The Tragedy of Mariam

The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry is a Jacobean era drama written by Elizabeth Cary, Viscountess Falkland, and first published in 1613. The play is the first work by a woman that was published under her own name. The play received only marginal attention until the 1970s, when feminist scholars recognized the play's contribution to English literature. Since then the play has received a large amount of scholarly attention.

The play was written between 1602 and 1604. It was entered into the Stationers' Register in December 1612. The 1613 quarto was printed by Thomas Creede for the bookseller Richard Hawkins. Cary's drama belongs to the subgenre of the Senecan revenge tragedy. The primary sources for the play are The Wars of the Jews and The Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus, which Cary used in Thomas Lodge's 1602 translation.

The Tragedy tells the story of Mariam, the second wife of Herod the Great, King of Judea from 39 to 4 B.C. When the play opens, in 29 B.C., Herod is thought dead at the hand of Octavian (later Emperor Augustus), and Mariam faces her ambivalent feelings about her husband; Herod had loved her, but had also murdered her grandfather and brother. In Act IV, however, Herod returns, dispelling the false report of his death. Herod's immoral and "villain" sister Salome falsely convinces Herod his wife has been unfaithful in his absence which results in him ordering Mariam's execution. Though Mariam is the title character and the play's moral center, her part in the play amounts to only about 10% of the whole; Cary uses a set of secondary characters to provide a multi-vocal portrayal of Herod's court and Jewish society under his tyranny. The Chorus, in its representation of the patriarchal ideals of femininity, offers an opportunity to interrogate these values, in accordance with the political impetus of the closet drama. The ending of the play is consistent with the tyranny of both its fictional Herod and the actual historical figure: six characters die, including Mariam. The play also explores the themes of divorce and female agency through the characters of both Mariam and Salome.

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