Mark Fuller Dillon

THERIDAMAS:
Before the moon renew her borrowed light,
Doubt not, my lord and gracious sovereign,
But Tamburlaine and that Tartarian rout
Shall either perish by our warlike hands
Or plead for mercy at your highness’ feet.

======

TAMBURLAINE:
Whom seek’st thou Persian? I am Tamburlaine.

THERIDAMAS:
[Aside] Tamburlaine?
A Scythian shepherd, so embellished
With nature’s pride and richest furniture?
His looks do menace heaven and dare the gods,
His fiery eyes are fixed upon the earth
As if he now devised some stratagem,
Or meant to pierce Avernus’ darksome vaults
And pull the triple-headed dog from hell.

======

TAMBURLAINE:
Theridamas my friend, take here my hand,
Which is as much as if I swore by heaven
And called the gods to witness of my vow --
Thus shall my heart be still combined with thine
Until our bodies turn to elements
And both our souls aspire celestial thrones.

======

MENAPHON:
Your majesty shall shortly have your wish
And ride in triumph through Persepolis.

TAMBURLAINE:
And ride in triumph through Persepolis?
Is it not brave to be a king, Techelles?
Usumcasane and Theridamas,
Is it not passing brave to be a king
And ride in triumph through Persepolis?

======

TAMBURLAINE:
The thirst of reign and sweetness of a crown,
That caused the eldest son of heavenly Ops
To thrust his doting father from his chair
And place himself in the empyreal heaven,
Moved me to manage arms against thy state.
What better precedent than mighty Jove?
Nature that framed us of four elements
Warring within our breasts for regiment,
Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds:
Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend
The wondrous architecture of the world
And measure every wand’ring planet’s course,
Still climbing after knowledge infinite
And always moving as the restless spheres,
Wills us to wear ourselves and never rest
Until we reach the ripest fruit of all,
That perfect bliss and sole felicity,
The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.

My first impression

My first impression of Fengriffen House was skeletal.

I saw it from the carriage, rising against a stormy sundown like the blackened bones of some monstrous beast....

I looked at the moors and I smoked. When my pipe burned out I filled a second, lighted it, tamped it down carefully, and fired it again until it was burning evenly and the smoke was cool. Tobacco is an ally of contentment, and I told myself I must be content with the cheerful blaze still in the grate and the wind howling ineffectively outside, shaking the trees in a fury but unable to get to me -- indeed, defeating its purpose as in rage it sucked the draught up the chimney and caused my fire to burn more freely. I was able to judge the force of that wind by regarding the shadows beneath the trees. The filigreed moonlight shifted and blurred, laying silver tapestries beneath the limbs. It was hypnotic. I lost awareness of time as I studied the moving shadows. My second pipe went out. I pulled thoughtlessly at the mouthpiece. My eyes grew heavy. Then, gradually, I found myself looking at a different shadow. I must have observed it for some time before I realized it was more than the wind snatching the trees. For this shape had advanced beyond the trees, bringing a shadow of its own; it moved near to the house and then paused. I snapped to alertness. I stared at this dark form and had the grotesque impression that, whatever it was, it was staring back at me. A finger of ice tapped up the articulation of my backbone, leaving me rigid in its wake.

My first impression

My first impression of Fengriffen House was skeletal.

I saw it from the carriage, rising against a stormy sundown like the blackened bones of some monstrous beast....

I looked at the moors and I smoked. When my pipe burned out I filled a second, lighted it, tamped it down carefully, and fired it again until it was burning evenly and the smoke was cool. Tobacco is an ally of contentment, and I told myself I must be content with the cheerful blaze still in the grate and the wind howling ineffectively outside, shaking the trees in a fury but unable to get to me -- indeed, defeating its purpose as in rage it sucked the draught up the chimney and caused my fire to burn more freely. I was able to judge the force of that wind by regarding the shadows beneath the trees. The filigreed moonlight shifted and blurred, laying silver tapestries beneath the limbs. It was hypnotic. I lost awareness of time as I studied the moving shadows. My second pipe went out. I pulled thoughtlessly at the mouthpiece. My eyes grew heavy. Then, gradually, I found myself looking at a different shadow. I must have observed it for some time before I realized it was more than the wind snatching the trees. For this shape had advanced beyond the trees, bringing a shadow of its own; it moved near to the house and then paused. I snapped to alertness. I stared at this dark form and had the grotesque impression that, whatever it was, it was staring back at me. A finger of ice tapped up the articulation of my backbone, leaving me rigid in its wake.

John Ford, 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE (1633).

By critical consensus, the plays of John Ford represent either a last echo of popular Jacobean theatre, or early examples of a Caroline theatre designed not for the crowds, but for private viewings in palaces

John Ford, 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE (1633).

By critical consensus, the plays of John Ford represent either a last echo of popular Jacobean theatre, or early examples of a Caroline theatre designed not for the crowds, but for private viewings in palaces or in houses of the wealthy. Whatever the label, most critics agree that by this time, the vitality, the broad appeal of Elizabethan-Jacobean tragedy was dead, that Ford was one of the few interesting writers of this period who retained something of Jacobean vigour, and that his most interesting, most lively play, 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE, remains one of the best from its period.

I would call it a hand grenade, to be handled carefully at the risk of losing several fingers or an eye.

One reason for caution: the play's topic.

GIOVANNI:

Must I not praise

That beauty which, if framed anew, the gods

Would make a god of if they had it there,

And kneel to it, as I do kneel to them?

FRIAR:

Why, foolish madman!

GIOVANNI:

Shall a peevish sound,

A customary form, from man to man,

Of brother and of sister, be a bar

'Twixt my perpetual happiness and me?

Say that we had one father, say one womb

(Curse to my joys!) gave both us life and birth:

Are we not therefore each to other bound

So much the more by nature, by the links

Of blood, of reason (nay, if you will have't,

Even of religion), to be ever one,

One soul, one flesh, one love, one heart, one all?

[Act I, Scene i]

Like many teenagers before and since, Giovanni knows that he knows everything, and that his will, his desires, transcend social norms and accepted customs.

