Dido, Queen of Carthage by Christopher Marlowe

1/ Now this sounds more like Marlowe, though it’s an early play. 

There are some interesting phrases: “map of weather-beaten woe”, “drenched limbs”, “unweaponed thoughts”, “furrowed wealth”, “quenchless fire”, “nimble winds”, “watery billows”, etc.  

2/ Why did I decide to read Dido, Queen of Carthage when it’s not a major play by Marlowe? It’s because the story of Aeneas and Dido is my favourite part—the best part—of the Aeneid. 

However, Marlowe’s version is quite different. First of all, he complicates the plot. In the Aeneid, Dido falls in love with Aeneas, despite herself, but Aeneas has to leave for Italy because of fate, because of his sense of duty. Marlowe has to complicate the plot because his play, though short, is much longer than Virgil’s chapter, so Dido has a suitor named Iarbas and he sees Aeneas as being in his way. This of course is borrowed from the plot about Aeneas, Lavinia, and Turnus from the second half of the Aeneid. 

More importantly, Marlowe changes the characters and his play is not quite moving. Venus for example interferes even more: she transforms Cupid into Ascanius, Aeneas’s son, so as to manipulate Dido into falling in love with Aeneas—basically all the scenes between Dido and “the boy” are mere deception and manipulation. The moving scene between Dido and Anna in Virgil becomes something rather crass in Marlowe: Anna encourages Dido’s feelings for Aeneas because she herself is in love with Dido’s suitor Iarbas. 

Even Marlowe’s Dido is different: 

“AENEAS Wherefore would Dido have Aeneas stay? 

DIDO To war against my bordering enemies. 

Aneas, think not Dido is in love; 

For if that any man could conquer me, 

I had been wedded ere Aeneas came. 

See where the pictures of my suitors hang; 

And are not these as fair as fair may be?

[Showing pictures.]” 

(Act 3 scene 1) 

Ridiculous.

“ANNA What if the citizens repine thereat? 

DIDO Those that dislike what Dido gives in charge, 

Command my guard to slay for their offence. 

Shall vulgar peasants storm at what I do? 

The ground is mine that gives them sustenance,

The air wherein they breathe, the water, fire, 

All that they have, their lands, their goods, their lives; 

And I, the goddess of all these, command

Aeneas ride as Carthaginian king.” 

(Act 4 scene 4) 

Dido comes across as extremely unpleasant. Hear how she talks to a servant: 

“DIDO O cursèd hag and false disassembling wretch

That slayest me with thy harsh and hellish tale! 

Thou for some pretty gift hast let him go, 

And I am thus deluded of my boy. 

Away with her to prison presently! 

[Enter ATTENDANTS.]

Traitoress too keen and cursed sorceress!” 

(Act 5 scene 1) 

Virgil’s Dido is nothing like this!

I’m not saying that a writer cannot make changes when adapting or retelling a literary work, but Marlowe’s play has none of the heartfelt passion and tenderness of the Aeneid—it doesn’t touch one’s heart—the ending doesn’t feel particularly tragic. 

The gap between Dido, Queen of Carthage and Edward II is startling. 

Edward II by Christopher Marlowe

 1/ The Greeks, once known, are seen everywhere. References to the ancient Greeks are scattered all over Marlowe’s play. 

 “QUEEN O miserable and distressed queen!

Would, when I left sweet France, and was embarked,

That charming Circe, walking on the waves,

Had changed my shape! or at the marriage day

The cup of Hymen had been full of poison!

Or with those arms, that twined about my neck,

I had been stifled, and not lived to see

The king my lord thus to abandon me.

Like frantic Juno, will I fill the earth

With ghastly murmur of my sighs and cries,

For never doted Jove on Ganymede

So much as he on cursèd Gaveston…” 

(Scene 4)

This is a moving scene. The play is about King Edward II’s obsessive relationship with his minion Gaveston and its impact on the realm—Marlowe begins the play with Gaveston and Edward, then writes about the resentment of the nobles, then lets us see that the one who suffers most is Queen Isabella—it is moving. 

Mortimer Senior also references the Greeks (and the Romans) when defending the King’s relationship with Gaveston: 

“MORTIMER SENIOR […] Thou seest by nature he is mild and calm,

And, seeing his mind so dotes on Gaveston,

Let him without controlment have his will.

The mightiest kings have had their minions:

Great Alexander loved Hephaestion,

The conquering Hercules for Hylas wept,

And for Patroclus stern Achilles drooped.

And not kings only, but the wisest men:

The Roman Tully loved Octavius,

Grave Socrates wild Alcibiades.

Then let his grace, whose youth is flexible,

And promiseth as much as we can wish,

Freely enjoy that vain lightheaded earl,

For riper years will wean him from such toys.” 

(ibid.) 

Even Edward compares himself and Gaveston to Hercules and Hylas in Scene 1. 

(But then a play about a gay relationship would mention the Greeks, wouldn’t it?) 

2/ Edward II is very different from Marlowe’s other plays. Firstly, it’s about English history. Secondly, whereas his other plays tend to have a dominating character—a Machiavelli or an overreacher—pushing everyone else to the background, Edward II is a much more balanced play and has at its centre a weak king (though in the second half, Mortimer threatens to upset the balance of the play and seems like a typical Marlovian figure). It’s also a more subtle play, with characters plotting and saying things they don’t mean and switching sides.

I can see the influence of Shakespeare’s Henry VI plays on Edward II, and in turn, the influence of Marlowe’s play on Shakespeare’s Richard II. 

“EDWARD Nay, then, lay violent hands upon your king:

Here, Mortimer, sit thou in Edward’s throne;

Warwick and Lancaster, wear you my crown.

Was ever king thus overruled as I?” 

(Scene 1) 

Later: 

“EDWARD My swelling heart for very anger breaks.

How oft have I been baited by these peers,

And dare not be revenged, for their power is great!

Yet, shall the crowning of these cockerels

Affright a lion? Edward, unfold thy paws,

And let their lives’-blood slake thy fury’s hunger.

If I be cruel and grow tyrannous,

Now let them thank themselves, and rue too late.” 

