The Rover

“Now hang me if I don’t love thee for that dear disobedience. I love mischief strangely, as most of our sex do, who are come to love nothing else.”

Hellena is more rebellious than her sister, and she is excited when the more obedient Florinda, fed up with having her life controlled, has reached the point of rebellion herself. Hellena attributes a love of mischief to all women, suggesting that all women are itching to take agency in their lives, which is viewed as being troublesome.

“I hate Don Vincentio, sir, and I would not have a man so dear to me as my brother follow the ill customs of our country, and make a slave of his sister.—And sir, my father’s will, I’m sure, you may divert.”

Florinda draws the connection between a traditional custom that is socially expected for women—an arranged marriage—and slavery, which amounts to treating her like property to be sold. She is also pointing out that Don Pedro has the authority to save her from this fate, but Don Pedro decides instead to force her into the same circumstances with a seemingly more desirable husband, missing the point that the problem is the removal of her freedom.

FREDERICK: What the devil are we made of, that we cannot be thus concerned for a wench?

BLUNT: ‘Sheartlikins, our Cupids are like cooks of the camp—they can roast or boil a woman, but they have none of the fine tricks to set ’em off, no hogoes to make the sauce pleasant, and the stomach sharp.

This exchange humorously highlights the change in attitude from the romantic characters of the era before the interregnum and the dismissal of romanticism by Restoration Comedy characters. However, it also emphasizes the misogyny of libertine sexuality and foreshadows the much darker moments later in the play, when Frederick will join with Blunt to treat Florinda like a piece of meat for their unceremonious consumption.

“But gentlemen, you may be free; you have been kept so poor with parliaments and protectors, that the little stock you have is not worth preserving—but I thank my stars, I had more grace than to forfeit my estate by cavaliering.”

Blunt is feigning humility to brag that he has maintained his wealth by acting like his money is a burden that keeps him from being free. His statement is an example of Blunt’s customary condescension and why the other men do not actually like him. It also valorizes the Cavaliers for giving up everything to fight for the king, and frames those who did not do so as witless cowards.

“I like their sober grave way, ’tis a kind of legal authorized fornication, where the men are not chid for’t, nor the women despised, as amongst our dull English.”

Willmore is noting and appreciating the Carnival as a tradition that would be considered too lascivious for the “dull English.” Although sexual indulgence was certainly a part of the Carnivalesque, the rest of the play demonstrates that fornication for women is not a free-for-all, especially women who are still expected to maintain their virginity. Willmore is suggesting that perhaps the English could do with this sort of vacation from social rules.

“A nun! Oh, how I love thee for’t! There’s no sinner like a young saint.”

Willmore’s exclamation upon learning that Hellena is about to become a nun is in line with the Carnivalesque, subverting the notion of a “young saint” by calling her a “sinner” at heart. This suggests that Willmore recognizes in Hellena, and other women of virtue, a taboo desire for sex and excess that is exacerbated by the enforced rigidity of their lives. He is also excited about the idea of helping a young woman become corrupted.

“Why must we be either guilty of fornication or murder if we converse with you men?—And is there no difference between leave to love me, and leave to lie with me?”

Hellena is acutely aware of the consequences of stepping outside of gendered expectations for women, but she is also very curious about love. Willmore begs her to take him home or he will die. Hellena makes the point that it makes no sense that a simple conversation with a man should make her culpable for whatever happens if he should become infatuated with her. Hellena questions the difference between love and lust, as Willmore expresses his desires in a way that frequently conflates the two in an effort to confound women and have sex with them.

“I thought how right you guessed, all men are in love, or pretend to be so.”

Belvile fails to recognize that he is talking to Florinda, who has read his palm and told him that he is a lover. Belvile is uninterested, because he is faithful to Florinda even when he does not think anyone is watching, but he sees this as an obvious statement. There are men who are in love like Belvile, and then there are men who are faking love to coerce women into sex. These things should be opposites, but in practice, they are not always so distinct.

