The Rover by Aphra Behn

 Source of book: I own this.

 

Who was Aphra Behn? Have you ever heard of her? Alas, very few indeed have, even educated readers. 

 

Behn was likely the first woman in England to make her living by her writing. She wrote plays, novels, poetry, and other genres, with a prolific output. She was quite popular in her day, if a bit scandalous. 

 

Why scandalous? Well, her writing is full of sex - quite common during the Restoration period. (See my post about The Man of Mode by Sir George Etheredge.) This particular genre of comedic play centered around the “rake,” a sexually licentious character. 

 

Perhaps, though, the real reason that Behn’s plays were considered scandalous is that her female characters are equally horny - they are hardly reluctant maidens. Much like, perhaps, Behn herself. This gender-neutral frankness was popular at the time, but fell out of fashion later. 

 

Little is definitively known about Behn’s birth and childhood. There are at least three completely different stories, which she may have encouraged rather than reveal the truth. Since neither birth nor tax records can be found, very likely she changed her name as an adult. It is undisputed that she was born working class, and somehow, in an era when women were not given access to an education, she managed to become literate. 

 

It is likely that she had a brief marriage as a young woman, and was either widowed or separated from her husband soon thereafter. While not certain, it is believed that she lived briefly in Suriname, perhaps with her husband’s relatives, which gave her the experience and inspiration for her most famous work, Oroonoko, which argued against enslavement. 

 

Sometime later, her story becomes more clear. She was sent to Belgium by Charles II as a spy. Not only did he fail to support her there, he failed to pay her what he owed her, and she ended up in debt. 

 

Back in England, she reinvented herself as a playwright and author, although some gaps in her output imply that she never entirely gave up the espionage gig. 

 

Oh, and more scandal. Rather than re-marry, she lived her life like plenty of men in the Restoration era, particularly artists. She was linked with a number of men, although her longest and closest paramour was the bisexual lawyer John Hoyle. (Who had a pretty crazy life story too.) 

 

All this earned her one of the best descriptions - intended to be derogatory, but actually pretty badass: “Punk and Poet.” 

 

After the Restoration period, the typical cultural pendulum swing meant a period of puritanism - where women were expected to be demure and “modest,” and men virile and condescending - and her works and lifestyle led to her dismissal as an immoral woman with immoral writing. While men can usually survive such a fate, women rarely do, and her works fell into obscurity.

 

It was not until the 20th Century that her reputation was restored, in no small part because of feminist writers such as Virginia Woolf advocating for her merit. Changing beliefs about women also helped - while the Victorian belief that women do not like or enjoy sex continues to be pushed in some subcultures, the acknowledgement of female sexuality is becoming more and more mainstream. 

 

It is kind of weird to think that modern society is just now getting back to where it was in the 1600s on this issue, but here we are. 

 

The Rover is, as the name implies, about a rake. And it is a comedy that ends in a bunch of marriages. The plot is borrowed from Thomaso by Thomas Killegrew - Behn denied that she took much from the prior work, but it is clear that she borrowed quite a lot. This should not be taken to mean that it was plagiarized - Shakespeare himself never wrote a truly original plot or told an original story. It was all about the craftsmanship in the storytelling. 

 

The same applies here. Critics have differed on which play is better, and, as I have not read Killegrew’s version, I am not able to add my own opinion. What I can say is that Behn’s version is supremely witty, and more female-centered than anything else I have read from this era. More lines are given to the four main female characters than their corresponding male leads, and they get the best of the wit as well. 

 

The play is plenty bawdy, but not graphic. Instead, it is all about the double entendres, the multivalent meanings, and the symbolism. 

 

There are a couple of sour notes. First is that there is casual anti-semitism in the play, something all too common in Western literature. Second, there is the plot device of men treating prostitutes as fair game for rape, which isn’t funny, even if the men do get their comeuppance for it. 

 

The plot is, naturally, a bit…complicated. It is set in Spain during Carnival, and involves English military officers and gentlemen, and Spanish women. 

 

Hellena and Florinda are aristocratic sisters, whose lives have been ordered by their father and older brother, Don Pedro. Hellena is destined for the convent, while Florinda is to be married off forthwith. Don Pedro wants her to marry his buddy, Don Antonio; while her father wants her to marry the elderly Don Vincentio. Florinda, however, has fallen in love with the English colonel, Belville, and is making plans with him to elope. 

