Two Main Characters and Their Role in This Play

The Mandrake

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Two main characters and their role in this play

Machiavelli's Mandragola performance has many exciting characters, in my opinion, the character that is captivating in this drama is Messer Nicia. The satire associated with his role kept the entire audience immersed in a barrage of laughter: despite his apparent foolishness and naivety, he was wealthy with an attractive and charming wife. Through the play, Machiavelli has wittingly portrayed the perception that knowledge is power through capturing the simplicity that shows Messer’s gullibility. The other characters in the play continuously trick him despite his affluence. In an illustration, Calimaco conjures up a lie about being a physician by way of pretending to be an expert in the medical field with a few utterances in Latin (Maloney and Machiavelli, 2008). Through his poise in portraying the role of a doctor, Calimaco eventually convinced Messer to persuade his wife to ingest the potion and sleep with a stranger. The level to which Messer was being tricked; despite his wealth and stature in the society, he still fell for the deception.

Friar Timoteo role in this play was to convince the unwilling Lucrezia of her best interest into drinking the potion and sleep with another man. As Lucrezia’s confessor, Friar managed to persuade her to drink the potion and seek forgiveness for sleeping with another man as it was in God’s will. Ligurio enticed Friar with several hundred ducats that he could distribute as alms to have him go along with the ploy (Sullivan, 2000). The bribery offered to Timoteo as an offering to the church and help Messer in an unusual situation played a significant role in Calimaco’s plan in getting his way with Lucrezia. Timoteo went further to assist Ligurio, Messer, and Siro in catching a scoundrel who would sleep with Lucrezia after drinking the potion with a false explanation to Messer of death befalling him should he be intimate with his wife (Maloney and Machiavelli, 2008). Throughout the whole incidence of searching for a young lad, Messer was not aware that Timoteo had disguised himself as Calimaco, and was mindful of the fact that the scoundrel they were to catch was Calimaco.