Duchess 2:3 Flashcards
‘Sure I did hear…’
‘Sure I did hear a woman shriek. List. Ha!/ And the sound came, if I received it right,/ From the Duchess’s lodgings.’ - Bosola
Bosola and Antonio’s relationship up to and including 2:3
- suspicion
- Antonio is what Bosola could have been - resentment
- Antonio is quite generous for example telling Bosola he can leave his melancholy behind
- have a lot in common in the opening to 2:3 - both hear the noise and are up wandering around, they’re not supposed to be out so both very tense and defensive
‘There’s some stratagem…’
‘There’s some stratagem/ In the confining of all our courtiers/ To their several wards.’ - Bosola
‘It may be ‘twas the…’
‘It may be ‘twas the the melancholy bird,/ Best friend of silence and solitariness,/ The owl, that screamed so.’ - Bosola
- ‘I heard the owl scream’ - Lady Macbeth, 2:2
- also echoes 2:2 of Macbeth in the shared lines, frequent questions, and pace which contribute to the tension of the scene
‘I heard some…’
‘I heard some noise! Who’s there? What art thou? Speak!’ - Antonio
- the short sentences indicate the fast pace showing that Antonio is tense and concerned
‘Antonio? Put not your face…’
‘Antonio? Put not your face nor body/ To such a forced expression of fear -/ I am Bosola, your friend.’ - B
- it is clear to Bosola that Antonio is scared and he tries to use this against him, making himself out to be a safe person in the situation (‘your friend’)
‘Bosola? [Aside] This…’
‘Bosola? [Aside] This mole does undermine me. [To Bosola]/ Heard you not/ A noise even now?’ - Antonio
- asides are Bosola’s characteristic, the use of them by Antonio presents him as a bit illicit
‘Heard you not/ A…’
‘From…’
‘From the…’
‘Not…’
‘Heard you not/ A noise even now?’ - A
‘From whence?’ - B
‘From the Duchess’s lodging.’ - A
‘Not I. Did you?’ - B
- the shared lines create a fast pace
- why does Bosola lie? He just said he heard ‘a woman shriek […] From the Duchess’s lodgings’ > it could perhaps be to gain control
What does Bosola suggest him and Antonio do to investigate the noise (which B lies about, saying he didn’t hear it)?
‘Let’s walk towards it.’
‘No. It maybe ‘twas/ But the rising of the wind.’
‘Methinks ‘tis very…’
‘Methinks ‘tis very cold, and yet you sweat./ You look wildly.’ - Bosola
‘I have been setting a…’
‘I have been setting a figure. For the Duchess’s jewels.’ - Antonio
- both lying, they are no jewels and Antonio was actually drawing a horoscope for his sin not the jewels
‘Ah, and how falls your…’
‘What’s…’
‘Ah, and how falls your question?/ Do you find it radical?’ - Bosola
‘What’s that to you?’ - Antonio
- sudden turn on Bosola when he starts to ask questions of Antonio
- all B asks is if he is having any success - Antonio is not coping well under the pressure
‘What’s that to…’
‘What’s that to you?/ ‘Tis rather to be questioned what design,/ When all men were commanded to their lodgings,/ Makes you a nightwalker.’ - Antonio
- sudden switch to the offensive
‘Now all the court’s…’
‘Now all the court’s asleep, I thought the devil/ Had least to do here. I came to say my prayers,/ And if it do offend you I do so,/ You are a fine courtier.’ - bosola
‘[Aside] This fellow will…’
‘[Aside] This fellow will undo me./ [To Bosola] You gave the Duchess apricots today./ Pray heaven they were not poisoned.’ - Antonio
- aware of his situation and B’s intelligence (‘this fellow will undo me’)
‘Poisoned?/ A Spanish…’
‘Poisoned?/ A Spanish fig for the imputation!’ - Bosola
- a spanish fig was a rude, phallic, gesture similar to the finger (continues sexual theme)
‘Traitors are ever…’
‘Traitors are ever confident till they/ Are discovered. There were jewels stolen, too./ In my conceit, none are to be suspected/ More than yourself.’ - Antonio
- direct challenge at Bosola
- ‘traitors’ is perhaps an accidental truth by Antonio, he underestimates just how much of a traitor B is
- parallel to earlier when Bosola said that accepting the money/job Ferdinand offers him would make him ‘an impudent traitor’
‘You are a…’
‘Saucy… I’ll pull…’
‘Maybe the….’
