in The Spanish of Malta, The

and The Duchess of

Nathan Mao

Around 1585, it was Christopher Marlowe who succeeded Thomas Kyd

in producing an English adaptation of a Latin tragedy that not only gained

the approval of the people as a whole, but aroused an excited enthusiasm

such as no other productions of the English theatre had quite equaled.

The Spanish Tragedy and The Jew of Malta formed types of revenge

tragedy with separate bases and development. These are the Kydian tragedy

in which the protagonist is a hero who is a revenger of blood and the

Marlovian tragedy in which the protagonist is a villain, who may or may

not be a revenger in a play in which revenge takes an active part in resolving

the catastrophe.

Following the school of Kyd, there was The Revenger's Tragedy by

Tourneur, the last of the great plays dominantly under the influence of Kyd.

To all intents and purposes, The Revenger's Tragedy closed the first period

in the history of Elizabethan revenge tragedy, a span of years devoted almost

exclusively to plays modelled on the type created by Kyd in The Spanish

Tragedy.

As the popularity of Kydian revenge ebbed, a new type of tragic drama

developed. This new school of tragedy was chiefly concerned with the

depiction of villainy and horrors. It followed more or less the tradition

of Marlowe. Sometimes it has been exaggerated that Morlowe was the sole

progenitor of the type. As a contrast to The Revenger's Tragedy, I have

liere selected Webster's The Duchess of Malfi as a play dominatly under the

influence of both Kyd and Marlowe.

The aim of this paper is to make a comparative study of the chief

revengers in each of the following plays: Hieronimo in The Spanish Tragedy,

Barabas in The Jew of Malta, Vindice in The Revenger's Tragedy and

Bosola in The Duchess of Malfi. It seems to me that the original station

of each revenger in life, his character, his motives in revenge, justifiable

or not, his ways of revenge, his attitude towards death, are all quite impor-

tant in helping us to understand and to have a real appreciation of each

play. I will go into some detail discussing these aspects in reference to each

revenger.

At the beginning of The Spanish Tragedy, Hieronimo is quite happy

with his life in Spain. He has a brave, handsome and loyal son, who is the

pride of the country. His wife, Isabella, is graceful and affectionate. What

is more, he has a high position in court. Indeed, he has no complaints

whatsoever.

Barabas also has a comfortable position. He is described as the richest

of the Jews. He feels himself coequal i;; dignity with princes and born to

rule. He is contented to remain in his counting-house, where the wealth of

many lands is compressed into the little room of his jewels. To the powerful

and imaginative elements must be added tenderness and family affections.

His love for his daughter is portrayed as one of the deepest passions of his

life. Neither Barabas nor Hieronimo is by any means a malcontent, whereas

the other two revengers, Vindice and Bosola are quite different.

Vindice's opening soliloquy reveals that bitterness and cynicism have

— 32 —

long eroded his moral beliefs. He has seen too much of the world —his own

beloved murdered, virgins surrendered —he broods over his wrongs, waiting

for an opporturity to murder the lascivious old Duke.

Like Vindice, Bosola is also a malcontent, embittered by experience and

hungry for the security which advancement will afford. Early in the play,

he complains to his former master that he has been slighted as well as

neglected. As Boyer points out:

Bosola is not a man of extraordinary talents. He has been ableneither to build up his fortunes, nor to fortify his soul against thebitterness of poverty. He struggles against the cramping circumstancesof his life, but until the time of his revolt his life has been agloomy rather than tragic failure. He desires nothing higher than acomfortable income and social recognition, but is unable to attaineven these without selling himself.1

Of the four revengers, Hieronimo's character is apparently the best, since

he has the best position and all the material needs that any one could desire

to have. Barabas' character is basically unsound, but he does not have

to become a blood-thirsty monster, if no circumstances provoked him so.

Vindice and Bosola are bitter about the world from the very beginning.

We can hardly expect anything other than storm and thunder to come.

The central theme of The Spanish Tragedy is, of course, revenge. After

the murder of Horatio in Act II, the tragedy has strayed from the once

important theme — revenge for the ghost of Andrea. A real revenger in

the person of Hieronimo appears. He is no longer the sweet husband or

affectionate father, because of the brutal murder of his son. All that was dear

to him is gone. He has completely lost the joy of living. Under such

conditions, it is only normal for him to plot revenge, since the revenge for

his son is a sacred duty.2 Prof. Bowers supports the view that Hieronimo's

revenge is justified.

