John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera is set amidst a band of criminals and sex workers in early-18th-century London. The band’s mastermind, Peachum, profits from two jobs on opposite sides of the law: he buys and sells stolen goods, and he turns in the thieves who work for him. Peachum eventually learns that his daughter Polly has secretly married a dastardly highwayman, Macheath, so he carries out several ill-fated plots to have Macheath captured and executed. Though this is certainly nefarious, Peachum has good reason to worry: Macheath spends his free time partying with the “women of the town” and already has several other wives, including Lucy Lockit, the prison warden’s daughter. Lucy, for her part, tries to murder Polly, and her father, Lockit, accepts all kinds of bribes. The play’s other characters are no better, as many of Macheath’s close friends inform on him for a slice of Peachum’s reward. In short, the play illustrates how greed and selfishness drive people to act immorally and betray their friends.
Indeed, almost all of the characters have no qualms about using one another for personal gain, since all of their relationships are based on self-interest. Peachum makes this dynamic clear in the play’s first song, when he announces that “Each Neighbour abuses his Brother.” His song ultimately reflects the central moral logic at the heart of The Beggar’s Opera: namely, that everyone thinks that, though their own actions might be immoral, it doesn’t matter because everyone else’s are, too. When the play’s characters do talk about morality, it’s never to make amends for their actions, but only to point out how other people have wronged them. They often speak emptily about justice and morality to excuse their own misbehavior.
Of course, John Gay certainly played up his subjects’ vice and corruption for comic effect, as well as to satirize popular Italian operas’ obsession with virtue. But he also was making a serious point about the world—after all, his portrait of London’s criminal underworld and corrupt legal system was closely based on real life in the early 1700s. With this portrait, then, Gay suggests that humankind is inherently inclined towards corruption, evil, and hypocrisy. Yet, in a signature ironic twist, Gay also warns that it’s dangerous to accept this very principle: when we decide that everyone else is evil, we can too easily let ourselves off the hook for evil behavior, as well.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Moral Corruption and Hypocrisy ThemeTracker
Moral Corruption and Hypocrisy Quotes in The Beggar’s Opera
Through all the Employments of Life
Each Neighbour abuses his Brother;
Whore and Rogue they call Husband and Wife:
All Professions be-rogue one another.
The Priest calls the Lawyer a Cheat,
The Lawyer be-knaves the Divine;
And the Statesman, because he’s so great,
Thinks his Trade as honest as mine.
Robin of Bagshot, alias Gorgon, alias Bluff Bob, alias Carbuncle, alias Bob Booty.
You would not be so mad to have the Wench marry him! Gamesters and Highwaymen are generally very good to their Whores, but they are very Devils to their Wives.
I would indulge the Girl as far as prudently we can. In any thing, but Marriage! After that, my Dear, how shall we be safe? Are we not then in her Husband’s Power? For a Husband hath the absolute Power over all a Wife’s Secrets but her own. If the Girl had the Discretion of a Court Lady, who can have a dozen young Fellows at her Ear without complying with one, I should not matter it; but Polly is Tinder, and a Spark will at once set her on a Flame. Married! If the Wench does not know her own Profit, sure she knows her own Pleasure better than to make herself a Property! My Daughter to me should be, like a Court Lady to a Minister of State, a Key to the whole Gang. Married! If the Affair is not already done, I’ll terrify her from it.
POLLY. I did not marry him (as ’tis the Fashion) cooly and deliberately for Honour or Money. But, I love him.
MRS PEACHUM. Love him! worse and worse! I thought the Girl had been better bred. Oh Husband, Husband! her Folly makes me mad! my Head swims! I’m distracted! I can’t support myself—Oh!
[Faints.]
Money, Wife, is the true Fuller’s Earth for Reputations, there is not a Spot or a Stain but what it can take out. A rich Rogue now-a-days is fit Company for any Gentleman; and the World, my Dear, hath not such a Contempt for Roguery as you imagine.
POLLY. What, murder the Man I love! The Blood runs cold at my Heart with the very Thought of it.
PEACHUM. Fye, Polly! What hath Murder to do in the Affair? Since the thing sooner or later must happen, I dare say, the Captain himself would like that we should get the Reward for his Death sooner than a Stranger. Why, Polly, the Captain knows, that as ’tis his Employment to rob, so ’tis ours to take Robbers; every Man in his Business. So that there is no Malice in the Case.
We retrench the Superfluities of Mankind. The World is avaritious, and I hate Avarice. A covetous fellow, like a Jack-daw, steals what he was never made to enjoy, for the sake of hiding it. These are the Robbers of Mankind, for Money was made for the Free-hearted and Generous, and where is the Injury of taking from another, what he hath not the Heart to make use of?
What a Fool is a fond Wench! Polly is most confoundedly bit.—I love the Sex. And a Man who loves Money, might as well be contented with one Guinea, as I with one Woman. The Town perhaps hath been as much oblig’d to me, for recruiting it with free-hearted Ladies, as to any Recruiting Officer in the Army. If it were not for us and the other Gentlemen of the Sword, Drury Lane would be uninhabited.
Your Case, Mr Macheath, is not particular. The greatest Heroes have been ruin’d by Women. But, to do them justice, I must own they are a pretty sort of Creatures, if we could trust them.
The Fees here are so many, and so exorbitant, that few Fortunes can bear the Expence of getting off handsomly, or of dying like a Gentleman.
But I promis’d the Wench Marriage.—What signifies a Promise to a Woman? Does not Man in Marriage itself promise a hundred things that he never means to perform? Do all we can, Women will believe us; for they look upon a Promise as an Excuse for following their own Inclinations.