GIOVANNI:

What I have done I'll prove both fit and good.

It is a principle, which you have taught

When I was yet your scholar, that the frame

And composition of the mind doth follow

The frame and composition of the body;

So where the body's furniture is beauty,

The mind's must needs be virtue; which allowed,

Virtue itself is Reason but refined,

And Love the quintessence of that. This proves

My sister's beauty, being rarely fair,

Is rarely virtuous; chiefly in her love,

And chiefly in that love, her love to me.

If hers to me, then so is mine to her,

Since in like causes are effects alike.

[Act II, Scene v]

What Giovanni ignores is the weight of the world's countering opinion.

FRIAR:

O ignorance in knowledge! Long ago

How often have I warned thee this before!

Indeed, if we were sure there were no deity,

Nor heaven nor hell, then to be led alone

By nature's light -- as were philosophers

Of elder times -- might instance some defence;

But 'tis not so. Then, madman, thou wilt find

That nature is in heaven's positions blind.

[Act II, Scene v]

Luckily (or unluckily) for Giovanni, his beloved sister is more than willing to love him back. For Annabella, the long line of suitors eager to win her hand might as well not exist; her one true love is her brother.

ANNABELLA :

This noble creature was in every part

So angel-like, so glorious, that a woman

Who had not been but human as was I,

Would have kneeled to him, and have begged for love.

You -- why you are not worthy once to name

His name without true worship, or indeed,

Unless you kneeled, to hear another name him.

[Act IV, Scene iii]

The first unsettling aspect of this play is the implication that these lovers are indeed sincere. Despite the hardships that eat away at their secret union, they remain devoted and loyal to each other.

The second unsettling detail is the brutal ferocity of the other characters towards Annabella. Like the enemies of the Duchess in John Webster's THE DUCHESS OF MALFI, these men seem to resent her mainly because she openly, honestly, and courteously follows her own path. Circumstances are complicated (perhaps over-complicated) by plotters in disguise, by daily betrayals, by feuds between the suitors, but in all of this, Annabella, despite her incest, comes across as the better human being.

Yet as we know, history is written by the victors. The final judgement of the victors in this play is that Annabella was a despicable whore, which ignores her actions and her personality. Whether this harsh assessment of her character was also John Ford's remains impossible to tell, but much of the lingering bitterness of this play comes from the unfairness, the cruelty of the men.

If Annabella seems more innocent, more pure than the men around her, Giovanni carries the weight of a more complex mind. At the play's end, he becomes a full revenger against those who persecute his sister, yet his own "solution" to the challenge of his love is just as brutal as theirs. The play foreshadows this end in many lines, but it remains horrific. For some readers, this might seem over the top, but in the traditions of Elizabethan-Jacobean tragedy, the spectacle of gore fits right in.

While John Ford shares with Webster and Shakespeare this passion for bloodshed, he lacks their genius for metaphors and imagery. Instead, he offers a smoothly elegant dramatic language that brings pleasures of its own.

ANNABELLA:

Methinks you weep.

GIOVANNI:

I do indeed: these are the funeral tears

Shed on your grave; these furrowed up my cheeks

When first I loved and knew not how to woo.

Fair Annabella, should I here repeat

The story of my life, we might lose time.

Be record all the spirits of the air,

And all things else that are, that day and night,

Early and late, the tribute which my heart

Hath paid to Annabella’s sacred love

Hath been these tears, which are her mourners now.

Never till now did Nature do her best

To show a matchless beauty to the world,

Which in an instant, ere it scarce was seen,

The jealous Destinies required again.

Pray, Annabella, pray. Since we must part,

Go thou white in thy soul to fill a throne

Of innocence and sanctity in heaven.

Pray, pray, my sister.

ANNABELLA:

Then I see your drift.

Ye blessed angels, guard me!

GIOVANNI:

So say I.

Kiss me. [They kiss] If ever after-times should hear

Of our fast-knit affections, though perhaps

The laws of conscience and of civil use

May justly blame us, yet when they but know

Our loves, that love will wipe away that rigour

Which would in other incests be abhorred.

Give me your hand. How sweetly life doth run

In these well-coloured veins! How constantly

These palms do promise health! But I could chide

With Nature for this cunning flattery.

Kiss me again. Forgive me.

ANNABELLA:

With my heart. [They kiss]

[Act V, Scene v]

What we have, then, is a play of elegant poetry, undeniable power, and an overwhelming bitterness. Readers will respond as they will; for my part, I admire the play even as I wince at the sting of its venom.

John Ford, 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE (1633).

By critical consensus, the plays of John Ford represent either a last echo of popular Jacobean theatre, or early examples of a Caroline theatre designed not for the crowds, but for private viewings in palaces

John Ford, 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE (1633).

By critical consensus, the plays of John Ford represent either a last echo of popular Jacobean theatre, or early examples of a Caroline theatre designed not for the crowds, but for private viewings in palaces or in houses of the wealthy. Whatever the label, most critics agree that by this time, the vitality, the broad appeal of Elizabethan-Jacobean tragedy was dead, that Ford was one of the few interesting writers of this period who retained something of Jacobean vigour, and that his most interesting, most lively play, 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE, remains one of the best from its period.

I would call it a hand grenade, to be handled carefully at the risk of losing several fingers or an eye.

One reason for caution: the play's topic.

GIOVANNI:

Must I not praise

That beauty which, if framed anew, the gods

Would make a god of if they had it there,

And kneel to it, as I do kneel to them?

FRIAR:

Why, foolish madman!

GIOVANNI:

Shall a peevish sound,

A customary form, from man to man,

Of brother and of sister, be a bar

'Twixt my perpetual happiness and me?

Say that we had one father, say one womb

(Curse to my joys!) gave both us life and birth:

Are we not therefore each to other bound

So much the more by nature, by the links

Of blood, of reason (nay, if you will have't,

Even of religion), to be ever one,

One soul, one flesh, one love, one heart, one all?