(Scene 6)

Edward II and Richard II both explore weak kings, favouritism, and political instability; they both raise questions about the role, power, and responsibility of the king, though I think Shakespeare goes further; Marlowe focuses more on the gay relationship between the king and Gaveston.   

About halfway through the play, Gaveston is killed; his position is then filled by Spencer, an opportunist and flatterer. 

The contrast between Gaveston and Spencer is interesting, because Marlowe lets us see that King Edward II and Gaveston love each other. The former may be an ineffectual king and the latter may be an obnoxious upstart and they both may be cruel to the Queen, but their love for each other appears to be genuine.  

“MORTIMER Why should you love him whom the world hates so?

EDWARD Because he loves me more than all the world.” 

(Scene 4) 

Marlowe does complicate things—what is the relationship between Gaveston and the king’s niece?—but he does give us Gaveston’s soliloquy at the start of the play, and in a few scenes, in Edward’s absence, Gaveston talks about him and not anyone else. It is Spencer who is like the flatterers in Richard II. 

3/ The scene in which Edward seeks refuge in a monastery is so moving. 

“EDWARD […] Stately and proud in riches and in train,

Whilom I was, powerful and full of pomp;

But what is he whom rule and empery

Have not in life or death made miserable?⁠

Come, Spenser, come, Baldock⁠, come, sit down by me;

Make trial now of that philosophy

That in our famous nurseries of arts

Thou sucked’st from Plato and from Aristotle.⁠

Father, this life contemplative is heaven.

O, that I might this life in quiet lead!...” 

(Scene 19)

In Shakespeare, there are many speeches about the burdens of being a king (King John, Henry IV…), or about the downfall of a king (Lear, Richard II…). What caught my attention was the word “whilom”—formerly, in the past—which I had never seen in Shakespeare, and possibly had never seen before. 

The abdication scene is even better, and again I can see Marlowe’s influence on Richard II. 

There are some very good lines: 

“EDWARD […] The griefs of private men are soon allayed;

But not of kings…”

(Scene 21)

This is followed by an image of “the forest deer” and “the imperial lion”—Edward refers to himself as a lion quite a few times, but he’s not much of a lion, is he? 

I like these lines from the same speech: 

“But what are kings, when regiment is gone,

But perfect shadows in a sunshine day?” 

This is also good: 

“EDWARD I know not; but of this am I assured,

That death ends all, and I can die but once.” 

(ibid.) 

4/ I note something interesting Marlowe does a few times throughout the play, though I don’t know what you call these pairs of lines—thesis and antithesis? 

“KENT For he’ll complain unto the see of Rome.

GAVESTONE Let him complain unto the see of hell.” 

(Scene 1) 

“EDWARD Lay hands on that traitor Mortimer!

MORTIMER SENIOR Lay hands on that traitor Gaveston!” 

(Scene 4) 

“QUEEN [to Gaveston] Villain, ’tis thou that robb’st me of my lord.

GAVESTON Madam, ’tis you that rob me of my lord.” 

(ibid.) 

“WARWICK Saint George for England, and the barons’ right!

EDWARD Saint George for England, and King Edward’s right!” 

(Scene 12) 

“GURNEY Your passions make your dolours to increase.

EDWARD This usage makes my misery increase.” 

(Scene 23) 

“EDWARD III My lord, he is my uncle, and shall live.

MORTIMER My lord, he is your enemy, and shall die.”

(Scene 24) 

“LIGHTBORNE What means your highness to mistrust me thus? 

EDWARD What means thou to dissemble with me thus?” 

(Scene 25) 

The best wordplay in Edward II, however, is when Mortimer decides to kill Edward and wants to cover his tracks:  

“MORTIMER […] This letter, written by a friend of ours,

Contains his death, yet bids then save his life.

Reads. ‘Edwardum occidere nolite timere, bonum est’,

‘Fear not to kill the king, ’tis good he die.’

But read it thus, and that’s another sense;

‘Edwardum occidere nolite, timere bonum est’,

‘Kill not the king, ’tis good to fear the worst.’

Unpointed as it is, thus shall it go…” 

(ibid.) 

According to a post I came across, the line comes from Holinshed—sent by Adam de Orleton, not Mortimer. 

5/ In 1970, the BBC broadcast a double feature done by Prospect Theatre Company: Edward II and Richard II with Ian McKellen playing Edward and Richard, Timothy West playing Mortimer and Henry Bolingbroke, Paul Hardwick playing the Earl of Warwick and John of Gaunt, and so on. 

Both are wonderful productions—the entire cast is perfect. Ian McKellen is great, as always (I saw Richard II back in November); Timothy West has a lot more to do as Mortimer; but I especially like Diane Fletcher as she helps me understand better the character of Queen Isabella and her changes throughout the play. 

The more I think about Edward II—such a great play—the more annoyed I get with the Marlovian theory, i.e. the conspiracy theory that Marlowe faked his death and was the real Shakespeare. It’s a distraction from a much more worthwhile pursuit of rereading, rewatching, analysing, getting immersed in Shakespeare’s plays; it’s also a distraction from the brilliance of Marlowe’s actual plays when we should be celebrating and promoting Edward II and Doctor Faustus. 

If you are in the UK and have a school/ university email address, both productions are available on the ERA website. Otherwise, they’re on Youtube, though the quality is a bit lower. 

“Seneca cannot be too heavy”: some thoughts on Seneca’s horror plays

Seneca (ca 4 BC – AD 65) was influenced by the ancient Greeks, and he himself influenced Shakespeare and the Elizabethans. For someone like me, he is unavoidable, so last month I read his Phaedra, and now read some more. 

The verdict? I love Shakespeare; I love the ancient Greeks; I don’t like Seneca. 

1/ Medea, adapted from Euripides’s play, is a closet drama, meaning that it’s meant to be read rather than seen onstage. And you can tell it wouldn’t work very well onstage, unless heavily edited: there are too many long speeches, some extremely long; much of the play doesn’t feel particularly dramatic. But I didn’t find it enjoyable to read either (though perhaps Emily Wilson is partly to blame). Compared to the Euripides play, it is more violent and sensationalist; Seneca’s Medea is more brutal, less conflicted, killing her own children in front of their father; Jason appears less despicable; the nurse and the chorus don’t seem to have much sympathy for Medea; the play as a whole is cruder. 