“Because whatever extravagances we commit in these faces, our own may not be obliged to answer for them.”

It is ironic that Belvile says this about wearing masks, because Belvile is the one man who never seeks out extravagances—his only goal is to marry Florinda. But this statement defines the way the Carnivalesque functions throughout the play, and the way masks and costumes constitute a change for the characters into new and freer selves.

“The rogue’s stark mad for a wench.”

Frederick, who has already expressed his inability to care much about women beyond a night of fun, watches as Willmore risks serious trouble by stealing Angellica’s picture and then following her into her home, knowing that she is angry. The fact that Frederick can’t conceive of feeling so strongly for a woman makes his sudden marriage at the end of the play a decision that may not bode well for Valeria.

“Ha, ha, ha—I laugh to think how thou art fitted with a lover, a fellow that, I warrant, loves every new face he sees.”

Valeria immediately sees through Willmore’s quickly-aroused passionate devotion for Hellena, recognizing that Willmore is obviously the type of man who falls in love with every woman. Willmore goes on to prove that this is true by flirting with every woman who crosses his path, and during the Carnival, he often does so without even seeing their faces.

“All the honey of matrimony, but none of the sting, friend.”

As a lover in constant pursuit, Willmore seems to lack complexity beyond a keen ability to lie and manipulate for sex. However, his actions, especially toward Hellena and Angellica, suggest that he does fall in love as well as lust, but he treats the two feelings as intertwined and temporary. Marriage is permanent, and although he agrees to it at the end, he does so for a woman who expresses the same desires for all love affairs to be temporary. The sting of matrimony comes about in the long term, when obligations and conflicts settle in.

“Expect? As much as I paid him—a heart entire which I had pride enough to think, when’er I gave, it would have raised the man above the vulgar, made him all soul, and that all soft and constant.”

Angellica has fallen in love for the first time with Willmore, and she shows that, despite her worldliness as a famous courtesan, she is naïve in matters of love. She assumed that the love she has been withholding for her own protection must be as powerful as her sensuality. She is surprised to discover that her inexperience with love simply made her easier to manipulate. Her romantic life has been entirely transactional, and she imagines that giving her heart means that she is owed a heart.

“Oh, most damnably!—I have a heart with a hole quite through it too, no prison, mine, to keep a mistress in.”

Willmore is responding to Hellena’s proclamation that she wants love that lasts while it is passionate, and then she wants the freedom to move on. Willmore says that he has a metaphorical hole in his heart, an image that would usually refer to a need to fill the hole and complete the heart. But he sees this hole as one that allows love in and then allows love to leave—it is a hole that cannot be permanently plugged, and he is always seeking more love to fill it.

“Now, what a wicked creature am I, to damn a proper fellow.”

After Hellena catches Willmore leaving Angellica’s house, Hellena makes Willmore kneel and vow to her religiously that he will never see Angellica again. He does it to win her favor and forgiveness, but she quips about her own wickedness for soliciting an oath that she knows Willmore will never follow, effectively damning him to break the vow and go to hell, for her own amusement and satisfaction.

“Kind heart, how prettily she talks! Egad I’ll show her husband a Spanish trick; send him out of the world, and marry her: she’s damnably in love with me, and will ne’er mind settlements, and so there’s that saved.”

Blunt, who rarely if ever receives attention from a woman, falls completely for Lucetta. Despite his earlier comparisons between women and unseasoned meat, when presented with what he thinks is an opportunity for love, he is fully susceptible to love. He fantasizes about killing her fictional husband to be with her, which he calls a “Spanish trick,” suggesting that this kind of intrigue is the purview of the (in his view) exotic and passionate Spanish, and therefore it would certainly impress her.

“This is the fleece which fools do bear, designed for witty men to shear.”