[Act I, Scene i]

Like many teenagers before and since, Giovanni knows that he knows everything, and that his will, his desires, transcend social norms and accepted customs.

GIOVANNI:

What I have done I'll prove both fit and good.

It is a principle, which you have taught

When I was yet your scholar, that the frame

And composition of the mind doth follow

The frame and composition of the body;

So where the body's furniture is beauty,

The mind's must needs be virtue; which allowed,

Virtue itself is Reason but refined,

And Love the quintessence of that. This proves

My sister's beauty, being rarely fair,

Is rarely virtuous; chiefly in her love,

And chiefly in that love, her love to me.

If hers to me, then so is mine to her,

Since in like causes are effects alike.

[Act II, Scene v]

What Giovanni ignores is the weight of the world's countering opinion.

FRIAR:

O ignorance in knowledge! Long ago

How often have I warned thee this before!

Indeed, if we were sure there were no deity,

Nor heaven nor hell, then to be led alone

By nature's light -- as were philosophers

Of elder times -- might instance some defence;

But 'tis not so. Then, madman, thou wilt find

That nature is in heaven's positions blind.

[Act II, Scene v]

Luckily (or unluckily) for Giovanni, his beloved sister is more than willing to love him back. For Annabella, the long line of suitors eager to win her hand might as well not exist; her one true love is her brother.

ANNABELLA :

This noble creature was in every part

So angel-like, so glorious, that a woman

Who had not been but human as was I,

Would have kneeled to him, and have begged for love.

You -- why you are not worthy once to name

His name without true worship, or indeed,

Unless you kneeled, to hear another name him.

[Act IV, Scene iii]

The first unsettling aspect of this play is the implication that these lovers are indeed sincere. Despite the hardships that eat away at their secret union, they remain devoted and loyal to each other.

The second unsettling detail is the brutal ferocity of the other characters towards Annabella. Like the enemies of the Duchess in John Webster's THE DUCHESS OF MALFI, these men seem to resent her mainly because she openly, honestly, and courteously follows her own path. Circumstances are complicated (perhaps over-complicated) by plotters in disguise, by daily betrayals, by feuds between the suitors, but in all of this, Annabella, despite her incest, comes across as the better human being.

Yet as we know, history is written by the victors. The final judgement of the victors in this play is that Annabella was a despicable whore, which ignores her actions and her personality. Whether this harsh assessment of her character was also John Ford's remains impossible to tell, but much of the lingering bitterness of this play comes from the unfairness, the cruelty of the men.

If Annabella seems more innocent, more pure than the men around her, Giovanni carries the weight of a more complex mind. At the play's end, he becomes a full revenger against those who persecute his sister, yet his own "solution" to the challenge of his love is just as brutal as theirs. The play foreshadows this end in many lines, but it remains horrific. For some readers, this might seem over the top, but in the traditions of Elizabethan-Jacobean tragedy, the spectacle of gore fits right in.

While John Ford shares with Webster and Shakespeare this passion for bloodshed, he lacks their genius for metaphors and imagery. Instead, he offers a smoothly elegant dramatic language that brings pleasures of its own.

ANNABELLA:

Methinks you weep.

GIOVANNI:

I do indeed: these are the funeral tears

Shed on your grave; these furrowed up my cheeks

When first I loved and knew not how to woo.

Fair Annabella, should I here repeat

The story of my life, we might lose time.

Be record all the spirits of the air,

And all things else that are, that day and night,

Early and late, the tribute which my heart

Hath paid to Annabella’s sacred love

Hath been these tears, which are her mourners now.

Never till now did Nature do her best

To show a matchless beauty to the world,

Which in an instant, ere it scarce was seen,

The jealous Destinies required again.

Pray, Annabella, pray. Since we must part,

Go thou white in thy soul to fill a throne

Of innocence and sanctity in heaven.

Pray, pray, my sister.

ANNABELLA:

Then I see your drift.

Ye blessed angels, guard me!

GIOVANNI:

So say I.

Kiss me. [They kiss] If ever after-times should hear

Of our fast-knit affections, though perhaps

The laws of conscience and of civil use

May justly blame us, yet when they but know

Our loves, that love will wipe away that rigour

Which would in other incests be abhorred.

Give me your hand. How sweetly life doth run

In these well-coloured veins! How constantly

These palms do promise health! But I could chide

With Nature for this cunning flattery.

Kiss me again. Forgive me.

ANNABELLA:

With my heart. [They kiss]

[Act V, Scene v]

What we have, then, is a play of elegant poetry, undeniable power, and an overwhelming bitterness. Readers will respond as they will; for my part, I admire the play even as I wince at the sting of its venom.

THE WHITE DEVIL revisited.

As a Jacobean-mad teenager forty-five years ago, I read John Webster's THE WHITE DEVIL for the first time. I applauded its brilliance, but I also wanted to take a hot, soapy shower to wash away the grease of all that evil.

THE WHITE DEVIL revisited.

As a Jacobean-mad teenager forty-five years ago, I read John Webster's THE WHITE DEVIL for the first time. I applauded its brilliance, but I also wanted to take a hot, soapy shower to wash away the grease of all that evil.

FRANCISCO:

Brachiano, I am now fit for thy encounter.

Like the wild Irish I'll ne'er think thee dead

Till I can play at football with thy head.

= = = = = = = =

[A man with a set of pistols threatens two women, and he means it]

FLAMINEO:

Look, these are better far at a dead lift

Than all your jewel house.

VITTORIA:

And yet methinks

These stones have no fair lustre, they are ill set.

FLAMINEO:

I'll turn the right side towards you: you shall see

How they will sparkle.

Above all, in the world of THE WHITE DEVIL, power counts for everything, people count for nothing.

FLAMINEO:

He was a kind of statesman, that would sooner have reckon'd how many cannon-bullets he had discharged against a town, to count his expense that way, than how many of his valiant and deserving subjects he lost before it.

= = = = = = = =

[A child, a mere child of murdered parents, has claimed the throne]

GIOVANNI:

Away with them to prison and to torture.

A world of power is a world of horrors.