Elizabethan playwrights probably enjoyed the savagery and violence though. 

The interesting thing about reading Seneca is that I realise even though the Athenian playwrights deal with horrific, disturbing subjects, their plays are not just violent and sensational. They’re a lot subtler, more sophisticated and profound than Seneca and the revenge plays of the Elizabethans and Jacobeans—Hamlet, or Shakespeare in general, is obviously an exception, but Titus Andronicus is also a crude, ridiculous play, nothing like Shakespeare’s mature plays. 

I didn’t even like Euripides’s Medea, compared to his other plays, but it’s subtler and more nuanced than Seneca’s version. 

2/ Oedipus is adapted from Oedipus the King by Sophocles (also known as Oedipus Rex or Oedipus Tyrannus). Coleridge thinks the Sophocles play is one of the three best plots in the world (the others are Tom Jones by Fielding—I agree!—and The Alchemist by Ben Jonson). I doubt anyone would say that about the Seneca play.

The brilliance of the Sophocles play is in the way the plot unfolds, the way the characters gradually discover the horrible truth—Jocasta is to know before Oedipus—the tension arises because of something that has already happened, not something that is happening. The myth—a man kills his father and marries his mother—is sensational and disturbing, but Sophocles seems to be more interested in questions about fate and human agency. At the same time, he develops the character of Oedipus so that you can see why Oedipus is in the position he’s in: because he is imperious and even hot-tempered, he killed a man on the road, who turns out to be his father Laius; because he is intelligent and resourceful, he defeated the Sphinx and got awarded the queen of Thebes, who happened to be his mother. 

You don’t get any of that in the Seneca play. The plot is awkward; they summon back the spirit of the dead Laius and he names the killer (how stupid is this?); Seneca seems to delight in gory detail (do we need all that gory description of the sacrifice? why does he expand and exaggerate Oedipus’s blinding?); the chorus, for some reason, sings a few times about Bacchus and the horrific death of Pentheus, adding to the gruesome quality of the play; Seneca also changes Jocasta’s death, making it melodramatic and also reducing the nobility of her character as we see in the Sophocles play; I don’t mind that Jocasta dies onstage, but don’t like that she dies in front of Oedipus—no, worse than that, it is ambiguous and suggests that Oedipus might help kill Jocasta; the whole thing is just sordid. 

And that’s just the impression I’ve got from reading Seneca: it’s hard to explain, but his characters just don’t have the nobility we see in the Greek plays; even in the case of Phaedra, both Euripides’s Phaedra and Racine’s Phèdre have a nobility that Seneca’s character lacks. 

I read Oedipus in E. F. Watling’s translation, which felt more poetic than Emily Wilson’s translation of the same play and Medea. 

(On a side note: I wrote in my blog post about Shakespeare and the Greeks that Shakespeare didn’t depict tension that arises because of something that already happened, as we see in Oedipus the King. That is not entirely true, or rather, Shakespeare doesn’t write an entire play about that, but he does do it in the final scenes of Othello—tension arises as Emilia and then Othello realises what he has done, and what Iago has done). 

3/ Thyestes is another fabula crepidata, which is a Latin play with Greek subjects. There are however no extant Greek plays about the myth, so nothing to which to compare Seneca’s play. 

To be honest, there are interesting passages in the play. 

“MINISTER You do not fear your people’s disapproval?

ATREUS Of the advantages of monarchy

The greatest is that subjects are compelled

Not only to endure but to approve

Their master’s actions.

MINISTER                        Men compelled by fear

To praise, may be by fear compelled to hate.

He who desires to win sincere approval

Will seek it in the heart, not on the tongue.

ATREUS A moderate man may win sincere approval;

It takes a strong man to enforce feigned praise.

Men must be made to want what they dislike.

MINISTER Let the king want what’s right, who will oppose him?

ATREUS The king who binds himself to want what’s right Sits on a shaky throne.” 

(Act 2) 

(translated by E. F. Watling) 

Now that is Seneca the philosopher, Seneca the statesman, Seneca the emperor’s advisor. 

In terms of language and imagery, there are many striking passages: 

“FURY […] Nor shall the heavens

Be unaffected by your evil deeds:

What right have stars to twinkle in the sky?

Why need their lights still ornament the world?

Let night be black, let there be no more day.

Let havoc rule this house; call blood and strife

And death; let every corner of this place

Be filled with the revenge of Tantalus!...” 

(Act 1) 

Or: 

“ATREUS It is. My heart is shaken with a storm

Of passion that confounds it to its centre.

I am compelled, although I know not whither,

I am compelled by forces.… Hear! the earth

Groans from its depths; the sky is clear, but thunder

Rumbles, and from the house there came a crash

As if the roof were falling; and our gods,

Shaken, have turned their backs on us. So be it!

Let a black deed be done, which gods above

Will fear to see.” 

(Act 2) 

Reading these plays, especially Thyestes, I can see the influence of Seneca on Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights: the 5-act division, the use of (bombastic) rhetoric, the fascination with evil and taste for extreme violence. All the lurid, gruesome scenes I have seen in 16th-17th century English revenge plays—a character bites off his own tongue and spits it out, a villain kisses and gets killed by a poisoned skull, someone appears onstage with a bloody heart on a dagger, and so on—all seem to trace back to the spectacle of violence and gory detail in Seneca. The pie in Titus Andronicus is a direct reference to Thyestes and—look at all the horrible murders in that play—I can see why someone would say it looks like an attempt to out-Seneca Seneca.

However, as I wrote back then, there’s nothing to the revenge plays of Shakespeare’s contemporaries—nothing but spectacle—and very often those plays leave a bad taste in my mouth afterwards because the characters are all monstrous and bestial, and the same could be said about Seneca’s plays. Out of the four I’ve read, Thyestes is the most horrific—Atreus takes revenge on his own brother Thyestes by roasting Thyestes’s children and feeding them to him—it is repulsive. 

