SOURCE: “The Frailty of Human Judgment as the Unifying Theme of The Four PP,” in The University of Dayton Review, Vol. 21, No. 3, Spring 1992, pp. 67-71.

[In the following essay, Reeves argues that the moralistic ending of Heywood's bawdy play The Four PP is not out of place, but rather works to underscore the drama's theme that virtue cannot be judged by individuals.]

Despite its bawdy dialogue. trivial plot, and profane characters, The Four PP ends with an evidently straightfaced and seriously-intended moral. John Heywood, apparently wanting the best of both worlds, profane and sacred, seems intent on amusing his audience with a rowdy tale while at the same time inculcating piety with a final sermon.

The reader is tempted to conclude that the moral is merely tacked on to satisfy the conventions of a theater that had not yet freed itself of the medieval apologetic for drama—that it edify. Perhaps the final moral is like that which mars the ending of the otherwise charming Brome mystery of Abraham and Isaac, a conclusion which is hardly inevitable from the context of the play itself. What reader, after witnessing the human conflict within Abraham, Isaac's reluctant submission to his father's will, and the tearing apart of the natural bond of father and son under God's terrible edict, could conclude that the real moral of Abraham and Isaac is the one identified by the Preacher: mothers should not grieve too much when nature claims one of their children since, after all, Abraham was willing to sacrifice his promised son when something greater than nature, God Himself, required such a sacrifice. The moral lacks validity, integrity, and taste. Is Heywood's final moral in The Four PP of this order, a religious requirement which violates the artistic integrity of the play? According to Robert Carl Johnson, The Four PP is “padded with a moralistic anticlimactic argument.” (89) Russell A. Fraser maintains that only “the pretense of piety remains … in the hortatory close of The Four PP. But the warp and woof of Heywood's plays—that of most of his plays—is farcical altercation.” (9) If there is a connection between the play and its concluding moralistic speeches, that connection is not obvious. Yet, a careful reading of The Four PP reveals that such a connection exists.

The concluding moral of The Four PP does not violate the integrity of the play; on the contrary, it serves as a means of unifying the comic and serious elements in the play, directing the reader to the basic theme that lies at the heart of the entire work, the inadequacy of fallible human judgment when applied to the things of God and His Church. One cannot but note the propriety of such a moral if the interlude was performed, as A. W. Reed has maintained, before an audience of lawyers and judges.

The informal epilogue, delivered by the Pedlar and Palmer, constitutes a polemic against the vanity and frailty of human judgment. The Palmer warns the Pardoner, Pothecary, and Pedlar that they have erred, as he himself has, in judging one another and, more specifically, in using their carnal reason to stand in judgment upon what God, through His Church, has called holy or, in the words of the text, “virtuous.” The Pedlar, who delivers the next-to-last speech, advises the quarrelsome Pardoner and Palmer to abstain from judgment altogether:

But where ye doubt the truth, not knowing,
Believing the best, good may be growing.
In judging the best, no harm at the lest,
In judging the worst, no good at the best.
But best in these things, it seemeth to me,
To take no judgment upon ye:
But, as the Church doth judge or take them,
So do ye receive or forsake them;
And so, be sure, ye cannot err,
But may be a fruitful follower.”

(ll. 1215-1218)

The fulsome Pothecary replies, “Go ye before, and, as I am a true man, / I will follow as fast as I can.” (ll. 1219-1220) In the last speech of the play, the Palmer advises faithfulness to the Church and concludes by “Beseeching Our Lord to prosper you all / In the faith of the Church universall.” (ll. 1235-1236) The final lines are neither padding nor pretense. The vilification of human judgment contained in these lines may be read as a valid and coherent summation of the central theme of the entire play.

The Four PP opens with an altercation between the Pardoner and the Palmer, each passing judgment on the other's religious work. The Palmer questions the efficacy of the Pardoner's absolution, while the Pardoner claims that he can provide the sinner the very grace made accessible by pilgrimage but without the trouble and expense of travel. Why go to Jerusalem, or even to a domestic shrine, when you can obtain the same indulgence by staying at home and patronizing an itinerant Pardoner? The Pothecary joins the argument, contemptuously discrediting both Pardoner and Palmer, contending that, until his work is done, no soul can enter into heavenly bliss, for the disembodied soul alone can taste divine joys, and the Pothecary has done more than anyone else to separate saints' souls from saints' bodies. Thus the triangle of mutual condemnation is formed. All three persist. The argument is deadlocked—until the Pedlar appears.

Hawking his paltry collection of wares, the Pedlar initially takes little interest in the debate. But the others see their chance: they ask the Pedlar to settle the dispute by judging which of the three is right. Since, after all, “every pedlar / In every tifle must be a meddler,” he seems a natural choice. So far as the three quarelling PP's are concerned, the Pedlar has two evident qualifications. First, he is available. As is so often the case when a quarrel is in progress, the first person on the scene is asked to take sides or even to settle the dispute, and the first person on the scene in this case is the Pedlar. Second, since he is not a belligerent in the war of words, the Pedlar is a disinterested party. In addition, the selection of the Pedlar serves Heywood's dramatic and thematic purposes, as we will observe later. The Pothecary makes the offer: “And, if ye list to take me so, / I am content you, and no mo / Shall be our judge as in this case, / Which of us three shall take the best place.” (ll. 378-381) At first the Pedlar is reluctant and tries to disqualify himself:

I neither will judge the best nor worst;
For, be ye blest or be ye curst,
Ye know it is not whit my sleight
To be judge in matters of weight.
It behoveth no pedlars nor proctors
To take on them judgment as doctors.