BRACHIANO:

Look you; six gray rats that have lost their tails,

Crawl up the pillow....

= = = = = = = =

BRACHIANO:

O thou soft natural death, that art joint-twin

To sweetest slumber: no rough-bearded comet

Stares on thy mild departure: the dull owl

Beats not against thy casement: the hoarse wolf

Scents not thy carrion. Pity winds thy corse,

Whilst horror waits on princes.

VITTORIA:

I am lost for ever.

BRACHIANO:

How miserable a thing it is to die

'Mongst women howling!

Yet reading this play again -- for what, the fourth time? The fifth? -- I caught a hint of grey light in its darkness. There is goodness in this world, even if much of it endures in resigned sadness.

FLAMINEO:

I would I were from hence.

CORNELIA:

Do you hear, sir?

I'll give you a saying which my grandmother

Was wont, when she heard the bell toll, to sing o'er

Unto her lute--

FLAMINEO:

Do, and you will, do.

CORNELIA:

'Call for the robin red breast and the wren,

Since o'er shady groves they hover,

And with leaves and flow'rs do cover

The friendless bodies of unburied men.

Call unto his funeral dole

The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole

To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm

And (when gay tombs are robb'd) sustain no harm,

But keep the wolf far thence that's foe to men,

For with his nails he'll dig them up again.'

They would not bury him 'cause he died in a quarrel

But I have an answer for them.

'Let holy church receive him duly

Since he paid the church tithes truly.'

His wealth is summed, and this is all his store:

This poor men get; and great men get no more.

Now the wares are gone, we may shut up shop.

Bless you all good people.

FLAMINEO:

I have a strange thing in me, to the which

I cannot give a name, without it be

Compassion. I pray leave me.

This night I'll know the utmost of my fate:

I'll be resolved what my rich sister means

T'assign me for my service. I have liv'd

Riotously ill, like some that live in court;

And sometimes, when my face was full of smiles

Have felt the maze of conscience in my breast.

Oft gay and honour'd robes those tortures try:

'We think cag'd birds sing, when indeed they cry'.

Yet along with resignation comes defiance, in particular, the courageous defiance of women. This hits a peak during Act 3, Scene 2, with an arraignment of the heroine, Vittoria, whose only crime is that men want her. She will not be cowed by accusations: instead, she argues back, brilliantly, and gains approval from the court's witnesses.

VITTORIA:

Find me but guilty, sever head from body:

We'll part good friends: I scorn to hold my life

At yours or any man's entreaty, sir.

ENGLISH AMBASSADOR:

She hath a brave spirit.

Her defiance, and the defiance of certain women around her, never fades, not even at the end.

VITTORIA:

'Twas a manly blow.

The next thou giv'st, murder some sucking infant

And then thou wilt be famous.

In THE WHITE DEVIL, defiance often snarls with bared fangs, but it remains courage, and as a light against the darkness, admirable.

Darkness obscured the critical consensus on Webster for decades. Even after Shakespeare had been revisited and rehabilitated from his long neglect by British and German Romantics, Webster was hobbled with the reputation of Horror Sensationalist until the end of the 19th Century, when critics like Swinburne and John Addington Symonds came forward to defend him. His rehabilitation continued in the 20th Century, thanks to critics like Rupert Brooke and F. L. Lucas. They pointed out what should have been obvious right from the start: John Webster was not only a great poet, but a great dramatist.

A great poet, a great dramatist. Marlowe was a great poet, but not exactly a good dramatist. Chapman could write beautifully, but dramatically, his plays, especially BUSSY D'AMBOIS, were unconvincing, inconsistent messes. Ford was often fine as a dramatist, and as a poet, often very fine. Above all, however, as dramatist and poet, stood William Shakespeare, and along with him, John Webster.

Webster's poetry differed from Shakespeare's in its precision. Shakespeare seems to have thought in metaphors, and he rarely used one or two when he could use twelve or fifteen; Webster showed more constraint, which enhanced the power of those metaphors he carefully chose. Webster's drama differed from Shakespeare's in its range of people and emotions. While Shakespeare understood all kinds of people, and covered a vast emotional range, Webster focused on angry, bitter people, ignored, passed by, denied promotion and money despite their qualities. It would not be exaggeration to call Webster a Poet Of Resentment.

Yet as THE WHITE DEVIL makes clear, he was also a Poet Of Defiance.

LODOVICO:

Dost laugh?

FLAMINEO:

Wouldst have me die, as I was born, in whining?

GASPARO:

Recommend yourself to heaven.

FLAMINEO:

No, I will carry mine own commendations thither.

For John Webster, defiance represents courage: a daylight strength against a world of brutal midnight power.

==============

John Ford, 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE (1633).

By critical consensus, the plays of John Ford represent either a last echo of popular Jacobean theatre, or early examples of a Caroline theatre designed not for the crowds, but for private viewings in palaces or in houses of the wealthy. Whatever the label, most critics agree that by this time, the vitality, the broad appeal of Elizabethan-Jacobean tragedy was dead, that Ford was one of the few interesting writers of this period who retained something of Jacobean vigour, and that his most interesting, most lively play, 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE, remains one of the best from its period.

I would call it a hand grenade, to be handled carefully at the risk of losing several fingers or an eye.

One reason for caution: the play's topic.

GIOVANNI:

Must I not praise

That beauty which, if framed anew, the gods

Would make a god of if they had it there,

And kneel to it, as I do kneel to them?

FRIAR:

Why, foolish madman!

GIOVANNI:

Shall a peevish sound,

A customary form, from man to man,

Of brother and of sister, be a bar

'Twixt my perpetual happiness and me?

Say that we had one father, say one womb

(Curse to my joys!) gave both us life and birth:

Are we not therefore each to other bound

So much the more by nature, by the links

Of blood, of reason (nay, if you will have't,

Even of religion), to be ever one,

One soul, one flesh, one love, one heart, one all?

[Act I, Scene i]

Like many teenagers before and since, Giovanni knows that he knows everything, and that his will, his desires, transcend social norms and accepted customs.