I think I’ve got enough of Seneca. 

The Changeling, a great play by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley

1/ The play premiered in 1622. I was quite surprised to come across a reference to A Midsummer Night’s Dream: 

“FRANCISCUS Hail, bright Titania! 

Why stand’st thou idle on these flow’ry banks? 

Oberon is dancing with his Dryades; 

I’ll gather daisies, primrose, violets, 

And bind them in a verse of poesy.” 

(Act 3 scene 3) 

Didn’t expect that. 

2/ There are two (not quite parallel) plots that later converge. 

The main plot starts with a forced marriage, like Women Beware Women: Beatrice-Joanna is in love with Alsemero but forced by her father Vermandero to marry Alonzo de Piracquo.  

In the subplot, Alibius, a jealous doctor, imprisons his beautiful wife Isabella in the house for fear of losing her, as Leantio does with Bianca in Women Beware Women. He tells his servant Lollio to keep watch on Isabella. 

“LOLLIO I’ll do my best, sir, yet surely I cannot see who you should have cause to be jealous of.

ALIBIUS Thy reason for that, Lollio? ’Tis a comfortable question. 

LOLLIO We have but two sorts of people in the house, and both under the whip, that’s fools and madmen; the one has not wit enough to be knaves, and the other not knavery enough to be fools.” 

(Act 1 scene 2) 

It is a madhouse—fools and madmen are those we now call the mentally disabled and the mentally ill. There are however two counterfeits—Franciscus and Antonio pretend to be a madman and a fool in order to enter the house, as they’re in love with Isabella. Lollio is also horny for her. 

“ISABELLA […] would a woman stray, 

She need not gad abroad to seek her sin, 

It would be brought home one way or other; 

The needle’s point will to the fixed north, 

Such drawing arctics women’s beauties are.” 

(Act 3 scene 3) 

3/ In the main plot, De Flores, an ugly servant, is obsessed with Beatrice-Joanna (“Dog-face” she calls him). When he sees her with Alsemero despite her engagement to Alonzo, he thinks: 

“DE FLORES I have watch’d this meeting and do wonder much 

What shall become of tother; I’m sure both 

Cannot be serv’d unless she transgress, happily 

Then I’ll put in for one; for if a woman 

Fly from one point, from him she makes a husband, 

She spreads and mounts then like arithmetic, 

One, ten, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, 

Proves in time sutler to an army royal…” 

(Act 2 scene 2) 

What a disgusting man.

Beatrice-Joanna is in a pickle—she loves a man but her father forces her to marry another—not knowing how to get out of the marriage, she decides to hire De Flores to kill Alonzo, and once “Dog-face” gets the money and runs away, she will be rid of “two inveterate loathings” at once—I mean, what is she even thinking? 

The scene of De Flores speaking to Beatrice-Joanna after the deed is done is a fantastic scene: 

“DE FLORES Do you place me in the rank of verminous fellows, 

To destroy things for wages? Offer gold? 

The life blood of man! Is anything 

Valued too precious for my recompense?” 

(Act 3 scene 4) 

No, not money—he wants her virginity. 

“BEATRICE Why, ’tis impossible thou canst be so wicked, 

Or shelter such a cunning cruelty, 

To make his death the murderer of my honour! 

Thy language is so bold and vicious, 

I cannot see which way I can forgive it 

With any modesty. 

DE FLORES Push, you forget yourself! 

A woman dipp’d in blood, and talk of modesty? 

[…] 

DE FLORES Look but into your conscience, read me there,

’Tis a true book, you’ll find me there your equal…” 

(ibid.) 

An excellent scene—it must be one of the greatest scenes in 17th century English drama—and I think The Changeling is one of the greatest plays I’ve read, because of the twisted relationship between Beatrice-Joanna and De Flores. It disgusts, but it also fascinates. Other plays from the same period also paint violence, also depict depravity, also portray evil, but the relationship between these two characters is more bizarre and perplexing—Beatrice-Joanna goes from loathing De Flores to being under his power, to being sexually drawn to him, to, in a way, even loving him—it is therefore more fascinating. Beatrice-Joanna especially is a great character, a complex character. She is wicked, but at the same time her attraction, or attachment, to De Flores, despite his ugliness and despite her feelings for Alsemero, makes her appear helpless as it’s something beyond her control.   

And the bed trick? It’s even more twisted than the ones in Measure for Measure and All’s Well that Ends Well. 

4/ I also like that the main plot is a tragedy and the subplot is a comedy—it is audacious—and it works very well. 

A masterpiece. 

Women Beware Women by Thomas Middleton

1/ The play begins with an elopement between the poor Leantio and the rich Bianca. The scene that follows has one of Shakespeare’s favourite themes: forced marriage. Fabritio wants his daughter Isabella to marry a rich fool, simply called the Ward in the play. He says to Guardiano, the Ward’s guardian that “she shall love him.” 

How absurd. Isabella’s aunt Livia has to speak up: 

“LIVIA I must offend you then, if truth will do’t, 

And take my niece’s part, and call’t injustice

To force her love to one she never saw. 

Maids should both see and like; all little enough; 

If they love truly after that, ’tis well. 

Counting the time, she takes one man till death, 

That’s a hard task, I tell you…” 

(Act 1 scene 2) 

These lines are more interesting: 

“LIVIA O soft there, brother! Though you be a Justice, 

Your warrant cannot be serv’d out of your liberty; 

You may compel out of the power of a father 

Things merely harsh to a maid’s flesh and blood; 

But when you come to love, there the soil alters; 

Y’are in another country, where your laws 

Are no more set by than the cacklings 

Of geese in Rome’s great Capitol.” 

(ibid.) 

Thomas Middleton immediately subverts your expectation however. You think it’s probably going to be similar to Shakespeare’s treatment of the forced marriage vs love marriage theme, you assume Livia to be a progressive woman who stands against tyrannical fathers, but no, the story goes in another direction—Hippolito, brother of Fabritio, has incestuous feelings for Isabella, and Livia helps bring them together!—how can Isabella know and why does she believe right away that Livia is telling the truth, that she’s the product of an affair and therefore not related by blood to them? 