 

The sisters and their cousin, Valeria, dress up for carnival, with masks and all, so, you know - nobody knows who anyone else is. They meet a quartet of Englishmen: Belville, his buddy Frederick, Blunt - who is destined to be the butt of some humor, and Willmore - the rake of the story. Also there is Lucetta, a stock character called a “jilting wench” - she seduces Blunt and steals everything from him, including his clothes later in the play. 

 

The other three, after flirting with the ladies, decide to visit Angellica, a courtesan who is back on the market - literally. She is offering to be the paramour of whoever is willing and able to afford her price - a thousand pounds a month. 

 

Angellica is destined to be the source of two events that will become important to the plot. Willmore steals a picture of Angellica, leading her to pursue him for its return. And Don Antonio and Don Pedro get into a fight that leads to a duel challenge. 

 

Oh, and Willmore, who is too broke to afford Angellica, still manages to seduce her. 

 

From there, things get increasingly mixed up, with poor Florinda being mistaken for a prostitute multiple times, and nearly raped a couple of others. Willmore and Antonio fight, and Antonio is injured. Since he then is unable to duel, he blackmails Belville (who he thinks is the one who wounded him) into substituting for him. 

 

Except that the duel never actually happens, because everything else goes wrong - identities are mistaken and revealed, more fighting happens, witty speeches are made, and a bunch of people get married at the end. So it ends happily. 

 

Well, except maybe for Willmore, as he ends up married to Hellena, who is clearly going to run his life. 

 

The plot is clearly a bit silly (as are the plots of Shakespeare’s comedies), but the fun of the play is in the witty repartee. 

 

Here are the ones I liked the best:

 

When Willmore is trying to seduce Angellica, he complains about her expecting money. She turns it on him. 

 

ANGELLICA: Pray tell me sir, are you not guilty of the same mercenary crime, when a lady is proposed to you for a wife, you never ask, how fair - discreet - or virtuous she is; but what’s her fortune - which if but small, you cry - she will not do my business - and basely leave her, though she languish for you - say, is this not as poor?

 

I mentioned that Hellena gets many of the best lines. She is able to speak her mind at will, and she is determined that if she is indeed destined for the convent, that she get her pleasures in while she can. (Scandalous, I’m sure.) This little speech, to her sister, who is besotted by Belville, is gold. 

 

HELLENA: Hang your considering lover; I never thought beyond the fancy that ‘twas a very pretty, idle, silly kind of pleasure to pass one’s time with, to write little soft nonsensical billets, and with great difficulty and danger receive answers; in which I shall have my beauty praised, my wit admired (though little or none) and shall have the vanity and power to know I am desirable; then I have the more inclination that way, because I am to be a nun, and so shall not be suspected to have any such earthly thoughts about me - but when I walk thus - and sigh thus - they’ll think my mind’s upon my monastery, and cry, ‘how happy ‘tis she’s so resolved.

 

Later in the play, the masked Hellena flirts with Willmore. 

 

WILLMORE: Do not abuse me, for fear I should take thee at thy word, and marry thee indeed, which I’m sure will be revenge sufficient.

HELLENA:  O’ my conscience, that will be our destiny, because we are both of one humour; I am as inconstant as you, for I have considered, captain, that a handsome woman has a great deal to do whilst her face is good, for then is our harvest-time to gather friends; and should I in these days of my youth catch a fit of foolish constancy, I were undone; for ‘tis loitering by daylight in our great journey: therefore I declare, I’ll allow but one year for love, one year for indifference, and one year for hate - and then - go hang yourself - for I profess myself the gay, the kind, and the inconstant - the devil’s in’t if this won’t please you. 

 

That’s comic gold and a foreshadowing of what will happen. 

 

While the attempted rape elements don’t seem as funny as they might have 300 plus years ago, there are some lines that are rather interesting. This one, from Willmore, trying to convince the disguised Florinda (who he mistakes for a prostitute) to sleep with him, is actually something that is endemic to the Purity Culture I grew up in. 

 

FLORINDA: Heavens! What a filthy beast is this?

WILLMORE: I am so, and thou oughtest the sooner to lie with me for that reason - for look you child, there will be no sin in’t, because ‘twas neither designed nor premeditated. ‘Tis pure accident on both sides - that’s a certain thing now - indeed should I make love to you, and you vow fidelity - and swear and lie till you believed and yielded - that were to make it wilful fornication - the crying sin of the nation - thou art therefore (as thou art a good Christian) obliged in conscience to deny me nothing. 

