SOURCE: Nogami, Katsuhiko. “The Rationalization of Conflicts in John Ford's The Lady's Trial.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 32, No. 2, (Spring, 1992): 341-59.

[In the following essay, Nogami examines Ford's sophisticated use of dualities in The Lady's Trial to achieve unconventional dramatic effects.]

The assumption that John Ford, as a Renaissance playwright, was wholly bound by the dramatic conventions of his time was notably refuted by Robert Stanley Forsythe in his assiduous examination of the interrelationship among English Renaissance plays: “Ford creates a problem which he studies and analyzes during a play, without any regard for the inculcation of a lesson by its solution. … Two courses were open to the dramatist of this period: to carry on the established traditions or to seek out new material. Ford did the latter; almost all other dramatists did the former.”¹ The recent rise of critical comment on John Ford's last play, The Lady's Trial (licensed and acted 1638, printed 1639), appears to endorse Forsythe's view.² Enquiries into the dramatic components of this tragicomedy, however, are still insufficient, since some of Ford's ways of treating the subject matter of the play have hitherto escaped notice.³

Obviously Ford could not work completely outside the conventions of his time.⁴ A late Renaissance tragicomedy, The Lady's Trial predictably consists of serious and comic plots; a serious episode is followed by a comic, which is followed by a serious. As is to be expected, characters are polarized as stereotypes, righteous or absurd as well as chaste or wanton, thus laying stress upon contrast as a dramatic principle. The content also shows a stark contrast between husband and wife or, more generally, male and female stances, and between classes.⁵ Even the themes do not go beyond such commonplace topics of Renaissance drama as love, adultery, dueling, revenge, friendship, and marriage.⁶ Nevertheless the combination of these subjects produces something different from a routine tragicomedy. There is, for example, much emphasis upon the conflicts between appearance and reality, between individualism and institutionalism, between honor and justice, between love and friendship, between friends, and between values.⁷ This treatment serves to build up the audience's awareness of the struggle in the course of the action.

Dualism is not merely a feature of the action, though, because the development from polarity to multiplicity and then to fusion is another aspect of the play. The main plot reveals the drastic change from the protagonist's destitution to his prosperity, and the effect of that change on the people around him, all the while presenting a certain criterion for assessing the values involved. There is, on the other hand, a subtle interaction between the main plot and the subplots, among some characters and among their attitudes of class consciousness. This sense of affinity ultimately establishes the underlying tone of the play, that is, the unification of divided opinions and the synthesis of corresponding elements.⁸

Along with these assessments, there are still other Fordian innovations to be examined. The tragicomedy, complicated in construction, looks novel in its treatment of dramatic devices as well. A close analysis of some components, especially in the Fordian context, is indispensable to see where his originality dwells and how it works. The purpose of this essay is to provide several perspectives for looking at Ford's sophistication in dramaturgy, with special attention paid to those features of the play that are unconventional for the time.

I

At the beginning of the play, Ford presents the hypocritical, decadent Genoese society, into which he introduces a significant event: the gentleman Auria departs on his military service for the Great Duke of Florence. The scent of wars stirs excitement and tension in the peaceful but immoral atmosphere of the city, arousing criticism against the protagonist Auria, all of which is scandalously reported by a nobleman's dependants, Piero and Futelli. Auria has to leave behind his wife Spinella, beautiful but penniless, and “such an arme full of pleasures” (I.i.106)⁹ as are enjoyed by the newly married. When he returns triumphant, it is only to find Spinella accused by his best friend Aurelio of adultery with a nobleman, Adurni.

The reaction of the wronged husband portrayed by Ford is exceptional since Auria not only refrains from violence, but is even free from all jealousy; he trusts his wife Spinella in spite of any allegations against her, which implies that Ford had Othello in mind.¹⁰ He remains as serene as when he left, proving himself to be a man of integrity. Indeed, throughout the play the rationality of the hero is emphasized. Aurelio admits, “You forme reasons, / Iust ones” (I.i.315-16); Auria later asks him to speak “with reason” (III.iii.1425).¹¹

Nevertheless Auria is not just a man of reason, but also a man of passion, one who has, before the play begins, already embarked upon an unconventional marriage without dowry, which is criticized by Aurelio as indiscreet in that Auria

                                                                      prescribes no law,
No limits of condition to the objects
Of his affection; but will meerly wed
A face because tis round, or limb'd by nature
In purest red and white.

(I.i.295-99)

The description stems from Robert Burton, who counted “beauty” or “sight” as one of the causes of love melancholy,¹² but Ford's use of Burton as the source for Aurelio's financially motivated criticism in this scene significantly differs from his earlier straightforward reliance on Burton as witnessed in, for instance, The Lover's Melancholy (1629). Here Ford portrays Aurelio as someone making much of social position rather than love which Auria (and perhaps Ford) appears to regard as of the highest value.

