'Tis Pity She's a WhoreJohn Ford, 1633Edition:
in Ford (Five Plays), Edited by Havelock Ellis, 1957. "A Mermaid Dramabook $1.65"Read in conjunction with
The Early Modern Underground.
Note: This is simply a plot summary for my own reference. No effort is made to avoid spoilers.ACT I
Scene 1: We meet
Giovanni, a college boy, who is confessing to his tutor (
Friar Bonaventura) that he has the hots for his sister. Having recently read "
A King and No King," we wonder what was in the English Rennaisance water.
Scene 2: Two men (
Grimaldi and
Vasques) duel in front of
Florio's house. We learn that Florio has a lovely daughter and that one
Soranzo is the leading contender for her hand. He has sent Vasques, his servant, to avenge an insult by Grimaldi, who is also interested in the daughter.
Annabella, the daughter, is treated to a long, funny, mildly bawdy lesson from
her tutor,
Putana (!), on how she should choose between her various suitors.
Then, we meet a third suitor, the amusingly d-u-m-b
Bergetto and his clever, cynical servant
Poggio.
Scene 3: Giovanni arises home, and we realize that his sister is Annabella. He confesses his love, and she confesses that she's all into him too. They smooch, we squirm.
Scene 4: Donado, uncle of the oaf Bergetto, tries to make a case for his nephew to Florio. After Florio leaves, Bergetto stumbles by on the way to a freakshow. When Donado asks him if he has been doing any wooing, he reports back on a completely incompetant conversation he had with Annabella.
ACT II
Scene 1: Giovanni and Annabella have just done the nasty, and exchange fairly explicit after-sex endearments. Giovanni than suggests that Annabella is going to need to get married to somebody, which darkens the mood. He leaves, and Putana wanders in. Annabella admits she just did her brother, but Putana is a woman of the world and is cool with that.
Then, dad comes in with two new characters,
Richardetto and
Philotis. Rick is a doctor whom Florio asks to look into Annabella's recent moodiness, and Philotis is his kinswoman.
Scene 2: Soranzo is foppishly reading and writing love poetry when he is interupted by
Hippolita. Hippolita is pissed off because Soranzo seduced her and implied that he would marry her if she wasn't so darn married already. Hippolita then talked her husband into going on a long journey to find his orphaned niece, but there was a shipwreck and he died. Now that she's available, Soranzo wants nothing to do with her.
Vasques, who had to fight on his master's behalf back in I:2 and has just watched him be a thoroughgoing jerk, talks with Hippolita for a while and either (a) agrees to conspire with her against Soranzo, or (b) pretends to conspire with her in order to keep her from killing Soranzo. Couldn't tell which.
Scene 3: Richardetto and Philotis reveal themselves to be Hippolita's cuckolded husband and his niece; apparently they didn't die in a shipwreck after all. Richardetto is none too pleased with Soranzo. Finding Grimaldi, whom we last saw fighting Soranzo's proxy in I:2, he offers to provide him with the ol' rapier poison to use on their mutual enemy.
Scene 4: Donado has written a love letter on behalf of his nephew. Bergetto protests that he has written one of his own; it is of course incredibly awful. Donado tells him to go home and stay home.
Scene 5: Giovanni tries to sell his tutor on the idea that it's really a
good thing that he's dating his sister, but Friar Bonaventura's not buying it.
Scene 6: Donado presses his nephew's suit by proxy (lots of proxy in this play) to Annabella and her dad. She squirms out of a marriage agreement, barely. Then Bergetto himself shows up, happily bragging about how he got beat up after provoking a stranger. He got patched up by a doctor on the scene -- Richardetto, of course -- and has developed a huge crush on Philotis, whom he tactfully describes to Annabella as twenty times as beautiful as her. After an appalled Donado manages to trundle him off, Giovanni stumbles back in to exchange a little creepy love-banter with his little sister.
ACT III
Scene 1: Bergetto is all upset about having been trundled off in II:6, and determines to marry Philotis before his uncle can interfere with his plans.
Scene 2: Soranzo comes to court Annabella. She is not receptive. She does the
My love is nothing like the sun bit for a while, pretending to take his love-talk literally, but then gets serious and gives him an odd little consolation speech: she doesn't love him and won't marry him, but if she absolutely
had to marry someone, he'd be the lesser of all available evils.
Suddenly, Annabella begins to sicken. "O, I begin to sicken!" she cries.
Scene 3: Putana is terribly upset, and Giovanni is pretty upset too once she convinces him that Annabella is pregnant.
Scene 4: "Doctor Richardetto" has examined Annabella and thinks she'll be fine. He tells her dad that "I rather think her sickness is a fulness of the blood -- you understand me?" Well, ~I~ don't understand him, but Florio seems to, and thinks that the best thing for it is a quick marriage to Soranzo. Has Dr. Rick discovered and communicated that she's preggers?
Scene 5: Grimaldi stops by Richardetto's to pick up the rapier poison. After he leaves, Philotis comes in and talks about Bergetto in rhyming couplets. I haven't figured her out yet -- is she a knowing participant in Dr. Rick's revenge plans, or a simpleton who is actually smitten with Bergetto? Speaking of Bergetto, he and his shadow drop by right about now and treat her to some oafish love talk, such as Bergetto announcing that he has a boner. Class all the way with this guy.
