Top Girls

Content Warning: This guide includes discussion of rape of girls and women, child brides, sex, childbirth, miscarriage, abortion, babies dying or being killed, taking children from their mothers, adoption, dead kittens, murder, and blood.

The first act takes place in a restaurant, where Marlene is hosting a dinner to celebrate her promotion to managing director of the Top Girls Employment Agency. Marlene enters first and orders a bottle of wine for herself and her five guests. Her first guest, Isabella Bird, is renowned as an adventurous 19th-century travel writer from Scotland. Isabella congratulates Marlene, who demurs, wishing she could travel like Isabella. Isabella says she found it impossible to stay in one place, but she missed her sister, Hennie, terribly when traveling. Lady Nijo, who lived in Japan in the 13th century, first as a concubine to the emperor and later as a nun and poet, arrives. They drink wine, and Lady Nijo says that she was raised to be the emperor’s concubine, and she cried the first time he had sex with her at age 14. Marlene asks, “Are you saying he raped you?” (3), but Nijo doesn’t see it as rape. She belonged to the emperor. Her father had told her that if the emperor ever turned her away, she should become a nun. Nijo followed that directive, but she became a wandering nun, following the footsteps of the wandering vagrant priests.

Dull Gret enters. Gret is the central figure of a 1563 painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder called “Dulle Griet,” which depicts Gret—an aggressive, masculine woman, leading a battalion of women into the mouth of Hell to fight the demons there. Throughout most of the act, Gret speaks in blunt one- or two-word interjections, unlike the other women, who are loquacious and frequently talk over each other in long monologues. The women talk about their respective educations. Isabella found that she enjoyed working outside over book learning, although she had health issues. She learned Latin from her father, but she doesn’t remember it. Nijo was happiest wearing thin silk during the period when she was the emperor’s favorite concubine, and she much preferred that luxury to her rough life as a wandering nun. Pope Joan enters, and Marlene suggests that they order, since their last guest will be late. Pope Joan lived in the 9th century. She lived her life disguised as a man, becoming a well-known religious scholar. Joan was promoted within the Catholic Church and was eventually elected as Pope John VIII.

Pope Joan served for two years, but she was discovered when she suddenly went into labor during a procession, at which point she either died giving birth or was immediately stoned to death. The women are talking about education, and Marlene brings Joan into the conversation by remarking that she was an “infant prodigy” (4). As they place their orders, Isabella and Nijo talk about the grief they felt when their fathers died. They all discuss and debate sin and repentance. Isabella believes that “good works matter more than church attendance” (5), although she’s never been as faithful about doing good works as her sister, Hennie. Nijo sees her years of wandering as penance for her prior life of sin, as she was unhappy while traveling. Marlene asks if she was angry, stating that she gets angry sometimes, but Nijo denies any anger and Marlene doesn’t elaborate. Marlene orders more bottles of wine. Isabella spent time in Japan, and she comments that she attempted to comprehend Buddhism, but she found the idea reincarnation made her sad. Joan refers to the Church of England as heresy, which momentarily offends Isabella, who jokes that since they’re dining with a pope, they ought to avoid the subject of religion.

The waitress enters and serves their first course, and the women each talk about moments when they either felt that their lives had ended or wished for their lives to end. After the death of her father, Nijo had only the emperor. When the emperor rejected her, she had no one and nothing. Isabella describes being in poor health at age 40 while traveling, homesick but feeling like she couldn’t stay in a house. Nijo felt the same way. Joan tells the others about leaving home at age 12. She disguised herself as a boy for safety and so that she would be allowed to study. She left with a friend, a 16-year-old boy. Isabella interjects that she was always feminine during her travels, and she resented the insinuation in the newspapers that she wasn’t. Joan continues, explaining that two boys sharing a bed wasn’t abnormal. The conversation turns to the women’s experiences with romantic love and loss. Isabella rejected a man who loved her. He appeared to her in a dream, and she later learned that he had died just before the dream occurred. Joan’s lover became ill, and she nursed him until he died. Nijo loved a priest named Ariake before she became a nun.

Joan says she decided to continue living as a man so she could become a scholar. She chose Rome because it wasn’t in fashion in Italy for men to grow beards. Isabella’s two great loves were her sister, Hennie, and the doctor, John Bishop, who cared for Hennie before she died. Isabella was devastated by the loss of her sister, and she married Bishop because he was kind like Hennie. Isabella was 50 at the time, while Bishop was in his thirties. Nijo adds that she thought the emperor was kind when he was not angry about her affair with Ariake, but in actuality, the emperor had lost interest in her. He even listened as she had sex with another man. When Isabella married, she stopped traveling. Her health was failing, and her husband became ill as well and died. Joan threw herself into scholarship, teaching and giving lectures that drew large crowds. Joan became a cardinal, which she found so terrifying that she fell ill for two weeks. Nijo’s travels began as an attempt to escape her grief at the death of Ariake. Joan became pope. At 56, Isabella began traveling again.

Marlene orders more wine, noting that Griselda, their sixth party member, hasn’t arrived yet, and she wants to toast all the women. Isabella points out that they’re celebrating Marlene’s promotion as managing director of the employment agency, which Marlene comments isn’t exactly becoming pope, but the four women toast to her success. Isabella and Nijo talk about the hardships of traveling and enduring illnesses in rustic settings, agreeing that they felt the need to keep moving despite the difficulty. As pope, Joan took another lover, a chamberlain who could keep her secret. Joan enjoyed the luxuries of being pope, noting that there had been natural disasters like earthquakes, reports of blood raining, and an infestation of grasshoppers in France that contaminated the water and killed people, quipping that those things probably weren’t her fault for becoming pope as a woman. Joan might have lived a long life as pope if she hadn’t become pregnant. Joan hadn’t spoken to another woman since she left home, and she was in denial about what was happening to her body. The chamberlain was the one who noticed that she was pregnant.

