ACT 1 Flashcards
“Long in France”
“Very formal Frenchman in your habit “
- He is the member of the Italian court but his clothes look more french as he returned back from France (he’s been away for a long time)
- Symbolizes how he is an insider and outsider
- Stands out in Italian court
- May not fit in - may openly criticize
“I admire it”
“To a fix’d order, their judicious king”
- France is better than Italy
- Is not corrupt
- Antonio’s opening praise of the French court sets up a comparison to the Italian court, which contemporary audiences would have associated with sophisticated corruption.
“Flattering sycophants”
-For a good court, they should get rid of people who are there for their own benefit and self-serving in the court
“A princes court is like a common fountain”
“If’t chance some curs’d example poison’t near the head, death and diseases through the whole land spread”
An ideal court, he says, should spread goodness throughout a country, but the structure of government is such that by nature it is susceptible to poisoning by way of corruption or abuse of power.
- From the very start of the play, we are told that death and suffering have the potential to cascade down from the head of a government.
- Italian court seems corrupt infected and corrupt
“he rails at those things which he wants”
- If Bosola he’s offered status + money he would do anything for it
- Angry at things he wants, jealousy, selfish, ambitious
- He doesn’t have the capacity to have more things because he doesn’t have money
“This great fellow were able to possess the greatest devil, and make him worse”
- Shocking accusation to the cardinal as he is someone so religious
- Shows there corruption within the court and the church
“He and his brother are like 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”
“I would hang on their ears like a horse leech, till i were full, and then drop off”
- They are stagnant, description of corruption
- If he had a way to leech off their money for self gain he would
- Critisizes them openly
- The crows, magpies, and caterpillars in Bosola’s imagery are all bad omens, again hinting at the sinister nature of the Cardinal and his brother.
“Nortorius Murder, and ‘twas thought the cardinal suborn’d”
“Foul melancholy will poison all his goodness”
- He’s very valiant but has been corrupted by other people
- Implies the Cardinal ordered Bosola to commit the murder that landed him in the galleys. This is an early indication that the Cardinal is corrupt, though he tries to preserve his image by ignoring and not associating with Bosola
- Is capable of murder (could be tragic hero)
- Someone obsessed with self-gain through the pursuit of other people
“Rust unto the soul”
“Like moths in cloth, do not hurt for want of wearing”
- While destroying other things, like moths, Bosola will will get destroyed
- In the dark, slowly, quietly, hidden overtime
“Why do you laugh? Methinks you are courtiers”
- Manipulation, controlling
- Saying they should follow him and not to act on their own
- Very quickly changes emotional state, unstable, unpredictable, volatile
“He is jealous of any man, he lays worse plots for them than ever was impos’d on hercules”
“He did bestow bribes”
“Without heavens knowledge”
“A most perverse and turbulent nature”
- Cardinal is a horrible man, portrayed as a villainous character
- He doesn’t believe in God but in what the church can provide him
- Catholic corruption does anything for self-gain
- Puts a facade very unsettling as he has a position of power
“Twins?… in quality”
-Cardinal and Ferdinand are more similar in character than the Duchess and Ferdinand who are actually twins
“The right noble Duchess”
“Sweet countenance”
“Speaketh so divine”
“Her days practis’d in such noble virtue”
- Contrasted to the brothers she is very different
- Elevated character
“You never fix’d your eye on three fair medals cast in one figure, of so different temper”
“Whilst she speaks she throws upon a man so sweet a look that it were able to raise one to a galliard”
- She inspires life
- Divine
- Repeated imagery of heaven, innocence
“Let all sweet ladies break their flatt’ring glasses and dress themselves in her”
- You will never be able to compare to the duchess
- Romantic imagery, divine, beyond
*** “All her particular worth grows to this sum, she stains the time past, lights the time to come”
- Elevating the duchess, surrounded by corruption she seems elevated
- Any time without her, everything feels tainted, she brings light into the world for you
- Hope, purity, morality
- Rhyming couplet, romantic
“Be sure you entertain that Bosola for your intelligence”
“You are deceived in him. His nature is too honest for such business”
- Cardinal thinks Bosola is better for the job, however, Ferdinand thinks Antonio is better because he is higher in status and has more connections
- Ironic cardinal say hes honest
- Antonio is not susceptible for corruption
“Whose throat must i cut?”
