MALFI QUOTES

CORRUPTION/POLITICS: "In seeking to reduce..."

"...both state and people to a fixed order, their judicious King begins at home." (Antonio)

CORRUPTION: "They are rich..."

"...and o'erladen with fruit, but none but crows,pies, and caterpillars feed on them." (Bosola)

CORRUPTION/CARDINAL: "he strews in his way..."

"...flatterers, panders, intelligencers, athiests and a thousand such political monsters." (Antonio)

CORRUPTION/FERDINAND: "He speaks..."

"...with others' tongues, and hears men's suits with others' ears." (Antonio)

CORRUPTION/CARDINAL: "I pray thee, kiss me..."

"...when thou wast with thy husband, thou wast watched like a tame elephant." (Cardinal)

CORRUPTION/FERDINAND: "I would have their bodies..."

"...burnt in a coal pit, with the ventage stopped, that their cursed smoke might not ascend to heaven." (Ferdinand)

CORRUPTION/FERDINAND/BOSOLA: "Do you not weep?..."

"...other sins only speak; murder shrieks out." (Bosola)

CORRUPTION/THE BROTHERS: "You have a pair of hearts..."

"...are hollow graves, rotten, and rotting others." (Bosola)

PURITY/THE DUCHESS: "Her days are practised..."

"...in such noble virtue that sure her nights...are more in heaven than other ladies shrifts." (Antonio)

PURITY/THE DUCHESS: "She stains..."

"...the time past, lights the time to come." (Antonio)

LOVE/PURITY/ANTONIO: "This good one..."

"...that you speak of, is my husband." (The Duchess)

CORRUPTION OF LOVE: "He so much distrusts..."

"...my husband's love, he will by no means believe his heart is with him until he sees it." (The Duchess)

CORRUPTION/BOSOLA/ANTONIO: "The man I would have..."

"...saved 'bove mine own life!" (Bosola)

CORRUPTION/RELIGION/CARDINAL: "I am puzzled..."

"...in a question about hell." (Cardinal)

CORRUPTION/CARDINAL: "How tedious..."

"...is a guilty conscience!" (Cardinal)

LOVE/DEATH: "Some men have..."

"...wished to die at the hearing of sad tidings: I am glad that I shall do't in sadness." (Antonio)

BOSOLA/CORRUPTION: "Would be as lecherous..."

"...covetous, or proud, bloody, or envious, as any man, if he had means to be so." (Antonio)

CORRUPTION/RELIGION/CARDINAL: "Some fellows, they say..."

"...are possessed with the devil, but this great fellow were able to possess the greatest devil, and make him worse." (Bosola)

BOSOLA/CORRUPT/CLASS: "I fell..."

"...into the galleys in your service." (Bosola)

CARDINAL/RELIGION/CORRUPTION: "he should have been Pope..."

"...but instead of coming to it by the primitive decency of the church, he did bestow bribes..." (Antonio)

FERDINAND/CORRUPTION: "Then the law to him..."

"...is like a foul black cobweb to a spider: he makes it his dwelling, and a prison to entangle those shall feed him." (Delio)

PATRIACHAL POWER/MARRIAGE: "Will you..."

"...hear me? I'll never marry." (The Duchess)

PATRIACHAL POWER/FERDINAND: "Be not cunning...."

"...for they whose faces do belie their hearts are witches." (Ferdinand)

FERDINAND/THE DUCHESS: "You are my sister..."

"...this was my father's poniard: do you see? I'd be loath to see't look rusty..." (Ferdinand)

MARRIAGE/RELIGION: "How can a church build faster?..."

"...We now are man and wife, and 'tis the church that must but echo this." (The Duchess)

FEMALE AGENCY/THE DUCHESS: "Whether the spirit of greatness..."

"...or of woman reign most in her, I know not." (Cariola)

FEMALE AGENCY/CORRUPTION/PATRIACHY/THE DUCHESS: "When fortune's wheel..."

"...is overcharged with princes, the weight makes it move swift." (The Duchess)

CLASS/MARRIAGE: "Fie, madame..."

"...forget this base, low fellow." (Bosola)

FEMALE AGENCY/THE DUCHESS: "Were I a man..."

"...I'd beat that counterfeit face into thy other." (The Duchess)

CLASS: "Men oft are..."

"...valued high, when th'are most wretch'd." (The Duchess)

CLASS: "Where are your cubs?..."

"...Call them your children, for though our national law distinguish bastards from true legitimate issue...." (Ferdinand)

FERDINAND/THE DUCHESS/CLASS: "Damn her!..."

"...that body of hers, while that my blood ran pure in't...." (Ferdinand)

FERDINAND/THE DUCHESS/CLASS: "My imagination will carry me..."

"...to see her in the shameful act of sin...Haply with some strong thighed bargeman, or one o'th' wood-yard." (Ferdinand)

MADNESS: "Are you..."

"....stark mad?" (Cardinal)

PATRIACHAL POWER/THE DUCHESS: "I account this world..."

"...a tedious theatre, for I do play a part in't 'gainst my will." (The Duchess)

FEMALE AGENCY/THE DUCHESS: "Tell my brothers..."

"...that I perceived death, now I am well awake, best gift is they can give, or I can take." (The Duchess)

BOSOLA/GUILT: "This is manly..."

"...sorrow: these tears, I am very certain, never grew in my mother's milk." (Bosola)

FERDINAND/MADNESS: "A very pestilent..."

"....disease, my lord, they call lycanthropia." (Doctor)

CARDINAL/CORRUPTION: "Because I knew..."

"...thou couldst not keep my counsel, I have bound thee to't by death." (Cardinal)

REVENGE/BOSOLA: "When thou killed'st thou sister..."

"...thou took'st from Justice her most equal balance, and left her naught but her sword." (Bosola)

REVENGE/BOSOLA: "The last part..."

"...of my life hath done me best service." (Bosola)

FERDINAND/GUILT: "My sister! O my sister!..."

"...There's cause on't: whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust." (Ferdinand)

REVENGE/BOSOLA: "Revenge, for the Duchess of Malfi, murdered..."

"...by th'Aragonian brotherhood; for Antonio slain by this hand; for lustful Julia, poisoned by this man; and lastly, for myself..." (Bosola)