Summary
The play opens in a room in Clerimont's household, where he and his page are discussing the perfect song. The page interrupts the conversation to tell Clerimont of a woman who had recently thrown herself at him, and how she was heavily made up. Truewit enters, and he and Clerimont debate over the merits of idleness in men with fortunes. Truewit asks if Clerimont has heard the news: a new all-women college has been started nearby and it is led by the Lady Haughty. Clerimont scoffs and notes that Lady Haughty spends too much time on her appearance. Truewit argues that women should spend time to make themselves look pleasing, but that it should be privately done and publicly enjoyed.
The two change the subject, switching to a discussion of their friend Dauphine. They wonder if Dauphine can no longer suffer his uncle, Morose, who is so averse to noise that he has moved to a narrow street in London where nobody can pass through and disturb him. Soon, Dauphine arrives and explains that his uncle plans to marry a young and presumably silent woman named Epicene in an attempt to disinherit him. Epicene lives next to Cutbeard, Morose's barber, in a house with Sir John Daw, a knight whom Truewit despises because he pretends to be more learned than he is. In the middle of their conversation, Sir Amorous La Foole arrives to invite the men to a dinner at Captain Otter's house.
Analysis
The beginning of the play helps establish its major characters, themes, and stakes. As a city comedy, Epicene subscribes to the typical Jonsonian structure of including many characters, each with their own set of motivations. Readers (and audiences of the original performance) might feel slightly alienated by the introduction of so many characters in quick succession – indeed, the first act introduces spectators to virtually every character that will appear throughout the play as a whole. However, this fast-paced, multidimensional, and often chaotic universe is a tenet of city comedy, which attempts to portray ordinary people (like the city-dwellers of London) and the goings-on of their daily lives. In Epicene, the highest-stakes scenario presented to readers is that Morose is planning to disinherit his nephew by marrying. That the play begins with a relatively modest conflict emphasizes its investment in the "everyman," while its characters' exaggerated responses to this domestic conflict underscore Jonson's own investment in the genre of comedy.
One of the elements of the play that will likely stand out to readers is Jonson's use of names. As is typical of Jonson, and often of comedy in general, characters' names and titles often reflect the role they play among the cast. Dauphine, for example, is a parody of the word "dauphin," a title given to the eldest son of the King of France, who would eventually inherit the throne. That Morose plans to disinherit Dauphine, then, is an ironic turn of events that renders Dauphine's "title" rather meaningless. Another name readers will likely take note of is Amorous La Foole, which clearly associates his character with both sexual desire and idiocy – two qualities that will lead to entertaining antics later in the play. Finally, Truewit's name reflects his broader role in the play as well, as he frequently waxes poetic about the nature of men and women and is often the orchestrator of manipulative schemes alongside Dauphine. Whether audiences are to interpret him as "truly" "witty" or to see his name as another ironic jest is left ambiguous, as his moments of contemplation are often laden with both misogynistic and, paradoxically, proto-feminist ideas.
