# 'Tis Pity She's a Whore/Notes

Notes to 'Tis Pity
For the meaning of single words see the Glossary.
3. John, Earle of Peterborough. This nobleman was in favour with both James I and Charles I. He was created Earl of Peterborough by letters patent of March 9, 1627-8. See article in Dictionary of National Biography on Henry Mordaunt, second Earl of Peterborough.
3. first fruits of my leasure. This might refer to the termination of some piece of legal business or even to permanent retirement from the legal profession; but, as Gifford says, "so little of Ford's personal history is known, that no allusion to any circumstance peculiar to himself can be explained."
7, 49. Bononia. The Latin form of Bologna, the seat of the oldest university in Europe.
9, 1. stand to your tackling. Defend yourself.
9, 8-9. Wilt thou to this geere? Do you wish to fight?
11, 50. I should have worm'd you. Gifford says, "The allusion is to the practice of cutting what is called the worm from under a dog's tongue, as a preventive of madness." Cf. "Some of our preachmen are grown dog mad, there's a worm got into their tongues as well as their heads." Familiar Letters of James Howell, 11, p. 197, Boston, 1907.
11, 50-51. for running madde. For fear of your running mad.
12, 62. unspleen'd dove. According to popular belief, the dove owed its gentle disposition to its lack of gall. Sir Thomas Browne exposed this "vulgar error" in Pseudodoxia Epidemica, Bk. III, Chap. 3.
14, 125-6. an elder brother . . . coxcomb. Fleay thought these words contained "a personal allusion to Richard Perkins as having acted those parts for the King's Men, and now personating Bergetto for the Queen's." The suggestion is closely ​associated with his contention that the play was produced about 1626, which has not met with approval.
30, 56. Padua. The seat of the famous university founded in the thirteenth century, and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries particularly flourishing. Coryat tells us that he was conducted about the city by "two English gentlemen that were then commorant in Padua when I was there, Mr. Moore Doctor of Physicke, and Mr. Willoughby a learned Student in the University." Crudities, vol. 1, p. 299, Glasgow, 1905.
31, 5. Sanazar. Jacopo Sannazaro was born at Naples in 1458, and died in the same city in 1530. The work of his which exerted the widest influence in England was his prose romance, the Arcadia.
32, 13. his briefe Encomium. Gifford quotes a line and a half of this poem, which may be found in Coryat's Crudities, vol. 1, page 302, Glasgow, 1905:
Coryat says that he heard the poet had a "hundred crownes bestowed upon him," and that he wishes his friend "Mr. Benjamin Johnson were so well rewarded." It is perhaps worth noting that James Howell sends this hexastich with an English translation in a letter to Robert Brown of the Middle Temple from Venice, August 12, 1621. The editions of 1645 and 1650 as well as Miss Repplier's recent edition (Familiar Letters, 1907) differ in several points from Coryat's version. Howell says: "Sannazaro had given him by Saint Mark a hundred zecchins for every one of these verses, which amounts to 300 pounds." Since Ford, as well as Brown, was a member of the Middle Temple, it is of some interest also that Howell announces the sending of a "parcel of Italian books" requested by Brown.
33, 30. foyle to thy unsated change. Must I serve as a dull background to give the zest of contrast to your lust?
36, 107. his woe. The "woe occasioned by his falsehood." G. ​39, 5. this borrowed shape. His disguise as physician.
39, 13. common voyce allows hereof. What people in general think of this matter.
41, 41-2. Whether in arts . . . to move affection. An inquiry as to the value of love-potions, charms, etc.
42, 52. Soranzo! what, mine enemy! Gifford notes this passage as a case of forgetfulness on Ford's part: "It is strange that this should appear a new discovery to Grimaldi, when he had been fully apprised of it in the rencontre with Vasques in the first act." As a matter of fact, the information that Soranzo has the father's word and the daughter's heart is given by Florio just after Grimaldi leaves the stage. Grimaldi had reason to know that Soranzo was his rival, but not that he was the accepted lover.
45, 15-17. the f[r]ame and composition . . . body. Cf. "The temperature of the mind follows the temperature of the body; which certain axiom—says that sage prince of philosophers, Aristotle—is evermore infallible." Honour Triumphant: Works of John Ford, III, 359.
69, 8-25. There is a place . . . lawlesse sheets. There seem to be some reminiscences here of Pierce Pennilesse: "A place of horror, stench, and darknesse, where men see meat but can get none, or are ever thirstie, and readie to swelt for drinke, yet have not the power to taste the coole streames that runne hard at their feet . . . he that all his life time was a great fornicator, hath all the diseases of lust continually hanging upon him . . . as so of the rest, as the usurer to swallow moulten gold, the glutton to eat nothing but toades, and the Murtherer to bee still stabd with daggers, but never die." Works of Thomas Nashe, vol. 1, p. 218, London, 1904.
71, 39. Ay mee! "The Italian aimè." Dyce.
83, 76. Troppo sperar, inganna. Excessive hope is deceitful.
83, 90. shee hath yet. There is apparently some defect in the quarto here.
90, 59. Che morte [più] dolce che morire per amore? What death more sweet than to die for love?
90, 63. morendo in gra[z]ia [dee] morire senza dolore. To die in grace [? of God] is to die without grief. ​92, 103-4. smother your revenge. On the ethics and legality of deferred revenge in seventeenth-century Italy see the pleadings of the lawyers in The Old Yellow Book (Publication No. 89 of the Carnegie Institution of Washington) edited by Charles W. Hodell, 1908.
95, 179-181. I remembered the proverbe that "where hens . . . sorry houses." Under the date Feb. 5, 1625, Howell writes: "I remember a French proverb
108, 75. I have set up my rest. I have made up my mind.
110, 38. let my hot hare have law. By the rules of sport a hunted animal was allowed a certain time to get the start of his pursuers.
122, 83. Vengeance. The cue for the appearance of the banditti agreed upon in Scene IV of this act.