Titular Violence in Beaumont and Fletcher's The Maid's Tragedy

Before she appears on stage, the jilted Aspatia of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher’s The Maid’s Tragedy (1611) receives an introduction from Lysippus, the King’s brother, that befits the play’s title: this Lady Walks discontented, with her wat’ry eyes Bent on the earth. The unfrequented woods Are her delight; and, when she sees a bank Stuck full of flowers, she with a sigh will tell Her servants what a pretty place it were To bury lovers in, and make her maids Pluck ’em, and strow her over like a corse. She carries with her an infectious grief That strikes all her beholders. (1.1.89–98) 1 How exactly Lysippus knows this information about the lady and her maidens in the “unfrequented woods” is not specified, but also not entirely necessary. Evoking other portrayals of discontented ladies in flowery nature, such as Gertrude’s strangely knowledgeable account of the drowned Ophelia, Lysippus prepares us to meet an archetypal tragic maid. His description ends with an explication of her “infectious grief,” claiming that when her “wanton” (1.1.101) young ladies Tell mirthful tales in course that fill the room With laughter, she will with so sad a look Bring forth a story of the silent death Of some forsaken virgin, which her grief Will put in such a phrase, that ere she end, She’ll send them weeping one by one away. (1.1.102–7) Yet after hearing Lysippus’s tale of Aspatia’s contagious woe that sends others away in tears, the audience watches the opposite happen in The Maid’s Tragedy .