Playing the game

Morose, the scrooge-like uncle of Dauphine and neurotic defender of silence, is the butt of most of the practical jokes in the play Epicoene. With his determination to disinherit Dauphine, his eccentric need for an environment devoid of noise and his strange (and by today’s standards, sexist) expectations of obedience and silence from his spouse, Morose does appear to be in need of some vexation. By the close of the play, however, it feels a bit as though perhaps the sides were not altogether so clear cut. Morose did not want to give Dauphine any money because he did not think that his nephew had any love for him, and indeed, throughout the whole play, Dauphine was manipulating and torturing his uncle until he signed papers promising money to the gallant, upon which point, he was told:
“I’ll not trouble you till you trouble me with / your funeral, which I care not how soon it come” (5.4.200-201,
Morose’s mistrust in Dauphine was well placed and not at all unreasonable.
Furthermore, when Morose is about to receive information about how to get a divorce from the disguised Cutbeard and Otter, he explains his reasons for disliking noise:
“My father, in my / education, was wont to advise me that I should always collect and contain my mind, not suff’ring it to flow/ loosely; that I should look to what things were necessary to / the carriage of my life, and what not, embracing the one/ and eschewing the other. In short, that I should endear myself to rest and avoid turmoil, which now is grown to be another nature to me. “ (5.3.46-53)
By Morose’s explanation, he does not like noise, not because it is too loud or cacophonous, but because it is so often unnecessary and the cause of turmoil. He is seeking to avoid the feathers, bows and roses that would mask both his clothing and his true feelings. In other words, he is refusing to play the political and social games that all the collegiates and braveries are taking part in with their ‘fine taste’ in books, clothes, people and Latin. By not playing the game, he has become an outsider and the source of easy ridicule.
In considering the play with the order of the action taken in reverse, is Morose deserving of his fate? At the end of the play, is Dauphine actually the ‘very perfect gentleman’ that the other characters have made him out to be? Is Jonson suggesting that it is better to play ‘the game’ of social manipulation, flattery and pretending extremely well (as in Dauphine and Truewit’s cases) or is it better to avoid the whole situation as much as possible (as in Morose’s case)?