remain in the audience throughout, directing and commentating whenever they can. They are the ones who demand a tale of high-flown chivalrous adventure, with the lead played by Rafe - rather than the play they are supposedly at the theatre to see, yet another everyday story about a merchant and his family woes.
George and Nell also provide an intriguing portrait of the give-and-take of a marriage. Neither of them are backward in coming forward, both of them have tempers, and I cannot imagine their household is often very peaceful. But they show real affection for and appreciation of one another. They seem a stalwart pair. In many other aspects of the whole, they make for the most unreliable of narrators, but I can't imagine them ever apart.
The Knight of the Burning Pestle is also hilarious - Full of Mirth and Delight, indeed. That's what got me in initially. But it was this exploration of chivalry and love that really kept me there.
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