Caius Marius, The History and Fall of
Caius Marius, The History and Fall of.First performed in 1679, Thomas Otway's play is heavily and explicitly indebted to Romeo and Juliet, transferring its action to the Roman civil wars of Marius and Sylla. Shakespeare's love story serves as a tragic sub-plot to Otway's depiction of the struggle between the patricians Metellus and Sylla and the plebeians' leader Marius: Marius' son is in love with Metellus' daughter Lavinia, to whom he was betrothed before Metellus defected to Sylla's rival faction, and they marry in secret despite their parents' enmity. (‘O Marius, Marius, wherefore art thou Marius?’, wonders Lavinia). Although Young Marius and Lavinia are more blameless than their Shakespearian counterparts (they fall in love in compliance with their parents' original wishes, and he kills no Tybalt), they finish up in the tomb just the same, and Otway enhances the pathos of their deaths by having Lavinia awaken before Young Marius has...
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