I.i: Orgilus explains to his father, Crotolon, why he must leave Sparta and go to Athens. It seems that in order to patch up a blood feud between Crotolon and Thrasus (now dead) Orgilus was promised the hand of Thrasus' daughter, Penthea. But Thrasus died suddenly, and Penthea's brother, Ithocles, gave her to his friend, Bassanes.

Bassanes, jealous, now makes her life unbearable with his constant suspicions that she will cuckold him with Orgilus. Orgilus has determined to travel to Athens, relieve Bassanes' suspicions, and make Penthea's life tolerable.

Before he leaves, however, Orgilus binds his sister, Euphranea, to a vow that she may never marry without his consent.

I.ii: Amyclas, King of Sparta, is pleased at Ithocles' success in battle. Ithocles has won great honor for Sparta, which makes Amyclas feel young again. Calantha, the king's daughter, praises Ithocles, and the audience is made to suspect there is a special warmth between them.

Two courtiers, Groneas and Hemophil, are rebuked by Calantha's maids, Christalla and Philema, despite the courtiers' success in battle. They are foolish men.

I.iii: Orgilus has disguised himself as a scholar studying under Tecnicus the philosopher. Tecnicus is wary of Orgilus' motivations for the disguise, but Orgilus assures him that he has come to meditate undisturbed. Tecnicus is satisfied. Orgilus is in truth staying behind in Sparta to watch over Penthea and to see whether his sister Euphranea will keep her vow to him.

He overheard Euphranea and her lover, Prophilus (a friend of Ithocles'), courting in the garden. Prophilus discovers the scholar and asks him to act as go-between for he and Euphranea. Orgilus accepts, planning to intercept their letters and so discover his sister's dishonesty. Orgilus prays to Mercury to grant him "swift deceits."

II.i: Bassanes, still mad with jealousy, orders the windows to the streets bricked up to prevent prople spying in at his beautiful wife. He threatens his servant with immediate death if he catches him carrying letters to Penthea.

Bassanes is pleased by the report that Orgilus has fled Sparta. Grausis, Penthea's elderly serving woman, reports that Penthea is very sad. Bassanes attempts to cheer his wife with news of her brother Ithocles' triumphant return to Sparta. They set out to the court to see him. Bassanes secretly upbraids Grausis for being forward with him, but she replies that that is the only way to win the lady's trust and learn if she has any lovers. Grausis, we learn, is employed by Bassanes to spy upon Penthea.

II.ii: Ithocles learns that his friend Prophillus cannot marry Euphranea without Orgilus' consent. He asks the king to send to Athens to have Orgilus returned to deliver his consent. Ithocles has grown regretful that he did not honor his father's wishes in allowing Orgilus to marry Penthea. He determines to make right his wrong to Orgilus.

In a series of double entendre, Penthea blames Ithocles for her present misery with jealous Bassanes.

Crotolon learns from Euphranea that she and Prophilus share a mutual love for one another.

Ithocles requests that Penthea meet him alone in the grove. Bassanes becomes enraged with jealousy that Ithocles should want to see his wife alone. He suspects that his wife will be tempted into incest.

II.iii: Prophilus escorts Penthea into the garden to await Ithocles. There they meet the disguised Orgilus. When Prophilus leaves, Orgilus unmasks to his love Penthea. She rebukes him for challenging her honor in meeting her thus. Although he vows undying love for her, she continues to chide him for dishonoring her. She swears never to see him again. She admits that she is unhappy with Bassanes, but marriage is sacrosanct. She calls the marriage a rape to the troth she once pledged to Orgilus, but there is no remedy. She still loves Orgilus. She orders him away.

Once Orgilus is gone, Penthea fears she was too harsh. Bassanes enters with news that Ithocles is not well and he has taken Ithocles to his chamber where he he has taken to bed. Prophilus enters and bids Penthea to see Ithocles in his chamber.

III.i: Orgilus has thrown off his scholar's disguise. Tecnicus again doubts his motivations. Orgilus tells him of his need to "return" to Sparta to give his sister permission to marry. He also must meet the prince of Argos, who comes to marry the princess Calantha. He must also respond to the summons of the king to court. Tecnicus has noticed a dangerous aspect building in Orgilus and fears it.

Armostes brings Tecnicus a message from the king, a riddle from Apollo at Delphos. The king bids the philosopher to interpret it.

III.ii: After a song, Ithocles asks all to leave except Penthea.

III.iii: Ithocles is discovered in a chair talking with Penthea. Penthea tells him that she is miserable with her jealous husband and begs her brother to kill her. Ithocles is heartsick for having brought his sister to this with his poor judgment. Penthea learns that Ithocles is secretly in love with the princess Calantha, who is being wooed by Nearchus, prince of Argos.