(ll. 382-387)

But, seeing that the others are determined that he shall be their judge, the Pedlar acquiesces.

It is hardly by accident that Heywood has the meddlesome Pedlar, whose specialty is catering to the requirements of adulterers—to whom he sells assorted gifts for mistresses: pins, gloves, combs, pomanders, hooks, brooches, rings, beads, lace—serve as judge. In this play judgment itself is being called into judgment. While the other three characters do have some social status, the Pedlar is dispossessed of respectability, a wanderer and vagabond, outside the order and structure of fifteenth-century society. Of the three combatants, he is, intellectually, the most incompetent. Yet, he will decide what is virtuous and what is not. How? The Pedlar proposes a lying contest, the ultimate perversion of judgment. He who lies best will be proclaimed the winner. The Pedlar advises the others:

And all ye three can lie as well
As can the falsest devil in hell.
And, though afore ye heard me grudge
In greater matters to be your judge,
Yet in lying I can some skill;
And, if I shall be judge, I will.

(ll. 442-447)

Judgment, perversely appointed and perversely executed, thus provides the basis for the play's intrigue.

The very choosing of the Pedlar reveals the bad judgment of those who pick him, thus contributing to Heywood's theme. The selection of the Pedlar as judge also shifts the focus of the debate from the question of whose work is most important to the question of who is the best liar. The fact that the three arguing PP's are so easily drawn into a lying contest shows not only that they are quarrelsome but also that their principal motive is to satisfy personal vanity by winning. Thus their motivation becomes their own combativeness rather than a desire to prove themselves right on any substantial issue. It should be noted, too, that Heywood's use of a single judge, rather than a plurality of judges, serves a dramatic purpose by making it unnecessary to introduce additional characters and by keeping the audience's attention focused on the tales told by the contestants.

The Pothecary offers his preposterous account of administering a rectal suppository to a woman afflicted with the falling sickness. The salutary suppository is expelled with such force that it travels several miles through the air and strikes a castle, making it collapse into a river, thereby forming a causeway upon which traffic is permitted to pass to and from the castle. The Pedlar pronounces this a first-rate tale.

The Pardoner then offers his story of a descent into Hell to rescue one Margery Coorson, who had died suddenly, without an opportunity to confess and receive final rites. Arriving advantageously on the anniversary of Lucifer's fall, the Pardoner is privileged to witness the annual anniversary celebration, for which each devil has polished his horns, braided his tail, and manicured his hooves. The devils gladly surrender the quarrelsome female, urging the Pardoner, in the future, to send one female to every ten males in order to ensure the peace and domestic tranquility of Hell. The Pardoner is more impressed with this second tale than with the first. But the best is yet to come.

The Palmer, without any genuine “tale” at all, wins first prize by declaring that he is perplexed by the Pardoner's story, for he has never before seen a woman out of patience. The Pedlar names the Palmer the champion liar for having told the most preposterous lie of all, something the Pedlar, despite all his travels, has never heard before.

Yet, the contest is not quite over, for the Pardoner and Pothecary both protest, not so much the decision as the qualifications of the Pedlar to pass judgment. As is so often the case, the losers in a quarrel attack the judge. “Now a vengeance on thy knave's heart,” cries the Pardoner, “I never knew a pedlar a judge before, / Nor never will trust peddling-knave more!” (ll. 1104-1106) It is ironic that the Pothecary, who initially asked the Pedlar to serve as judge, is so vicious in his attack:

By the mass, learn to make curtsy,
Curtsy before, and curtsy behind him,
And on each side—the devil blind him!
Ye shall have the devil and all of curtsy!
But it is not soon learned, brother,
One knave to make curtsy to another.

(ll. 1108-1115)

In the end, the dispute is not resolved, but the judge is discredited, and all have learned a good lesson.

While critics have noted the satirical depiction of clergy, the implicit call for church reform, and the direct “attack upon all women,” as intentions of The Four PP, most have assumed that the concluding lines represent an extraneous moral, relevant only as any assertion of the authority of the church might have been to an uncritical medieval audience. It must be kept in mind, however, that this play was written by a court figure who received royal stipends under Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Queen Mary in return using his dramatic skill and poetical wit to entertain an audience of nobles. (Reed, 38-51) David Bevington has pointed out that the play “was … one of the seven plays offered by ‘My Lord Cardinalls players’ to Sir Thomas More.” (38) We may justifiably expect some level of artistic sophistication and subtlety, even in the final moral of the play.

The final speech is indeed an integral part of The Four PP. The comical role of the Pedlar depends on his presumptuous assumption of the role of judge; the incongruity between the person and the role is a function of the author's satire. The dialogue consists of biting invective, mutual condemnation, and self-righteous accusation. The moral and the content of The Four PP are not at odds; on the contrary, they are inextricably related. The final moralistic note, rather than colliding with the body of the whole play, succeeds in reinforcing the moral incarnate in the story: private judgment is absurd. The moral is ultimately the “winning” answer, the only proper reply to the question raised initially in the quarrel between the Palmer and Pardoner over who is more virtuous. Virtue is a matter of real power and authority, not a matter of opinion. The audience is left admonished to avoid judgment altogether.

The Four PP is not a great play. It will never be anthologized in college readers, nor will it ever be widely read. But it is a good play. It delights as it instructs, without the loss of either artistic integrity or dramatic unity. And that is what good literature is all about.