A King and No King
King and No King, A,a tragi-comedy by Beaumont and Fletcher (probably largely by Beaumont), performed 1611 , printed 1619 ; it was one of their most successful dramas.  The emotional and erratic Arbaces, king of Iberia, has defeated Tigranes, king of Armenia, in single combat, thus bringing to an end a long war. Arbaces offers his prisoner freedom if he will marry his sister Panthea, who has grown up to womanhood during his long absence, but Tigranes loves Spaconia, an Armenian lady, declines the offer, and sends Spaconia to engage Panthea to oppose the match. However, when Tigranes and Arbaces meet Panthea, they are both so smitten by her beauty that they both fall violently in love with her. Arbaces encourages his own incestuous passion, and Panthea appears to return it; all seems set for sin, retribution, and tragedy when, in the last act, the lord protector of the kingdom, Gobrias, confesses that Arbaces is in fact his own son,...
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