The Dutch Courtesan by John Marston - They sell their bodies; do not better persons sell their souls?

MALHEUREUX  This lust is a most deadly sin, sure.

FREEVILL  Nay, ‘tis a most lively sin, sure.  (I.1, 9)

Now there is an efficient statement of a theme of John Marston’s A Dutch Courtesan (performed c. 1604, published 1605).  It is the most sexually explicit Elizabethan or Jacobean play I have come across, explicit in its talk, of course, it is all talk, what do you think was happening on the English stage.  And this was again first performed for a high-paying audience by a boys company.  That is also has more flatulence jokes than – or let’s say as many – as any period play I know tells us what about the six-penny audience compared to the famous vulgar one-penny groundlings in the Shakespeare audience.  The play is also full of tags in Latin.  Perhaps that was flattering.

Free Will is getting married to a quite nice young woman, so he is giving up his fiery, beautiful Dutch prostitute, Franceshina.  His friend Unhappy spends the first scene, as we see above, lecturing Freevill about his immorality, but as soon as he meets Franceschina in scene 3 he instantly falls for her.  Meanwhile she wants revenge on Freevill for dumping her, leading to a Much Ado about Nothing-like “Kill Claudio!” moment:

FRANCESCHINA  So long as Freevill lives, I must not love.

MALHEUREUX  Then he –

FRANCESCHINA  Must –

MALHEUREUX  Die!  (II.2, 40)

So now we have the A-plot.  Meanwhile there is a B-plot in which the chaos demon Cocledemoy plays, for no real reason but a pure spirit of comedy. a series of pranks on the stick-in-the-mud vintner Mulligrub.  Cocledemoy is where Marston really indulges in his joy of English, as in “A sign of good shaving, my catastrophonical fine boy.”  (II.1, 31)  Some great nonsense from Cocledemoy.

Afore the Lord God, my knavery grows unperegal [unequaled]!  ‘Tis time to take a nap…  (IV.5, 91)

My understanding is that in the 18th and 19th century The Dutch Courtesan was adapted a number of times, with the goofy Cocledemoy prankster plot eventually taking over the entire play.

Aside from this usual Marston fun, the earthy ethics of The Dutch Courtesan is worth seeing.  The semi-satirical “In Praise of Prostitution” passage, for example, delivered by libertine Freevill:

They [prostitutes] are no ingrateful persons; they will give you quid for quo: do ye protest, they’ll swear; do you rise, they’ll fall; do you fall, they’ll rise; do you give them the French crown, they’ll give you the French – O Justus justa justum!  They sell their bodies; do not better persons sell their souls?  Nay, since all things have been sold – honor, justice, faith, nay, even God Himself –

Ay me, what base ignobleness is it

To sell the pleasure of a wanton bed?

Why do men scrape, why heap to full heaps join? 

But for his mistress, who would care for coin?  (I.1, 11)

The switch from prose to verse is a little odd, but I am sure the actor can handle it.  Here is Malheureux monologuing, arguing with himself, about killing his friend for sex:

To kill my friend!  Oh, ‘tis to kill myself!

Yet man’s but man’s excrement, man breeding man

As he does worms, or this.                       He spits.  (II.2, 42)

There is a sour, unpleasant, taste to The Dutch Courtesan that is distinct, even compared to a complex semi-comedy like Measure for Measure.

Text and page numbers are form the 1965 Regents Renaissance Drama Series.  Getting to know Marston better has been a highlight of this last tranche of plays.

I will take a break from a schedule this summer, but return in the fall with a number of the best plays of the time: peak Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, early Thomas Middleton, some extraordinary revenge tragedies.  This past set of plays has perhaps been a bit like a graduate school – or let’s say advanced undergraduate – seminar – but the next stretch is full of crazy masterpieces.