Happy to commit murder as long as he gets money
-He’ll do anything for money
“She’s a young widow”
- Like Blanche, she was also a young widow may have similar traits
- Very experienced Women
“Say that my corruption grew out of horse dung”
- Comparing himself to an animal, his corruption grew through “Horse dung”
- Ready to serve him
- As long as he gets the money he’ll be willing to do anything
“You are a widow”
“Let not youth high promotion, eloquence… nor anything without the addition, honor, sway your high blood”
- Said she will be let by desire
- Doesn’t want her to be swayed by someone with a lower status
- More concerned about reputation and status(Cardinal)
“Livers are most spotted”
- Liver symbolizes passion, desire, sexual love
- Four humors
- Saying explicitly
“Diamonds are of most value”
“Pass’d through most jeweller’s hands”
- Referring to herself as a Jewel, she knows her worth
- Confident about her sexuality, gently assertive
- People believe that the best women are the ones who are chaste, but she believes that it gives her more value with experience
- Similar to Blanche
“Whores by that rule are precious”
- Calling her a whore if she’s interested in anyone else
- He doesn’t like if she might marry anyone else
“Lats no longer than the turning of an hourglass: the funeral sermon and it end both together”
- Damning of women
- saying the think women need men to control them
- Saying women would marry as soon as their dead husbands funeral has end
- Calling them whores
“Privately be married under the eaves of night”
- Proleptic irony
- candid
- Trying to give her independence but being sarcastic, she will be sinful if she does
“The marriage night is the entrance into some prison”
“Lustful pleasures, are like heavy sleeps”
- Saying she won’t be happy if she marries again
- Proleptic irony
- Sex is the beginning of entrapment
- Consumating, sexual innuendo
“This was my fathers poniard”
“I’d be loth to see’t look rusty”
- Phallic imagery
- Whips out the sword, use of violence to get control, patriarchal world
- Male sexuality linked with violence - like streetcar
- Quick tone shift
- Saying he doesn’t want it to be rusty, a threat as he implies he would kill her
“Neat knave with a smooth tale make a woman belive”
“Farewell lust widow”
- Saying women are easily corruptable
- Male sexuality can corrupt a woman
- They are susceptible to corruption
“If all my royal kindred lay in my way unto this marriage i’d make them my low footsteps”
- She’s already got her eye on someone already
- Powerful declaration
- She would step over everyone to marry who she wants to
- strong woman, independance from brothers control
” I wink’d and chose a husband”
unlike Blanche
- Willing to lose a lot for love
- Implies she’s already chosen a husband
“I’ll conceal this secret from the world”
“To why known secrecy i have given up more than my life - fame”
- Wants to form an independent path
- A dangerous secret that she will use deception + secrecy to protect it
- Trust to cariola, they confide with each other, close relationship
“I tak’d those that deny purgatory”
“Contains or heaven or hell, there’s no third place in’t”
- Antonios view on marriage
- There’s no middle ground
“[Gives him the ring]”
“T’was my wedding ring”
- Internal stage direction
- Inverts gender roles, she is dominant
“You have made me stark blind”
- They have both entered this marriage blind, both of them
- Her brightness has blinded him/ his feelings
- Could foreshadow bad events may happen if they’re not careful
- Trying to work out his feelings, love or ambition
“Weak delight”
“Eyes is blood shot”
- Worried he is never going to be a father
- The most emotional male character
- Crying/ tearful/ emotional
“[She puts the ring upon his finger] he kneels”
- Intimate
- Represents her personal power
- Normally it’s the other way round, the man puts the ring and proposes
- The power balance between them ( like Stanley and Stella scene 3), the reverse of roles
“Ambition madam is a great man’s weakness”
“Wild noise”
“Which makes it lunatic beyond all care”
- ambition = madness
- The voice of reason - knows his own flaws like Blanche
“So we are forc’d to express our violent passions in riddles and dreams”
“You have left me heartless, mine is in your bosom: I hope twill multiply love there”
- People are unwilling to love her
- Frustration at his awareness of the status difference
- Inverts gender roles, dominant
- Gaining humanity that her brothers have taken away from her
- Saying she’s a human - descends to a mortal status
- Given him her heart, she will keep loving him
“This is flesh blood “
“Kneels at her husbands tomb”
“Only do appear to you a young widow that claims you for her husband”
“Like a widow i use but a half blush in’t”
- Experienced
- Not as innocent
- Owning her past gives her power
- Claiming him
“I thank you, gentle love”
“[She kisses him]”
“Children oft eat sweetmeats thus fearful to devour them soon”
- Seals it by kissing him, intimate, visual representataion of their bonding
- She’s leading power balance is very clear/evident
- Knows hes nervous, its a fearful kiss, tension and unease
- Difference of status
“But for your brothers”
“Do not think of them”
“Time will easily scatter the tempest”
- Foolish, only sees the good in people, even her horrible brothers
- Thinks the brothers will get over the marriage and will not care about it
- Knows it will create chaos, thinking positively
- Trying to comfort his worries, Antonio is only thinking about the consequences
“These words should be mine, and all the parts you have spoke if some part of it”
- Acknowledges everything that shes has done should’ve been him as a male
- Knows difference
“Lead your fortune by hand unto your marriage bed”
“lay a naked sword between us keep us chaste”
“Shrowd my blushes in your bosom”
- Now married, very quick
- Reduced status to a prize, even though she’s leading
- Sexual innuendo, they are not going to consummate
“Greatness of woman”
“A fearful madness”
“I owe her much pity”
- Greatness and woman can not be together as greatness links to man, they cannot coexist
- ‘Madness’ behaving their way is irrational
- Gives out a warning
