The Fancies Chaste and Noble

The subject of Platonic love was highly fashionable in the court of Charles I, especially with Queen Henrietta Maria, her ladies in waiting, and their coterie of courtier poets and dramatists, like Sir John Suckling. It is not surprising that Ford would choose the subject for dramatic treatment. The treatment he gave the subject, however, was roundly condemned for its "coarseness" and "prurience" by more straightlaced later critics, especially those of the Victorian era. The play relies heavily on the spectre of virtue and chastity tested by false accusations and suspicions and tricks — that strange obsession of English Renaissance drama.

As is normal in his dramaturgy, Ford provides the play with a multi-level plot. The main plot portrays the bachelor Octavio, Marquis of Siena, and his establishment of his "Bower of Fancies," something like a Platonic academy for those he calls the "fancies" — Clarella, Silvia, and Floria, three young women who are, or are said to be,"young, wise, noble, fair, and chaste." The three are widely believed to be Octavio's paramours, and the Bower of Fancies his harem. Livio, newly arrived at the court, is a friend to Octavio's nephew, Troylo-Savelli. Livio's sister Castamela is also brought in as a companion to the "fancies" — and becomes a target for the apparent amorous intentions of both the Marquis and his nephew. An underlying plot is eventually revealed: Castamela has been brought to the court by the nephew, to separate her from her suitor Romanello so that the nephew can marry her himself. The three "fancies" turn out to be, not the sexual partners of the Marquis, but his nieces and wards.

In the second-level plot, the spendthrift Fabricio has sold his wife Flavia to Julio, a wealthy nobleman. Flavia pretends to embrace her new fortune, adopting the fashionable tastes and habits of a nouveau-riche aristocrat — though she still loves her first husband. When Fabricio, regretting what he's done, bids her farewell to join a religious order, Flavia can barely hide her sorrow. Flavia resists amorous suits from two noblemen, Camillo and Vespucci, to prove her honor to her brother (Romanello) and her new husband.

The comic subplot concerns the barber Secco and his marriage to Morosa, the older "religious matron" who serves as the guardian of the Fancies. The page Nitido and the character Spadone are involved with them in bawdy humour.

• Cochnower, Mary Edith (1968). Shafer, Robert (ed.). Seventeenth Century Studies: First Series (2nd ed.). Princeton, NJ: Books for Libraries Press. ISBN 978-0-8369-0867-1.
• Smith, Denzell S.; Logan, Terence P., eds. (1978). The Later Jacobean and Caroline Dramatists: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-2850-4.

• Stavig, Mark (1968). John Ford and the Traditional Moral Order. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-04680-4.