The protagonist discloses several other passions. A passion for soldiering, for instance, unavoidably declares itself in his very choice. Although he is careful not to make himself appear as a mercenary, the presence of that passion is made all the clearer when Auria is reproved by his friend as well as by the dependants of Adurni (I.i.96-114). In addition, as Auria confesses that he has been politically active, so the play also hints at his political motivation (I.i.322), a motivation which points to the future effect of his success in the audience's eyes. A passion for politics may thus flow beneath the surface.¹³ Another passion does not hold Auria back from his adventure, either. A friendship with Aurelio on which Auria can totally rely prompts him to make a proposal: “I pronounce / Aurelio heire of what I can bequeath” (I.i.323-24). This is castigated by Aurelio himself. What the audience can deduce from these passionate exchanges is Auria's willingness to sacrifice himself for the sake of love and friendship, in the face of Aurelio's sincere but obtrusive criticism as a friend. The remarkable way, however, in which Auria keeps his passions well under control is one of Ford's main devices in the play.¹⁴

The determination and flexibility of mind the protagonist displays do not contradict each other; rather they need each other since a reasonable, firm decision is reached by a mind free from such extremes as jealousy, malice, fanaticism, rigidity, melancholy or excessive enthusiasm. He cannot but keep calm with “reason,” as he frankly tells Aurelio: “the wrongs / I should have ventur'd on against thy fate / Must have deny'd all pardon” (I.i.241-43). This is the reason he has kept silent about his plan. Auria's argument is validated by rare chances of exerting his abilities:

He who cannot merit
Preferment by employments, let him bare
His throat unto the Turkish cruelty.

(I.i.275-77)

Despite all his friend's caviling that his adventures are unnecessary, the statement ratifies his liking (or passion) for evaluation by merit which Ford soon causes other characters to assert.

Having acknowledged the “indiscretion” of his marriage, Auria admits that he may “propose / No shelter for her honour” (I.i.317-18). Furthermore he cannot respond to Aurelio's questioning except with a statement of his personal trust in Spinella: “She's my wife” (I.i.308). In spite of criticisms and attempts at dissuasion he goes his own way. This would seem to imply that he is a simpleminded man of action, but the play reveals and reinforces that he is a man of thought as well. The audience realizes his discretion as soon as he comes back triumphant, when he is so humble as to stress his debt to the country and even to suggest the possibility of his immediate retirement (III.ii.1337-48). His reasoning on these public matters modulates the previous caustic satire and helps elevate the audience's estimation of the quality of his mind.

II

Ford creates another tension by emphasizing the conflict in Auria's dual status as private and as public man. Auria's decision to go on an expedition seems to be a private one, since Ford underlines Auria's financial difficulty (I.i.247, 260-63, 321, and 338). Auria is not very concerned with fame or honor at the start; after his return, his remarks about his new status (III.ii.1312-50, III.iv.1594-99) suggest that he does not wish to be regarded as a public figure. Circumstances, however, do not allow him to be a private man any longer, for he is a national hero selected as Governor of Corsica, Admiral of Genoa, and Count of Savona, all of which positions he has accepted.¹⁵ Ford's treatment of conflict between an individual and society manifests itself in Auria's placing his love above his honor. Regret assails Auria:

would she and I my wife,
I meane …
had together fed
On any out-cast parings, course and mouldy,
Not liv'd divided thus, I could have beg'd
For both, for't had been pitty she should ever
Have felt so much extremitie.

(III.iii.1414-20)

Auria's “tameness” in spite of the situation incites the irritated Aurelio to urge him to take revenge. An honored public man, Auria has to punish the guilty in some way in accordance with social convention, which he is most reluctant to do. Ford, however, introduces wisdom on the part of Auria. Thus Auria describes Adurni's invitation of Spinella and others as “nobly done!” (III.iii.1429), contradicting Aurelio's report. Similarly he recounts as an instance of an innocent visit how in his childhood he “by the stealth of privacie enjoyd / A Ladies closet” without any sin (III.iii.1437-38).¹⁶ Moreover, he urges that love and friendship conform with each other, and then goes on to criticize Aurelio for his “rash indiscretion” (III.iii.1504). He almost succeeds in persuading his stubborn friend to be reconciled by reminding him of their longstanding friendship, finally begging that “if I must loose / Spinella, let me not proceed to misery, / by loosing my Aurelio” (III.iii.1536-38). Reaching the conclusion of the conflict between love and friendship, Auria philosophizes on the fallibility of human observations insofar as they are not malicious:

                                                                                                    we through madnesse,
Frame strange conceirs, in our discoursing braines,
And prate of things as we pretend they were.

(III.iii.1538-40)

The concept of madness here probably contains diverse implications, including the idea of melancholy, as Auria is conscious of Aurelio's idiosyncrasies. He immediately comes back, however, to the reality which he is most anxious about:

Joyne helpe to mine (good man) and let us listen
After this straying soule, and till we finde her,
bear our discomfort quietly.

(III.iii.1541-43)

Ford lets Auria behave like a well-disciplined stoic, who is hardly influenced by rumors, even by his best friend Aurelio's charge, and who rather employs this mentality to persuade the friend.

Ford convinces the audience by questioning Auria's wisdom through probable challenges from other elements. Auria attempts to keep the matter private, but he fails when Adurni comes to confess publicly his intention of doing “wrong … To Auria” (IV.iii.2085-87). Auria immediately intervenes and tries to dissuade him from such a confession. Indeed, he almost threatens him:

Take advice,
(Young Lord) before thy tongue betray a secret
Conceald yet from the world …
as I durst not wrong the meanest, so
He who but onely aimd by any boldnesse,
A wrong to me, should finde I must not beare it.