 

If you ever wondered why conservative subcultures tend to have high teen pregnancy rates, this is it. To use contraception shows “premeditation” and makes premarital sex a greater sin than just “getting carried away by accident.” It also is why, given that the burden of preventing sex from happening is placed on the woman, that there is so often a very rape-y dynamic. The man is allowed to push, because that is supposedly his nature, but a woman is not allowed to say she wants it. (Contrast Hellena above.) So he pushes, and even perhaps “forces” her, so that she can plausibly say she tried her best, but he was just too “manly” for her, rather than admit she was horny too. That this also gives a cover to actual rapists to violate women should be obvious. It’s a fucked up system all around. 

 

Despite the problems surrounding the premise of the scene, it does become incredibly funny once Belville comes on the scene and recognizes Florinda. He and Willmore argue, culminating in this exchange:

 

WILLMORE: Thou breakfast my heart with these complains; there is no star in fault, no influence, but sack, the cursed sack I drank.

BELVILLE: Why, how the devil came you so drunk?

WILLMORE: Why, how the devil came you so sober?

 

Willmore is in for more laughs at his expense, of course. Angellica shows up - with a gun, fully intending to kill him for his betrayal and theft of her picture. The whole scene looks like it would be fun to stage, with Willmore clearly cowering from a woman who has way more huevos than he does. At one point she tells him “I scorn to cool that fire I cannot raise.” 

 

Florinda, meanwhile, escapes, but ends up having to take refuge with Blunt, who has just been robbed. Here too, she is at risk for rape, being mistaken for a prostitute, but instead, the other guys all show up. Florinda is locked in a room, while Blunt tries to talk his way out of everything. Eventually, everyone knows he has a woman locked in the room, but nobody knows who she is. Thinking that this prostitute might be fair game for anyone, they draw straws for who gets to go release her. 

 

And by “draw straws,” I really mean “have a sword measuring contest.” I am not making that up. Talk about a double entendre. And it gets weirder: the winner is Don Pedro, because he is a Spaniard. I mean, yes, the sword styles are different, so that’s kind of funny. But it also plays into the whole “browner skinned people with big dicks” stereotype that predates its use for men of African descent. (The Romans definitely had this going on, both with their preference for small penises and their portrayal of any foreign “barbarian” race as having vulgarly large equipment.) 

 

There is another line that also reminded me of a particular religious belief about sex. While Evangelicals do not tend to hold this view, it has been around for a long time, despite having zero basis in scripture. Tolstoy wrote an entire novella around the premise, actually, The Kreutzer Sonata.

 

Essentially, this belief is that the original sin in the Garden of Eden was sexual intercourse. That apple (or whatever fruit) is just a metaphor - Adam and Eve sinned by doing the nasty, and ever since, we all (or most of us) continue to sin by having sex. 

 

Yeah, that’s not a great belief, and definitely leads to problems. See for another example Augustine and his belief that, while reproduction was not sinful, sexual pleasure was. Which makes me wonder just how bad he was in bed…

 

Anyway, Belville references it when he teases Frederick for succumbing to matrimony (to Valeria.) 

 

BELVILLE: Boast, why thou dost nothing but boast; and I dare swear, wert thou as innocent from the sin of the grape, as thou art from the apple, thou mightst claim that right in Eden which our first parents lost by too much loving. 

 

At the end, there is one more scene of repartee between Willmore and Helena. He wants to sleep with her, but not marry. However, her wiles get the better of him and he ends up stuck. This exchange is fun:

 

HELLENA: And if you do not lose, what shall I get? A cradle full of noise and mischief, with a pack of repentance at my back? Can you teach me to weave inkle to pass my time with? ‘Tis upse gypsy that too.

WILLMORE: I can teach thee to weave a true love’s knot better.

HELLENA: So can my dog. 

 

One final note. Blunt swears like, well, a sailor, but with oaths that are not quite as familiar to us these days. His favorite is “sheartlikins.” Like “zounds,” which we forget is a reference to “God’s wounds” - a serious profanity - “sheartlikins” is also a profanation. It means “God’s little heart,” which seems like the “bless your little heart” of swears. It also sounds a bit like a reference to wet flatulence. 

 

I very much hope someone does this play locally, as it is quite witty, and shows a female point of view within its genre. The anti-semitic lines could easily be cut, and the attempted rape scenes reworked slightly (which would also make them funnier) but the core of the play would work well as it is. 

 

In any case, it is a shame that it has taken so long for Behn to be recognized as the important writer she is.