— 33 —

When Barabas is introduced to us in the counting-house, his wealth is

represented as so enormous and his ambition so vast that, as Bullen says:

"our senses are dazzled, sober reason is staggered."? Here I quote in full

lines 18 to 32:

Give me the merchants of the Indian mines,That trade in metal of the purest mould;The wealthy Moor, that is the eastern rocksWithout control can pick his riches up,And in his house heap pearl like pebble-stones,Receive them free, and sell them by the weight;Bags of fiery opals, sapphires, amethysts,Jacinths, hard topaz, grass-green emerals,Beauteous rubies, sparling diamonds,And seld-seen costly stones of so great priceAs one of them indifferently rated,And of a carat of this quantity,May serve in peril of calamity,To ransom great kings from captivity.4

Here he sounds like a Faustus. Gold, to Barabas, is as important as Horatio

is to Hieronimo, and perhaps even more important than his own daughter,

because it represents power and his ascendancy over his fellow human beings.

He fascinates us, but at the same time, he makes us aware that he is an

oppressed race —one who is subjected to the caprices and the gross injustice

of another race. Barabas justly exclaims "who hates me but for my happiness."

His goods are taken from him for no conceivable reasons. As a result, he is

wounded deeply as well as humiliated, not by one man, in which case he

might have done otherwise, but by a race for which he has very little respect,

therefore his hatred turns to the whole race. The difference between his

revenge and Hieronimo's is that his is not a legal duty, but a criminal

passion. For the retribution through a human agent is substituted the

personal retaliation of human pride. Fie secures revenge in no other way

than by personal measures. By planning the assassination of the Governor's

— 34 —

son, he vents his anger on the Governor, who has ruined him. According

to Bowers' view, Barabas' revenge is not as justified as Hieronimo's, since it

oversteps the ancient law of talion by revenging a material injury with a

collective revenge and death.5 Yet, on the other hand, his revenge is not

completely unjustified, since the Jew is not the only villain in the play. In

a world where love, justice, honesty have all lost their validity, no character

is fundamentally better than the frankly opportunist Barabas. The Christians

among whom he lives have long since diverted their worship from God to

mammon. Therefore Barabas is able to excuse his actions on the grounds

that the Christians, for all their pretended horror of usury, are just as

rapacious as he. What is more, Ferneze's dealings with the Turks display

nothing but hypocrisy. Barabas thinks that if Christians thus deceive those

who are not of their own faith, a Jew has as good a pretext for cheating a

Gentile.

The revenger in The Revenger's Tragedy is Vindice, whose wrongs are

first portrayed to the audience as real as any hero revenger's. His betrothed

has been poisoned after she had repulsed the Duke's lustful advances. He is

not only seeking the revenge for the murder of his wife, but also for his

father, who died from discontent caused by the Duke. Presumably, the Duke

is his chief victim, but if we read the play closely, most of his revengeful

acts center on Lussurioso, who has injured him so slightly. We are left with

the feeling that Vindice seems to wander from his true revenge. We are also

made suspicious of the true nature of his revenge. Perhaps all his malicious

deeds spring from a desire for retaliation. There is no good reason why he

should not stab the Duke at once. He is neither a Hamlet paralysed by grief,

nor a Barabas consumed by fiery energy. Boyer says:

Vindice's revenge springs from a natural desire to retaliate, for itis natural for a man to wish to slay the murderer of a person so

— 35 —

dear to him as his affianced wife. Nevertheless, retaliation in thisparticular case is abhorrent. The reason that Vindice's revenge dossnot appear justifiable is .. . . that the hero's cause for vengeance hasgrown cold with fifteen years' waiting; that he is not bowed downby sorrow; that no religious motive, symbolized in earlier tragediesby the ghost, urges aim on; that he is not moved by love or duty,but altogether by hatred; and finally, his revenge is unjustifiablebecause it is so very malicious.6

Bosola, surrounded by so much evil, with no particular moral standard,

but only an inclination and sympathy for goodness to support him, sinks into

the mire around him by becoming the wicked tool of a monstrous tyrant.