Lucetta feels guilty for having taken so much by robbing Blunt without even a night of sex, which is something that she has certainly given in exchange for money before as a sex worker. Philippo reassures her that the money and belongings that they stole from Blunt are just what stupid men wear around and show off, inviting smarter men to take it. Beneath the fleece, the man might be colder and unhappier, but he is alive and can always grow another.

“A rape! Come, come, you lie, you baggage, you lie. What, I’ll warrant you would fain have the world believe now that you are not so forward as I. No, not you—why at this time of night was your cobweb-door set open, dear spider— but to catch flies?”

Willmore attempts to rape Florinda because he believes that she is a sex worker, because when sex and virginity are commodified, rape is a property crime. In the case of a sex worker, it was considered more of a petty theft than sexual violence because a woman who was not a virgin was treated as sexually available. When Florinda begs him not to rape her, he accuses her of being the predator in the situation for waiting with her door open, which he sees as a signal that Florinda was waiting for another man and an invitation to take what she was giving away anyways.

“Masquerading! A lewd custom to debauch our youth.”

After Don Pedro finishes sword-fighting with Belvile and his friends, Stephano informs him that Florinda is still safe in bed asleep and suggests that the servants had left the door open when they went out to the Carnival. Don Pedro’s disgust for masquerading is ironic, since he is the first character in the play who puts on a mask, and he participates just as fully as everyone else. Since Don Pedro is the temporary (and eventually permanent) patriarchal power for the family, he is showing that he has no intent toward leniency or the loosening of restrictions toward the younger generation.

“By this light I took her for an arrant [sic] harlot.”

Naturally, Belvile is furious after Willmore attempts to rape Florinda, and Willmore’s main defense—other than his drunkenness—is that it was dark, and he thought she was a sex worker. Belvile’s response is disgust with Willmore for having no self-control, showing that this is still unacceptable behavior for some, but this justification also shows that others find this to be a perfectly good reason for rape. Later, when Willmore joins Frederick, Blunt, and Don Pedro in the excitement to gang-rape Florinda, the play shows that this belief is more common among men than not, even those of supposedly noble origins.

“Fantastic fortune, though deceitful light,

That cheats the wearied traveler by night,

Though on a precipice each step you tread,

I am resolved to follow where you lead.”

Belvile has just been asked to duel Don Pedro in Don Antonio’s place. He decides to see this as a twist of fortune and fate, and to go ahead and follow what he sees as destiny. Even though each step is getting more and more dangerous, he trusts his fate to take him where he’s meant to go.

“Why, what the devil should I do with a virtuous woman?—A sort of ill-natured creatures, that take a pride to torment a lover. Virtue is but an infirmity in woman, a disease that renders even the handsome ungrateful; whilst the ill-favored, for want of solicitations and address, only fancy themselves so.—I have lain with a woman of quality, who has all the while been railing at whores.”

Willmore’s view of virtue is rather unflattering, and certainly unfair when considering that for the most part, these “virtuous women” are only obeying what they’re expected to do. He sees them as women who take pleasure in torturing men by refusing to have sex and hypocrites who will give in to sex while demeaning sex workers. In this description, Willmore is ignoring the social structures that force women to act this way. However, this is also a contradiction of Willmore’s earlier pleasure at learning that Hellena is nearly a nun, and his exclamation is an attempt to placate Angellica, who is accusing him of wanting a virtuous mistress instead of her. Willmore does not care about virtue, except as a novelty, until it stops him from having sex.

“I think—it is; I cannot swear, but I vow he has just such another lying lover’s look.”

Hellena, dressed as a page boy, is trying to extract Willmore from Angellica’s house while also tormenting him a bit. This is an example of the Carnivalesque, in which Hellena takes on the role of a man through disguise, turning the tables by doing what Willmore and the other men have been doing throughout the play. She looks at his face and pretends to make an assessment about his character, just as the men have done by presuming based on faces and superficial qualities whether a woman is a “person of quality” and making her face the consequences of whatever category is determined, just as Willmore will face the consequences of being assessed as a lying lover.