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G E N D E R A N D E L O Q U E N C E IN D E K K E R 'S TH E H O N E ST W H O RE, P A R T I I VIVIANA COMENSOLI Wilfrid Laurier University In Part i of The Honest Whore (1604), which Dekker co-authored with Middleton, the courtesan Bellafront tries to seduce the Count Hippolito, whose oration on the evils of her trade converts her to virtue (n.i.321-456) d Hardin Craig has noted that Hippolito's formal diatribe, which effects Bellafront 's conversion, "is in the form of the forensic declamations" written by young men "in schools and universities" during the sixteenth century: "The force of persuasion establishes remorse of conscience in her [Bellafront's] heart by presenting to her a true picture of her trade, and her conversion follows as a matter of necessity." 2Taking Craig's observation one step further, we note that Hippolito's declamation contains three elements which are traditionally associated with forensic rhetoric: the first is persuasion through judgement of former action, in this case the evil of Bellafront's trade (lines 326-423) ; the second is epideictic function, or the praise of virtue and the blame of vice, which informs all invective; and the third is deliberative function, or the consideration of a future course of action, namely Bellafront's perseverance in virtue (lines 425-56) .3Ostensibly, at least, the play supports the traditional psychological function of rhetoric as "reformative or reclamatory." 4 Caxton, for one, in his translation of Miroir du Monde (1480) ascribes to the orator the ethical duty to "knowe the right and the wronge; ffor to doo wronge to another, who so doth it is loste and dampned, and for to doo right and reson to euery man, he is saued and geteth the loue of God his creatour." 5Lawrence Andrewe's expanded version of Caxton's translation further defines rhetoric as "a scyence to cause another man by speche or by wrytynge to beleue or to do that thynge whyche thou woldest haue hym for to do."6 Henry Peacham, writing in 1593, praises in similar fashion the figures of rhetoric as "martiall instruments both of defence & invasion" which permit us to "defend ourselves, invade our enemies, revenge our wrongs, ayd the weake, deliver the simple from dangers, conserve true religion, & confute idolatry." 7A warning sounded in many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century treatises on rhetorical and ethical practice "is that men will fall into vice without the good offices of the orator."8 E n g lish Studies in C anada, x v, 3, September 1989 Harry Keyishian, who finds the conversion scene in The Honest Whore, Part I strongly "sentimental," voices a common response when he writes that in the success of "the earnest, rational, puritanical Hippolito" who "not only resists temptation but converts his tempter . . . Dekker gives victory to tradi tional morality." 9Yet, while Hippolito himself claims his intention has been to persuade Bellafront "mildly" and "not without sense or reason" (ii.i.317), a number of ambiguities suggest the dramatists' uneasiness with forensic ora tory as a universal form of persuasion. Throughout the play, Hippolito is frequently subject to sudden fits of melancholy as he mourns over the supposed death of his lover. Hippolito, observes a courtier moments prior to Bellafront's conversion, "betraies his youth too grosly to that tyrant melancholy" (n.i.204), a "disease" which Hippolito himself admits has made him "sicke" of love (iv.iv.103-04). At other times Hippolito is portrayed in a hot distemper, a condition which affects him as he enters Bellafront's home (n.i.244-48). The sensation of heat, according to medieval and Renaissance physiology, if caused by humoral imbalance, was a symptom of madness, which in turn was con sidered a "punishment for moral corruption." 10 Indeed, Hippolito's diatribe attests to a corrupt rational faculty. His invective is based on Christian ascetic morality, but it is expressed with a new virulence. The prostitute's body is compared to a sewer that "receiues / All the townes filth" (ii.i.325-26), and to a plague...
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