Having done that, Livia manipulates Leantio’s mother and brings Bianca to the Duke. You think that Jane Austen’s Emma meddles in people’s lives and turns everything upside down just out of idleness? Just look at Livia—this woman needs a hobby. 

2/ Generally, I don’t think the poetry is anywhere near as good as in The Revenger’s Tragedy (long attributed to Cyril Tourneur, now sometimes attributed to Middleton but not definitively), but once in a while, there’s some interesting imagery: 

“GUARDIANO […] it’s a witty age, 

Never were finer snares for women’s honesties

Than are devis’d in these days; no spider’s webs

Made of a daintier thread than are now practis’d

To catch love’s flesh-fly by the silver wing…” 

(Act 2 scene 2) 

He brings Bianca to the Duke for his own advancement. Why does Livia? Probably just because she can. 

“LIVIA […] ’Tis but want of use; 

Her tender modesty is sea-sick a little, 

Being not accustom’d to the breaking billow

Of woman’s wavering faith, blown with temptations. 

’Tis but a qualm of honour, ’twill away; 

A little bitter for the time, but lasts not. 

Sin tastes at the first draught like wormwood water, 

But, drunk again, ’tis nectar ever after.” 

(ibid.) 

3/ I can’t help noticing that most of the non-Shakespearean plays I’ve read from 1580s-1630s present a much darker, more cynical view of humanity and make me feel disgusted with the characters. Only a couple of Shakespeare’s plays have a similar effect, such as The Merchant of Venice or Troilus and Cressida; the majority give one the impression that he loves people and loves humanity. The others—Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, John Webster, John Ford, Thomas Middleton—depict a rotten world in which human beings are bestial and repulsive. There’s not enough light, so to speak. The bad are monstrous and numerous, the good get destroyed. 

In Women Beware Women, Fabritio forces his own daughter Isabella to marry an idiot for money and advancement; her aunt Livia tells her a false tale and Isabella has an incestuous affair with her own uncle Hippolito but carries on with her marriage to the Ward; Livia again acts as a bawd, bringing Bianca to the Duke; Bianca, having “forsook friends, fortunes, and [her] country” in order to marry the poor Leantio, now cheats on him and changes her tune, insults the husband’s family for their poverty and brazenly becomes the Duke’s mistress; the Duke is a bastard who covets someone else’s wife, but Leantio isn’t a good man either, as he more or less imprisoned Bianca in the house because “The jewel is cas’d up from all mens’ eyes”; Leantio later also has an affair with Livia; and the play ends with a bloody party (perhaps inspired by The Spanish Tragedy). 

The final scene is spectacular. 

“HIPPOLITO […] Vengeance met Vengeance, 

Like a set match, as if the plague of sin 

Had been agreed to meet here altogether…” 

(Act 5 scene 2) 

Livia is a striking character, a psychopath, one of the most villainous women I have come across in fiction—the other characters in the play commit sin because of lust or greed—Livia does all these things just because she can. 

Funnily enough: 

“BIANCA […] O the deadly snares 

That women set for women, without pity 

Either to soul or honour! Learn by me 

To know your foes. In this belief I die: 

Like our own sex, we have no enemy, no enemy!” 

(ibid.) 

I mean, sure, Livia ensnares Isabella and Bianca, but do they not have agency? Do they not have free will? Nobody forces them to have an affair and deceive others. 

Everybody in the play, except for the Lord Cardinal, is rotten to the core. The character of Livia is fascinating and memorable, but it’s a repulsive play.    

The Devil’s Law-Case by John Webster

1/ You know what, 1580s-1630s plays are bonkers. But before we get there, let’s talk about the poetry. 

In 17th century’s English dramatic poetry, one may say that Webster is second only to Shakespeare—perhaps I don’t know what I’m talking about, but David C. Gunby calls him “a tragedian second to only Shakespeare” in my copy and I do love Webster’s poetry the most among Shakespeare’s contemporary playwrights. His best play is still The Duchess of Malfi, but The Devil’s Law-Case has many great passages:   

“CONTARINO […] For women’s resolutions in such deeds, 

Like bees, light oft on flowers, and oft on weeds.” 

(Act 1 scene 1) 

Or: 

“CAPUCHIN For pity’s sake, you that have tears to shed, 

Sigh a soft requiem, and let fall a bead 

For two unfortunate nobles, whose sad fate 

Leaves them both dead, and excommunicate: 

No churchman’s prayer to comfort their last groans, 

No sacred sod of earth to hide their bones; 

But as their fury wrought them out of breath, 

The canon speaks them guilty of their own death.” 

(Act 2 scene 3) 

Or: 

“ROMELIO […] O how this wicked world bewitches, 

Especially made insolent with riches! 

So sails with fore-winds stretch’d, do soonest break, 

And pyramids a’th’top are still most weak.” 

(ibid.) 

It’s amusing that Webster gives these lines to such a heartless fiend like Romelio. 

2/ There are some funny bits. For example, Crispiano, a lawyer, prefers money to “wenching”: 

“CRISPIANO Wenching? O fie, the disease follows it; 

Beside, can the fing’ring taffetas, or lawns, 

Or a painted hand, or a breast, be like the pleasure 

In taking a client’s fees, and piling them 

In several goodly rows before my desk?...” 

(Act 2 scene 1) 

What a nutter. 

“CRISPIANO Come, come, leave citing other vanities; 

For neither wine, nor lust, nor riotous feasts, 

Rich clothes, nor all the pleasure that the devil 

Has ever practis’d with, to raise a man

To a devil’s likeness, e’er brought man that pleasure 

I took in getting my wealth…” 

(ibid.) 

Probably one of those men who love amassing wealth much more than spending it (why though?). 

But generally, I don’t find Webster a particularly funny writer. Ariosto, a bad-tempered lawyer who later acts as judge, is clearly meant to be a comic character, but I don’t find him funny.  

3/ Some lines remind me of Shakespeare: 

“LEONORA I do look now 

For some great misfortunes to follow. 