GIOVANNI:

What I have done I'll prove both fit and good.

It is a principle, which you have taught

When I was yet your scholar, that the frame

And composition of the mind doth follow

The frame and composition of the body;

So where the body's furniture is beauty,

The mind's must needs be virtue; which allowed,

Virtue itself is Reason but refined,

And Love the quintessence of that. This proves

My sister's beauty, being rarely fair,

Is rarely virtuous; chiefly in her love,

And chiefly in that love, her love to me.

If hers to me, then so is mine to her,

Since in like causes are effects alike.

[Act II, Scene v]

What Giovanni ignores is the weight of the world's countering opinion.

FRIAR:

O ignorance in knowledge! Long ago

How often have I warned thee this before!

Indeed, if we were sure there were no deity,

Nor heaven nor hell, then to be led alone

By nature's light -- as were philosophers

Of elder times -- might instance some defence;

But 'tis not so. Then, madman, thou wilt find

That nature is in heaven's positions blind.

[Act II, Scene v]

Luckily (or unluckily) for Giovanni, his beloved sister is more than willing to love him back. For Annabella, the long line of suitors eager to win her hand might as well not exist; her one true love is her brother.

ANNABELLA :

This noble creature was in every part

So angel-like, so glorious, that a woman

Who had not been but human as was I,

Would have kneeled to him, and have begged for love.

You -- why you are not worthy once to name

His name without true worship, or indeed,

Unless you kneeled, to hear another name him.

[Act IV, Scene iii]

The first unsettling aspect of this play is the implication that these lovers are indeed sincere. Despite the hardships that eat away at their secret union, they remain devoted and loyal to each other.

The second unsettling detail is the brutal ferocity of the other characters towards Annabella. Like the enemies of the Duchess in John Webster's THE DUCHESS OF MALFI, these men seem to resent her mainly because she openly, honestly, and courteously follows her own path. Circumstances are complicated (perhaps over-complicated) by plotters in disguise, by daily betrayals, by feuds between the suitors, but in all of this, Annabella, despite her incest, comes across as the better human being.

Yet as we know, history is written by the victors. The final judgement of the victors in this play is that Annabella was a despicable whore, which ignores her actions and her personality. Whether this harsh assessment of her character was also John Ford's remains impossible to tell, but much of the lingering bitterness of this play comes from the unfairness, the cruelty of the men.

If Annabella seems more innocent, more pure than the men around her, Giovanni carries the weight of a more complex mind. At the play's end, he becomes a full revenger against those who persecute his sister, yet his own "solution" to the challenge of his love is just as brutal as theirs. The play foreshadows this end in many lines, but it remains horrific. For some readers, this might seem over the top, but in the traditions of Elizabethan-Jacobean tragedy, the spectacle of gore fits right in.

While John Ford shares with Webster and Shakespeare this passion for bloodshed, he lacks their genius for metaphors and imagery. Instead, he offers a smoothly elegant dramatic language that brings pleasures of its own.

ANNABELLA:

Methinks you weep.

GIOVANNI:

I do indeed: these are the funeral tears

Shed on your grave; these furrowed up my cheeks

When first I loved and knew not how to woo.

Fair Annabella, should I here repeat

The story of my life, we might lose time.

Be record all the spirits of the air,

And all things else that are, that day and night,

Early and late, the tribute which my heart

Hath paid to Annabella’s sacred love

Hath been these tears, which are her mourners now.

Never till now did Nature do her best

To show a matchless beauty to the world,

Which in an instant, ere it scarce was seen,

The jealous Destinies required again.

Pray, Annabella, pray. Since we must part,

Go thou white in thy soul to fill a throne

Of innocence and sanctity in heaven.

Pray, pray, my sister.

ANNABELLA:

Then I see your drift.

Ye blessed angels, guard me!

GIOVANNI:

So say I.

Kiss me. [They kiss] If ever after-times should hear

Of our fast-knit affections, though perhaps

The laws of conscience and of civil use

May justly blame us, yet when they but know

Our loves, that love will wipe away that rigour

Which would in other incests be abhorred.

Give me your hand. How sweetly life doth run

In these well-coloured veins! How constantly

These palms do promise health! But I could chide

With Nature for this cunning flattery.

Kiss me again. Forgive me.

ANNABELLA:

With my heart. [They kiss]

[Act V, Scene v]

What we have, then, is a play of elegant poetry, undeniable power, and an overwhelming bitterness. Readers will respond as they will; for my part, I admire the play even as I wince at the sting of its venom.

John Ford, 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE (1633).

By critical consensus, the plays of John Ford represent either a last echo of popular Jacobean theatre, or early examples of a Caroline theatre designed not for the crowds, but for private viewings in palaces

John Ford, 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE (1633).

By critical consensus, the plays of John Ford represent either a last echo of popular Jacobean theatre, or early examples of a Caroline theatre designed not for the crowds, but for private viewings in palaces or in houses of the wealthy. Whatever the label, most critics agree that by this time, the vitality, the broad appeal of Elizabethan-Jacobean tragedy was dead, that Ford was one of the few interesting writers of this period who retained something of Jacobean vigour, and that his most interesting, most lively play, 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE, remains one of the best from its period.

I would call it a hand grenade, to be handled carefully at the risk of losing several fingers or an eye.

One reason for caution: the play's topic.

GIOVANNI:

Must I not praise

That beauty which, if framed anew, the gods

Would make a god of if they had it there,

And kneel to it, as I do kneel to them?

FRIAR:

Why, foolish madman!

GIOVANNI:

Shall a peevish sound,

A customary form, from man to man,

Of brother and of sister, be a bar

'Twixt my perpetual happiness and me?

Say that we had one father, say one womb

(Curse to my joys!) gave both us life and birth:

Are we not therefore each to other bound

So much the more by nature, by the links

Of blood, of reason (nay, if you will have't,

Even of religion), to be ever one,

One soul, one flesh, one love, one heart, one all?

[Act I, Scene i]

Like many teenagers before and since, Giovanni knows that he knows everything, and that his will, his desires, transcend social norms and accepted customs.