In one way, he is a revenger for Ferdinand, but later on, he becomes the

revenger for the Duchess, due to the ingratitude of Ferdinand, who treats him

with contempt and leaves him penniless after his frightful service. His

function throughout the play is chiefly that of a revenger. His second revenge

upon Ferdinand and the Cardinal is a personal one. It differs from Hieronimo's,

in that it is not a sacred duty. Nothing urges him to action but his own

conscience and sudden awareness of having been made a fool. Unlike Vindice's

or Barabas' revenge, his second revenge comes rather late in the play, and

consequently it is less malicious and venomous. We applaud his revenge,

because it is comparatively unselfish, and because it requires courage. But his

previous conduct has been too wicked for us to lament his fall as that of a

morally good man.

Upon discovery of the murder, Hieronimo immediately thinks of revenge.

He says: "To know the author were some case of grief, For in revenge my

heart would find relief."7 He strongly emphasizes his resolution to have

revenge. He tells Isabella:

See'se thou this handkerchief besmeared with blood?It shall not from me, till I take revenge.See's thou those wounds that ye are bleeding8 afresh?I'll not entomb them, till I have reveng'd.

— 36 —

Though he is resolute in his sole aim of revenge, he is of a suspicious nature.

The note from Bel-imperia gives him the names of the murderers, but he

refuses to believe them completely. He says to himself:

Hieronimo, beware! - thou are betray'dAnd to entrap thy life this train is laidAdvise thee therefore, be not credulousThat thou, by this Lorenzo shouldst accuse;And he, for thy dishonor done, should drawThy life in question and thy name in hate.9

At this point, it is impossible for him to see why Lorenzo should murder his

son. He has to wait for further evidence before he takes any decisive action.

He is not a rash person; he thinks carefully before he acts.

As soon an Barabas is deprived of his property, he warns the other Jews

that "great injuries are not so soon forgot."10 Like Hieronimo, he swears

to have revenge; but unlike Hieronimo, he needs no further evidence to prove

the Governor's guilt, since his property has been taken away from him. He

proceeds immediately to take revenge. His first project is kill Don Mathias.

Yonder comes Don Mathias, let us stay;He loves my daughter, and she holds him dear:But I have sworn to frustrate both their hopes,And be reveng'd upon the - Governor.11

The Revenger's Tragedy differs from the previous two tragedies in

structure, in that the audience does not see any wrongs done to the revenger,

except in the opening soliloquy of Vindice. It is apparent that he thinks of

nothing except revenge.

Vengeance, thou murder's Quit-rent, and wherebyThou show's thy safe Tennant to Tragedy,Oh keeps thy day, houre, minute, I beseech,

— 37 —

For those thou hast determined. Hum! who ere knewMurder unpayed? Faith, give Revenge her due; 12

He has been waiting for an opportunity to have his revenge, and when the

chance does come, he becomes Lussurioso's pander. He is clear about his

motives without any hesitation whatsoever.

Bosola's case is different from all the rest. At f irst , he is a misfit, a

man of worthy talents forced into a degrading position. With a brutal

philosophy, he make the most of it by the thoroughgoing manner in which

he plays his part. He gives us the impression that he has an almost surgical

interest in torturing the human spirit to see how much it can endure before

the veniality he seeks, as the excuse for his existence, is forced into the

surface. The unworldly bravery of the Duchess proves to him that his

theories are false; but his character is so well conceived that his sympathies

are not fully enrolled until he is made aware of the fate that awaits him at

the hands of an ungrateful master. Already shaken by his experience with

the Duchess, he is cast completely adrift from his conviction by this second

shock and assumes the role of revenger for the Duchess upon the men who

have ruined him. Since Bosola's realization of his own guilt comes rather

late, Webster does not allow him any further moments of hesitation. As

soon as Ferdinand denies him, he undertakes the counter-revenge upon both

Ferdinand and his brother. It is his ironic fate that once reformed he should

kill the one whom he tries to save, and be killed himself by the villains

whom he now seeks to punish.

Among the four revengers, only Hieronimo tries to secure justice

through law before he resorts to private measures. He wants the King to

hear his suit.

38

Now, sir, perhaps I come and see the king;The King sees me, and fain would hear my suit;

Away, Hieronimo! to him be gone;He'll do thee justice for Horatio's sake.13

When the King appears, Hieronimo shouts, "Justice, O justice to Hieronimo."

