Mistress

Mistress Ching, the Pirate Lord of the Pacific Ocean.

"Captain Sparrow, would you like me to...scrub your back?"
"Madam...I thought time was of the essence?"
"Yes, yes, you’re right, of course..."
"And close that door, if you please. All the way, Mistress Goodwright."

―Mistress Goodwright and Jack Sparrow, before Jack's first bath

Mistress, also misspelled as Mistres, was a form of address for a woman. The titles Mrs., Miss and Ms. were abbreviations derived from Mistress. It usually implied "lady of the house", especially a woman who was head of a household with domestic workers. The title did not necessarily distinguish between married and unmarried women. The term "mistress" may also refer to a female lover of a married man or a prostitute.

History

"Hurry and dress your mistress, girl. Paint her face. Make sure she wears her good sandals with the golden beads. And the golden girdle for her dress."

―Queen Tiyy to Sennuwy on Amenirdis

Mistress Goodwright supervised the servants in the household of Cutler Beckett, the EITC Director for West Africa. As First Mate Jack Sparrow of the EITC brig the Fair Wind was giving his report of Captain Bainbridge's death to Beckett, he politely addressed his late captain's widow as Mistress Bainbridge. The Kerman princess Amenirdis had to address the wife of her owner Roger Dalton as mistress when she was enslaved in Calabar. Mistress Fenwick was the wife of St. John Fenwick, one of the wealthy English plantation owners on the island of New Avalon in the Bahamas.

The ruthless female Chinese pirate Ching used "Mistress" as her title during her rule over a pirate fleet in China and Pirate Lord of the Pacific Ocean. One of the most dangerous people in the chamber of the Brethren Court, commanding a massive fleet of pirate junks, Mistress Ching knows better than most how to weigh a man's words, and scorned Captain Hector Barbossa's fancy speechifying during the Fourth Brethren Court.

Behind the scenes

Mistress is first mentioned in relation to the appearance of the Pirate Lord Mistress Ching in media relating to the 2007 film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, including Glenn Dakin's reference book Pirates of the Caribbean: The Complete Visual Guide, T.T. Sutherland's junior novelization, and the video game adaptation. In the book The Pirates' Code Guidelines, which had a map featuring pirate flags from all nine Pirate Lords, "Mistress" was misspelled as "Mistres" under Ching's flag.

Appearances

• The Price of Freedom
• Legends of the Brethren Court: The Caribbean
• Legends of the Brethren Court: Rising in the East
• Legends of the Brethren Court: The Turning Tide
• Legends of the Brethren Court: Wild Waters
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (video game)
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (junior novelization) (First appearance)
• LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game (Non-canonical appearance)

Sources

• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Complete Visual Guide (First mentioned) (First identified as Mistress)
• The Pirates' Guidelines (First identified as Mistres)

External links

• Mistress (form of address) on Wikipedia
• Mistress (lover) on Wikipedia