For indeed mischiefs are like the visits 

Of Franciscan friars, they never come 

To prey upon us single…” 

(Act 3 scene 3) 

Does anyone look at that and not think about “When sorrows come, they come not single spies/ But in battalions”? 

The beginning of the scene, when Romelio chides his sister Jolenta for grieving, also makes me think of Hamlet: 

“ROMELIO Why do you grieve thus? Take a looking glass, 

And see if this sorrow become you; that pale face

Will make men think you us’d some art before,

Some odious painting: Contarino’s dead. 

JOLENTA O that he should die so soon! 

ROMELIO Why, I pray tell me, 

Is not the shortest fever the best? And are not bad plays 

The worse for their length?” 

(ibid.) 

I’m not sure—Shakespeare also adds some funny lines in the middle of a sad or intense scene, such as in King Lear or The Winter’s Tale, but in my head this exchange seems a bit harder to get right—how are those last lines meant to be played? to cause laughter?—Jolenta is in deep anguish. 

4/ The premise of The Devil’s Law-Case is some standard complications: Ercole and Contarino both love Jolenta; Jolenta also loves Contarino, but her brother Romelio wants her to marry Ercole, who has more money; Jolenta’s mother Leonora, a widow, also wants her to marry Ercole because she herself loves Contarino. The play however is bonkers—it is full of lies and disguises, schemes and plots, twists and turns—one thing piles upon another—the whole thing is bananas. It’s also quite different from The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi as the other two are tragedies whereas this one is a tragicomedy. Anyone who thinks Cymbeline is “unresisting imbecility” should check out The Devil’s Law-Case. 

One good thing about the play is Webster’s poetry. 

“… Courts adieu, and all delights, 

All bewitching appetites; 

Sweetest breath, and clearest eye, 

Like perfumes go out and die; 

And consequently this is done, 

As shadows wait upon the sun. 

Vain the ambition of kings, 

Who seek by trophies and dead things, 

To leave a living name behind, 

And weave but nets to catch the wind…” 

(Act 5 scene 4) 

Another good thing is that Romelio, the villain, is a brilliant character. Avaricious, calculating, deceitful, ruthless. No morals, no conscience. 

“CAPUCHIN […] Will you pray with me? 

ROMELIO No, no, the world and I 

Have not made up our accounts yet. 

CAPUCHIN Shall I pray for you? 

ROMELIO Whether you do or no, I care not. 

CAPUCHIN O you have a dangerous voyage to take. 

ROMELIO No matter, I will be mine own pilot: 

Do not you trouble your head with the business. 

CAPUCHIN Pray tell me, do not you meditate of death? 

ROMELIO Pew, I took out that lesson 

When I once lay sick of an ague: I do now 

Labour for life, for life! Sir, can you tell me 

Whether your Toledo, or your Milan blade 

Be best temper’d?” 

(ibid.) 

And later, when he asks for food and Capuchin hands him a book, presumably a Bible: 

“ROMELIO Pew, I am not to commence Doctor: 

For then the word, devour that book, were proper. 

I am to fight, to fight sir, and I’ll do’t, 

As I would feed, with a good stomach.” 

(ibid.) 

Should you read The Devil’s Law-Case? Perhaps only if you’re a specialist. It’s no wonder that Webster is now only known for The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil. 

On revenge tragedies and Shakespeare

Revenge tragedies were all the rage in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. The Spanish Tragedy marks the beginning. ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore marks the end (or at least, I believe it was one of the last ones). So lately I’ve been reading a few and thinking about them.  

If you’re looking for depth or complexity or big ideas, I would say you won’t find any. Revenge tragedies are about excitement and ingenuity of plot and violence. Revenge tragedies are about shocking and sensational stage effects, like someone biting off his own tongue and spitting it out, or kissing and getting killed by a skull, or appearing with a bloody heart on a dagger. The modern equivalent would be Korean and Japanese revenge films. I have seen Audition, Lady Snowblood, Confessions… from Japan; Oldboy, Lady Vengeance, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Pietà, Montage, The Housemaid (remake), The Handmaiden… from South Korea. You watch these films for the violence and the ingenuity of the revenge. Sometimes I may find a revenge film entertaining and clever, like The Handmaiden, but often I’m just disgusted by the excessive violence and savagery—Pietà is probably the best example of a film with a disturbing delight in its depiction of cruelty and depravity—it left me thinking, all right that’s a picture of extreme barbarity, now what?—all it gave me was strong disgust and a bad taste in my mouth. 

The most profound revenge film I have seen, if it counts as a revenge film, is Ran. It’s not only about revenge but revenge is a big part of it and it’s something Kurosawa adds that isn’t in King Lear. 

And that brings me to another point, about Shakespeare. When my friend Himadri read these revenge plays 10 years ago, he wrote: 

“If Shakespeare’s audiences really did crave revenge tragedy – and the existence of so many plays by his contemporaries in this genre indicates that they did – then Shakespeare seems on the whole to have been swimming against the popular tide in refusing to satisfy them.”

That’s an interesting observation. The only proper revenge play Shakespeare wrote was Titus Andronicus, and even then I’m not sure what he was doing—was it serious or tongue-in-cheek? was it a genuine attempt to out-Seneca Seneca? or a parody? or just an early paid job before he could write what he wanted? (or, was it even Shakespeare at all? I always say Oxfordians and other loonies are welcome to claim that one).  

Once Titus Andronicus was over and done with, Shakespeare didn’t seem to particularly care for the revenge genre. His only interest was in parodying it or playing with it. Hamlet is a clear example—it’s a play about revenge, but most of it is about Hamlet not doing anything—instead, he ponders about the nature of revenge, the point of revenge, the point of existence, and when he finally kills Claudius, it doesn’t happen as a result of Hamlet’s plan. Coriolanus has revenge in the latter half of the play but it’s arguably not about the revenge itself—Shakespeare seems more interested in why a hero such as Coriolanus would go to the enemy and bring destruction upon his own city—the central difference is that revenge tragedies (at least those I have read) are about the how of revenge whereas Shakespeare is more fascinated by the why. The Tempest is another parody of the genre—it starts off with Prospero speaking of revenge and ends with him forgiving his enemies. 