This story turns the conversation to the children the women have lost. Nijo’s first child, fathered by the emperor, died. At 17, she became pregnant by her lover, Akebono. Nijo hid that she was unfaithful to the emperor, lying about the timeline of the pregnancy. When she gave birth to a baby girl, Akebono took the baby away, and Nijo pretended to have miscarried. Joan was taking part in a traditional procession, riding a horse and dressed in full papal regalia, when she suddenly went into labor. Everyone around her was horrified when the baby was birthed in the street. The women laugh at this image until Joan adds that the crowd immediately dragged her away and stoned her to death and that she believes the baby died as well. As the waitress clears the table, Isabella comments that she didn’t have children, but she loved her horses. Nijo spotted her daughter once when she was three. Akebono’s wife had lost a child and therefore taken Nijo’s baby to raise. The girl would also be raised to become a concubine to the emperor. Nijo’s third and fourth babies were fathered by Ariake, although he died before the fourth was born, and Nijo never saw either baby boy again after birth.

Marlene asks Gret how many children she had, and Gret replies simply, “Ten” (18). Isabella spent the rest of her life wearing herself out by trying to do good works. Marlene questions, “Oh God, why are we all so miserable?” (18). Joan tells them that after her stint as pope, the Catholics had devised a chair with a hole in it, and every pope was required to sit in it so two of the clergymen could verify his genitals. The women laugh about the idea of making the pope’s chamberlains sit in the chair to choose potential lovers based on penis size. They are drunk. Griselda enters quietly during this conversation. Marlene sees her and greets her happily. They are about to order dessert, and she urges Griselda to order something too. Marlene introduces the Griselda to the others, explaining that Griselda, or Patient Griselda, has been written about by “Boccaccio and Petrarch and Chaucer because of her extraordinary marriage” (20). Marlene states, “Griselda’s life is like a fairy story, except it starts with marrying the prince” (20). Modestly, Griselda corrects that her husband was a marquis, not a prince.

When Griselda was 15, she was a “poor but beautiful peasant girl” (20). The marquis, Walter, and Griselda would see each other when she was tending sheep and he was riding by on his horse. The townspeople were pushing the marquis to marry and produce an heir, so the marquis planned a wedding, keeping the bride’s identity a mystery. On the day of the wedding, Walter asked Griselda to marry him. He told her that she could say no to the proposal, but if she accepted, she “must always obey him in everything” (21). Griselda married him, having always known that whoever she married would require her obedience. But Walter didn’t trust her and felt that he needed to test her obedience. Griselda gave birth to a baby girl, and when the child was six weeks old, Walter claimed that the townspeople were upset that he’d married and had a child with a peasant. He said he would have to kill the child. Griselda had to show obedience, so she allowed him to take the child, asking only that he bury her somewhere that animals wouldn’t disturb her grave. The women are horrified, but Griselda asserts that she was unbothered because she was simply obeying and claims that they were very happy together. The waitress enters and serves dessert.

Four years later, she had a baby boy. Walter made the same claims and took the child, but he waited until the boy was two. Griselda didn’t have any more children, but twelve years later, Walter tested her loyalty again. He told Griselda that he was going to marry someone younger who could give him a child and heir. He sent her home to her father, but first, he took back her finery and stripped her down to her slip, allowing her to keep the slip as a favor so she wouldn’t be naked. Again, Griselda insists, she was “perfectly content” (24). But before long, Walter sent for Griselda to help him prepare for his wedding to a beautiful 16-year-old girl. Her younger brother was serving as her page. Marlene, disturbed by the story, orders coffee and brandy for everyone. Griselda continues, telling them that Walter surprised her by kissing her and telling her that the girl and boy were their two children. Griselda was overjoyed, and easily forgave him, which the other women find unbelievable. Joan notes that she never lived as a woman, so she can’t relate to women’s obedience and suffering. Nijo starts to cry because she was never reunited with her own children. Nijo tells them how she mourned when the emperor died, but she wasn’t allowed to see him or attend his funeral.

Nijo talks about a time when she was angry. There was a ceremony in which women’s loins are beaten with sticks to assure boy children instead of girls. When Nijo was 18, the emperor had encouraged his servants to beat the women too, which they enjoyed themselves doing. Nijo and the other ladies hid in his rooms and surprised him, beating him with a stick until he swore that he wouldn’t ever let anyone else beat her again. Joan starts speaking in Latin, a long monologue. Griselda notes that it might have been nicer if Walter hadn’t felt the need to test her. Marlene tells Joan to shut up. Gret, who has been largely silent, suddenly interrupts and launches into a monologue describing how her town had a gaping hole into Hell. Sick of being plagued by demons and having children murdered—Gret lost one son who was tortured to death and a baby who was impaled on a sword—Gret led the charge of women from the village who went into Hell and gave the devils beatings. Nijo echoes her story with lines about beating the emperor. Joan goes back to her Latin and then vomits in the corner. Marlene keeps drinking. Isabella talks about how she pushed her ailing body to keep traveling at seventy, noting, “What lengths to go for a last chance of joy. I knew my return of vigor was only temporary, but how marvelous while it lasted” (29).