Duchess of Malfi Key Quotes

“court gaul”

Bosola is referred to as what in Act 1 Scene 1?

Malcontent

What archetypal character is Bosola in Revenge Tragedy?

Machiavel

What archetypal character is The Cardinal in Revenge Tragedy?

“Take fire when I give fire”

What does Ferdinand expect from those around him?

“perverse and turbulent”

How does Antonio describe Ferdinand?

a great man’s madness

Antonio says that “ambition is….”

“a saucy and ambitious devil is dancing in this circle”

When given the ring Antonio proclaims that there is…

“a worthy fellow”

In Act 1 Ferdinand tells the Duchess that Bosola is…

“abortive hedgehog”

illness - “scurvy face physic”, “small pox”, “plague”

“I do wonder you do not loath yourself”

“The devil takes delight to hang at a woman’s girdles”

How does Bosola demean women in Act II?

“we are eaten up of lice and decay”

“a rotten and dead body”

Bosola’s Act II Scene I monologue: imagery of decay

“What thing is in this outward form of man/ To be belov’d?”

“Man stands amaz’d to see his deformity/ In any other creature but himself..”

Bosola’s Act II Scene I monologue: musing on men

“Let me be simply honest.”

Bosola’s ironic statement to Antonio in Act II Scene II

“I do understand your inside”

Antonio believes that “….” of Bosola in Act II Scene II

“you continue/ This out of fashion melancholy.”

“You would look up to heaven, but I think/ The devil… stands in your light”

Assertions that Antonio makes of Bosola in Act II Scene II

“I look no higher than I can reach”

What does Bosola tell Antonio about his ambition in Act II Scene II?

“How greedily she eats them!”

“Nay, you are too much swell’d already.”

Bosola’s asides in reference to the Duchess’ pregnancy

“This mole does undermine me”

“impudent snake”

Animalistic language Antonio uses against Bosola in Act II

“You are a false steward”

Bosola’s view of Antonio as a servant in Act II

“The great are like the base, nay they are the same/ When they seek shameful ways to avoid shame”

Antonio’s philosophy towards his own actions in Act II Scene III

“Thou lust do masque in ne’er so strange disguise/ She’s oft found witty but is never wise”

Bosola’s view of disguise in Act II

“generally for women;/ A man might strive to make glass malleable”

“…view another spacious world i’th’ moon,/ And look to find a constant woman there”

Cardinal’s view of women in Act II

“You told me of a piteous wound i’th’ heart,/ And a sick liver, when you woo’d me first…”

Julia appears to genuinely have loved the Cardinal in Act II

“Is this her wit or honesty that speaks thus?”

Delio does not trust Julia’s appearances in Act II

“strong thighed bargeman”

Ferdinand wonders about his sister’s lover

“my imagination will carry me to see her in the shameful act”

Ferdinand is obsessed with his sister’s sexuality

“put yourself in tune”

“Are you stark mad?”

In Act II Scene V The Cardinal criticises Ferdinand for obsessing

“Tis not your whore’s milk that will quench my wild fire/ But your whore’s blood”

Ferdinand’s outrage in Act III Scene V

“A kind of wild justice”

Francis Bacon says what about revenge in 1625?

Turning point

What are Act III’s of Revenge Tragedies typically?

Arabella Stuart

Which English monarch is the Duchess similar to?

Giovanna d’Aragona

Who was the real life Duchess?

“Why should only I,/ Of all the other princes of the world,/ Be cased up like a holy relic?”

The Duchess questions Ferdinand in Act III

“My reputation is safe”

The Duchess has not damaged her status in Act III

“If you were not my brother I would say you are too wilful.”

The Duchess’ view of Ferdinand in Act III

“hideous thing”

Ferdinand is demeaning to the Duchess in Act III

“a mere stick of candy”

The Duchess’ view of Count Malateste

“three bastards”

Bosola’s view of the Duchess’ children in Act III

“She is a strumpet”

How the Duchess is viewed generally in Act III

“You are your own chronicle and grossly flatter yourself too much”

Bosola’s view of the Duchess in Act III

“Never, my lord.”

Cariola’s view on her own marriage in Act III

“If there were propos’d me, wisdom, riches and beauty,/ In three several young men, which should I choose?”

Cariola’s question to Antonio on marriage in Act III

“those/ Which married…./ Were by a gracious influence transhap’d”

Antonio’s view on marriage in Act III

Daphne, Syrinx, and Anaxarete

The women Antonio lists to Cariola as a warning in Act III

“What pleasure can two lovers find in sleep?”

Antonio to the Duchess about love in Act III

“whether I am doomed to live or die/ I can do both like a prince”

The Duchess on her destiny in Act III

“poniard”

The weapon Ferdinand uses in the play

“pistol”

The weapon Antonio uses in the play

“A noble lie”

In Act III even the honourable must deceive

“Will you… examine men’s pedigrees than virtues?”

Bosola’s view of status in Act III

“he was too honest… a most undervalued jewel”

“his virtue and form deserved a far better fortune”

“an honest statesmen to a prince/ Is like a cedar”

Bosola’s view of Antonio in Act III

“Jew”

“scurvy proud”

“hermaphrodite”

The Officers description of Antonio in Act III

“Can this ambitious age/ Have so much goodness in ‘t as to prefer/ A man merely for worth?”

“shadows/ Of wealth and painted honours?”