(IV.iii.2089-2104)

With all this, Adurni continues to “discourse” his secret and, conversely, condemns Aurelio, thus creating another tense situation between the accuser and the accused. Adurni criticizes Aurelio for his “jealousie,” “spleene,” and “suspitious rage” (IV.iii.2110-22), all of which are Burtonian terms,¹⁷ and terminates his complaints with “thou hast / Enforc'd the likelihood of scandall” (IV.iii.2122-23). Appearance comes to be so important that reality has to be introduced,¹⁸ leading to Adurni's testifying to “The power of vertue” (IV.iii.2132) possessed by Spinella, with his reports of her desperate cry: “Come Auria, come / Fight for thy wife at home” (IV.iii.2167-68). Adurni's candid attitude anticipates Auria's reasonable response to his explanation of what happened; at the other's favorable reply, Adurni concludes:

I finde my absolution,
By vowes of change from all ignoble practice.

(IV.iii.2194-95)

Thus they successfully avoid confrontation, bringing about the instant collapse of Aurelio's accusation.

Once the matter has been brought to light, however, it requires a public resolution. The lover Auria is convinced of Spinella's innocence, but as he is a public man and has even assumed the role of “magistrate” (III.iii.1514) or “judge” (V.ii.2389) “in counsell” (IV.iii.2223), his task is to prove it publicly. In consequence Spinella has to stand trial in the presence of Auria, Adurni, and Aurelio, a trio who are either to form “a hearty league, or scuffle shrewdly” (IV.iii.2224) as accusers or defendants. The public matter requires formal procedures and legal language¹⁹ with which Ford is professionally acquainted. What is most important here, however, seems to be that the judge is to be judged as well, since the verdict is clear to the audience from the beginning. The process of the trial itself therefore becomes the object of interest. Auria, in spite of himself, is so excited as to use “a borrowd bravery” (V.ii.2371), inviting a plain charge from Malfato:

Let upstarts exercise uncomely roughnesse,
Cleare spirits to the humble will be humble:
You know your wife no doubt.

(V.ii.2378-80)

Ford prepares a conclusion in the culmination of the conflict between private and public, when Spinella rejects any help:

I have no kindred sister, husband, friend,
Or pittie for my plea.

(V.ii.2391-92)

If as judge Auria handled the case with even a hint of favor towards her, the demonstration of her innocence would not be unequivocal. If Auria, therefore, remains a complete public man, i.e., a judge without any bias, personal or institutional, then a favorable verdict will produce a perfect warrant that Spinella is entirely innocent.²⁰ This is what Ford is aiming at when he causes Spinella to reject even her husband's assistance. She adds that, “Nor name, / … I disclaime all benefit / Of mercie from a charitable thought” (V.ii.2397-99).²¹ She subsequently challenges Aurelio, urging him to “roundly use your eloquence / Against a meane defendant” (V.ii.2419-20). This challenge is a direct reaction to his previous statement: “I find. / Course fortunes easily seduc'd, and herein / All claym to goodnesse ceases” (II.iv.1097-99), a remark betraying an obsession with the frailty of women as well as contempt for the poor. She exerts her talent for argument (or “scoulding,” V.ii.2463), delights Auria (V.ii.2407-8), and remarkably defeats Aurelio (V.ii.2421-22). With all her attempts to clear herself of the accusation, though, “reconciliation” would be “needless” if Auria suspected her (V.ii.2490-91). Her point is made sharply, whereas the trial ends with her fainting when the situation goes beyond her “courage.”²² Auria is quick to proclaim Spinella's innocence in public: “I finde thy vertues as I left them, perfect, / Pure, and unflaw'd” (V.ii.2499-2500). The judge is thus judged well, since this constitutes his reply to her demand: “prove what judge you will” (V.ii.2389). Ford answers virtually every question that he raises in the dramatic action, leaving the audience to content themselves with what he provides. Thus the conflict between private and public is employed to make the protagonist look more flexible in spite of the stern requirements of society.²³

III

Ford uses dissension between the mature and the young for the distinctive purpose of examining the value of high rank. Almost all the young from the lower classes in the play passionately aspire to high office or the nobility. Even the difference in mentality between the young comes out clearly when quality of mind is questioned, especially in Futelli's case. Futelli has betrayed his ambition, though in time he accepts the impossibility of rising in the world by mere wit. Through this lesson, Ford leads him to a degree of maturity in which he has abandoned his former vanity. Futelli expresses his inmost voice at the right moment:

I grow quite weary of this lazie custome
Attending on the fruitlesse hopes of service,
For meate and ragges, a wit, a shrewd preferment
Study some scurrill jests, grow old and beg
No let em be admir'd that love foule linnen.
Ile runne a new course.

(IV.ii.1823-28)

The philosophy he exercises is realistic and somewhat stoic, coming closer to Malfato's, and even to Auria's. This is wisdom such as Futelli has gained for the first time in his life. Trelcatio testifies to its efficacy:

my good friends, you have like wise Physitians,
Prescrib'd a healthfull dyet.

(IV.ii.2054-55)

Through these achievements Ford allows him to join the society of worthies.

Auria, on the other hand, is a grey-haired, middle-aged gentleman, who has wisdom sufficient for any situation:

                                                                                behold these haires,
(Great Masters of a spirit) yet they are not
By winter of old age quite hid in snow,
Some messengers of time I must acknowledge
Amongst them tooke up lodging, when we first
Exchang'd our faiths in wedlock.