Bassanes breaks in with a poniard accusing Ithocles of incest with Penthea. After Penthea moves her husband by swearing her constancy to him, Ithocles refuses to return his sister to him until he can prove he has overcome his jealousy. Bassanes realizes how he has wronged Penthea and agrees to Ithocles' terms.

III.iv: Nearchus courts Calantha. King Amyclas says that the marriage between Euphranea and Prophilus is too long delayed and wonders where Orgilus is. Ithocles presents Orgilus to the court. In leaving, Calantha favors Ithocles' escort to Nearchus'.

III.v: Crotolon urges Orgilus to agree to his sister's marriage with Prophilus. Orgilus does not dislike Prophilus, but he does not care that he is a friend to Ithocles. Despite this, he consents to the marriage.

A bridal song is sung.

Orgilus suggests a device of his own invention (masque? play?) be performed at the wedding.

III.vi: Pretending to read her will to Calantha, whom she says she makes executrix, Penthea tells Calantha that her brother, Ithocles, is in love with her. He will not confess his love because of the difference in their stations.

IV.i: When Nearchus admires Calantha's ring and suggests she give it him in token of love, she carelessly tosses it aside to Ithocles. Ithocles suspects that Penthea has spoken to Calantha for him. Nearchus returns to castigate Ithocles for taken the token that was meant for him.

Tecnicus enters with the interpretation from Delphos. He gives it to Armostes and leaves Sparta forever. He goes to Delphos as Apollo has commanded. To Ithocles he delivers the prophecy:
When youth is ripe, and age from time doth depart, / The lifeless trunk shall wed the broken heart.
To Orgilus the prophecy reads:
Let craft with courtesty a while confer, / Revenge proves its own executioner.
Orgilus dismisses the prophecy as "the dotage of a withered brain."

IV.ii: Bassanes is cured of his jealousy. He laments his wrongs to Penthea. Orgilus torments him over those wrongs, which Bassanes accepts as penance.

Penthea has gone mad. Bassanes begs her forgiveness. Ithocles is also penitent for his part in marrying his sister to a man she did not love. In her madness, Penthea has neither eaten nor slept in ten days and nights.

Nearchus bids Ithocles to go to Calantha and make an account of himself for keeping the ring. He confides to the audience that he knows the two are in love and that he approves of their match. He means to act jealous in public but secretly advance their relationship.

He learns that King Amytas is ill and physicians have been summoned.

IV.iii: The stricken king views the prophecy translated by Tecnicus:
The plot (Sparta) in which the vine (King) takes root / Begins to dry from head to foot; / The stock soon withering, want of sap / Doth cause to quail the buddy grape (Calantha); / But from the neighboring elme, a dew / Shall drop and feed the plot anew.
The king calls for Ithocles, his favorite, and orders that the recent marriage of Euphranea to Prophilus should be celebrated regardless of the king's health. Calantha requests that the king give Ithocles to her in marriage. The king does so. Orgilus is angry to see his enemy raised to the station of heir apparent. He takes Ithocles off to tell him a secret.

In private, Ithocles and Orgilus hear a song of lamentation issue from Penthea's chambers. They fear the worst.

IV.iv: Penthea is brought in, veiled in a chair. The servants tell Orgilus and Ithocles that she is dead. One servant is apparently in on a secret with Orgilus. He tells Orgilus that the "engine" is the chair set on Penthea's right side. When the servants leave, Orgilus invites Ithocles to sit in the "secret engine" chair. When he does, the chair traps him.

Orgilus gloats over his enemy. Ithocles freely admits his wrong both to Penthea and Orgilus. He begs Orgilus to avenge himself upon him. Orgilus obliges by stabbing him. He then hides both bodies.

V.i: Orgilus comes to Bassanes and bids him follow to see a secret. Bassanes is sworn to secrecy about what he will see.

V.ii: Calantha and Croloton wonder what new device Orgilus has invented for the wedding entertainment. The wedding party and guests dance. Armostes enters and whispers to Calantha that the king has died. Calantha calls for more music and a change of partners. A servant enters and whispers to Calantha that Penthea has starved herself to death. Calantha calls for more music and another change of partners. Orgilus enters and whispers to Calantha that Ithocles is murdered. Again she calls for music and a change of partners. Orgilus is amazed by her sang-froid.

After the dance, Calantha has the rumors confirmed. She learns from Orgilus that he killed Ithocles himself. Bassanes confirms the confession. Calantha calmly assumes the monarchy and sentences Orgilus to be immediately executed by a method of his own choice. He chooses blood loss by his own hand.

Calantha exits to make ready for her coronation. Everyone is impressed by her composure.

Orgilus opens a vein in one arm and bids Bassanes to open the other arm. He bleeds to death on stage delivering his valedictory. He realizes that Tecnicus was right that "revenge proves his own executioner."

