The Maid's Tragedy

In 1611, Sir George Buck, the Master of the Revels, named The Second Maiden's Tragedy based on the resemblances he perceived between the two works.

[1] The play was entered into the Stationers' Register on 28 April 1619, and published later that year by the bookseller Francis Constable.

[2] The texts of the first quarto of 1619, and the second of 1622, are usually synthesized to create modern editions, since Q2 contains eighty lines not included in Q1, plus a couple of hundred changes and corrections on Q1.

Melantius, a young general, returns from a military campaign which he has just concluded, winning peace for Rhodes.

Aspatia's aged father Calianax and a servant are attempting to keep the populace out of the palace as the masque is for the court alone.

Outside the chamber Evadne's maid Dula jokes bawdily with her mistress, but Aspatia cannot join in the banter and announces she will die of grief, taking a last farewell of Amintor when he enters.

Left alone with her husband Evadne refuses to sleep with him and eventually reveals that the King has forcibly made her his mistress and has arranged this marriage to cover up her ‘dishonour’.

The morning after the wedding night some male courtiers are talking bawdily outside the chamber and are joined by Melantius.

He dissuades his friend from revenge and counsels patience, but once Amintor has left he begins to plot to kill the King.

In the ensuing scene with the whole court, Melantius easily outfaces Calianax's accusations and leaves him looking foolish.

Melantius, his brother Diphilus, and the unwilling Calianax are standing on the citadel explaining to the populace why the King was killed.

John Glassner once wrote that to display "the insipidity of the plot, its execrable motivation or the want of it, and the tastelessness of many of the lines one would have to reprint the play.

[4] Due to its setting on the island of Rhodes, the play has also been read in light of sixteenth-century Ottoman military expansion in the Mediterranean.