(V.ii.2435-40)

A sense of anxiety may be detected in his recognition of a somewhat advanced age, an age which caused at least in part the downfall of Othello. Here Ford echoes Shakespeare. Unlike the Moor, however, Auria exercises wisdom. It is set against Aurelio's “slovenly presumption” (III.iii.1434) and “cheape providence” (III.iii.1517), Aurelio's allegation being “too course” for him (III.iii.1494).²⁴

Auria's discretion results in the triumph of the middle-aged over the young, as the mature know better how to deal with worldly problems than do such young men as Giovanni in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, who ruins himself because of rashness or immaturity. One sub-plot provides a parody of the main plot, portraying the coxcomb Fulgoso as he indulges in courting without risking anything. Although he is a coward, he emphasizes his maturity, claiming, when he tries to avoid dueling, that “Theres none but hare-brain'd youths of metall use it” (IV.ii.2026). He never gains anything like wisdom, though at least he achieves a social elevation which no one else in the play except Auria attains, being called a gentleman. He is also allowed to stay with Auria in the denouement, as is Futelli.

Ford expressed the importance of “wisdom” from an early point in his career as a writer. He manifested it, for instance, in The Golden Meane (1613), B11^v, a “noble and wise man,” the introduction of A Line of Life (1620), “Wise, and therein noble,” or The Laws of Candy (1619), I.i, “The Senate / Is wise, and therein just.”²⁵ Auria is another embodiment of this pattern.

Wisdom, therefore, is set as such a strategy and value that it has to be acquired by some unwise characters, especially by Malfato and Aurelio, who mark conflicts between young and old. Ford makes them confront each other at an early stage, when Aurelio tries to give advice to Malfato:

A Melancholy grounded, and resolv'd,
Receiv'd into a habit, argues love,
Or deepe impression of strong discontents, …
It is an ease, Malfato, to disburthen
Our soules of secret clogges.

(I.iii.510-20)

This rude intrusion reflects the similarity between Aurelio and Malfato. Both men are alike²⁶ in that they suffer from “humor,” their judgments or misjudgments both being the cause of female afflictions—Malfato's discommoding Levidolche on the one hand and Aurelio's accusing Spinella on the other. Aurelio and Malfato are taken by surprise when Auria causes Castanna to marry Adurni, presumably because of their obsession with class. They are as susceptible to their own misconception of the truth as to misleading appearances.

Malfato proclaims that he is too good for a wanton woman (I.iii.588-89), and yet he is not free from the folly of love, nor even from an incestuous love for Spinella.²⁷ His abuse of Levidolche (I.iii.558-94) also reveals his hypocritical inclination. Malfato is by no means free from doubt about his greed, either. According to Martino, he held “some lands” which supposedly “Belong'd to certaine Orphans” (II.ii.914). Subsequently it transpires that he occupies the house of the late father of Spinella and Castanna (IV.i). He reveals another defect: a rigidity in adhering to aristocratic standards, in his assertion that the status of gentlemen is equal to that of noblemen.²⁸ He does not even understand the genuine afflictions of people of a lower class, in spite of, or rather because of, the pain of his own love for Spinella.

Aurelio similarly mistakes the meaning of love. Questioning Auria's action of leaving behind his new wife, he casts suspicion on Spinella's moral strength (I.i.279-83). Auria's answer, “She's my wife” (I.i.308), is deeply ironic in its protest as well as in its trust. Aurelio is depicted not only as being rigid in adhering to social conventions but also as being insensitive to human feelings. Aurelio's problem is that he does not recognize his own lack of wisdom, and confuses his intentions of decency with wisdom.²⁹ Ford, however, has him deliver a “coarse” argument, departing from Malfato's manner at one point. It is difficult to deny that Malfato's love discourse with Spinella (IV.i.1675-1762) yields some of the finest writing of the play, while Aurelio is not given any chance at all to talk of love.

Both Malfato and Aurelio ultimately realize a degree of wisdom, because of their pride in their status as gentlemen. After Malfato attains self-discipline (IV.i.1760-62), Aurelio gives a frank apology to Auria and Spinella (V.ii.2542-43). This achievement encourages the supposition that Ford has conceived of the theme as one of reconciliation through wisdom.

IV

The structure of this play provides an image of the microcosm within the macrocosm, and the similarity between the two. In the larger world a nobleman Adurni indulges in womanizing, while the shortcomings of his way of life manifest themselves in his ignorance of worldly affairs. He even has to be taught by Futelli: “He that is honest, must be poore, my lord, / It is a common rule” (I.ii.432-33). His conduct initiates false accusation in the main plot, since he is intrigued by the difficulties in seducing a chaste woman after an easy association with Levidolche, with whom he is now tired. His contempt speaks: “A wanton Mistresse is a common sewer” (I.ii.419).

Levidolche, on the other hand, lives in the smaller world. At an early stage of the action, her remarks reach the aristocrat (and the audience) only through Futelli's report. She can speak for herself when her frustrations arise: although she does not agree that “All should be equalls,” according to Futelli, it seems a pity to her that “men should differ in estates”; therefore, she wants to see justice done, thinking that “the properest men / Should be prefer'd to fortune” (I.ii.371-77). This request for evaluation according to merit follows Auria's comments on his decision (I.i.275-78); her subsequent words,

I had seene
Persons of meaner quality, much more
Exact in faire indowments,

(I.ii.388-90)

predict even the ethical development of the main plot. There is, however, a wide discrepancy between the two, for she uses the “evaluation by merit” as an excuse for aiming at her next lover, whereas Adurni corrects his mistake.

