56 pages • 1 hour read
The Rover
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Act IIAct Summaries & Analyses
Act II, Scene 1 Summary
Belvile, Frederick, and Willmore enter, the first two now in masks and costumes, and Willmore holding a mask. Willmore asks why they should wear masks, and Belvile explains, “Because whatever extravagances we commit in these faces, our own may not be obliged to answer ’em” (25). Willmore is reluctant to wear a full disguise because Hellena might not recognize him. He grumbles that he is unable to stop thinking about her, and that a “person of quality” who obviously is not available for casual sex should not flirt in the first place. Willmore has decided to focus his energies on Angellica, but she is not available yet.
Blunt enters, swooning about the woman he met and willing to sell everything he owns in Essex to stay in Naples and be with her. Blunt is offended when his friends insinuate that she is a sex worker, insisting that she is a person of quality who gave him a gift rather than expecting gifts. Frederick tells Blunt to return their purses so that they will not risk losing all their money to Blunt’s “person of quality” (27). Blunt offers to hand his purse over too to show his faith in the woman, but Frederick tells him to keep it so they can mock him when she tricks him out of it.
As the men watch, two of Angellica’s servants hang a large painting of her from her balcony, advertising her price and availability. Blunt asks who she is and is appalled to learn that she is a courtesan selling her services. Willmore stares, taken by her beauty, regretting his inability to pay her price. Don Pedro, still masked, enters with Stephano, and the other men exit quickly to avoid him. Angellica enters on the balcony with Moretta, her maid. Don Pedro reads the painting, immediately sends Stephano to bring a thousand crowns, and exits. On the balcony, Angellica asks one of her servants about the men outside. He reports that the first group was just there to stare at her beauty, as the price was obviously more than they could afford. Angellica muses that she is more complimented by those who wish they could have her than those who can easily come up with the money.
The servant recognizes the other man as Don Pedro, even with the mask. Angellica knows Don Pedro as the nephew of her late lover, the Spanish general. Don Pedro inherited a fortune from his uncle, and he had frequently made the general jealous by showing his obvious love for Angellica. Moretta laughs at Don Pedro and wonders why Angellica has never been in love. Angellica replies that she has been so busy making money for her services that she has had no time to care about love. She sees Don Pedro returning and calls for her lute, as he is her target. Don Pedro enters with Stephano. Don Antonio and his page, Diego, enter from the other side, all in masks. Don Antonio is also impressed with the beauty in the painting.
Diego suggests that Don Antonio could have an affair with Angellica without Florinda’s knowledge. Don Antonio exclaims that he is not even thinking about Florinda. Don Pedro realizes that the masked man is Don Antonio. Don Pedro is indignant that Don Antonio has insulted his sister and saddened that he is losing his chance to have Angellica, vowing not to let Don Antonio get away with it. From inside, Angelica sings and plays the lute. Charmed, Don Antonio takes his mask off to blow her a kiss, confirming his identity to Don Pedro. Don Antonio asks who to pay the thousand crowns, and Don Pedro, still masked, interjects that he was planning to pay Angellica first. They start to draw their swords, but Willmore steps in and tells them that this place is for lovers, not fighting. Don Pedro challenges Don Antonio to a duel, as he has an even more important fight on Florinda’s behalf. They agree to fight in the morning but keep their disguises on, so that the winner can get away without being spotted. Don Antonio agrees, and Don Pedro exits with Stephano. Don Antonio wonders if the challenger could be Belvile, who he has heard Don Pedro speak about.
Willmore, who has been staring at Angellica’s picture, takes a smaller version down from the wall, deciding that no one will notice if he keeps it. But a servant notices his theft and tells him to put it back. Don Antonio jumps into the argument, but Willmore still refuses. Angellica enters and sees them as they start to fight, ordering them to stop. Willmore admits that he started the conflict by stealing the picture. Angellica says he can keep it, but Don Antonio starts fighting with him again. Belvile and Frederick enter in time to help Willmore.
