A Tale of a Tub
Ben Jonson
 The plot, which unfolds on St. Valentine's Day, concerns the inept attempts of a variety of suitors to win the hand of Audrey Turfe, the daughter of a Middlesex constable. To break Audrey's engagement to John Clay the tilemaker, Squire Tub, a romantic rival, has the man falsely accused of theft. As Constable Turfe pursues the innocent man, yet another suitor, Justice Preamble, plays a comparable ruse against Squire Tub. All told, Audrey is chased after by four separate suitors, and apparently she has no particular preference among them. (She hesitates to accept Squire Tub, however, because of the social gap between them: "He's too fine for me, and has a Lady / Tub to his mother.") Amid the disorder, Pol-Marten, Lady Tub's usher, marries Audrey before the others realize it. Their marriage is celebrated with a wedding masque, also titled "A Tale of a Tub," which retells the story of the play. (In the colloquial usage of the time, a "tale of a tub" is the same as "a cock and bull story.") Jonson, here as often elsewhere in his plays, borrows elements from the Classical plays of Aristophanes and Plautus. The play was published with a motto from Catullus: Inficeto est inficetior rure.