scnd and tdom

“His virtue and form

deserved a far better fortune” B

"Of marriage between her and me

they never dream of" 3.1

“Indeed my rule is

only in the night” 2.1

“Oh

my unworthiness” 2.1

“her very sleeps,/

Are more in heaven than other ladies' shrifts.” 1.1

“he is a melancholy churchman./

The spring in his face is nothing but the engend'ring of toads;” 1.1

“The duke there?

A most perverse and turbulent nature.” 1.1

“The misery of us that are born great!/

We are forced to woo because none dare woo us”1.3

“heaven-gates are not so highly arch'd/ As princes' palaces;

they that enter there / Must go upon their knees” 4.2

“I am Duchess of Malfi still”

3.2

“Man is most happy when 's own actions/

Be arguments and examples of his virtue.” 1.3

“ Wish me good speed;/

For I am going into a wilderness,” 1.2

“That I perceive death, now I am well awake /

Best gift is they can give or I can take” 4.2

“The church enjoys fasting:/

I will starve myself to death” 4.1

“I am not mad yet,/

to my cause of sorrow” 4.2

“I forgive them“

4.2

“Whether we fall by ambition, blood or lust,/

Like diamonds we are cut with our own dust” 5.4

“The witch-craft lies

in her rank blood.” 3.1

”I 'll find scorpions to string my whips,/ 

And fix her in a general eclipse.” 2.5

“I'd be loath to see't

look rusty“ 1.2

“Was I

her judge?” 4.2

“Her melancholy seems to be fortified /

With a strange disdain” 4.1

“Or my imagination will carry me /

To see her in the shameful act of sin” 5

“Thou art

undone” 1.2

“Enjoy thy lust still,

and a wretched life” 3.2

“Damn her! That body of hers, /

While that my blood ran pure in't” 4.1

“Our sister Duchess'/

great master of her household”

Corruption and flattery

“Princes pay flatterers in their own money”

Antonio’s honesty

“His nature is too honest for such business”

Bosola’s corruption by society

“These cursed gifts would make you a corruptor, me an impudent traitor”

Men using women’s reputations against them (Ferdinand)

“Farewell, lusty widow”

Ferdinand’s obsession with dynastic purity

“Should our blood - the royal blood of Aragon and Castile - be thus tainted?”

Ferdinand on reputation

“You have shook hands with reputation and made him invisible”

Duchess’ worry about her reputation

“When I wax grey I shall have all the court powder their hair with arras to be like me”

Baby as symbol of hope

“to establish this young hopeful gentleman in’s mother’s right”

Duchess using the masculine

“‘tis fit princes should”

Cariola: “Whether the spirit…

…of greatness or of woman... it shows a fearful madness'

Duchess on marriage

“I’ll never marry”

Duchess on her staying human

“This is flesh and blood, sir. ‘Tis not the figure cut in alabaster”

Ferdinand on the Duchess’s promiscuity

“‘Tis not your whore’s milk shall quench my wild-fire, but your whore’s blood”

Description of Julia

“lustful Julia”

Pescara on Julia

“strumpet”

Julia’s rejection of money for sex

“I have a bird more beautiful”

Antonio on the Duchess

“She stains the time past, lights the time to come”

Ferdinand about Duchess’s marriage

“I would not have her marry again”

“When thou wast with thy husband,

thou wast watched/Like a tame elephant – still you are to thank me” – 2.4

“I knew thou couldst not keep my counsel,

I have bound thee to't by death” - 5.2

"I would pray now,

but the devil takes away my heart for having confidence in prayer" 5.4

“So most widows say, / But commonly that motion lasts no longer

/ Than the turning of an hourglass” 1.3

“I have honours

in store for thee” 5.2

“Thy curiosity

hath undone thee” 5.1

“How tedious is

a guilty conscience” 5.1

“She resembled an

abortive hedgehog” 2.1

“Whose throat

must I cut?” 1.2

“We are merely the stars’ tennis balls, struck and banded/

Which way please them.” 5.4

“I do haunt/

you still” 1.1

“I / would hang on their ears like a horse

leech till I were/ full, and then drop off” 1.1

“Can this ambitious age / have so much goodness

in't as to prefer /a man merely for worth” 3.2

“Now for this act I am certain to be raised/

And men that paint weeds to the life are praised” 3.2

“Look you, the/

stars shine still”

What lines from Antonio’s introduction in act 1.1 connotes ideas of the body politic and political corruption as core ideas for the play?

“Some cursed example poison’t near the head,/Death and diseases through the whole land spread”

What is Bosola’s first line in act 1.1 that sets him up as the witty yet cynical malcontent of the Amalfian court?