‘You are an…’
‘You are a false steward.’ - Bosola (another accidental truth)
‘Saucy slave! I’ll pull thee up by the roots!’ - Antonio
‘Maybe the ruin will crush you to pieces.’ - B
‘You are an impudent snake indeed, sir!’ - A
‘No, sir. Copy it…’
‘No, sir. Copy it out/ And I will set my hand to’t.’ - Bosola
- if Antonio was to copy out Bosola’s accusations against him, B would sign his name to it (would stand by them in a court of law)
‘[Aside] My…’
‘[Aside] My nose bleeds! [Takes out handkerchief and drops paper]’ - Antonio
- the superstition mentioned by Delio: ‘bleeding at nose’
- the paper is the evidence that Bosola needs, the superstition is right, as soon as Antonio’s nose bleeds it all goes wrong
‘One that were superstitious…’
‘One that were superstitious would count/ This ominous when it merely comes by chance.’ - Antonio
- referencing how his nose bleeding is a superstition omen
‘Two letters that are…’
‘Two letters that are wrought here for me name/ Are drowned in blood. Mere accident!’ - Antonio (aside)
‘[To Bosola] For you, sir, I’ll take…’
‘[To Bosola] For you, sir, I’ll take order./ I’th’morn you shall be safe.’ - Antonio
- in the morning Bosola will be arrested
‘Sir, this door you pass…’
‘Sir, this door you pass not./ I do not hold it fit that you come near/ The Duchess’s lodgings till you have quit yourself’ - Antonio
- won’t let Bosola near the Duchess’s lodgings until he has been exonerated
'’The great are like…’
'’The great are like the base - nay, they are the same -/ When they seek shameful ways to avoid shame’.’ - Antonio
- ashamed of his lies (which he used to get our of ‘shameful’ situations)
- the great are like lowly people when they…
- sentencia(e)
sentencia(e)
wise saying from ancient sources, became very popular during the elizabethan/jacobean eras
‘Antonio here about did…’
‘Antonio here about did drop a paper./ Some of your help, false-friend! Oh, here it is!/ What’s here? A child’s nativity calculated?’ - Bosola
- looking for the paper (horoscope) that Antonio dropped
- ‘false-friend’ is the lantern
What does Bosola read from the horoscope?
- ‘Duchess was delivered of a son […] this year […] this night’
- ‘Happy discovery!’
- ‘short life’ ‘a violent death’
‘The Duchess was delivered of a…’
‘The Duchess was delivered of a son ‘tween the hours twelve and one in the night […] this year […] this night […] our Duchess! Happy discovery!’ - Bosola
- has the proof he needs
what does the child’s horoscope predict?
‘short life’ and ‘a violent death’
- the son actually survives but this contributes to the tension and foreboding
‘Why now ‘tis most apparent…’
‘Why now ‘tis most apparent. This precise fellow/ Is the Duchess’s bawd. I have it to my wish!’ - Bosola
- ‘bawd’ - someone who finds partners for someone else, doesn’t even consider that Antonio might be the father
‘This is a parcel of…’
‘This is a parcel of intelligency/ Our courtiers were cased up for!’ - Bosola
- the Duchess’s labour is why the courtiers are locked up and why Bosola ‘must be committed on pretence/ Of poisoning her’
‘It needs must follow…’
‘It needs must follow/ That I must be committed on pretence/ Of poisoning her, which I’ll endure and laugh at.’ - Bosola
‘If one could find the…’
‘If one could find the father now! But that/ Time will discover.’ - Bosola
- ironic given the father was right in front of him just
‘By him I’ll send/ A letter that shall…’
‘By [Castruccio] I’ll send/ A letter that shall make her brothers’ galls/ O’erflow their livers.’ - Bosola
- (humoural theory) - anger, bitter rage
'’Though lust do mask…’
'’Though lust do mask in ne’er so strange disguise,/ She’s oft found witty, but is never wise’.’ - Bosola
- sentencia(e)
- “[lust is] oft found witty”