Though stopped by Lorenzo, Hieronimo keeps on asking for justice: "Justice,

O justice, gentle king!" and a little later, "Justice, O, my son, my son! My

son, whom naught can ransom or redeem!"14 Unfortunately, Hieronimo is

so unrestrained and carried away by his passion, "that the King readily

believes Lorenzo's explanation that Hieronimo covets for himself the ransom

due his son and so is lunatic."15 Such emotional outbursts soon lead his

servants to believe him insane. In receiving petitions for justice, "he sees

in the petitioners the lively image of his own grief, loses restraint ond even

publicly addresses his son Horatio as if he saw his ghost come to seek

justice and avenge his death."16 Is Hieronimo really insane? Of course not.

A careful examination of the text shows that he is entirely sane in his

plans for revenge —as sane as Shakespesre's Hamlet when he stabs Claudius.

Since Hieronimo's enemies are all so treacherous and sly, it seems hardly

surprising that he has to rely upon treacherous means to secure his ends.

He puts on disguises and completely dissembles himself. His treacherous

device is concealed in his pretended reconciliation with Lorenzo, his arch

enemy. In reply to the Duke of Castile, Hieronimo cunningly says:

Ay, marry, my lord, and shallFriends, quoth he? See I'll be friends with you all:Specially with you, my lovely lord;For diverse causes it is fit for usThat we be friends: the world is suspicious,That men may think what we imagine not.17

The opportunity for his revenge eventually comes in Act IV. To celebrate

— 39 —

the Wedding and to entertain the important guest from Portugal, the old

marshal recommends "a stately written tragedy, . . . fitting kings, containing

matter, and not common things. "Hieronimo, well-known for his theatrical

entertainments, accepts the King's request to perform the play "Soliman and

Perseda" and suggests, in turn, that Balthazar, Lorenzo, Bel-imperia and

himself enact. To humor the old Hieronimo, the three accept their parts.

Meanwhile, there occurs another woeful incentive to Hieronimo's revenge.

Distraught by the delay of justice and her husband's vengeance for their

son, Isabella cuts down the arbor where her son was brutally slain and stabs

herself.

In the palace at the appointed time, the play is presented as scheduled.

In Hieronimo's production, Hieronimo kills in earnest, and draws a parallel

between the play and his real tragedy in a long curtained speech.

O, good wordsAs dear to me was my Horatio.As yours, or yours, or yours, my lord to you.My guiltless son was by Lorenzo slain,And by Lorenzo and that BalthazarAm I at last revenged thoroughly,Upon whose souls may heavens be yet reveng'dWith greater far than these afflictions.18

Following his speech, he tries to commit suicide by hanging himself but is

prevented. He bites out his tongue when questioned. At last, pretending to

confess, he asks for a knife to mend his pen with which he stabs both

Lorenzo's father and himself.

Hieronimo needs Bel-imperia to help him to carry out his plans successfully.

So does Barabas, who at the market "buys a vicious slave named Ithamore,

who was brought up in Arabia to all kinds of villainy and who is also a

— 40 —

hater of Christians. Already Barabas has bought "a house as great and fair

as is the governor's " 19 and an accomplice for his revenge upon the

Christians. H^ instructs his slave to use the policies of Machiavel.

First be thou void of these affections:Compassion, love, vain hope, and heartless fear,Be mov'd at nothing, see thou pity none,But to thyself smile when the Christians moan . .As for myself, I walk abroad a nightsAnd kill sick people groaning under walls;Being young, I studied physic, and beganTo practice first upon the Italian;Therefore I enrich'd the priests with burials,And always kept the sexton's arms in ureWith digging graves and ringing dead men's knellsAfter that I was an engineer,And in the wars, twixt France and Germany. . .Slew friend and enemy with my stratagems.Then after that was I an usurer,And with extorting, cozening, forfeiting,And tricks belonging unto brokery,I fill'd the jails with bankrupts in a year,And with young orphans planted hospitals,And every moon made some or other mad . .But mark how I am blest for plaguing themI have as much coin as will buy the town.20

The above passage clearly indicates that the Jew is Machiavel incarnated. In

the prologue of Marlowe's play, it is spoken by "the ghost of Machiavel"

who claims the Jew for his disciple, in pronouncments as the following:

I crave but this: - grace him as he deserves,And let him not be entertain'd the worseBecause he favors me.21

Barabas' personality might be briefly summed up as egotistical, cruel,

faithless, remorseless and murderous. He encourages both Lodowick and

Mathias to woo his daughter; he also provokes a deadly rivalry between the

— 41 —

young suitors. His devices f i l l Ithamore with both horror and admiration.