“I do haunt you still”

What does Bosola compare Ferdinand and the Cardinal to in act 1.1, symbolising corruption and insanity?

“Plum trees that grow crooked over standing pools, they are rich and o’erladen with fruit but none but crows, pies and caterpillars feed on them.”

Who does Bosola compare himself to in act 1.1, showcasing his intelligence as well as his ego?

“What creature ever fed worse than hoping Tantalus?”

What does Antonio say about Bosola at the end of act 1.1 that contains a semantic field of decay, reinforcing corruption as a theme as well as foreshadowing Bosola’s later actions?

“This foul melancholy/ Will poison all his goodness… an inward rust unto the soul”

How does Antonio insult the Cardinal in act 1.2, sharply critiquing the corruption within the clergy, specifically the common violation of the vow of celibacy?

“The spring in his face is nothing but the engendering of toads”

How does Antonio close his act 1.2 monologue about the Duchess, showing just how much he loves and almost idolises her?

“Let all sweet ladies break their flattering glasses/ And dress themselves in her?”

What does Bosola say in act 1.2 immediately after Ferdinand offers him money, showing his thirst for power and social mobility?

“Whose throat must I cut?”

What does the Duchess say to Ferdinand in act 1.2, challenging his misogyny and the belief around a woman’s value being solely concentrated in her virginity?

“Diamonds are of most value, they say, that have past through most jewellers’ hands”

What does Antonio state to the Duchess in act 1.2 that perhaps foreshadows Bosola’s actions?

“Ambition, madam, is a great man’s madness”

What does Cariola say to the Duchess in act 1.2, showing her loyalty and honour and foreshadowing the bloodbath that ends the play?

“As warily as those who trade in poison/ keep poison from their children”

Duchess claiming her actions aren’t ‘revolutionary’

“I have not gone about in this to create any new world or custom..”

Duchess’ feminist line, still has quality, not just a widow (Blanche similar)

“I have youth, and a little beauty.”

Duchess masculine strength and stoicism

“..doomed to live, or die, I can do both like a prince.”

Bosola’s metaphor on the corruption and deceit of the court

“A politician is the devil’s quilted anvil..”

Blanche’s introduction

“her delicate beauty must avoid a strong light”

Stanley’s sexuality

“Meat!”

Stanley’s strength

“He heaves the package at her”

Death of Belle Reve and Old South

“the Grim Reaper had put up his tent on our doorstep!”

Mitch on Blanche’s cleanliness

“You’re not clean enough to bring into the house with my mother”

Blanche’s relationship with the young boy

“hunting for some protection […] even, at last, in a seventeen-year-old boy”

Blanche’s wealth

“it’s only rhinestones”

Stanley on Blanche’s promiscuity

“Sister Blanche is no lily”

Poker and women - Mitch

“Poker shouldn’t be played in a house with women”

Blanche’s needs

“I need kindness now”

denim (stage directions)

roughly dressed in blue denim work clothes (1)

background (stage directions)

of a background obviously quite different from her husband’s (1)

incongruous (stage directions)

her appearance is incongruous to this setting. she is daintily dressed […] looking as if she were arriving to a summer tea or cocktail party (1)

whiskey (stage directions)

she pours half a tumbler of whiskey and tosses it down. she carefully replaces the bottle and washes out the tumbler (1)

hold (blanche)

“i’ve got to keep hold of myself!” (1)

over-light (blanche)

“but don’t you look at / me, stella, no, no, no, not till later, not till i’ve bathed and / rested! and turn that over-light off” (1)

edgar allan poe (blanche)

only poe! only mr edgar allan poe! - could do it justice! (1)

partridge (blanche to Stella)

daylight never exposed so total / a ruin! but you- you’ve put on some weight, yes, you’re just as plump as a little partridge! (1)

highbrow (blanche/stella)

stanley is polish, you know /

oh, yes. they’re something like irish, aren’t they?/

well- /

only not so- highbrow? … /

heterogeneous - types (1)

species (stella/blanche)

try not to - well /

compare him with men that we went out with at home. /

is he so - different? /

a different species (1)

baby (stella)

when he’s away for a week i nearly go wild! […] and when he comes back i cry on his lap like a baby … (1)

belle reve (blanche)

but you are the one that abandoned Belle / Reve, not i! i stayed and fought for it, bled for it, almost died for it! (1)

polack (blanche)

i let the place go? / where were you. in bed with your - Polack! (1)

sexual classifications (stage directions)

he sizes up women at a glance, with sexual classifications, crude images flashing into his mind

[ blanche drawing involuntarily back from his stare] (1)

touch it (stanley)

have a shot? /

no, i -rarely touch it. /

some people rarely touch it, but it touches them often (1)