Bassanes takes charge of Orgilus' corpse.

V.iii: Ithocles' body is brought on wearing a crown. Calantha chooses Nearchus for her lord on the condition that Sparta remain an independent state. Armostes is to be viceroy in charge of Argos. Prophilus is to inherit all titles owing to Ithocles. The auditors suspect this is a testament rather than a coronation oath. Calantha proves them correct by marrying the corpse of Ithocles and falling dead of grief over him, a smile on her face.

Armostes recalls the prophecy:
When youth is ripe and age from time depart, / The lifeless trunk shall wed the broken heart.

Nearchus vows to abide by Calantha's conditions.

Orgilus is the revenger. He is given good reason to hate Ithocles, who gave Penthea to Bassanes, who abuses her, instead of to him, who would presumably love her. His revenge, however, is more calculated and cold than is found in most revengers of the period. He is not bloodthirsty, as Vindice, nor methodical, as Hamlet. Rather, he is workmanlike and gets around to his revenge in time. His suspicions over his sister, Euphranea, are as groundless as the action itself turns out to be pointless. When she remains faithful to her vow, he agrees to allow her marriage. His name means "angry."

Ithocles is the nearest to a villain for purposes of the revenge plot. His action of giving his sister, Penthea, to Bassanes instead of to Orgilus sets up Orgilus' vengeance. From his first entrance, however, he has regretted and repented that act. Unlike villains from other revenge plays of the period, Ithocles sincerely seeks to apologize and make amends from the first. He prefers Orgilus in court, where he is the king's favorite. Furthermore, his motivation in the original wrong was not evil. He was too young to understand that Orgilus and Penthea were in love and so gave her to his best friend, Bassanes, instead. Finally, he willing invites the revenger, Orgilus, to kill him and forgives him as he dies. In fact, his first reference to the wrong is at II.ii.50 where he calls it "a capital fault", that is, a fault worthy capital punishment. His name means "honour of loveliness."

Bassanes owes much to the jealous husband of the New Comedy tradition. The character is much darker in this tragedy, however, and the effects of jealousy upon the innocent wife here prove catastrophic. Like Ithocles, he commits his wrongs blindly and repents once he sees them. He operates mainly as the catalyst in the play to fuel the anger of Orgilus, who was to have wed Penthea, the woman who became Bassanes' wife. By play's end he is reduced to the minor role of affirming the truth of Ithocles' murder. His name means "vexation."

Tecnicus is a stock wise man. He is good at giving advice and unscrambling the riddle of Apollo for the court at Sparta. His name means "artist."

Calantha, the titular "broken heart" is primarily notable for her composure. Although she almost certainly favors Ithocles from the beginning, no one including the audience is aware of her feelings until she asks her dying father, the king, to marry him to her near play's end. When earlier Ithocles' sister, Penthea, tells her of her brother's love, Calantha's response is characteristically ambiguous. So, too, is her tossing the ring (her favor) to Ithocles instead of to her intended spouse, Nearchus. The act barely betrays favor and could as easily be seen as her displeasure (if any) with Nearchus. She is likewise composed in the act five celebration where she successively learns of her father's death, the death of Penthea, and the murder of Ithocles. Her reaction at each announcement is to call for music and a change of partners. It seems an anticlimax, deflating the dramatic situation, until at the very end we learn that she has been holding all inside. The events conspire at last to break her heart. Her death, smiling, sums up the whole of her emotional strain throughout the play. She becomes a fascinating study of a seemingly emotionless woman at last consumed by emotion. Her name means "flower of beauty."

Penthea, in contrast to Calantha, is almost wholly emotional. Although her virtue and honor forbid the expression of her true love to Orgilus, the man she was to have married, she can never love the abusive, jealous beast, Bassanes, to whom her brother has married her. She shuffles in melancholic misery throughout the play until loss of sleep and sustenance conspire to kill her. Death by privation. Her name means "complaint."

Euphranea is a rather typical ingenue of the period. She is true to her vow to her brother, Orgilus, that she will not marry without his consent. Thus, he gives his consent, and she marries Prophilus. Her name means "joy."

Grausis is an interesting treatment of the old bawd working on behalf of the young lovers. She can be readily compared to Maquerelle in this regard. Here, however, she is employed to further Bassanes' insane jealousy when she is set to spy on her own mistress, the honorable Penthea. Her name means "old bedlam."

Armostes is little more than a messenger. He brings the cryptic prophecy from Delphos and gives it to Tecnicus. He later takes Tecnicus' translation of it to the other characters. Finally, it is Armostes at play's end that realizes the truth of the final prophecy that "the lifeless trunk shall wed the broken heart." His name means "appeaser."

