ABSTRACT
The dialogue between Sly and the Page might seem to be an unlikely point of departure for an analysis of Elizabeth Cary’s The Tragedy of Mariam. As the opening lines of “The Argument” suggest, The Tragedy of Mariam is explicitly structured around the repetition of events—“as Sohemus, that had succeeded Flavius Josephus’ charge, succeeded him likewise in revealing it”. In The Tragedy of Mariam the conflict between Herod’s desire and the Nuntio’s account suggests that the latter’s report is not only fundamentally incommensurate with the play’s strict adherence to the unity of time but also narratively incompatible with the play’s represented events. As a number of critics have noted, Cary defines and redefines what constitutes acceptable “public” speech throughout The Tragedy of Mariam. Herod’s compression of time—his manifestation of regret not three days but one thousandth of a minute after Mariam’s execution—is an exaggerated version of the temporal disorientation that Mariam’s presence had produced in her husband.