How cruel are the Traytors,
Who lye and swear in jest,
To cheat unguarded Creatures
Of Virtue, Fame, and Rest!
Whoever steals a Shilling,
Through Shame the Guilt conceals:
In Love the perjur’d Villain
With Boasts the Theft reveals.
LOCKIT. We are treated too by them with Contempt, as if our Profession were not reputable.
PEACHUM. In one respect indeed, our Employment may be reckon’d dishonest, because, like Great Statesmen, we encourage those who betray their Friends.
LOCKIT. Such Language, Brother, any where else, might turn to your prejudice. Learn to be more guarded, I beg you.
MACHEATH. I am naturally compassionate, Wife; so that I could not use the Wench as she deserv’d; which made you at first suspect there was something in what she said.
LUCY. Indeed, my Dear, I was strangely puzzled.
MACHEATH. If that had been the Case, her Father would never have brought me into this Circumstance—No, Lucy,—I had rather dye than be false to thee.
LUCY. How happy am I, if you say this from your Heart! For I love thee so, that I could sooner bear to see thee hang’d than in the Arms of another.
When young at the Bar you first taught me to score,
And bid me be free of my Lips, and no more;
I was kiss’d by the Parson, the Squire, and the Sot.
When the Guest was departed, the Kiss was forgot.
But his Kiss was so sweet, and so closely he prest,
That I languish’d and pin’d ’till I granted the rest.
Love, Sir, is a Misfortune that may happen to the most discreet Woman, and in Love we are all Fools alike.—Notwithstanding all he swore, I am now fully convinc’d that Polly Peachum is actually his Wife.—Did I let him escape, (Fool that I was!) to go to her?—Polly will wheedle herself into his Money, and then Peachum will hang him, and cheat us both.
Lions, Wolves, and Vulturs don’t live together in Herds, Droves or Flocks.—Of all Animals of Prey, Man is the only sociable one. Every one of us preys upon his Neighbour, and yet we herd together.—Peachum is my Companion, my Friend—According to the Custom of the World, indeed, he may quote thousands of Precedents for cheating me—And shall not I make use of the Privilege of Friendship to make him a Return?
We, Gentlemen, have still Honour enough to break through the Corruptions of the World.—And while I can serve you, you may command me.
Among the Men, Coquets we find,
Who Court by turns all Woman-kind;
And we grant all their Hearts desir’d,
When they are flatter’d, and admir’d.
The Coquets of both Sexes are Self-lovers, and that is a Love no other whatever can dispossess. I fear, my dear Lucy, our Husband is one of those.
POLLY. Hither, dear Husband, turn your Eyes.
LUCY. Bestow one Glance to cheer me.
POLLY. Think with that Look, thy Polly dyes.
LUCY. O shun me not—but hear me.
POLLY. ’Tis Polly sues.
LUCY. –––––––––––’Tis Lucy speaks.
POLLY. Is thus true Love requited?
LUCY. My Heart is bursting.
POLLY. ––––––––––––––––––Mine too breaks.
LUCY. Must I
POLLY. –––––––Must I be slighted?
LOCKIT. Macheath’s time is come, Lucy.—We know our own Affairs, therefore let us have no more Whimpering or Whining.
[…]
PEACHUM. Set your Heart at rest, Polly.—Your Husband is to dye to-day.—Therefore, if you are not already provided, ’tis high time to look about for another.
The Condemn’d Hold.
MACHEATH, in a melancholy Posture.
AIR 58. Happy Groves.
O cruel, cruel, cruel Case!
Must I suffer this Disgrace?
AIR 59. Of all the Girls that are so smart.
Of all the Friends in time of Grief,
When threatning Death looks grimmer,
Not one so sure can bring Relief,
As this best Friend, a Brimmer.
[Enter Women and Children.]
What—four Wives more!—This is too much.—Here—tell the Sheriffs Officers I am ready.
[Exit MACHEATH guarded.]
PLAYER. But, honest Friend, I hope you don’t intend that Macheath shall be really executed.
BEGGAR. Most certainly, Sir.—To make the Piece perfect, I was for doing strict poetical Justice.—Macheath is to be hang’d; and for the other Personages of the Drama, the Audience must have suppos’d they were all either hang’d or transported.
PLAYER. Why then, Friend, this is a down-right deep Tragedy. The Catastrophe is manifestly wrong, for an Opera must end happily.
BEGGAR. Your Objection, Sir, is very just; and is easily remov’d. For you must allow, that in this kind of Drama, ’tis no matter how absurdly things are brought about.—So—you Rabble there—run and cry a Reprieve—let the Prisoner be brought back to his Wives in Triumph.
PLAYER. All this we must do, to comply with the Taste of the Town.
BEGGAR. Through the whole Piece you may observe such a similitude of Manners in high and low Life, that it is difficult to determine whether (in the fashionable Vices) the fine Gentlemen imitate the Gentlemen of the Road, or the Gentlemen of the Road the fine Gentlemen.—Had the Play remain’d, as I at first intended, it would have carried a most excellent Moral. ’Twould have shown that the lower Sort of People have their Vices in a degree as well as the Rich: And that they are punish’d for them.
MACHEATH. Thus I stand like the Turk, with his Doxies around;
From all Sides their Glances his Passion confound;
For black, brown, and fair, his Inconstancy burns,
And the different Beauties subdue him by turns:
Each calls forth her Charms, to provoke his Desires:
Though willing to all; with but one he retires.
But think of this Maxim, and put off your Sorrow,
The Wretch of To-day, may be happy To-morrow.
