Duchess 2:5

Question 1

‘I have this night…’

Answer 1

‘I have this night digged up a mandrake.’ - Ferdinand
- mandrake were said to shriek when pulled out the ground, producing insanity in whoever heard it
- important given Ferdinand goes mad

Question 2

mandrake

Answer 2

• ‘I have this night digged up a mandrake’
• madness, sex, fertility, witchcraft, fertelling the future, sleep
• said to shriek when pulled out the ground, hearing it would produce insanity (Ferdinand)
• well-known as a love potion (Ferdinand’s obsession with the Duchess?)
• folklore often likens a mandrake to a man/his sexual organs

Question 3

what is the Cardinal’s reaction to the news in contrast to Ferdinand’s?

Answer 3

the Cardinal generally appears calm and rational, he asks questions like ‘Can this be certain?’ and tells Ferdinand to ‘Speak lower’. He also maintains an emotional distance from the Duchess’ actions where Ferdinand is fixated on her.

Question 4

‘A sister…’

Answer 4

‘A sister damned: she’s loose i’th’hilts;/ Grown a notorious strumpet.’ - Ferdinand
- ‘notorious strumpet’ implies promiscuity, as if the Duchess has had sex with multiple men
- the Cardinal replies with a simple ‘Speak lower.’ indicating his rationality and control

Question 5

‘She hath had most cunning…’

Answer 5

‘She hath had most cunning bawds to serve her turn/ And more secure conveyances for lust/ Than towns of garrison for service.’ - Ferdinand
- similarly to Bosola, Ferdinand assumes that the Duchess has someone/people to obtain men for the Duchess to have sex with
- again, Ferdinand is contrasted with the Cardinal who reacts rationally, asking ‘Can this be certain?’

Question 6

‘Rhubarb! Oh, for…’

Answer 6

‘Rhubarb! Oh, for rhubarb/ To purge this choler!’ - Ferdinand
- links to how Bosola predicted the brother’s livers would be overwhelmed with bitter anger as ‘rhubarb’ was believed to purge the liver’s choleric humours

Question 7

‘here it shall stick…’

Answer 7

‘here it shall stick/ Till of her bleeding heart I make a sponge/ To wipe it out.’ - Ferdinand
- focused on revenge, ‘bleeding heart’

Question 8

‘Root up her…’

Answer 8

‘Root up her goodly forests, blast her meads,/ And lay her general territory as waste/ As she hath done her honours.’ - Ferdinand
- sexual and violent threats with forests, meadows (‘meads’) and gardens usually associated with the female body
- ‘honours’ links to reputation
- violent imagery - ‘root’ ‘blast’

Question 9

‘Shall our blood…’

Answer 9

‘Shall our blood -/ The royal blood of Aragon and Castile -/ Be thus attainted?’ - Cardinal
- concerned about legalities and the tainting of royal blood rather than the Duchess specifically, “crime of dishonour”

Question 10

‘We must not now use…’

Answer 10

‘We must not now use balsamum, but fire […] To purge infected blood - such blood as hers.’ - Ferdinand
- continued violent language: ‘purge’ ‘root’ ‘blast’ ‘hewed her to pieces’
- sense of desperation and - where the cardinal is focused on the legal implications of the royal blood becoming tainted - Ferdinand is focused on the tainting of ‘her’ specifically

Question 11

‘I’ll bequeath this to…’

Answer 11

‘I’ll bequeath this to her bastard.’ - Ferdinand
- believes the Duchess is unmarried and - so - her child is a ‘bastard’

Question 12

‘Why, to make soft lint…’

Answer 12

‘Why to make soft lint for his mother’s wounds/ When I have hewed her to pieces.’ - Ferdinand in response to Cardinal asking why he would give his handkercher to the Duchess’ ‘bastard’

Question 13

‘Cursed…’