Crotolon is father to Orgilus and Euphranea. He is surprised by Ithocles' attempts to find preferment for Orgilus to the king. He believed Ithocles to be an enemy since he gave Penthea in marriage to Bassanes when she had been betrothed to Orgilus. His name means "noise."

Prophilus is a friend to Ithocles. Because Ithocles is an enemy to Orgilus, Prophilus would seem a poor choice to marry Orgilus' sister, Euphranea. Euphranea's honor and love, however, win Orgilus' consent that they marry. Prophilus is invested with all Ithocles' honours at play's end. His name means "dear."

Nearchus is the prince of Argos. Although he would seem to have best reason to resent Ithocles as a rival for the hand of princess Calantha, he turns out secretly to support their love. When the lovers die, Nearchus becomes leader of Sparta. His honorable promises to keep Sparta independent, however, are intended to be accepted as sincere. His name means "young prince."

Lemophil, "the glutton", is a courtier. He along with Groneas is rebuked by the maids of honour.

Groneas, "the tavern haunter," is a courtier. He along with Lemophil is rebuked by the maids of honour.

Amelus, "the trusty", is a friend to Nearchus, prince of Argos.

Phulas, "the watchful", is a servant to the jealous Bassanes. He is threatened with instant death if his master catches him carrying letters to his mistress.

Christalla, "the crystal", is along with Philema one of the maids of honor who rebuke the lusty courtiers.

Philema, "a kiss", is along with Christalla one of the maids of honor who rebuke the lusty courtiers.

Thraus, whose name means "fierceness", is the father of Ithocles and Penthea. He is already dead when the play opens. He had fought with Crotolon and in recompense had promised his daughter Penthea to Crotolon's son, Orgilus. When Thraus died, Ithocles gave Penthea to his friend Bassanes instead. This is the motivation for revenge in the play.

Aplotes, whose name means "simplicity", is the name Orgilus adopts in his guise as scholar. As Aplotes he pretends to meditate with the wise man Tecnicus while in truth spying on his sister, Euphranea.

Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore was a tragedy of thwarted intention. In this play Ford has made a tragedy of cool acceptance. Everyone, avenger and victim, accepts vengeance as a matter of course.

Likewise, the characters here are mostly ambiguous. Despite Orgilus' good motivations, it is difficult to sympathize with him. One wonders if Ithocles has really done anything to merit death, especially in light of Ithocles' acceptance of blame and attempts to make amends.

Ford has added a strong element of realism to the old revenge motif. He displays not good against evil or even evil burning itself out. Rather, he creates characters in which bad deeds mix with good temperament, fallible people working their ways through their own emotional responses to those deeds.

Additionally, Ford sets up expectations derived from the old revenge formulae and bursts them. Orgilus' "device" should lead one to expect (both on stage and in the audience) another masque-style play-within-the-play wherein the revenger will subtly or suddenly kill his victim. Expectation is deceived when the murders are rather committed privately, revenger and victim in a side room. The "device" never occurs unless Orgilus intended his own bloodletting and valedictory speech to be the entertainment.

Orgilus disguised as the scholar also creates expected dramatic tension, particularly when he maneuvers himself into the role of go-between for his sister and her lover. This usual point of exposure and revelation comes to nothing. The disguise itself comes to nothing. Penthea rebukes him for his stealth, and he sets it aside. Thus the disguise motif put to such excellent use in Lear, Twelfth Night, The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair, Measure for Measure, The Malcontent and many other plays is attempted and discarded almost immediately. It takes up exactly one act (act two) and then disappears without effect.

Similarly, the jealousy of Bassanes fizzles. Jealousy, that motive force of Othello, Michaelmas Term, The Winter's Tale and a score of other plays is present only to be defused. It is an aggravation of the wrongs done Orgilus only. The jealous character is not punished. Although Penthea dies before he repents, he does repent. In the end, Bassanes is actually rewarded with preferments.

Additionally, the several parallels to Orgilus' predicament are defused. Orgilus extracts a vow from Euphranea not to marry without his approval. One might expect him to use the approval as a tool to work a harm similar to the one worked upon him by Ithocles. Instead, he approves the first man his sister fancies. Next, when Nearchus finds himself in a situation very like the Orgilus-Penthea-Bassanes triangle (himself, Calantha, Ithocles), he supports the love of his rival for the woman rather than resenting it. The expectation then that Ithocles will be forced to face the same fate as Orgilus, in love with a woman destined to be another man's wife, is also dashed.

There are several broken hearts in the play. Calantha is most apparent. Orgilus likewise suffers as does Penthea. In III.iii.14 Ithocles declares that his own heart breaks for having given Penthea to Bassanes.

There is a Websterian self-conscious comment about the action of the play being turned into literature at V.ii.131-3.