The Widow's Tears

The Widow's Tears is an early Jacobean era play, a comedy written by George Chapman. It is often considered the last of Chapman's comedies, and sometimes his most problematic, "the most provocative and the most paradoxical of any of his dramatic works."

The play is universally dated to sometime in the first decade of the 17th century, based on all the available data. Many scholars favor the year 1605; leading Chapman scholar T. M. Parrott assigned it to the winter of 1605–6. Critics have seen the parody of incompetent justice in the play's final scene as Chapman's response to his imprisonment over the Eastward Ho scandal of 1605 — though E. K. Chambers demured on this point, suggesting that "It would be equally sound to argue that this is just the date when Chapman would have been most careful to avoid criticism of this kind." Chambers and others have given a dating range of 1603–9.

The title page of the first edition of 1612 states that The Widow's Tears was "often presented" at both the Blackfriars and Whitefriars theatres. This indicates that the play was part of the repertory of the Children of the Chapel, both when they were acting in the Blackfriars Theatre through 1608 and also later, when the company had moved to the Whitefriars Theatre. Only one specific performance is known with certainty: the Children acted the play at Court on 27 February 1613. Philip Rosseter, the company's manager at the time, was paid £13 6s. 8d. for the Children's four Court performances that winter season, of the Chapman play and plays by Beaumont and Fletcher.

The play was entered into Stationers' Register on 17 April 1612 and was published later that year in quarto by the bookseller John Browne. The 1612 quarto was the only edition of the play in the 17th century. The quarto bears Chapman's dedication to John Reed of Mitton, misidentifying Mitton's Worcestershire location as Gloucestershire. Reed was a relative of Fulke Greville.

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