The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd

The Spanish Tragedy, or Hieronimo is Mad Again is an Elizabethan play, generally accepted to have been written by Thomas Kyd, sometime between 1582 and 1592. Highly popular and influential at the time, it established the genre of the revenge play. For theatrical context, it’s around the same time as Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Titus Andronicus, and Henry VI plays. For historical context, the Spanish Armada was defeated in 1588. 

1/ The play begins with the ghost of Don Andrea, killed in the war between Spain and Portugal, here called Portingale (please tell me I’m not the only one who sees that and keeps thinking of nightingales). Don Andrea is killed by Prince Balthazar (son of the Portuguese Viceroy), who not long after surrenders to Lorenzo (son of the Duke of Castile, nephew of the Spanish King, brother of Bel-Imperia) and Don Horatio (son of Hieronimo and friend of Don Andrea). 

Bel-Imperia is Don Andrea’s girlfriend. Prince Balthazar fancies her but she falls for Don Horatio, not long after Don Andrea’s death (frailty, thy name is woman). 

2/ Thomas Kyd likes repetitions. Sometimes it’s awkward. 

“BEL-IMPERIA I know the scarf, would he had kept it still, 

For had he lived he would have kept it still…” 

(Act 1 scene 4) 

But sometimes it works rather well. 

“VICEROY […] My late ambition hath distained my faith, 

My breach of faith occasioned bloody wars, 

Those bloody wars have spent my treasure, 

And with my treasure my people’s blood, 

And with their blood, my joy and best beloved, 

My best beloved, my sweet and only son…” 

(Act 1 scene 3) 

(In case you’re wondering, that’s when the Viceroy mistakenly thinks his son Balthazar is dead). 

“BALHAZAR […] First, in his hand he brandished a sword, 

And with that sword he fiercely waged war, 

And in that war he gave me dangerous wounds, 

And by those wounds he forced me to yield, 

And by my yielding I became his slave. 

Now in his mouth he carries pleasing words, 

Which pleasing words do harbour sweet conceits, 

Which sweet conceits are limed with sly deceits, 

Which sly deceits smooth Bel-Imperia’s ears, 

And through her ears dive down into her heart, 

And in her heart set him where I should stand…” 

(Act 2 scene 1) 

You can see for yourself that in terms of poetry, Kyd ain’t Webster. But these passages are interesting nevertheless, in terms of rhetoric. 

I like this: 

“HIERONIMO O eyes, no eyes, but fountains fraught with tears; 

O life, no life, but lively form of death; 

O world, no world, but mass of public wrongs, 

Confused and filled with murder and misdeeds!...” 

(Act 3 scene 2) 

Kyd gives Hieronimo some rather good speeches, some moving expressions of grief. But that also makes me realise that he doesn’t give such speeches to Bel-Imperia. 

3/ One of the challenges I have set for myself blogging about The Spanish Tragedy is to refrain from comparing Kyd and Shakespeare, so I will not judge the qualities of the play against Shakespeare. However, it’s impossible not to note the parallels between The Spanish Tragedy and Hamlet. 

The Spanish Tragedy is about a father avenging his son’s death; Hamlet is about a son avenging his father’s death. 

In Kyd’s play, Hieronimo takes a while to consider how to take revenge on Horatio’s murderers; in Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet spends almost the entire play thinking, delaying, doing other things. 

Hieronimo rebukes himself as he sees Don Bazulto, an old man who seeks justice for his murdered son:    

“HIERONIMO See, see, O see thy shame, Hieronimo, 

See here a loving father to his son! 

[…] If love’s effects so strives in lesser things, 

If love enforce such moods in meaner wits, 

If love express such power in poor estates

[…] Then sham’st thou not, Hieronimo, to neglect 

The sweet revenge of thy Horatio?...” 

(Act 3 scene 13) 

Hamlet watches the actors, and thinks “What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba/ That he should weep for her?”.

In both cases, there’s a play within a play, though they serve different purposes. 

I was thinking, why did I think The Spanish Tragedy was a much bloodier play? There are 9 deaths in The Spanish Tragedy, 8 in Hamlet (not counting Don Andrea and King Hamlet, appearing as ghosts). But then I realised: only 5 deaths in Hamlet are onstage (the deaths of Ophelia, Guildenstern, and Rosencrantz are reported); the deaths in Kyd’s play are also more violent, and there’s a character who bites off his tongue (Kyd, why?). But then Shakespeare outdoes all that in Titus Andronicus: much more violent, much more ridiculous (Oxfordians and other loonies are welcome to claim that one, I don’t care). 

4/ The Spanish Tragedy is without doubt an exciting play. It is packed with action—war, false accusation, torture, abduction, murder, deception, forced marriage, intrigue, revenge, and so on and so forth. What is that Machiavellian villain Lorenzo going to do next? Where is Bel-Imperia? How are Bel-Imperia and Hieronimo going to avenge Horatio’s death? 

Had I just watched it, I would probably have enjoyed it as an equivalent of a Hollywood action, bloody and exciting—it’s not hard to see why the Elizabethan audience loved the play. As it happened, I was reading it over the course of a few days and had time to think about the characters, the poetry, the plot, etc. Why do we see the ghost of Don Andrea but not the ghost of Horatio, for example? Why does the ghost of Don Andrea not seem to care that Bel-Imperia moves on so quickly? Is the play about a revenge for Horatio, or a revenge for Don Andrea? Why is it that Hieronimo seems so passive for a large part of the play until he’s reproached by Bel-Imperia, but he’s the one who comes up with the plan to kill the murderers? Or maybe I overthink, as usual. 

Fun play. Thomas Kyd makes me think of Lope de Vega—not much depth, but they both know how to captivate the audience. 

PS: I have created a tag on my blog for Shakespeare’s contemporaries (restricted to those in England/ Britain). My blog posts about Marlowe, Webster, Jonson... are collected there.