The smaller world is the world of private lower-class people, where personal matters receive more emphasis than such public matters as politics. The comic sense derives essentially from the absurd results of those minor characters' bringing private business into the public arena, impelled by misconceptions, pretensions, or ill-conceived sincerity. Significant here is Martino's criticism of Levidolche that she is “growne so rampant, / That from a privat wanton thou proclaimst thy selfe / A baggage for all gamesters” (V.i.2241-43), while Amoretta has made her reputation by unwisely refusing all proper suitors (I.ii.446-63). The larger world stands in contrast as the protagonist tries to keep his personal business private, although at the end everything is brought to the surface by his friend. When the Burtonian melancholic types are introduced into both worlds, it becomes more evident that the similarities rather than the contradictions are being emphasized. Amoretta, for instance, exhibits fantastic inclinations with her romantic aspirations to nobility. A very young girl, she is blind to reality, full of aspirations but equipped with no critical capacity. At the end, however, just as Malfato cures himself with Spinella's help, so Amoretta is cured of her “humor” with the help of Piero and Futelli.

In the meantime, Levidolche's former husband Benatzi plays a particular role in the sub-plot; he assumes an “antic disposition,” spouting bombastic language (III.i.1194 ff.). His behavior also has something in common with Malfato's. Malfato seems to have become more melancholic because of the recent marriage of Spinella; as Castanna says, “your late strangenesse hath bred mervaile in us” (IV.i.1770). Benatzi, on the other hand, served in the war under Auria, but he has not been rewarded yet and so is living the life of a tramp. He disguises himself as a slightly deranged ex-soldier. Since his “ragged” prose does not quite make sense, he is the object of the pity as well as the contempt of Fulgoso, as a result of the blatant difference between their classes (III.i.1271-76). Nevertheless his merits also can be observed in the scene of reconciliation with Levidolche when each pretends not to recognize the other. His antic disposition enables him to thank her:

liberality and hospitable compassion (most magnificent beauty) have long since lyen bed-rid in the ashes of the old world till now, your illustrious charity hath rak'd up the dead embers by giving life to a worm inevitably devoted yours as you shall please to new-shape mee.

(III.iv.1599-1603)

Malfato in his melancholic humor also announces his resolutions to Spinella:

Ile blesse that hand,
Whose honourable pittie seales the pasport
For my incessant turmoyles, to their rest.
If I prevaile (which heaven forbid) these ages
Which shall inherit ours, may tell posteritie
Spinella had Malfato for a kinsman,
By noble love made jealous of her fame. …
All is said:
Henceforth shall never syllable proceed,
From my unpleasant voyce, of amorous folly.

(IV.i.1752-62)

The language and the ways of expression of the two characters are so different that an inattentive audience may find one irrelevant to the other, but still there is something in common between them, a possible cure of the “humor.” The deliberate parallelism makes it clear that the play suggests two paths to one goal, the recognition of each other's true worth. Since Benatzi is not very wise, he subsequently promises to challenge Adurni and Malfato to avenge Levidolche's dishonor. Again similarly, Malfato assumes the duties of barrister in order to help defend Spinella's cause (V.ii.2409-10, 2460-71). In this respect the sub-plot does more than just anticipate the main plot. The comic sequence is meant to arouse laughter, but it also draws the audience's attention to the very heart of the play.

Conversely, one subsidiary, serious plot illuminates a comic plot which follows. Malfato urges Auria in the trial to “Hold dispute,” but also tells him to “execute your vengeance” (V.ii.2466) if he doubts Spinella's innocence at all; otherwise he himself will “challenge satisfaction” (V.ii.2471). This is parodied at the end of the play, where Benatzi, drawing his sword, tries to take revenge but then immediately succumbs to his superiors (V.ii.2553 ff.). His behavior exactly reflects Malfato's ironical urging of “vengeance,” providing an example of how not to behave. The contrast attracts immediate attention, but the basic parallelism in events reveals similar mental workings of the two characters issuing in different outcomes.

In another sub-plot, Amoretta is censured by Piero and Futelli for her social aspirations, but the hangers-on themselves are eager aspirants as well. Most remarkable is that after renouncing their aspirations Amoretta and Futelli get married in the end. Despite many apparent differences, the similarity between the two draws attention to them, while, it is worth noting, this marriage further reflects that of Adurni and Castanna.

V

Ford's treatment of silence, the Italian setting and disguise—commonplace subjects of Renaissance drama—is unconventional. Silence was regarded as an especially feminine virtue. Talkative women, Levidolche and Amoretta, who lack discretion, are humiliated and severely criticized, respectively. Where this silencing of women was common in Renaissance England, Ford challenges the traditional value by demonstrating how silence is required not only of the women, but of the men as well. Aurelio, for instance, should have kept “wisely silent” in Auria's eyes on discovering Adurni and Spinella alone together in Adurni's bedroom, or he should have challenged Adurni on the spot. Having failed to do either of these, Aurelio causes unnecessary problems for both the hero and the heroine, thereby disclosing his lack of wisdom. Thus the prescription for women to keep silent changes to a prescription for men, too. The setting of the play also signals Ford's intention to exploit and confound the stereotyped view of the Italian marriage. Here the protagonist (contrary to the stock reaction of an Italian husband) refuses to give himself to jealousy:

Sure Italians hardly
Admit dispute in questions of this nature,
The tricke is new.