The latter exclaims:

Why was there ever seen cuch villainySo neatly plotted, and so well perform'd?Both held in hand, and flatly both beguil'd22

Abigail's sudden conversion gives Barabas another incentive for revenge, because

his only daughter is openly turning against him. It is not the loss of the

daughter that matters, but her act which is an unforgivable insult to his being

a father. His pride is sorely wounded; he needs revenge. By poisoning his

daughter, he kills his own blood, his humanity, his past, his links with the

human world. He is now not only an outcast of society, but also of all

mankind. He is conscious of what he is doing. In order to facilitate every

means of revenge, he adopts Ithamore as his legal heir, a man who stands

for all the vices and corruptions that could possibly be found in a human

being. Before Abigail dies, she confesses to Friar Jacomo and reveals her

father's villanny and responsibility for the death of her two suitors. The

friars make use of this information they have received in confession to exclaim

against Barabas and his crimes. To save himself, he dissembles. Like all other

Machiavellians, dissembling is second nature to him:

She has confess'd and we are both undone,My bosom inmates! But I must dissemble,

(Aside to Ithamore)O holy friars, the burdens of my sinsLie heavy on my soul! Then pray you, tell me,Is't not too late now to turn Christian?23

He pretends to be wil l ing to give all his wealth to the brother who converts

him. Thus, he plays upon the avarice of the worthy friars and causes them

to quarrel among themselves. Then he interviews each separately, applying

the same method he used earlier upon Mathias and Lodowick. With the help

— 42 —

of Ithamore, he strangles Bernardine, who converted Abigaril, and props up

the body so that Friar Jacomo, to whom she confessed, will knock it down

and be accused of murder. Later, Ithamore betrays his master. Disguised as

a French lute player, Barabas visists the courtesan Bellamira's house and

poisons all three of his extortioners with a bouquet of flowers. When the

Governor arrests him in Act V, he feigns death and escapes. He later joins

the Turks and betrays Malta to them. In reward he is made Governor.

However, he does not enjoy the office itself as much as the way he achieved

it.

Thus has thou gotten by thy policyNo simple place, no small authority.I now am governor of Malta . . . 24

Barabas is not really a political aspirant. He admires treachery as well

as hypocrisy:

Why, is not thisA kingly kind of trabe to purchase townsBy treachery and sell 'em by deceit?Now tell me, worldlings underneath the sunIf greater falsehood ever has been done?"25

He in turn betrays the Turks to the Christians. He loves treachery for its own sake.

Bowers suggests that besides the apparent Senecan influence such as sensationalism,

including horror of incident and exaggeration of expression, rhetoric, fatalism,

etc., in the play, Lorenzo in The Spanish Tragedy is actually the prototype

of Barabas.

Marlowe is merely inverting the plotting of The Spanish Tragedyby taking over the counter action (Lorenzo's disposal of hisaccomplices) as the main line of incident for The Jew of Malta.There is consequently, no real counter-revenge extending throughthe play, and the interest concentrates exclusively on Barabas.26

Unlike Hieronimo or Barabas Vindice understands his, own situation at the

beginning of the play. Holding in his hands the skull of his dead mistress,

Gloriana, a lady to whom he has been betrothed but whom the lecherous

old Duke has poisoned because she would not be his concubine, Vindice

watches the Duke and his train pass by, and bitterly vows vengeance for the

crime." He knows that human justice is impossible. Justice is as decrepit

as the old Duke himself. Professor Bradbrook points out that "Justice is

sold either for favors or money: this is insisted on again and again in the

imagery and by direct statement."27 and "Revenge is a kind of wild justice."28

Vindice himself is fully aware of the course he is going to take. He disguises

himself as "some strange-digested fellow" to become the pander of Lussurioso.

In this position he is employed as a tool villain to seduce his own sister.

He also acts the part of a morbid curiosity to test the virtue of his mother

and sister. After Vindice has satisfied his curiosity, he drops the part of

pander and finally has a perfect chance ot avenge the death of Gloriana.

Dressing up the skull of his betrothed in rich attires and poisoning the

mouth, Vindice and his brother Hippolito bring the Duke to the grove in

which Spurio and the Duchess are making love. He bids the Duke to kiss

the skull, and Hippolito stamps on him. They also make sure that the Duke

shall see his bastard son embracing the Duchess. Only then do they permit

their victim to die. Since disguise is one of the major means to secure

revenge, Hippolito introduces Vindice in his own guise to the young prince

again, as a brother who has become a malcontent by the study of law.