Clearly Shakespeare isn’t interested in the spectacle of violence, but in people’s minds—and that is why his plays have a kind of depth that the revenge tragedies don’t have. 

 

Disclaimer: I very much enjoyed The Revenger’s Tragedy, which should be better known, and The Spanish Tragedy was also good fun. 

’Tis Pity She’s a Whore by John Ford

Performed sometime between 1629 and 1633 and published in 1633, the play thus came out a while after Shakespeare’s death (1616) and the publication of the First Folio (1623).

1/ ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore is one of the most well-known plays of 17th century England, and one of the most controversial. 

“GIOVANNI I marvel why the chaster of your sex 

Should think this pretty toy called maidenhead 

So strange a loss, when, being lost, ’tis nothing, 

And you are still the same.” 

(Act 2 scene 1)  

Giovanni is talking to his own sister Annabella (yuck)—the play is about incest. 

Listen to Annabella’s tutoress/ guardian: 

“PUTANA […] Fear nothing, sweetheart: what though he be your brother? Your brother’s a man I hope, and I say still, if a young wench feel the fit upon her; let her take anybody, father or brother, all is one.” 

(ibid.) 

Ugh. She quickly changes the tune though, when Annabella’s pregnant.

This conversation between Annabella’s father Florio and Richardetto (who’s pretending to be a doctor) is funny: 

“RICHARDETTO […] You need not doubt her health; I rather think 

Her sickness is a fullness of her blood – 

You understand me? 

FLORIO I do – you counsel well – 

And once within these few days will so order’t 

She shall be married, ere she know the time.” 

(Act 3 scene 4) 

Florio doesn’t know that she’s pregnant. Whether or not Richardetto knows is not made clear, though I think it works better for the story if he does.  

According to the notes in my copy (New Mermaids’ Four Revenge Tragedies), “fullness of her blood” means “sexual ripeness”.

“This was believed to be an ailment of female virgins; the usual remedy was for the young woman to have sex as soon as possible.”

Hmm, interesting. 

2/ ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore is a play about incest and begins with the Friar talking about “devilish atheism”, but John Ford slowly shows that it’s the clergy that is immoral and hypocritical. 

For instance, when the Friar is talking to Annabella, now pregnant with her own brother’s child, he talks about hell, about “smoky fogs” and “infected darkness” and “never-dying death” and “damned souls” and “burning oil” and “molten gold” and so on. But then: 

“FRIAR […] Heaven is merciful, 

And offers grace even now. ’Tis thus agreed: 

First, for your honour’s safety, that you marry 

The Lord Soranzo; next, to save your soul, 

Leave off this life, and henceforth live to him.” 

(Act 3 scene 7)  

That has nothing to do with heaven or hell—the Friar tells Annabella to marry Soranzo, thus deceiving him, to save her reputation. 

Even worse is when Grimaldi (one of Annabella’s suitors), intending to get rid of Soranzo, mistakenly kills Bergetto and runs to the Cardinal for help. 

“CARDINAL […] You citizens of Parma, if you seek 

For justice, know, as Nuncio from the Pope, 

For this offence I here receive Grimaldi

Into his Holiness’ protection. 

He is no common man, but nobly born 

Of princes’ blood… 

[…] 

FLORIO Justice is fled to heaven and comes no nearer. 

[…] When cardinals think murder’s not amiss. 

Great men may do their wills, we must obey, 

But Heaven will judge them for’t another day.” 

(Act 3 scene 9)  

All these revenge plays depict society as unfair and unjust—that’s why people must take the law into their own hands. 

3/ Like the other revenge plays I have read, ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore is engrossing. John Ford goes further, to excess—whereas The Spanish Tragedy is chiefly about Hieronimo’s revenge for the murder of his son and The Revenger’s Tragedy is about Vindice’s revenge on the Duke’s family for the murder of his betrothed, ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore has multiple vengeful characters: Grimaldi wants a revenge on Soranzo for humiliating him and “stealing” Annabella; Hippolita wants a revenge on Soranzo for discarding her and marrying Annabella; her husband Richardetto pretends to be dead in order to take revenge on Hippolita and Soranzo for their affair; Soranzo wants revenge after discovering Annabella’s relations with Giovanni, and so on. 

John Ford’s play doesn’t have the great poetry of The White Devil or The Revenger’s Tragedy.

But more importantly, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The play depicts a dissolute, corrupt world, and at the centre of it is the incestuous, lecherous, unreasonable Giovanni: 

“GIOVANNI Shall then, for that I am her brother born, 

My joys be ever banished from her bed?” 

(Act 1 scene 1) 

He doesn’t listen to reason and doesn’t care for consequences. Even if you are indifferent to incest when it’s consensual, I doubt I am alone in finding his thinking and actions vile:  

“GIOVANNI Busy opinion is an idle fool, 

That, as a school-rod keeps a child in awe, 

Frights the unexperienced temper of the mind, 

So did it me, who, ere my precious sister

Was married, thought all taste of love would die

In such a contract; but I find no change 

Of pleasure in this formal law of sport. 

She is still one to me, and every kiss 

As sweet and as delicious as the first 

I reaped when yet the privilege of youth 

Entitled her a virgin.” 

(Act 5 scene 3)  

However unlikeable Soranzo is—and John Ford makes sure that we all find him abhorrent—the fact remains that Annabella deceives him into marriage and continues betraying him after the wedding. And when Giovanni foils Soranzo’s plan at the end, he may save Annabella from the awful plot and refuses Soranzo the satisfaction of revenge, but all he does in the final spectacle is degrading himself and his sister, and elevating the husband—nobody knows about Soranzo’s cruelty, nobody knows about the murder plot—all the others see is that the poor husband is wronged.  

“GIOVANNI Father, no. 

For nine months’ space in secret I enjoyed 

Sweet Annabella’s sheets; nine months I lived 

A happy monarch of her heart and her. 