(IV.iii.2191-93)

In consequence the duel between the newcomer and the inborn aristocrat is successfully avoided through debate.

Finally, Benatzi's disguise in the sub-plot is penetrated by Levidolche (III.iv.1669-70) in breach of the normal conventions of Renaissance drama.³⁰ This ability to penetrate disguise is demonstrated as the power of love, one of Ford's preoccupations since the beginning of his career as a playwright.³¹

These dramatic innovations in Ford's development of theme also permeate the course of the play's action. Ford consciously alludes to excess or rigidity with, for instance, “officious” (I.iii.524), “overliving” (II.ii.918), “ore-doe” (III.iii.1507), and “over-busie” (V.ii.2543) (which contrasts with Auria's serenity). Ford shifts this stress by having Auria remain overly reserved. When the role of private man superimposes itself upon that of public man, Auria begins to learn how to behave as an honored public figure. At the end of the play, the synthesis of both different and similar forces is contrived in favor of human beings rather than the social code.³² The whole action implies that a drastic change in circumstances can awaken people's latent abilities, if all goes well.

Although dramatic dynamic is thus not wanting, the play achieves a calmness or mildness of tone from the author's way of treating his subjects and perhaps also from the style of debate, especially when it employs legal terms.³³ Auria's conclusion—“After distresse at sea, the dangers ore, / Safety and welcomes better taste a shore” (V.ii.2648-49)—refers to his wish, expressed in his initial warnings to Spinella, “to take the wracke of our divisions” and so “sweeten the remembrance of past dangers” (I.i.150-51). The epilogue contributes to this wish as a testimony of gentleness after turbulence. It finally evokes the familiar old, if not brave new, world outside the theater:

The Court's on rising; tis too late
To wish the Lady in her fate
Of tryall now more fortunate.
A verdict in the Iuries brest,
Will be given up anon at least,
Till then tis fit we hope the best.
Else if there can be any stay,
Next sitting without more delay,
We will expect a gentle day.

(lines 2651-59)

This epilogue is a reminder of the metaphor of the world as a stage which has been employed subtly in the dramatic action. Genoa, unlike Coriolanus's Rome, accepts Auria as a national hero. He has to play that role, having assumed grave responsibilities, while the other characters are acting their own parts, some in serious ways, some with an antic disposition. They thus construct a dramatic illusion as real as life on the stage, the epilogue corresponding to this in its conclusion.

The play's innovative sharpness points to a fine sense of sophistication in terms of plot, character, meaning, and sensitivity. Ford is still ambitious, or at least serious, in his endeavors to present a drama. His conception of theater comes not just from the combination of words, matter, and delight; to his mind theater requires the workings of wit. Ford clearly disapproves, though, of the usual “wit” (Prologue.59), namely wit as an exposing force, which had been fashionable in the Caroline theater, for example, in James Shirley's The Witty Fair One (1628, printed 1633) and William Davenant's The Wits (1635), which follow Jacobean wit as seen in, for instance, Thomas Middleton's A Trick to Catch the Old One (1604) and Ben Jonson's The Silent Woman (1609).³⁴ On the contrary, Ford's “wit” (Prologue.72) seems to suggest something unifying, healing, or even beneficial, as Trelcatio makes clear on several occasions: “my good friends, you have like wise Physitians, / Prescrib'd a healthfull dyet” (IV.ii.2054-55); “Futelli hath wean'd her from this paine” (V.ii.2615); and “hee's not the richest / I'th parish; but a wit” (V.ii.2618-19). As we have seen, The Lady's Trial is meant to be exemplary in this respect. This conforms with Ford's promise that he will present “no Satyr, but a play” (Prologue.70). His confidence in the undertaking grows, therefore, as he declares in the epistle dedicatory that the play is “mine own” (27).

At the end of his career, Ford's thought and skill as a dramatist find a way of presenting all these developments through the process of each character's growth, calmly rationalizing all that happens.³⁵ The method he employs is intensive rather than extensive; and it is a method which requires a delicate probing into the truth.³⁶

Notes

1. Robert Stanley Forsythe, The Relations of Shirley's Plays to the Elizabethan Drama (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1914; rprt. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1965), pp. 14, 49.

2. E.g., Glenn Hopp, “The Speaking Voice in The Lady's Trial,” in “Concord in Discord”: The Plays of John Ford 1586-1986, ed. Donald K. Anderson (New York: AMS Press, 1986), p. 169, “[Ford is] moving into new modes of expression”; Dorothy M. Farr, John Ford and the Caroline Theatre (London: Macmillan, 1984), p. 149, “Fundamentally and in spite of its late place in the Ford canon, The Lady's Trial was a potential new beginning”; and G.F. Sensabaugh, The Tragic Muse of John Ford (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1944; rprt. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1965), p. 4, “in contemporary eyes he stands as a modern because of his very rebellion.” Joan M. Sargeaunt, John Ford (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1935), p. 152, also wonders if The Lady's Trial is “original in its treatment of subject.”

