The penitent whore

Abstract

Hrotsvit’s tenth-century play Paphnutius proposes possibly the earliest theatrical representation of the penitent whore with the role of the popular and wealthy prostitute Thais. The monk Paphnutius approaches her to repent and give up her evil life. Overcome by the monk’s fervent aura of sanctity and righteousness, Thais publicly burns all the objects of her profession—jewellery, clothing, gold—in full view of her many lovers as her first step towards Christian transformation. She then isolates herself in a convent for three years, after which her soul leaves her body and soars heavenward to join Christ, her ‘heavenly husband’, in paradise. Several elements of this story recur in most, if not all, of the harlot/saint narratives. The first is that the woman is both beautiful and evil and her transgressions are entirely sexual — she sells her body to men. Secondly, once she repents and asks forgiveness, she willingly accepts, indeed embraces, physical suffering and deprivation. In the case of Thais, she exists in solitary confinement in a filthy cell, lives on bread and water, and speaks to no one for three years. The third recurrent narrative feature requires that the woman must die, and that her death be viewed as a release from physical torment and pain, a mortal resolution to a life of decadence and decay.

Oh woman, woman, woman, woman, woman,

The cause of future and Originall sinne,

How happy [had you not] should we haue beene.

(Nathan Field, The Woman is a Weathercock, III, i. 193–5, 1609–10)

Hugo wrote Marion Delorme, Musset wrote Bernerette, Alexandre Dumas wrote Fernande. Thinkers and poets throughout the ages have offered the courtesan the oblation of their mercy and, on occasion, some great man has brought them back to the fold through the gift of his love and even his name. (Alexandre Dumas fils, La Dame aux Camélias, 1848)

So she followd love for love’s sake only, now and then, as she would have followed art if she had been a man—capriciously, desultorily, more in frolicsome spirit of camaraderie than anything else. Like an amateur, in short—a distinguished amateur who is too proud to sell his pictures, but willingly gives one away now and then to some highly-valued and much admiring friend. (George du Maurier, Trilby, 1895)