Soranzo, thou know’st this: thy paler cheek 

Bears the confounding print of thy disgrace, 

For her too fruitful womb too soon bewrayed 

The happy passage of our stol’n delights, 

And made her mother to a child unborn.” 

(Act 5 scene 6) 

It is all sordid. 

I feel sorry for people in early 17th century England—they went to Shakespeare’s plays for years but then he died and they went to the theatre and it was ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore. 

PS: My favourite plays by Shakespeare's contemporaries so far are The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster, Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, and The Revenger’s Tragedy by Cyril Tourneur/ Thomas Middleton. 

The Revenger’s Tragedy, a Jacobean play

1/ This is another revenge play, first performed in 1606, and published in 1607. The authorship is disputed: it was long attributed to Cyril Tourneur; some modern scholars believe it’s by Thomas Middleton (who collaborated with Shakespeare in a few plays); but the debate is never settled. 

Whoever it was, it would have been tough for him—1606 was roughly the year of King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra—that’s Shakespeare at his peak. 

2/ It’s harder to read than Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, at first—the language is knottier.

There’s interesting imagery from the very first page though: 

“VINDICE […] Oh that marrowless age 

Would stuff the hollow bones with damned desires, 

And ’stead of heat kindle infernal fires

Within the spendthrift veins of a dry duke, 

A parched and juiceless luxur...” 

(Act 1 scene 1) 

Tourneur/ Middleton has some good metaphors: 

“DUKE Duchess it is your youngest son, we’re sorry, 

His violent act has e’er draw blood of honour 

And stained our humours, 

Thrown ink upon the forehead of our state 

Which envious spirits will dip their pens into 

Fater our death, and blot us in our tombs. 

For that which would seem treason in our lives

Is laughter when we’re dead. Who dares now whisper 

That dares not then speak out, and e’en proclaim 

With loud words and broad pens our closest shame.” 

(Act 1 scene 2) 

The Duke is talking about the Duchess’s youngest son being a rapist, but the thing that interests me more is that the playwright uses extended metaphors, which Shakespeare also likes (and masters). 

3/ I was surprised to come across the word “dad” in The Revenger’s Tragedy—I don’t remember ever coming across it in 19th century novels, the preferred word is “papa”—but Etymonline says “dad” is recorded from ca. 1500 and could be much older. 

Learn something new every day. 

4/ One of the main themes in the play is lust. The misogyny of some of the characters is revolting. For example, the Duchess’s youngest son is brought to court for raping another man’s wife. A judge asks why he did it. 

“YOUNGEST SON Why flesh and blood my lord; 

What should move men unto a woman else?” 

(Act 1 scene 2) 

Lussurioso, the Duke’s son from an earlier marriage, is not much better. 

“LUSSURIOSO […] I am past my depth in lust

And I must swim or drown. All my desires 

Are levelled at a virgin not far from Court…” 

(Act 1 scene 3) 

He wants to “ravish” Castiza and doesn’t realise that the bawd to whom he thinks he’s speaking is actually her brother Vindice in disguise. 

“LUSSURIOSO Push; the dowry of her blood and of her fortunes 

Are both too mean – good enough to be bad withal. 

I’m one of that number can defend 

Marriage is good; yet rather keep a friend. 

Give me my bed by stealth – there’s true delight; 

What breeds a loathing in’t but night by night?” 

(ibid.) 

That frankly makes me puke in my mouth a little. 

But it’s not just men who are full of lust. The Duchess wants to bang Spurio, the Duke’s bastard son. 

5/ The scene of Vindice in disguise acting as a bawd for Lussurioso, as a way of testing his sister Castiza and his mother Gratiana, is excellent. Here’s an example: 

“VINDICE […] Would I be poor, dejected, scorned of greatness, 

Swept from the palace, and see other daughters 

Spring with the dew o’the court, having mine own 

So much desired and loved – by the Duke’s son? 

No, I would raise my state upon her breast

And call her eyes my tenants; I would count 

My yearly maintenance upon her cheeks, 

Take coach upon her lips and all her parts 

Should keep men after men and I would ride 

In pleasure upon pleasure…”  

(Act 2 scene 1) 

Vile indeed, but Vindice is playing the role of a bawd and testing his mother. The entire scene is a fine example of rhetoric, and drama. It then ends with Vindice’s soliloquy: 

“VINDICE […] Why does not heaven turn black or with a frown 

Undo the world? Why does not earth start up

And strike the sins that tread upon it? Oh, 

Were’t not for gold and women there would be no damnation. 

Hell would look like a lord’s great kitchen without fire in’t; 

But ’twas decreed before the world began

That they should be the hooks to catch at man.” 

(ibid.) 

Vindice is the revenger of the play, setting out to destroy the family of the Duke, who are lustful, brutal, and callous, but he too is a misogynist. We’ve seen it from the very beginning: 

“VINDICE We must coin. 

Women are apt you know to take false money, 

But I dare stake my soul for these two creatures, 

Only excuse excepted, that they’ll swallow 

Because their sex is easy in belief.” 

(Act 1 scene 1) 

He is here speaking to his brother Hippolita, and “these two creatures” refers to their mother and sister—who talks like that about his female family members? At the end of the same scene, he says “Wives are but made to go to bed and feed.” 

The play presents a rather bleak view of humanity—how many good characters are there in the play?—I can only think of two (chaste Castiza and honest Antonio). Makes me think of Webster. 

6/ There is a passage in The Revenger’s Tragedy that reminds me of Hamlet’s “Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come.”  

The revenge scene is probably crazier than anything I’ve seen in Shakespeare, even the eye-gouging scene in King Lear or the headless body in Cymbeline. And then the grand finale—the big killing scene at the end—is quite something. 

As a whole, The Revenger’s Tragedy is a crazy play, a fun and exciting play. Do I think it’s a great work of art? Not really, no—like The Spanish Tragedy, there’s not much depth in it—it’s not a play that makes you think about evil, the nature of revenge, or “the human condition” as such. But it doesn’t matter. It’s a fun, enjoyable play—Tourneur/ Middleton has a good feel for pacing and tension, and his poetry is much better than Kyd’s. 

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.