Duchess of Malfi Flashcards
Cardinal, Family, Blood
Shall our blood, / The royal blood of Aragon and Castile, / Be thus attainted?
Ferdinand, Family, Blood
To purge infected blood, such blood as hers
Duchess, Power, Marriage
When I choose / A husband, I will marry for your honour.
Duchess, description, animal imagery (pedigree)
She’s an excellent / Feeder of pedigrees
Duchess, Death, Gender
For know, whether I am doomed to live, or die, / I can do both like a prince.
Ferdinand, Confession, Marriage
Thou are undone;/ And thou hast ta’en that massy sheet of lead / That hid thy husband’s bones, and folded it / About my heart.
Ferdinand, lineage
Damn her, that body of hers, / While that my blood ran pure in’t, was more worth / Than that which thou wouldst comfort, called a soul.
Duchess, marriage
Diamonds are of most value, / They say, that have passed through most jewellers’ hands
Ferdinand and Cardinal, Marriage
Ferdinand: Let not youth, high promotion, eloquence—
Cardinal: No, nor any thing without the addition, honour,
Sway your high blood.
Ferdinand: Marry? They are most luxurious / Will wed twice.
Duchess, Marriage, Gender, Power
So I, through frights and threat’nings will assay / This dangerous venture. Let old wives report / I winked and chose a husband
Duchess dating woes
The misery of us that are born great, / We are forced to woo because none dare woo us:
Antonio, Marriage, Brother problems, Gender
These words should be mine, / And all the parts you have spoke, if some part of it / Would not have savoured flattery
Duchess, Marriage, @Ferdinand
Why should only I / Of all the other princes of the world / Be cased up like a holy relic? I have youth, / And a little beauty
Duchess using religion against Fernando, Also maybe cursing him?
You violate a sacrament o’th’Church / Shall make you howl in hell for’t
Cardinal @ Fernando, jealousy can make you monstrous
I can be angry / Without this rupture; there is not in nature / A thing that makes man so deformed, so beastly, / As doth intemperate anger.
Bosola, two faced, Duchess
Where I am a man / I’d beat that counterfeit face into thy other
Duchess, Im a real person yo
This is flesh and blood, sir, / ‘Tis not the figure cut in alabaster / Kneels at my husband’s tomb
Ferdinand turns on Bosola- bit deep, should have been nice
as we observe in tragedies / That a good actor many times is cursed / For playing a villain’s part—I hate thee for’t;
Bosola realises he should probably help the good lads
I’ll join with thee [Antonio] in a most just revenge: / The weakest arm is strong enough that strikes / With the swords of justice.
Bosola complains about society, pandering etc
Could I be one of their flatt’ring panders, I would hang on
their ears like a horse-leech till I were full, and then drop
off. […] Who would rely upon these miserable
dependences, in expectation to be advanced tomorrow?
Submissive Bosola
I am your creature.
Marriage, Antonio and Duchess, Class
This goodly roof of yours is too low built, / I cannot stand upright in’t, nor discourse, / Without I raise it higher. Raise yourself, / Or if you please, my hand to help you
Bosola being realistic about social climbing
I look no / higher than I can reach […] when a man’s
mind rides faster than his horse can gallop, they quickly
both tire.
Imagery to explain opinions on social mixing
Bosola: ‘Tis a pretty art, this grafting.
Duchess: ‘Tis so: a bett’ring of nature.
Bosola: To make a pippin grow upon a crab / A damson on a blackthorn.
Fernando the asshole, Power, Court
Methinks you that are courtiers should / be my touchwood, take fire when I give fire, that is, laugh / when I laugh, were the subject never so witty.
Duchess is strong. Gal power.
I am Duchess of Malfi still
