More Dissemblers Besides Women

More Dissemblers Besides Women is a Jacobean stage play, a tragicomedy written by Thomas Middleton, and first published in 1657.

The play's date of authorship is uncertain, though it is usually dated c. 1615. It is thought to have been acted in 1619, and was performed at Court on 6 January 1624 by the King's Men. In a marginal note in his records, Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, called it "the worst play that e'er I saw." King James was not present at the performance, though his son and heir Prince Charles, soon to be King Charles I, was.

The play was entered into the Stationers' Register on 9 September 1653 by the bookseller Humphrey Moseley, and was published by Moseley together with Middleton's Women Beware Women in a 1657 octavo volume titled Two New Plays.

More Dissemblers Besides Women is set in Milan; its plot involves romantic intrigues among the ruling aristocrats of the city, including the widowed Duchess, the General Lactantio, and the Cardinal. Having given her dying husband a vow to remain chaste after his death, the Duchess fools the Cardinal into thinking that she has fallen in love with his nephew Lactantio—which quickly inspires the ambitious Cardinal to switch from an ardent champion of chastity to an advocate of an advantageous marriage for his relative.

The play has been cited as "the only play of the period to feature a pregnant female page. In this work, the heroine's male persona kindles homoerotic desire in a buffoonish adult male character, even as her power as a cross-dressed woman is undercut by a farcical treatment of her pregnancy and the onset of labor."

Scene 1: Milan: The Duchess' balcony (above) and street (below)

Lactantio praises the Duchess, who, according to a vow made upon her husband's death, has remained abstinent for seven years. He asks his lover, Aurelia, if she would follow the Duchess' example if he died. Aurelia replies that she would drop dead on the spot if Lactantio died. Lactantio tells Aurelia that, although he plans to marry her, they must keep their relationship a secret for the time being for the sake of his uncle, the Lord Cardinal, an extremely pious man who eschews the company of women. Lactantio is the Lord Cardinal's only heir, but to inherit his estate, he must keep the old man happy by seeming to shun the company of women. Lactantio also mentions that his uncle is a great admirer of the Duchess' constancy.

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