"Chapman depicts [...] the pupil/master relationship between Pompey and Cato the Younger in Stoic philosophy. Chapman's sources were Thomas North's translation of the Parallel Lives of Plutarch, and the Pharsalia of Lucan, and, among more abstruse works, the Contra Celsum of Origen. [...] Commentators have also noted that the play has a relationship with the traditional morality plays of the Middle Ages; it even includes a devil." - Wikipedia
Not sure what is happening here, but pretty sure it is something weird. The play is available and downloadable on archive.org.
re: the last catiline tag. do you know if there's a place to find the ben jonson play online :0
yes! you can read it here! be warned that sometimes the text is a bit fucked (e.g. VV for W) but have fun! there are so many plays about roman history from this period and loads of them are online and they're terrible and so fun to read!!!
Here I am replaying Open Heart and going for the competitve route.
OH MY GOD! I TELL YOU I GASPED WHEN I SAW THE OLD HOSPITAL AGAIN 😭. It looks so much prettier than Bloom Edenbrook but we’re in the first book SOO Book 2 and Book 3 don’t exist. Welcome to Edenbrook, Indeed! I am excited!
INES! My darling, yes I am lost, I’m so excited to start off my residency. 🥳
Hi Priya! I’m about to put you through your residency for the third time now. You will totally focus on your studies and not fall for hot attendings.
Ines your photo does look good! Priya isn’t all that and trust me when you get to know her, you’ll feel sad. 😂
Yeah Priya, pack your bags you’re getting married instead! 😂 I feel like an Asian mother who’s watching her daughter at school. Priya you technically aren’t a real doctor because you didn’t do your board exams 😂 But sure you do you boo!
Me every time I try to justify University, except it wasn’t med school it was A-Levels.
Priya, I am counting on you to make the most of your time and ensuring you do well. Also I don’t want you to stress. We would’nt any life threatening ... accidents 😂
Priya I give you permission to mess stuff up and cause chaos.
Oh baby, I promise you will meet Ethan soon and you will be the best doctor in the world! I guarantee that!
born in the wrong generation bcs my soulmate should have been “R.I.” who wrote to notes and queries: a medium of inter-communication for literary men, general readers, etc. in december 1863 to ask a question about an early (potentially non-existent) 17th century play that i am also asking questions about in december 2021
PLEASE tell us more about how cicero's countenance was a civil war itself!!!! you have sparked my curiosity and i don't think i've gotten to read you ranting about it yet :0
OH i will never pass up an opportunity to recommend catiline his conspiracy, 1611, by ben jonson! im lowkey obsessed w this epic fun sexy terrible play which audiences enjoyed when it was first performed Until it got to the entire first catilinarian oration in iambic pentameter, at which point they booed it off stage. it was vaguely popular in the 17th-19th centuries until it Wasn't, and as far as i can tell the most recent performance was a one off, abridged to Only One Hour at the rsc in 1963. greg doran (my sworn foe for this very reason) ALMOST put it on for the treason vibes of the anniversary of the gunpowder plot in 2005 but then DIDNT and directed sejanus his fall instead? and was like wow i'd love to do catiline his conspiracy some time :) and then directed the robert harris cicero plays in which catiline was character assassinated even more than he is in the robert harris cicero Books instead. Not Ideal, Scoob.
anywayyy "his countenance was a civil war itself" is something petreius (general who defeated catiline's army) says about catiline (not cicero) in a speech narrating the battle of pistoria (in which catiline Fucking Died rip) and it! bops. like yea ok in julius caesar there's "poor brutus with himself at war" but that's like. pre brutus being Actually In a civil war. i think it's a much stronger description of catiline Physically On a civil war battlefield becoming like that quote i reblogeed yesterday said. an embodied warzone.
alSO ben jonson had a Thing abt making his roman characters sound like "real romans" by giving them dialogue borrowed from Real Writing by Real Romans. apart from the catilinarian orations there's also a Lot of seneca and lucan and uhh plutarch? the roman lives count ig. a Lot of petreius' speech borrows from lucan's pharsalia (particularly book 7 abt the battle of pharsalus bcs every civil war battlefield is haunted by every other civil war battlefield. pistoria is pharsalus is philippi. I'm Right) and the lines before and after His Countenance Was A Civil War Itself are all translations of lucan.
but that line isn't! or if it is, i haven't noticed which line of lucan it is and neither have bolton and gardner, who edited the edition of the play with All The References To Classical Texts In An Appendix. BUT tbh they could just not be catching them all bcs To Me that line is veeery similar to cicero's description of catiline as having "such an amalgam of natural inclinations and passions that were contradictory, divergent and at war with one another (inter se pugnantibus)" in the pro caelio like YES ben jonson take cicero's description and go nuts with it.
i literally have to stop here because i love petreius' speech so much it's SO haunted and lucancore (bcs a lot of it is lucan) and hhhgfhhh battle of pistoria huge sexy if i think about it too hard i will Not be able to get to sleep. but yea catiline his conspiracy IS a good play actually. lucius sergius catilina (The Consul Of My Heart) has done nothing wrong in his life ever <3
