’Tis Pity She’s a Whore by John Ford

Performed sometime between 1629 and 1633 and published in 1633, the play thus came out a while after Shakespeare’s death (1616) and the publication of the First Folio (1623).

1/ ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore is one of the most well-known plays of 17th century England, and one of the most controversial. 

“GIOVANNI I marvel why the chaster of your sex 

Should think this pretty toy called maidenhead 

So strange a loss, when, being lost, ’tis nothing, 

And you are still the same.” 

(Act 2 scene 1)  

Giovanni is talking to his own sister Annabella (yuck)—the play is about incest. 

Listen to Annabella’s tutoress/ guardian: 

“PUTANA […] Fear nothing, sweetheart: what though he be your brother? Your brother’s a man I hope, and I say still, if a young wench feel the fit upon her; let her take anybody, father or brother, all is one.” 

(ibid.) 

Ugh. She quickly changes the tune though, when Annabella’s pregnant.

This conversation between Annabella’s father Florio and Richardetto (who’s pretending to be a doctor) is funny: 

“RICHARDETTO […] You need not doubt her health; I rather think 

Her sickness is a fullness of her blood – 

You understand me? 

FLORIO I do – you counsel well – 

And once within these few days will so order’t 

She shall be married, ere she know the time.” 

(Act 3 scene 4) 

Florio doesn’t know that she’s pregnant. Whether or not Richardetto knows is not made clear, though I think it works better for the story if he does.  

According to the notes in my copy (New Mermaids’ Four Revenge Tragedies), “fullness of her blood” means “sexual ripeness”.

“This was believed to be an ailment of female virgins; the usual remedy was for the young woman to have sex as soon as possible.”

Hmm, interesting. 

2/ ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore is a play about incest and begins with the Friar talking about “devilish atheism”, but John Ford slowly shows that it’s the clergy that is immoral and hypocritical. 

For instance, when the Friar is talking to Annabella, now pregnant with her own brother’s child, he talks about hell, about “smoky fogs” and “infected darkness” and “never-dying death” and “damned souls” and “burning oil” and “molten gold” and so on. But then: 

“FRIAR […] Heaven is merciful, 

And offers grace even now. ’Tis thus agreed: 

First, for your honour’s safety, that you marry 

The Lord Soranzo; next, to save your soul, 

Leave off this life, and henceforth live to him.” 

(Act 3 scene 7)  

That has nothing to do with heaven or hell—the Friar tells Annabella to marry Soranzo, thus deceiving him, to save her reputation. 

Even worse is when Grimaldi (one of Annabella’s suitors), intending to get rid of Soranzo, mistakenly kills Bergetto and runs to the Cardinal for help. 

“CARDINAL […] You citizens of Parma, if you seek 

For justice, know, as Nuncio from the Pope, 

For this offence I here receive Grimaldi

Into his Holiness’ protection. 

He is no common man, but nobly born 

Of princes’ blood… 

[…] 

FLORIO Justice is fled to heaven and comes no nearer. 

[…] When cardinals think murder’s not amiss. 

Great men may do their wills, we must obey, 

But Heaven will judge them for’t another day.” 

(Act 3 scene 9)  

All these revenge plays depict society as unfair and unjust—that’s why people must take the law into their own hands. 

3/ Like the other revenge plays I have read, ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore is engrossing. John Ford goes further, to excess—whereas The Spanish Tragedy is chiefly about Hieronimo’s revenge for the murder of his son and The Revenger’s Tragedy is about Vindice’s revenge on the Duke’s family for the murder of his betrothed, ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore has multiple vengeful characters: Grimaldi wants a revenge on Soranzo for humiliating him and “stealing” Annabella; Hippolita wants a revenge on Soranzo for discarding her and marrying Annabella; her husband Richardetto pretends to be dead in order to take revenge on Hippolita and Soranzo for their affair; Soranzo wants revenge after discovering Annabella’s relations with Giovanni, and so on. 

John Ford’s play doesn’t have the great poetry of The White Devil or The Revenger’s Tragedy.

But more importantly, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The play depicts a dissolute, corrupt world, and at the centre of it is the incestuous, lecherous, unreasonable Giovanni: 

“GIOVANNI Shall then, for that I am her brother born, 

My joys be ever banished from her bed?” 

(Act 1 scene 1) 

He doesn’t listen to reason and doesn’t care for consequences. Even if you are indifferent to incest when it’s consensual, I doubt I am alone in finding his thinking and actions vile:  

“GIOVANNI Busy opinion is an idle fool, 

That, as a school-rod keeps a child in awe, 

Frights the unexperienced temper of the mind, 

So did it me, who, ere my precious sister

Was married, thought all taste of love would die

In such a contract; but I find no change 

Of pleasure in this formal law of sport. 

She is still one to me, and every kiss 

As sweet and as delicious as the first 

I reaped when yet the privilege of youth 

Entitled her a virgin.” 

(Act 5 scene 3)  

However unlikeable Soranzo is—and John Ford makes sure that we all find him abhorrent—the fact remains that Annabella deceives him into marriage and continues betraying him after the wedding. And when Giovanni foils Soranzo’s plan at the end, he may save Annabella from the awful plot and refuses Soranzo the satisfaction of revenge, but all he does in the final spectacle is degrading himself and his sister, and elevating the husband—nobody knows about Soranzo’s cruelty, nobody knows about the murder plot—all the others see is that the poor husband is wronged.  

“GIOVANNI Father, no. 

For nine months’ space in secret I enjoyed 

Sweet Annabella’s sheets; nine months I lived 

A happy monarch of her heart and her. 

Soranzo, thou know’st this: thy paler cheek 

Bears the confounding print of thy disgrace, 

For her too fruitful womb too soon bewrayed 

The happy passage of our stol’n delights, 

And made her mother to a child unborn.” 

(Act 5 scene 6) 

It is all sordid. 

I feel sorry for people in early 17th century England—they went to Shakespeare’s plays for years but then he died and they went to the theatre and it was ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore. 

PS: My favourite plays by Shakespeare's contemporaries so far are The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster, Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, and The Revenger’s Tragedy by Cyril Tourneur/ Thomas Middleton.