Bosola’s reaction to the couple’s marriage in Act III

“I find concealment”

The Duchess in response to Bosola’s reaction to her marriage in Act III

“feign a pilgrimage”

Bosola’s lack of care for religion in Act III

“I do not like this jesting with religion”

Cariola take religion incredibly seriously in Act III

“Thou art a superstitious fool”

The Duchess in response to Cariola’s religious beliefs in Act III

“O, this base quality/ Of intelligencer!”

Bosola’s dislike of his own role in Act III

“for this act I am certain to be rais’d”

Bosola’s hopes for what his actions mean for him in Act III

“gains or commendation”

Bosola’s driving force in Act III

“In such deformed silence witches whisper their charms”

Delio on Ferdinand and the Cardinal in Act III

“Doth she make religion her riding hood?”

Cardinal on religion in Act III

“Methinks her fault and beauty/ Blended together show like leprosy”

Ferdinand on the Duchess’s pilgrimage in Act III

“bears himself much too cruel”

Pligrim’s view of the Cardinal

“so great a lady would match herself unto so mean a person?”

Pilgrim’s view of the Duchess

“our wit and reading brings us to a truer sense of sorrow”

The Duchess as a tragic hero in Act III

“In the eternal Church, sir/ I do hope we shall not part thus”

“Your kiss is colder than I’ve seen an holy anchorite/ Give to a deadman’s skull”

The Duchess’s fear of Antonio’s death in Act III

“My heart is turned to a heavy lump of lead/ With which I sound my danger”

Antonio’s misery and parting with the Duchess in Act III

“My laurel is all withered”

The Duchess in relation to tree imagery Act III

“Were I a man/ I’d beat that counterfeit face into thy other”

The Duchess’ reaction to being unable to respond like men do in Act III

“I would have my ruin be sudden”

The Duchess’ view of fate and fortune in Act III

“Man is most happy when’s own actions/ Be arguments and examples of his virtue”

The Duchess’ view of status in Act III

“Our value can never be truly know/ Till in the fisher’s basket we be shown”

The Duchess’ defiance in relation to status in Act III

“I am arm’d ‘gainst misery;/ Bent to all sways of the oppressor’s will:/ There’s no deep valley but near some great hill”

The Duchess’s defiance in relation to men in Act III

Blackfriars

Where was John Webster’s plays performed?

They were often affluent, nobility

What was notable about Webster’s audience?

It was an enclosed indoor space with low/limited candle lighting

What is notable about Blackfriars?

“Nobly”

“the shape of loveliness”

“More perfect in her tears than in her smiles”

How does Bosola describe the Duchess in Act IV?

“why dost thou wrap they poison’d pills/ In gold and sugar?”

What does the Duchess ask Bosola in Act IV?

“There is not between heaven and earth one wish”

The Duchess despairs in Act IV

“my picture, fashioned out of wax”

The Duchess mentions was in Act IV

“Come, you must live.”

“Remember/ You are a Christian”

Bosola reminds the Duchess of her religion

“That’s the greatest torture souls feel in hell… they must live, and cannot die”

What does the Duchess feel about continuing to live in Act IV?

“Things being at the worst begin to mend”

“go no farther in your cruelty”

“when you send me next/ The business shall be comfort”

Bosola as a spiritual counsellor in Act IV

“by my life, I pity you”

Bosola pities the Duchess in Act IV Scene I

“To bring her to despair”

Ferdinand’s reasons for his actions in Act IV Scene I

“this last cruel lie”

Bosola’s belief of Ferdinand’s actions in Act IV Scene I

“good women”

Who does Bosola want to bury the Duchess?

“I am Duchess of Malfi still”

The Duchess is defiant in the face of her own death

“riot begins to sit on thy forehead twenty years sooner than on a merry milk-maid’s”

Bosola’s final description of the Duchess Act IV Scene II

A celebration of madness and the proximity of death to life

What is the Danse Macabre?

“Princes’ images… are not carved with their eyes fix’d upon the stars, but as their minds were wholly bent upon the world”

Bosola comments on appearance vs reality in Act IV Scene II

“heaven-gates are not so highly arch’d/ As princes’s palaces; they that enter there/ Must go on their knees”

The Duchess comments on power and religion in Act IV Scene II

“What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut/ With diamonds? or to be smothered/ With cassia? or to be shot to death with pearls?”

“Pull, and pull strongly, for you able strength/ Must pull down heaven upon me”

“I would fain put off my last woman’s-fault,/ I’d not be tedious to you”

The Duchess’ heroism in the face of death

“death hath ten thousand several doors/ For men to take their exits”

“You may open them both ways: any way, for heaven sake”

The Duchess quotes Seneca

“tell my brothers…/ They then may feed in quiet”

The Duchess references male consumption of women Act IV Scene II

“Why didst thou not pity her?”

“I was distracted of my wits,/ Go kill my dearest friend, and thou hast done ‘t”

“I hate thee for ‘t”

Ferdinand blames Bosola for the Duchess’ death in Act IV

“in tragedies/ That a good actor many times is curs’d/ For playing a villain’s part”

Ferdinand references tragedy in Act IV

“The office of justice is perverted quite/ When one thief hangs another”

“We seem to sweat in ice and freeze in fire”

“I am angry with myself, now that I wake”

“I would not change my peace of conscience/ For all the wealth in Europe”

“treason, like the plague,/ Doth take much in blood”

Bosola’s regret and anagnorisis

“You and your brother are worthy men!”

“hearts are hollow graves”

“Yet I lov’d/ You that did counsel it”

Bosola’s judgment of the brothers in Act IV Scene II

“Antonio!”

“Mercy!”

The Duchess’ last words