3. However, an illuminating comparative study has recently appeared: Brian Opie, “‘Being All One’: Ford's Analysis of Love and Friendship in Loues Sacrifice and The Ladies Triall,” in John Ford: Critical Re-Visions, ed. Michael Neill (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1988), pp. 233-60.

4. Even the incestuous love between Giovanni and Annabella in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, one of the most sensational topics, is not peculiar but common in Renaissance drama, as Lois E. Bueler enumerates instances in “The Structural Uses of Incest in English Renaissance Drama,” RenD 15 (1984): 115-45.

5. Mark Stavig, John Ford and the Traditional Moral Order (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1968), p. 84, points out that in this play “Greater attention is paid to structure and theme than to psychological analysis.” In addition, Lois E. Bueler, “Role Splitting and Reintegration: The Tested Woman Plot in Ford,” SEL 20, 2 (Spring 1980): 325-44, having discovered the presence of the tested wife plot in the play, says that “whereas much critical attention has been paid to courtly love and revenge elements in drama, the structural (as distinct from the didactic) elements of the tested wife plot have not been explored” (p. 343).

6. A number of shortcomings of the play have been alleged: for instance, insufficient material for the five-act plot, lack of theatricality, over-complicated sub-plots, and lack of humor.

7. Cf. Florence Ali, Opposing Absolutes: Convention in John Ford's Plays (Salzburg: Universität Salzburg, 1974), pp. 79-88; James Howe, “Ford's The Lady's Trial: A Play of Metaphysical Wit,” Genre 7, 4 (December 1974): 342-61; Donald K. Anderson, John Ford (New York: Twayne, 1972), p. 127; Opie, pp. 233-60, esp. 236-46. Cf. also Douglas Sedge, “Social and Ethical Concerns in Caroline Drama” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Birmingham, 1966), pp. 145-49.

8. Ronald Huebert, John Ford: Baroque English Dramatist (Montreal and London: McGill-Queen's Univ. Press, 1977), p. 114, asserts that “The Lady's Trial is not a collision between two different worlds, but a fusion of two similar worlds that blend into one motif.”

9. Quotations from The Lady's Trial are taken from the edition in John Ford's Dramatic Works, Materials for the Study of the Old English Drama, n.s. 1, ed. Henry de Vocht (Louvain: Uystpruyst, 1927), pp. 329-408. The act and scene division is indicated immediately before the line number of Vocht's edition for convenience of reference.

10. Sargeaunt, John Ford, pp. 149 and 152, finds that there are only two preceding plays in which wronged husbands take actions unconventional for the time: Thomas Heywood, A Woman Killed with Kindness (1603) and Thomas Dekker, The Honest Whore (1604).

11. “Reason” (or “reasons”) occurs nine times in the play: I.i.302, 315; I.iii.582, 583; II.ii.887; III.iii.1387, 1425; IV.i.1732; and V.ii.2447.

12. Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), 3 vols. (rprt. London: Dent, 1978), 3:65.

13. Auria, it seems, has been an active courtier, which could have been one of the reasons for his financial destitution, as the play refers to his past activities: In my Countrey, friend / … I have sided my superior friend / Swayd opposition, friend (I.i.265-67).

14. Cf., for instance, “never did passion / Purpose ungentle usage of my sword, / Against Aurelio” (III.iii.1532-34).

15. Earlier Ford had discussed the implications of being a public man: cf., for example, A Line of Life (1620), D4^v-D5^v: “[Two sorts of publike men] The one … haue beene raised to, a supereminent ranck of honour, and so by degrees … to speciall places of weightie imployment in the common wealth. The other sort are such as the Prince according to his iudgement, hath out of their owne sufficiencie, aduaunced to particular offices … these two are the onely chiefe and princilpall members of imployment, vnder that head of whose politike bodie they are the most vsefull & stirring members.”

16. G.F. Sensabaugh, “John Ford and Platonic Love in the Court,” SP 36, 2 (April 1939): 206-26, 223-24, argues that Ford seems to believe it quite possible that a woman can still keep her chastity in this kind of meeting, citing The Queen, IV.1671-75 (ed. W. Bang [Louvain: Uystpruyst, 1906]), in which Murretto, commenting on similar circumstances, maintains, “I think now a woman may lie four or five nights together with a man, and yet be chaste; though that be very hard, yet so long as 'tis possible, such a thing may be”; cf. also The Fancies, Chast and Noble, III.ii.40-43 (ed. Dominick J. Hart [New York and London: Garland, 1985]).

17. Characters affected by Burtonian melancholy include Malfato, Aurelio, Amoretta, Levidolche, and, though temporarily, Auria himself.

18. Howe, pp. 347, 350, and 353, makes this point.

19. Cf. Howe, p. 354: “Ford advocates enough flexibility in legal proceedings to allow the heart to speak. Reality is allowed to influence one's interpretation of appearance; an adjustment in a basically sound system is all that is needed to bring appearance and reality into harmony.”

20. For a contrary example, cf. the Cardinal's partial judgment in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, ed. Derek Roper, Revels Plays (London: Methuen, 1975), III.ix.54-57: “as Nuncio from the Pope, / For this offence I here receive Grimaldi / Into his Holiness' protection. / He is no common man, but nobly born.”