When Hippolito and Vindice are left alone, they resolve to dress up the

body of the Duke in Piato's disguise to make it seem that Piato killed the

Duke and then fled.29 In Act V, after Lussurioso has succeeded to the

throne, Vindice and Hippolito approach Piero and other noblemen to plot

with them against Lussurioso and his supporters. Later on, during the

revels, two groups of malcontents plan to kill the new duke. The revengers,

— 44 —

including Vindice and Hippolito and two lords arrive and carry out the

murder successfully.

Things worth noting here are that they all rely heavily upon disguises

to carry out their revenge. "Vindice is disguised three times - when, as

Piato, he enters 'the world' and becomes 'a man o' the time,' 'a court pander';

a second time, then he appears as a fantastic 'character' of himself, a melancholy,

litigious scholar; and finally as masquer."30 Like Hieronimo and Barabas,

Vindice uses Hippolito as his accomplice; he also uses poison as Barabas

does; he does not startle us by his boldness - he is barely courageous in

comparison with other revengers. He is not an ambitious man; he is by no

means a political aspirant. Nor, on the other hand, is his revenge like that

of Barabas an instance of wicked guile triumphing over innocence. If he uses

craft, it is only against those who are more wicked and vile than himself.

The punishment and pain which he actually inflicts do not extend beyond

those who have injured him, though he is thoroughly malicious in his triumph

over them. His ill will toward the world is that of malcontent of a man

professing some morality, hating men's vices but not men themselves. He

never exhibits the satisfaction which may be called intellectual. He regards

the conduct of the Duke and Lussurioso as wicked and vile, and hates them

for it, but he does not view his own murder of them wrong. For the Duke

to poison his betrothed was wrong; to avenge her death by poisoning, in his

reasoning, is justified. However, Vindice's malice, though limited to those

who have injured him, is of the most venomous kind. He smears poison on

the mouth of the skull of his murdered sweetheart and kills the Duke by

forcing him to kiss the poisoned mouth and to see the lustful act of his

bastard son and wife. He seeks to render the last moments of Lussurioso

mentally as well as physically agonizing by whispering in his ear that it is

he, Vindice, his supposed tool, who has murdered him as well as his father.

— 45 —

He kills only two of his most hated enemies, yet he tortures them with the

most wicked intentions.

The Duchess of Malfi as a play is different from The Revenger's Tragdy,

in that it emerges from the realm of melodrama. In Webster's tragic world,

men of Power and position are tyrannical, cruel, crafty as well as faithless,

but there are other beings who are tender and loving, noble and sacrificing.

Good has its effect as well as evil; the innocent may suffer from the heart-

lessness and ambition of the wicked, but they can die heroically and keep alive

the good in others. Sure retribution awaits the violators of moral law on

eafth. The brothers emply Bosola as their revenger, and in that end, both

are killed by the villain whom they had employed. The Duchess wins our

attention and sympathy by her sufferings. Bosola takes an equal share of our

attention, because it is he who torments her. As in Tourneur, the torture

scene is laid in darkness and loneliness, but

•instead of the Poison in the old duke's veins and the knife at histhroat and deadly taunts in his ear, there are the figures of theduchess' murdered children before her, the madmen's songs, thecoffin which she herself shall fill , her tomb-maker, the horror ofher waiting-maid's cries, Bosola's 'whispering' her own dirge sungout to her before her death .... where Vindice's victim kisses thelips of the woman who turns out a painted, poisoned skull, ... andthe Duchess receives in the darkness the hand which seems herhusband's and turns out a severed one . . . 31

Bosola is a villain throughout the play, seemingly a descendant of Vindice.

They represent two incongruous, incompatible roles-malcontent and tool-villain.

Bosola later repents of his former doings, whereas Vindice enjoys and brags

of his success. Bosola in the end achieves a moral victory, which the other

three revengers do not share. Apart from this moral rise of Bosola, we find

him quite similar to other villains in carrying out his revenge. He spares no

device which might help him.

