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
