"The wildness of thy fate draws to an end,/To a bad, fearful end."
-- p. 229
The title of this jaw-dropping tragedy, first published in 1633, has always sounded to me like it should belong to a jaunty, bawdy comedy, in which someone would slap his knee at the end and say, "Ha, ha. 'Tis pity she's a whore." Oddly enough, that is the last line of the play -- only very much without the "Ha, ha" part.
For years, all I knew about this play was the misleading title, a general classification with the phrases "Jacobean" and "revenge tragedy," and, most importantly, a particular shocking, grisly act which takes place near its conclusion. This was used by my Brit Lit professor as an example of what we could expect from that Jacobean revenge tragedy. At the time, I was unfamiliar with the concept of "spoilers." I've since learned, through sci-fi fans and Buffy the Vampire Slayer posting boards, that some people take it very seriously when reviewers give plot points away. In this case, however, I think knowing what horrors awaited me helped prepare me for the world of brutal cruelty in which the play takes place.
The opening, in which the nobleman Giovanni debates with a priest whether "Shall then, for that I am her brother born,/My joys be ever banished from her bed?" (p. 170), warns readers that they've strayed from the comparatively genteel plays of Shakespeare (who died 17 years earlier). Does Giovanni think the priest is likely to agree that he should be allowed his sister's bed? Frankly, maybe he does, since within a few pages he's declaring his unashamedly sexual love to his sister Annabella. Surprisingly, she quickly reciprocates, and by the end of Act 1, Scene 2 they're already leaving the stage to go and have sex.
Annabella is portrayed by Ford as beautiful, wealthy, cultured, and although she is pursued by a variety of suitors, she has a father who vows he "will not force my daughter 'gainst her will...My care is how to match her to her liking." (p. 178, 179) She has practically a best-case scenario for a woman of her time. But once she gets knocked up, her options dwindle, and her acceptance of Soranzo, seemingly the most eligible and loving of her suitors, puts her into the absolute power of a brutal man she can't control. After their wedding is marred by a Hamlet-like poison cup disruption and the violent curses of a former mistress of the groom, it's only half a page later that Soranzo comes on stage "with Annabella dragged in," shouting "Come, strumpet, famous whore!" (p. 217) The way the action is compressed, things have clearly gone bad in record time, once her husband realizes that "I must be the dad/To all that gallimaufry that's stuffed/In thy corrupted bastard-bearing womb!" (p, 217)
Even the minor characters don't escape. Annabella's bawdy "tutoress," who believes women should sleep with whoever they want ("father or brother, all is one"), has an obvious resemblance to the comic-relief nurse of Romeo and Juliet, which makes her fate all the more shocking. In Shakespeare's play, fate and free will collide to create needless suffering and death, but no one is tortured more or less for fun. The harshness in the play, and the attitude of the young couple that their incestuous relationship is perfectly natural, makes it an eye-opener for those who think graphic violence and deviant sexuality are relatively new developments in popular entertainment.
Ford, John. 'Tis Pity She's a Whore and Other Plays. Oxford, Oxford UP, 1995.