Belvile, Blunt, Fredrick, and Willmore reenter. Willmore is bleeding, but he reassures his friends that he is fine. Blunt exclaims that since they won, they should take the big painting. Angellica tells them to stop and addresses Willmore, who she takes as a gentleman. Willmore follows her inside, although Frederick warns him against going into the home of an irate courtesan. Angellica promises not to injure him, and they go in. Frederick muses, “The rogue’s stark mad for a wench” (36).
Act II, Scene 2 Summary
In her chambers, Angellica demands to know how Willmore dared to take her picture. Willmore counters by demanding to know how she dares to put her picture out and “tempt poor am’rous mortals with so much excellence” (37), taunting men who could never afford to pay for her. In that light, he thinks his reaction is normal. Angellica states that she brought him inside expecting him to grovel for forgiveness, but Willmore retorts that he came to admonish her for her vanity and for selling “that which is love’s due” (37). Angellica tells Moretta to bring Willmore a mirror so he can “survey himself to see what charms he has” (37). Moretta ridicules Willmore for wearing old clothes and being poor, although Angellica tells her to stop. Willmore and Moretta insult each other, and Willmore offers what he can afford for a little time with Angellica. Moretta insists that Angellica only accepts payment for the entire month. Willmore suggests that he could go into town and pool the money with friends, then sell off whatever time is left at the market. Aside, Angellica notes that from any other man, this notion would infuriate her. She tells him that she hates that he is so angry. Willmore takes her in his arms and gazes at her to prove his strength, then sighs and lets her go. In an aside, Angellica admits that his words are getting to her. Angellica and Willmore banter with one another about love and money. Angellica claims that while she does sell her body, no one could ever buy her love.
Aside, Willmore admits that she is starting to win him over, but he tells her that he does not trust her. Angellica insists that she’s being honest, asking, “I never loved before, though oft a mistress—shall my first vows be slighted?” (40) Willmore doesn’t believe her, admitting that he has been betrayed so often by women that he no longer trusts them, especially sex workers. Her pride is wounded, but Willmore tells her to let go of her pride and let herself feel love. Angellica asks if he will pay her price, clarifying that her price is only the love he gives in return for hers. Happily, he agrees, and they go off together. Moretta, who has been watching this exchange, curses Angellica for finally letting herself be vulnerable to love, which happens to most sex workers in the end—all the trophies and money that they amass from manipulating men as clients end up being tricked out of them by men who offer love.
Act II Analysis
In the second act, the men don masks with the intention of deception, because as Belvile asserts, the masks allow them to avoid accountability. The masks are somehow impervious disguises through which siblings and lovers are incapable of recognizing each other, often to comical effect. The masks are also a metaphor for their socially appropriate personas, which are facades for their true feelings and desires, and their masks—metaphorical and otherwise—fall off fairly easily. Willmore is the supposed rogue who only seeks sexual satisfaction, but he is also worried that if he disguises himself, Hellena will not recognize him. To charm Angellica, he convinces her that he is dropping his mask in favor of professing love, which turns out to be the ruse of a practiced womanizer who wants her services for free. Don Antonio and Don Pedro’s masks hide their identities—or so they think—freeing them to pursue Angellica regardless of their social or familial obligations. Angellica’s mask is the most thorough and practiced of them all, although she not only wears no physical mask but displays paintings of her face publicly in order to sell the image of herself that she has commodified.
Angellica creates the clear distinction for the audience between love/lust and business, as she boasts to Moretta that she has never allowed herself to fall in love after Moretta identifies love as the disease that destroys the businesses of many courtesans. Angellica’s certainty that she is impervious to love ironically foreshadows her ensuing capitulation to Willmore’s charms. In contrast to Florinda and Hellena’s conversation in the first act, Angellica puts forth the notion that love makes women weak. For Angellica and the other women in the play, love certainly makes them vulnerable. As a famous courtesan, Angellica has taken what would otherwise be commodified by a male relative as a bargaining chip in a marriage arrangement—her sexuality—and used it to make money for herself, even if she forfeits traditional social respectability to do so. Falling in love would place all of that at risk by both ending her career and placing her in the position of being subordinate to a man. The fact that Angellica, after a long-standing resistance to love, folds rather easily under Willmore’s charms, speaks to his allure as a character and magnetism as a protagonist. Angellica’s surrender also leaves her open to disappointment and betrayal, as Moretta notes.
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