Scene 6: The Friar gives a rip-roaring speech about ~hell!~ to Annabella, and at the end she says she's ready to repent and hitch up with Soranzo.
Scene 7: Grimaldi is lurking about in a place where he thinks Soranzo might happen by. He hears a man call a woman "sweetheart," figures that's
just the kind of thing Soranzo would say, and plunges his poisoned rapier into.... Bergetto. He runs off, pursued by the guard, and Bergetto dies as oafishly as he lived. Poggio is all cut up about it, which is actually kind of poignant.
Scene 8: Hippolita and Vasques discuss Soranzo's upcoming nuptuals. Vasques' stance becomes a little clearer; he is indeed intending to betray Soranzo, not just for betraying's sake but because he hopes to nail Hippolita.
Scene 9: Grimaldi has been pursued to
the Cardinal's compound. The Cardinal is a pompous bozo. Grimaldi explains that it's all just a crazy mixed-up mistake, he actually intended to murder someone else entirely. The Cardinal puts him under the protection of the church. No one is too happy about this, except maybe Grimaldi.
ACT IVScene 1: It's Soranzo's and Annabella's wedding reception. Some masked maidens come in to dance, and when they're finished Hippolita whips off a mask and makes a little speech saying that the rumors aren't true, that she won't come between the two of them. It turns out I was wrong about Vasques, though. Hippolita was fooled, too, and ends up dying horribly when Vasques slips her the poison, instead of Soranzo. Everyone agrees that the reception has been kind of a washout.
Scene 2: Richardo makes a long speech to his niece about how Soranzo isn't dead yet, but he'll get his in the end, and the world is a cruel and awful place, and maybe she should go to Cremona and join a convent and spend the rest of her life praying, "your best friends your beads." She agrees in two sentences, and wanders off as if he asked her to go fetch some coffee. Kind of dim, Philotis.
The very long Scene 3: An abrupt break from Dr. Rick's musings, as we enter suddenly into a spat between Soranzo and Annabella. The kind of spat where he is threatening to kill her, having discovered she's pregnant. He wants to know who the father is, but she won't tell him.
After much intense conversation, Vasques walks in and comprehends the situation. He calms Soranzo down, thinking it will go better for everybody if he doesn't kill his wife on the spot. He promises to figure out who the father is, so that Soranzo can get his revenge in an organized fashion.
Immediately Putana walks in, and Vasques very smoothly cajoles the truth out of her in nothing flat. As soon as she spills the beans, he calls in some thugs and has them gag her, take her to the coalshed, and put out her eyes.
Giovanni wanders by, giving Vasques an opportunity to make a tacky pun. Then Soranzo returns, and Vasques prepares to give him the big news.
ACT V...
in which, much to our surprise, Giovanni and Annabella DON'T turn out to be adopted children, not really siblings after all, and DON'T live happily ever after. I'll be damned.
Scene 1: A long speech by Annabella from her balcony. She gives a letter for Giovanni to the Friar.
Scene 2: Vasques has just finished explaining things to Soranzo. He encourages his master to think of vengeance.
Scene 3: Giovanni talks about how he's still just nuts about Sis. The Friar brings him the letter, where he reads that their secret is out. At this very moment, Vasques comes by to invite Giovanni to Soranzo's birthday party. No, really. It's a trap, obviously, but Giovanni is determined to walk into it. The friar, no dummy, resolves to get back to the university.
Scene 4: He join Soranzo and Vasques as they finish up a final talk-through with the thugs; "we'll make a murder," agree the thugs, and go into hiding. Giovanni arrives, and Soranzo asks to go bring his sister in from her chamber. The Cardinal and other dignitaries arrive.
Scene 5: Annabella and Giovanni have a sad little conversation, realizing they are in an untenable situation. They wonder if they'll get to be together in the afterlife. Giovanni urges Annabella to pray, so she'll go to heaven when the end comes. Then he stabs her. As she's dying, he says he'll explain why he killed her once she's dead -- but when she dies, he just says something about how he has foiled Soranzo's "reaching plots." Is he nuts? Or rational within a system of values that I don't know about? Hard to say.
Scene 6: The birthday party is progressing from feast to dessert when
"Enter Giovanni
with a heart upon his dagger." He rants, explaining that it's Annabella's heart, that he is her "glorious executioner," and that they had been getting it on for the last nine months. No one is quite sure he's telling the truth until Vasques checks Annabella's room and confirms it, at which point Florio -- Giovanni and Annabella's dad, remember -- drops dead of a heart attack. All hell breaks lose. Giovanni stabs Soranzo. Vasques calls in the thugs, who stab Giovanni. Soranzo dies. Giovanni dies.
At this point, Vasques tells a little story about how he was only Soranzo's servant because he was adopted as a child by Soranzo's father, and when that man died he asked Vasques to look after his boy. Vasques, perhaps unconvincingly under the circumstances, announces that it's been a job well done.
Next, the Cardinal renders judgment: Annabella's carcass is to be burned. Donado is not to be punished, but he has to leave town. Poor blind Putana, out in the coal shed, is mentioned, but no action is taken.
Finally, Richardetto, who has been sitting there the whole act without a line, removes his disguise. The Cardinal and Donado say "wow, it's you!" Then, the Cardinal ends the play with a pair of couplets to the effect that 'twas a pity that Annabella was a whore.
(Except, she wasn't.)