GIOVANNI:

What I have done I'll prove both fit and good.

It is a principle, which you have taught

When I was yet your scholar, that the frame

And composition of the mind doth follow

The frame and composition of the body;

So where the body's furniture is beauty,

The mind's must needs be virtue; which allowed,

Virtue itself is Reason but refined,

And Love the quintessence of that. This proves

My sister's beauty, being rarely fair,

Is rarely virtuous; chiefly in her love,

And chiefly in that love, her love to me.

If hers to me, then so is mine to her,

Since in like causes are effects alike.

[Act II, Scene v]

What Giovanni ignores is the weight of the world's countering opinion.

FRIAR:

O ignorance in knowledge! Long ago

How often have I warned thee this before!

Indeed, if we were sure there were no deity,

Nor heaven nor hell, then to be led alone

By nature's light -- as were philosophers

Of elder times -- might instance some defence;

But 'tis not so. Then, madman, thou wilt find

That nature is in heaven's positions blind.

[Act II, Scene v]

Luckily (or unluckily) for Giovanni, his beloved sister is more than willing to love him back. For Annabella, the long line of suitors eager to win her hand might as well not exist; her one true love is her brother.

ANNABELLA :

This noble creature was in every part

So angel-like, so glorious, that a woman

Who had not been but human as was I,

Would have kneeled to him, and have begged for love.

You -- why you are not worthy once to name

His name without true worship, or indeed,

Unless you kneeled, to hear another name him.

[Act IV, Scene iii]

The first unsettling aspect of this play is the implication that these lovers are indeed sincere. Despite the hardships that eat away at their secret union, they remain devoted and loyal to each other.

The second unsettling detail is the brutal ferocity of the other characters towards Annabella. Like the enemies of the Duchess in John Webster's THE DUCHESS OF MALFI, these men seem to resent her mainly because she openly, honestly, and courteously follows her own path. Circumstances are complicated (perhaps over-complicated) by plotters in disguise, by daily betrayals, by feuds between the suitors, but in all of this, Annabella, despite her incest, comes across as the better human being.

Yet as we know, history is written by the victors. The final judgement of the victors in this play is that Annabella was a despicable whore, which ignores her actions and her personality. Whether this harsh assessment of her character was also John Ford's remains impossible to tell, but much of the lingering bitterness of this play comes from the unfairness, the cruelty of the men.

If Annabella seems more innocent, more pure than the men around her, Giovanni carries the weight of a more complex mind. At the play's end, he becomes a full revenger against those who persecute his sister, yet his own "solution" to the challenge of his love is just as brutal as theirs. The play foreshadows this end in many lines, but it remains horrific. For some readers, this might seem over the top, but in the traditions of Elizabethan-Jacobean tragedy, the spectacle of gore fits right in.

While John Ford shares with Webster and Shakespeare this passion for bloodshed, he lacks their genius for metaphors and imagery. Instead, he offers a smoothly elegant dramatic language that brings pleasures of its own.

ANNABELLA:

Methinks you weep.

GIOVANNI:

I do indeed: these are the funeral tears

Shed on your grave; these furrowed up my cheeks

When first I loved and knew not how to woo.

Fair Annabella, should I here repeat

The story of my life, we might lose time.

Be record all the spirits of the air,

And all things else that are, that day and night,

Early and late, the tribute which my heart

Hath paid to Annabella’s sacred love

Hath been these tears, which are her mourners now.

Never till now did Nature do her best

To show a matchless beauty to the world,

Which in an instant, ere it scarce was seen,

The jealous Destinies required again.

Pray, Annabella, pray. Since we must part,

Go thou white in thy soul to fill a throne

Of innocence and sanctity in heaven.

Pray, pray, my sister.

ANNABELLA:

Then I see your drift.

Ye blessed angels, guard me!

GIOVANNI:

So say I.

Kiss me. [They kiss] If ever after-times should hear

Of our fast-knit affections, though perhaps

The laws of conscience and of civil use

May justly blame us, yet when they but know

Our loves, that love will wipe away that rigour

Which would in other incests be abhorred.

Give me your hand. How sweetly life doth run

In these well-coloured veins! How constantly

These palms do promise health! But I could chide

With Nature for this cunning flattery.

Kiss me again. Forgive me.

ANNABELLA:

With my heart. [They kiss]

[Act V, Scene v]

What we have, then, is a play of elegant poetry, undeniable power, and an overwhelming bitterness. Readers will respond as they will; for my part, I admire the play even as I wince at the sting of its venom.

By critical consensus, the plays of John Ford represent either a last echo of popular Jacobean theatre, or early examples of a Caroline theatre designed not for the crowds, but for private viewings in palaces or in houses of the wealthy. Whatever the

By critical consensus, the plays of John Ford represent either a last echo of popular Jacobean theatre, or early examples of a Caroline theatre designed not for the crowds, but for private viewings in palaces or in houses of the wealthy. Whatever the label, most critics agree that by this time, the vitality, the broad appeal of Elizabethan-Jacobean tragedy was dead, that Ford was one of the few interesting writers of this period who retained something of Jacobean vigour, and that his most interesting, most lively play, 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE, remains one of the best from its period.

I would call it a hand grenade, to be handled carefully at the risk of losing several fingers or an eye.

One reason for caution: the play's topic.

GIOVANNI:

Must I not praise

That beauty which, if framed anew, the gods

Would make a god of if they had it there,

And kneel to it, as I do kneel to them?

FRIAR:

Why, foolish madman!

GIOVANNI:

Shall a peevish sound,

A customary form, from man to man,

Of brother and of sister, be a bar

'Twixt my perpetual happiness and me?

Say that we had one father, say one womb

(Curse to my joys!) gave both us life and birth:

Are we not therefore each to other bound

So much the more by nature, by the links

Of blood, of reason (nay, if you will have't,

Even of religion), to be ever one,

One soul, one flesh, one love, one heart, one all?

[Act I, Scene i]

Like many teenagers before and since, Giovanni knows that he knows everything, and that his will, his desires, transcend social norms and accepted customs.