Answer 13

‘Cursed creature!/ Unequal nature, to place women’s hearts/ So far upon the left side.’ - Cardinal
- closest point of the Cardinal to Ferdinand (he appears emotional)
- perhaps shifting blame away from his sister?
- the human heart was believed to be placed on the left side to bring heat to the side of the body not warmed by the liver, if women’s hearts were located further ‘left’ then their chests would be hotter and more lustful

Question 14

‘Methinks I see her…’

Answer 14

‘Methinks I see her laughing,/ Excellent hyena! Talk to me somewhat - quickly,/ Or my imagination will carry me/ To see her in the shameful act of sin.’ - Ferdinand
- it’s actually not ‘sin’ as the Duchess was married
- incestuous, voyeuristic ideas of Ferdinand watching his sister

Question 15

‘You fly…’

Answer 15

‘You fly beyond your reason.’ - Cardinal

Question 16

'’Tis not your whore’s…’

Answer 16

'’Tis not your whore’s milk that shall quench my wild-fire,/ But your whore’s blood.’ - Ferdinand
- unjust anger arising from an excess of choler can be quenches ‘only with blood’ according to ‘Spiritual Physic’

Question 17

‘thinking all other…’
‘Have you…’
‘Yes I can be…’

Answer 17

‘thinking all other men/ To have their imperfection.’ - C
‘Have you not/ My palsy?’ - F
‘Yes, I can be angry without this rupture.’ - C
- the Cardinal says he is angry but does not allow it to take him from reason (unlike F.)
- criticising Ferdinand

Question 18

‘There is not in…’

Answer 18

‘There is not in nature/ A thing that makes man so deformed, so beastly,/ As doth intemperate anger. Chide yourself.’ - Cardinal
- become parent-like, criticising Ferdinand
- perhaps a prefiguration of Ferdinand’s lycanthropy, Burton (in Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621) said that lycanthropy, a form of madness, arose in a melancholic person as a result of concentrated choler and inflamed blood

Question 19

‘I could kill her…’

Answer 19

‘I could kill her now/ In your or in myself, for I do think/ It is some sin in us heaven doth revenge/ By her.’ - Ferdinand

Question 20

‘Are you…’

Answer 20

‘Are you stark mad?’ - Cardinal

Question 21

‘I would have their…’

Answer 21

‘I would have their bodies/ Burnt in a coal pit with the ventage stopped,/ That their cursed smoke might not ascend to heaven’ - Ferdinand
- extreme, irrational threat (sexual?)
- we’re aware of the threat to the Duchess and perhaps feel there is no one to protect her or the child, we don’t see such force as seen here in Antonio
- equally, Ferdinand is taking on the role of God in terms of judgement, damning his sister and her partner/child to hell
- this is the climax of Ferdinand’s rants in 2:5

Question 22

what does Ferdinand say he would do to the Duchess/her child at the end of 2:5?

Answer 22

• ‘have their bodies/ Burnt’
• ‘dip the sheets they lie in, in pitch or sulphur’, wrap them in them, and then ‘light them like a match’
• ‘boil their bastard to a cullis’

Question 23

‘Or dip the…’

Answer 23

‘Or dip the sheets they lie in, in pitch or sulphur,/ Wrap them in’t and then light them like a match’ - Ferdinand

Question 24

‘Or else to boil…’

Answer 24

‘Or else to boil their bastard to a cullis/ And give’t his lecerous father to renew/ The sin of his back.’ - Ferdinand

Question 25

the Cardinal’s reaction to Ferdinand’s proclamations of violence

Answer 25

‘I’ll leave you.’ - C
- he doesn’t step in, leaving the audience even more worried for the Duchess as she has no protection even from her other brother

Question 26

‘I’ll go sleep./ Till…’

Answer 26

‘I’ll go sleep./ Till I know who leaps my sister, I’ll not stir./ That known, I’ll find scorpions to string my whips/ And fix her in a general eclipse.’ - Ferdinand’s closing lines in 2:5
- he will eradicate her permanently (‘fix her in a general eclipse’)