In collaboration with Thomas Dekker
The Honest Whore; Part I was entered into the Stationers’ Register on 9 November 1604. The first quarto was published shortly afterwards and five more followed in the subsequent twenty years, including one that was produced by the famous Jacobean printer Nicholas Okes. There are two parts to The Honest Whore; the first section is a collaboration between Thomas Dekker and Middleton, while the second part is attributed solely to Dekker. Middleton’s contribution to part one has been a debated topic among scholars, although Dekker is considered to be the primary author of the work. Whether a facet of the collaborative process or not, there is an element of inconsistency within the play which is not easily resolved, and at times the parallel and interweaving plots exist uncomfortably together. One production of the work in London is believed to have occurred in the outside space at Fortune Theatre, where it was performed by Prince Henry’s Men.
The drama features three main plots: one involves the Duke of Milan wishing to prevent his daughter, Infelice, from marrying Hippolito, the son of an old enemy. The Duke’s machinations include pretending his daughter has died and attempting to have Hippolito murdered by poisoning him. Throughout the play, the young man repeatedly asserts his love for Infelice and his intention to remain true to her despite her death. Another plot is centred on the eponymous ‘honest whore’ Bellafront, who falls in love with Hippolito. She is shamed and castigated by him for her profession, so she determines to stop working as a prostitute. The final narrative strand is based on the desire of Viola, the wife of a successful draper, to infuriate her seemingly infinitely patient husband, Candido. She concocts a series of schemes intended to inflame her husband’s temper and break his calm resolve; the three gallants in the play also contrive to anger and vex Candido.
The figure of the ‘whore’ was popular in Renaissance English drama, where it was often used to signify attraction and destruction, alongside a host of other complex and ambiguous meanings. In The Honest Whore; Part I, Bellafront is not only driven to repent and renounce her profession, but is also forced into marriage; this was the most common method by which the patriarchal order asserted social control on women. Middleton and Dekker also suggest the danger of Candido’s unrelenting patience as they highlight the terrible result of the linen-draper’s refusal to enforce normative gender relations and assert his authority over his wife in his home.