Five-minute digest

The Fair Jilt

Aphra Behn

Summary

The Fair Jilt; or, The Amours of Prince Tarquin and Miranda (1688) is a short prose history by Aphra Behn, set in Antwerp in the 1660s, when the Spanish Netherlands were governed by the Marquis of Castel Rodrigo. Behn opens with a short treatise on love: the passion "whose Aim is Virtue" ennobles, but in "ungovern'd Hearts" love "reigns more like a Fury from Hell". She then insists that her tale is no feigned story, that she witnessed much of it herself, having been sent to Antwerp by King Charles, and that Franciscan friars confirmed the rest. Miranda, a rich and beautiful orphan of eighteen, lives among the Beguines, a lay sisterhood whose members take only temporary vows and receive admirers freely. She collects lovers without committing herself until she sees a young Franciscan, Father Francisco, carrying the alms-box at Mass. Through her companion Cornelia we learn his story: born Prince Henrick of a German house, he lost his betrothed to his elder brother, survived the brother's attempt to have him murdered, and took the habit. Miranda bombards him with letters, then contrives to be alone with him at confession, declares her passion, and when he refuses her, cries rape. Francisco keeps silence about what passed in confession, is condemned to be burned, and lingers for more than two years in prison under repeated reprieves. Miranda meanwhile marries Prince Tarquin, a handsome stranger who claims descent from the last kings of Rome. Their magnificence consumes her fortune and that of her younger sister Alcidiana, whose guardianship Miranda controls. When Alcidiana chooses another guardian and demands her portion, Miranda persuades her besotted page Van Brune to poison her with mercury. Alcidiana survives, disfigured; Van Brune confesses and is hanged, and Miranda is made to stand beneath his gibbet with a rope about her neck. Tarquin, still entirely her slave, then tries to shoot Alcidiana outside the theatre, misses, and is taken after a desperate fight. He is condemned to be beheaded; Miranda, urged by the friars, at last confesses her crimes, and Francisco is freed with honour. On the scaffold the executioner's sword strikes too low; the crowd carries the wounded prince to a Jesuit house, where he recovers. Pardoned, he leaves Flanders, sends for Miranda, serves in the French army, and settles with her in Holland, where she is said to have repented. The tale is sensational, but its moral design is plain: Miranda's beauty, wit and pride make her a destroyer of better people, while Francisco shows innocence that can suffer without defending itself, and Tarquin shows how love without virtue can enslave a generous man.

Top Lessons

A treatise on love made into a case
Behn opens by distinguishing the passion whose aim is virtue and whose end is honour from love that rages in ungoverned hearts. Everything that follows tests that distinction: Miranda's desire seeks possession and turns to revenge when refused, while the same story contains steadfast love in Francisco's first attachment and in Tarquin's devotion. Students should read the preface as a thesis and ask whether the narrative proves it.
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Silence under false accusation
Francisco answers Miranda's charge with a prayer that God forgive her and bring her to repentance, refuses to reveal what she said in confession even to save his life, and spends over two years in prison. Behn presents his patience as holiness, not weakness, and his innocence is vindicated only when the accuser herself confesses. The episode invites comparison with Joseph and with other innocents who suffered for refusing a seducer.
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A good man enslaved
Tarquin is described as liberal, good-natured, brave and inoffensive, yet he consents to Miranda's schemes and finally tries to murder her sister himself. Behn keeps his attractive qualities in view to show how a passion untethered from virtue can turn a generous man into an instrument of evil. Even after his near-execution he cannot renounce her.
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Verified Quotes

“As Love is the most noble and divine Passion of the Soul, so it is that to which we may justly attribute all the real Satisfactions of Life”

— Aphra Behn, The Fair Jilt, Opening paragraph.Quote card

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“I do not pretend here to entertain you with a feign'd Story, or any Thing piec'd together with romantick Accidents; but every Circumstance, to a Tittle, is Truth”

— Aphra Behn, The Fair Jilt, Introductory remarks, before the account of the Beguines.Quote card

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“She lov'd one for his Wit, another for his Face, and a third for his Mein; but above all, she admir'd Quality”

— Aphra Behn, The Fair Jilt, Character of Miranda.Quote card

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scorn only redouble my passion MYRRHIN You are as sweet as your father is provoking Let me kiss you my treasure mother's darling CINESIAS Ah what a bad thing it is to let yourself be led away by other women Why give me such pain and suffering and yourself into the bargain MYRRHIN Hands off sir CINESIAS Everything is going to rack and ruin in the house MYRRHIN I don't care CINESIAS But your web that's all being pecked to pieces by the cocks and hens don't you care for that MYRRHIN Precious little CINESIAS And Aph...
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“Love, mad malicious Love, was always called to Counsel, and, like easy Monarchs, she had no Ears, but for Flatterers”

— Aphra Behn, The Fair Jilt, Miranda's passion for the friar, before the letters.Quote card

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“In vain, O too indiscreet Fair One, in vain you put out the Light; for Heaven still has Eyes, and will look down upon my broken Vows”

— Aphra Behn, The Fair Jilt, The sacristy scene.Quote card

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“May Heaven forgive that bad Woman, and bring her to Repentance”

— Aphra Behn, The Fair Jilt, Before the Provincial, after the false accusation.Quote card

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“the Doctors said, she had taken Mercury”

— Aphra Behn, The Fair Jilt, The poisoning of Alcidiana.Quote card

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“so absolutely dead he was with Imagination”

— Aphra Behn, The Fair Jilt, After the failed beheading.Quote card

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“gives Heaven the Glory for having given her these Afflictions that have reclaim'd her”

— Aphra Behn, The Fair Jilt, Closing paragraph.Quote card

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Raoul, learn how to distinguish the king from royalty; the king is but a man; royalty is the gift of God Beside the temporary tomb of Louis XIII, Athos gives Raoul his sword and his political creed.
The Innocence of Father Brown, The Wrong Shape, Dr. Harris's letter
A physician explains how he drugged his patient, staged a suicide note and calculated the angle of the knife.

Medical Lens

Medicine enters through crime and punishment. The poisoning of Alcidiana gives a lay description of mercury poisoning, with doctors, an apothecary's sales record and antidotes; the botched beheading records a sword wound to the shoulder treated by surgeons; and Behn twice reports the power of fear and expectation over the body, in Tarquin's insensibility at the stroke and in an old officer who dies of fright. These are narrative reports from a seventeenth-century observer, not clinical cases.

Pharmacology Poisons Physicians Doctors Surgery Bloodletting Mind Body Pain

The poisoning of Alcidiana
After drinking wine with roasted apples laced by Van Brune, Alcidiana swells, her face blackens and her eyes start; doctors identify mercury, an apothecary testifies to the purchase, and antidotes save her life at the cost of her hair and complexion.
The scaffold and the Jesuit house
The executioner's back-stroke cuts Tarquin into the shoulder-bone instead of severing the neck; the headsman tries to finish with a rope device before the crowd carries the prince away, and surgeons dress the wound without promising recovery.
After the failed beheading
Tarquin reports that, expecting death at a signal, he felt no pain and remembered nothing until he woke as from a dreamless sleep.
The scaffold uproar
One elderly officer on the scaffold dies of fear and amazement at the confusion; the other has to be let blood.
Cornelia's story of Prince Henrick
Left for dead by his brother's hired men, Henrick is found by a forester who dresses his wounds in secret at his lodge before the prince flees to Flanders.

The Fair Jilt

Summary

Top Lessons

A treatise on love made into a case

Silence under false accusation

A good man enslaved

An eyewitness who may be romancing

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens