Four Plays in One

Initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647, the play is notable both for its unusual form and for the question of its authorship.

Since Ben Jonson effectively invented the anti-masque in The Masque of Queens, which was performed and published early in 1609, it seems unlikely that Four Plays in One could be earlier than that.

Traditional critics assumed that Francis Beaumont was the author of the first two "triumphs" — until E. H. C. Oliphant introduced the hypothesis that Nathan Field was involved in the work's creation.

Since Field was acting with The Queen's Revels Children in the 1608–13 period, these conjoined hypotheses of author, date, and company are mutually supportive.

The two authors depended on a variety of earlier works and writers for source material and precedents, including the Trionfi of Petrarch, the novels of Giovanni Boccaccio and Matteo Bandello (sometimes through English translations and adaptations, as in The Palace of Pleasure by William Painter), and "The Franklin's Tale" in The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer.

The king and queen are treated with the very elaborate courtly flattery of the time, praised as "gracious and excellent," "virtuous and beautiful," joined in a union that will produce "millions of prosperous seeds," etc.

The dramatists' choice of this particular couple may seem odd at first, since Isabella died in childbirth after only a year of marriage – but Death is one of the four elements of the play.

The Triumph of Honor The first short play portrays the Roman general Martius after his victory over Sophocles, the ruler of Athens.

In defeat, the unbowed will of Sophocles and the grace of his wife Dorigen earn the respect and magnanimity of their Roman conquerors.