GIOVANNI:

What I have done I'll prove both fit and good.

It is a principle, which you have taught

When I was yet your scholar, that the frame

And composition of the mind doth follow

The frame and composition of the body;

So where the body's furniture is beauty,

The mind's must needs be virtue; which allowed,

Virtue itself is Reason but refined,

And Love the quintessence of that. This proves

My sister's beauty, being rarely fair,

Is rarely virtuous; chiefly in her love,

And chiefly in that love, her love to me.

If hers to me, then so is mine to her,

Since in like causes are effects alike.

[Act II, Scene v]

What Giovanni ignores is the weight of the world's countering opinion.

FRIAR:

O ignorance in knowledge! Long ago

How often have I warned thee this before!

Indeed, if we were sure there were no deity,

Nor heaven nor hell, then to be led alone

By nature's light -- as were philosophers

Of elder times -- might instance some defence;

But 'tis not so. Then, madman, thou wilt find

That nature is in heaven's positions blind.

[Act II, Scene v]

Luckily (or unluckily) for Giovanni, his beloved sister is more than willing to love him back. For Annabella, the long line of suitors eager to win her hand might as well not exist; her one true love is her brother.

ANNABELLA :

This noble creature was in every part

So angel-like, so glorious, that a woman

Who had not been but human as was I,

Would have kneeled to him, and have begged for love.

You -- why you are not worthy once to name

His name without true worship, or indeed,

Unless you kneeled, to hear another name him.

[Act IV, Scene iii]

The first unsettling aspect of this play is the implication that these lovers are indeed sincere. Despite the hardships that eat away at their secret union, they remain devoted and loyal to each other.

The second unsettling detail is the brutal ferocity of the other characters towards Annabella. Like the enemies of the Duchess in John Webster's THE DUCHESS OF MALFI, these men seem to resent her mainly because she openly, honestly, and courteously follows her own path. Circumstances are complicated (perhaps over-complicated) by plotters in disguise, by daily betrayals, by feuds between the suitors, but in all of this, Annabella, despite her incest, comes across as the better human being.

Yet as we know, history is written by the victors. The final judgement of the victors in this play is that Annabella was a despicable whore, which ignores her actions and her personality. Whether this harsh assessment of her character was also John Ford's remains impossible to tell, but much of the lingering bitterness of this play comes from the unfairness, the cruelty of the men.

If Annabella seems more innocent, more pure than the men around her, Giovanni carries the weight of a more complex mind. At the play's end, he becomes a full revenger against those who persecute his sister, yet his own "solution" to the challenge of his love is just as brutal as theirs. The play foreshadows this end in many lines, but it remains horrific. For some readers, this might seem over the top, but in the traditions of Elizabethan-Jacobean tragedy, the spectacle of gore fits right in.

While John Ford shares with Webster and Shakespeare this passion for bloodshed, he lacks their genius for metaphors and imagery. Instead, he offers a smoothly elegant dramatic language that brings pleasures of its own.

ANNABELLA:

Methinks you weep.

GIOVANNI:

I do indeed: these are the funeral tears

Shed on your grave; these furrowed up my cheeks

When first I loved and knew not how to woo.

Fair Annabella, should I here repeat

The story of my life, we might lose time.

Be record all the spirits of the air,

And all things else that are, that day and night,

Early and late, the tribute which my heart

Hath paid to Annabella’s sacred love

Hath been these tears, which are her mourners now.

Never till now did Nature do her best

To show a matchless beauty to the world,

Which in an instant, ere it scarce was seen,

The jealous Destinies required again.

Pray, Annabella, pray. Since we must part,

Go thou white in thy soul to fill a throne

Of innocence and sanctity in heaven.

Pray, pray, my sister.

ANNABELLA:

Then I see your drift.

Ye blessed angels, guard me!

GIOVANNI:

So say I.

Kiss me. [They kiss] If ever after-times should hear

Of our fast-knit affections, though perhaps

The laws of conscience and of civil use

May justly blame us, yet when they but know

Our loves, that love will wipe away that rigour

Which would in other incests be abhorred.

Give me your hand. How sweetly life doth run

In these well-coloured veins! How constantly

These palms do promise health! But I could chide

With Nature for this cunning flattery.

Kiss me again. Forgive me.

ANNABELLA:

With my heart. [They kiss]

[Act V, Scene v]

What we have, then, is a play of elegant poetry, undeniable power, and an overwhelming bitterness. Readers will respond as they will; for my part, I admire the play even as I wince at the sting of its venom.

"A year ago it would have seemed to me ridiculous to assume that there are some facts it is better not to know, and even today I do not believe in the bliss of ignorance or the folly of knowledge. But this one thing is best left untouched. It rips the fabric of human existence from throat to hem and leaves us naked to a wind as cold as the space between the stars."

"I watched the flash and lift of her arm as it came out of the water, and the arc of ripples that pushed along in front of her bathing cap. The sun caught the wet rubber and made a point of fire on it. I found myself matching my strokes to hers, so that we were swimming beside each other in the same rhythm, sliding through the water like parts of a single entity. The patch of fire on her cap held my eyes until I was half hypnotized without knowing it, and only the grating of my fingers on the beach sand snapped the spell.

"We stood up then and looked at each other. Drops of water fell from her body like fragments of light, and for an instant it seemed to me that there had been nothing whatever prior to this moment, that we had swum up out of some infinite reservoir of being until we stranded on the shore of the world. It is impossible to describe such an experience in the vocabulary of psychology, or any other, for that matter. It simply was. We stood there looking at each other, half smiling, not conscious of things but of everything fused into one universal sensation which vibrated in me to the tune of our swimming."

"It should have occurred to me that, even in despair, Julian would be a hard man to fool and that Mrs. Walters must have shown him evidence of something more important than occasional flashes of telepathy. If I had thought about that for a while, tried to imagine what she had been able to do which would interest him, I might have caught a glimpse of what was likely to happen. Instead, the problem presented itself to me in a completely irrelevant light -- the question of what I ought to do about Julian.

