John Ford’s ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore: A Retelling

In Friar Bonaventura’s cell, the good friar and Giovanni were in the midst of a serious discussion. “Dispute and argue no more about this,” Friar Bonaventura said, “for know, young man, that these are no school points.” School points are topics proposed for discussion in theological schools. He continued, “Nice philosophy may tolerate unlikely arguments, but Heaven admits no jest.” “Nice philosophy” is philosophy that makes over-precise distinctions. “Jest” means both “exception” and “sophistry.” He continued, “Wits, aka educated men, who presumed on wit, aka human intelligence, too much, by striving how to prove with foolish grounds of argumentation and methods of reasoning that there is no God, discovered first the nearest, shortest way to Hell, and they filled the world with devilish atheism. “Such questions, youth, are foolish. Far better it is to bless the sun than to reason why it shines. Yet He you talk about — God! — is above the sun. “No more! I may not hear what you say in argument.” “Gentle father,” Giovanni said, “to you I have unclasped my burdened soul as if it were a book. I have emptied the storehouse of my thoughts and heart, and I have made myself poor of secrets. I have not left another word untold, which has not spoken all that I ever dared, or think, or know. And yet here is the comfort I shall have?” The comfort that Friar Bonaventura was saying was available to Giovanni was obedience to God’s laws. Giovanni continued, “Must I not do what all men else may — love?” Friar Bonaventura said, “Yes, you may love, fair son.” Giovanni said, “Must I not praise that beauty, which, if framed anew, the gods would make a god of, if they had it there, and kneel to it, as I kneel to them?”