- All's Well That Ends Well
- Antony and Cleopatra
- As You Like It
- The Comedy of Errors
- Coriolanus
- Cymbeline
- Hamlet
- Henry IV, Part 1
- Henry IV, Part 2
- Henry V
- Henry VI, Part 1
- Henry VI, Part 2
- Henry VI, Part 3
- Henry VIII
- Julius Caesar
- King John
- King Lear
- Love's Labor's Lost
- A Lover's Complaint
- Macbeth
- Measure for Measure
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Othello
- Pericles
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Richard II
- Richard III
- Romeo and Juliet
- Shakespeare's Sonnets
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- Venus and Adonis
- The Winter's Tale
Peachum captures Macheath with help from Jenny Diver and Suky Tawdry, then tells him this. Macheath’s great error was to trust the women who ended up informing on him. In reality, Peachum insists, women are no more trustworthy than men—but their special power is their ability to disarm men by pretending to be innocent, harmless, and stupid. By comparing Macheath to “the greatest Heroes,” of course, Peachum mocks the way that everyone else (Polly included) talks about him.
In this speech, Peachum also points out the key difference between himself and Macheath. While they are both corrupt, immoral liars, Macheath…