"The answer was certainly not obvious. I mulled it over in my mind for a good while, but in the end came back to the only real idea I had, which was to wait a while, see more plainly what was going on, and try to persuade Julian to let me examine his work. Once I reached that point I counted on being able to see the flaw in it -- the reason why it wouldn't do what he claimed. I never doubted that such a flaw existed. Perhaps I might be able to break him of this delusion at once, but if not, the entering wedge would have been driven. He had suggested that he'd achieved some partial success. (How partial they both were, I thought -- Julian with his invention, Mrs. Walters with her contact in the 'other' world.) Very well, then. I would persuade Julian to demonstrate to me how far he had got. He would have to talk to me as one scientist to another. That in itself would help. He would be reminded of his own innate standards and see that he was being false to them.

"The plan was naïve, of course. I see that now. But it might have worked. Even now I can't say positively that it wouldn't have done what I hoped. But there was never an opportunity to test it. And when Julian unwittingly gave us a demonstration what he had accomplished, I did not know it for what it was."

"In the end I had to give up the effort to discover what I thought was wrong. There were too many possibilities and nothing probable. The accident, when I thought about it, did not seem to explain the feeling wholly, though I admitted to myself that when I had seen Mrs. Marcy lying in that unnatural way at the foot of the stairs I had thought for one instant, 'Now it's happened.' But that was obviously meaningless. As it turned out, nothing had happened. And equally, if the accident had been important in some way, I could not see why or to whom -- except Mrs. Marcy -- it was important. What the 'it' was that had happened I did not understand, though I assigned it to the feeling of imminence which had come over me earlier in the afternoon. That, in turn, was unquestionably caused by the approach of the thunderstorm. Still, the lightning and thunder, and most of the rain, had long ago swept away to the northeast and it seemed to me that the air was as charged with suspense as ever. Suspense, I reminded myself, is a purely subjective matter. There was no way of telling whether the way I felt had any external foundation or not."

"The rain was still falling, but not in gusts and torrents. It looked as though it might stop in half an hour or so, but it was still coming down fast enough to make me sprint for the battered Ford sedan in which Anne was sitting. Maine mud and dust were plastered all over it, but the motor sounded smooth under the hood. Even before my door was closed Anne was wrenching the car around and stepping it up from gear to gear. As we straightened out into the road the machine slewed sickeningly and I perceived that this was going to be quite a ride. The storm had soaked the loose top dirt of the track and turned it into a slimy lubricant between our wheels and the underlying hardpan. We skidded at every rut.

"'How about chains?'

"Anne didn't take her eyes off the road, but she grinned. 'Haven’t any, Dick. Don't worry.' We struck a pothole. When the car was back on an even keel she said, 'Do you think we ought to stop off at Marcy's anyhow? It'll be a mile, and ten minutes out of our way if the phone isn’t working.'

"'No,' I answered. 'I guess Mrs. Walters is right about that. We won't save much time even if the phone is working and it seems to me like a poor gamble.'

"'Probably.' She avoided a crater full of brown water and wrestled the car back across the slimy surface of the road. 'Seth Marcy's nobody's pet, anyhow. I've only seen him a couple or times, but he's the kind of man who doesn't open his mouth unless he has something unpleasant to say. I feel sorry for Elora.'

"'We'll forget him, then, till we get a doctor. After that we can go to his house and tell him.'

"We went on, not exactly racing but making incredible speed for the condition of the road. Anne handled the car with a magnificent blend of daring and judgment; I thought we weren't going to make the bridge at the turn by the creek, but we got across it by a hair, and when we hit the road along the far bank of the bay the going was better. Even with the chances Anne took, I did not feel nervous about her driving. There was competence in the way her hands were resting on the wheel, in the way she sat behind it, alert but not tense. It was, indeed, strangely pleasant, that ride. We were in a private world of our own, with rain on our roof and streaking down the windows, shutting us in together. I liked it. For a mile or so I forgot our errand, forgot the bleak house behind us, and thought of nothing except that this fortuitous intimacy was different from anything that had ever happened to me before.

"After twenty minutes or perhaps a little longer, the unlovely center of Barsham Harbor was flashing past our windows. I have often wished since that I had looked at my watch more frequently that day, but it was still in the side pocket of my coat, where I had put it when we went swimming, and I remembered it only as we pulled into town. It was ten minutes after four then and the light was already beginning to fade, thanks to the clouds and the rain.

"Our luck seemed to be out from the moment we hit the town. There were, it appeared, three doctors in Barsham Harbor. Dr. Peters was out on a call. Dr. Solomon, whom we tried next, had gone to Bath and was not expected back for several hours. The third and last was Dr. Rambouillet. His house was beyond the Catholic church on the other side of the railroad tracks and his small shingle looked inauspiciously new. But he was at home.

"'Dr. Peters is the Marcy family doctor,' he said to us when we told him our errand. 'I think you'd better get him. The people here...' he shrugged with the Latinity of the French Canadian.

"'He's out on a call,' I said. 'This is an emergency.'

"With no more demur he picked up his bag and got into the car. 'All right, but don't say I didn't warn you.' The teeth under his narrow black mustache were startling when he smiled. He couldn't have been over twenty-eight. 'I'll do what I can,' he declared, 'and then turn the case over to Dr. Peters. You see,' and he smiled again disarmingly, 'the people of Barsham Harbor either do want a French Canadian doctor or they don't. We keep to our own sides of the fence. Or perhaps I ought to say, of the tracks. You understand?'

"'Yes,' I said, 'and sympathize... What was your school, Doctor?'

"'McGill. And the ink is quite dry on the diploma.'

"I laughed. Anne was too busy driving to pay much attention to what we were saying. The day was drawing in and she switched on the lights when we turned right at the bridge. I watched the road slither and dance under our wheels. The thought went through my head that it was impossible I had got off the State of Maine express only that morning. This day had been going on for half a lifetime already. I was tired and sleepy. The thing to do would be to get to bed as soon after supper as was decently possible."