21. Farr, p. 142, sees it in a different way: “while anyone can find ‘likelihood of guilt’ in her behaviour she will have none of him or any of her kindred.”

22. Linda Woodbridge, Woman and the English Renaissance: Literature and the Nature of Womankind, 1540-1620 (Brighton: Harvester, 1984), p. 215, contends: “Certain stock devices enabled authors to reassert the weak nature of Woman in the face of steel-backboned female behavior. The sturdiest of women faint when circumstances become too trying: Rosalind faints in As You Like It, Luce in The Wise-Woman of Hogsdon, Phillis in The Fair Maid of the Exchange, Celia in Volpone, Thaïsa in Pericles, Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra. Lady Macbeth faints too, although she may be shamming, like Tamyra in Chapman's Bussy D'Ambois.”

23. Sedge, p. 276, makes this point: “As far as personal relationships are concerned … society has no need for flexibility, the system being impervious to such considerations as love or friendship. The dramatist's role here is to move us to pity by showing the manner in which the system threatens to crush individual chances of happiness unless an enlightened attitude arises in particular cases to thwart the working of the machine.”

24. Clifford Leech, John Ford and the Drama of his Time (London: Chatto and Windus, 1957), p. 120, writes that “Ford's play … does suggest a form of human aspiration, a civilized approach to the relations of human beings to one another.”

25. C.J. Norman, ed., “A Critical Edition of The Golden Mean and A Line of Life” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of London, 1968), and The Laws of Candy, in Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, ed. Arnold Glover and A.R. Waller, 10 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1905-12), 10:37, although Ford's authorship of the play has not firmly been established; cf. Cyrus Hoy, “The Shares of Fletcher and His Collaborators in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon (V),” SB 13 (1960): 77-108, 97-98, for the Ford authorship (in accordance with this, Alfred Harbage, Annals of English Drama 975-1700, rev. S. Schoenbaum, 3rd edn., rev. Sylvia Stoler Wagonheim [London and New York: Routledge, 1989], entirely ascribes the play to Ford), and Bertha Hensman, The Shares of Fletcher, Field and Massinger in Twelve Plays of the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon, 2 vols. (Salzburg: Universität Salzburg, 1974), 2:222-34, for the Fletcher-Field authorship with the Massinger revision.

26. As Farr, p. 139, points out, “The melancholic and the moralist are curiously alike.”

27. Bueler, “The Structural Uses of Incest,” supplies a brief, pertinent comment under a section sub-titled “Witting Incest—The Failure of Exchange”: “In Ford's The Lady's Trial, where a minor character entertains a circumspect and unrequited love for his married cousin, the hint of incestuous passion merely flavors one of the play's many examples of ethical discrimination and control” (p. 132).

28. In contemporary England, “Thomas Bennett was fined £2,000 by the Star Chamber [in 1637] for telling the Earl of Marlborough that he was as good a gentleman as his lordship, for the Bennetts were as good as the Leys” (Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1637, pp. 281, 299, and 472, cited in Lawrence Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965], p. 34). Whether this kind of incident influenced Ford is not known, though he has Malfato behave as if he is one of the Egalitarians.

29. “The implication of this play is that conviction may not be enough. A man comes to full maturity when he can call upon reason and understanding to guide his conduct and assess his vision of truth. This, I think, would be Ford's conception of wisdom” (Farr, p. 144).

30. Victor Oscar Freeburg, Disguise Plots in Elizabethan Drama (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1915; rprt. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1965), pp. 87-88, lists several examples of “suspected disguise” in Chapman's May Day (1602), Ford's The Lover's Melancholy (1628), Shirley's Grateful Servants (1629), and Changes, or Love in a Maze (1632), but none of these (except, perhaps, for Grateful Servants) is an exact instance of the penetration of disguise; for the “penetrated disguise” like Levidolche's case, cf. Richard Brome, The City Wit (1630), where Tryman [disguised Jeremy] sees through Crasy's disguise in III.i., while similarly Crasy's wife Josina claims to have penetrated her husband's disguise right after the play within the play in Act V (The Dramatic Works of Richard Brome, 3 vols. [rprt. London: John Pearson, 1873], 1:317, 369).

31. These elements seem to have led several critics to their belief in Ford's originality and modernity; cf. note 2 above.

32. Stavig, p. 22.

33. Clifford Leech, “Pacifism in Caroline Drama,” Durham University Journal 31, 2 (March 1939): 126-36, suggests a general tendency of pacifism in Caroline drama. In the play Guzman notably testifies: “We may descend to tales of peace and love” (II.i.684).

34. Cf. Michael Neill, “‘Wits Most Accomplished Senate’: The Audience of the Caroline Private Theaters,” SEL 18, 2 (Spring 1978): 341-60; Leo Salingar, “‘Wit’ in Jacobean Comedy,” in his Dramatic Form in Shakespeare and the Jacobeans (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986), pp. 140-52.

35. Cf. Una Ellis-Fermor, The Jacobean Drama: An Interpretation (London: Methuen, 1936), p. 233: “[The Lady's Trial] is interesting rather as showing the final development of Ford's tendency to work more and more in reticent undertones in action, in character and in sentiment, than as adding much to his positive poetry.”

36. This essay took its initial shape in my Ph.D. dissertation for the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, 1989. I render grateful thanks to my supervisor, Dr. Robert Smallwood, and to Professor Stanley Wells for his help.