— 46 —

After Hieronimo has killed Lorenzo and Balthazar, he says with obvious

satisfaction:

Now do I applaud what I have actedNunc iners cadat manus!New to express the rupture of my part, -First take my tongue, and afterward my heart."32

He desires no more from life, since he has fulfilled his sacred duty. At the

end he tries to hang himself, but is prevented. Asking for a knife to mend

his pen, he uses the knife to stab Lorenzo's father and himself. It seems

fair to him that both Lorenzo's father and he should die at the same time,

since their children have all gone before them. His attitude toward death is

one of welcome. He hastens his own death, as he sees no possible way to

get away from all the murders that he has committed. After all, what is left

of life, since his most beloved wife and son are no longer alive.

Barabas in later acts is no longer a human being. He enjoys trickery

and treachery. One of his last acts is to betray the Turks to the Christians

"for whatever sum the captive Christian governor can raise— perhaps, a hundred

thousand pounds. Mines are planted under a monastery outside the city where

the bulk of the Turkish army is quartered for the Turkish commander and

his staff at Governor Barabas' palace in a hall which has a collapsible floor,

under which the Jew has planted a boiling cauldron." At a given signal, the

Turkish army is blown up, but the Christian governor prefers to capture the

Ottoman generals alive. In the nick of time, he betrays Barabas. Like

Hieronimo and Vindice, Barabas makes a big confession before his death:

And, villains, know you cannot help me now. -Then Barabas, breathe forth thy latest fate,And in the fury of thy torments striveTo end thy life with resolution.Know, governor, 't was I that slew thy son;

— 47 —

I fram'd the challenge that did make them meet.Know Calymath, I aim'd thy overthrow,And had I but escap'd this stratagem,I would have brought confusion on you all33

As Barabas dies cursing, so do the majority of later Machiavellian villains:

Dam'd Christians, dogs, and Turkish infidels!But now begin? the extremity of heatTo pinch me with intolerable pangs.Die, life! fly, soul! tongue, curse thy fill, and die!34

Barabas does not shrink from his fate; he does not beg for mercy. He dies

cursing and defying his enemies. Perhaps the only difference between his

death and Hieronimo's is that he still wants to live. He loves life. Earlier

when he was deprived of all he held dear, he said: "I will live, nor loath

I this life."35 Deep in his heart, Barabas believes that he dies too young.

When his last moment comes, he shows no sign of remorse whatsoever; he,

in fact, enjoys what he did in the past.

After the murder in Act V, Hippolito and Vindice first pretend innocence

of the Duke's death, but they soon betray themselves by boasting, as a reult

of which they are led away for execution. However, Vindice considers his

life well-spent in losing it to satisfy his revenge as indicated by the following

lines:

May not we set as well as the Duke's sonne?Thou hast no conscience; ere we not reveng'd?Is there one enemy left alive amongst those?'Tis time to die when we're- ourselves our foes.36

They are ready to die. They have no further complaints, since they have

their mother converted to good, their sister proved true. They die after a

line of dukes. Their downfall is completely their own doing. Sometimes it

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is hard to believe that the revenger? Could be so stupid as to Cause their own

catastrophe at the end of each play.

Bosola's dying speech is:

O, I am gone!We are only like dead walls of vaulted graves,That, ruin.'d, yields no echo. Fare you well!It may be pain, but no harm, to me to dieIn so good a quarrel. O, this gloomy world!In what a shadow, or deep pit of darkness,Doth womanish and fearful mankind live!Let worthy minds ne'er stagger in distrustTo suffer death or shame for what is just:Mine is another voyage.37

Fate plays an important role in Bosola's career. Human beings are rather

helpless in the hands of Providence; this makes Bosola realize that human

beings should fight for what is just. He dies fighting for a just cause—to

avenge the death of the Duchess. No doubt, Bosola has to pay a heavy price

for what he did, but his final moral rise makes him different from the other

three revengers. His death does him good, become he dies as an admirable

person and not as the villain while living. Bosola is perfectly aware of his

own fate and welcomes death as a pleasant relief.

To sum up, all these four revengers share enough characteristics in

common. The influences of Senecan and Kydian tragedies are apparent in

each of the plays. However, there are several special characteristics, which

deserve particular mention. Hieronimo delays in executing the project of

revenge. His delay or procrastination is due very likely to a great paucity

of incident and intrigue in the sources. We are not quite sure whether

The Spanish Tragedy was written earlier than The Jew of Malta or not.

However, in the latter, instead of the solemn half-mad shrinking revenger

who strikes only at the end, there is a burly Machiavellian for hero, who

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has not one but many revenges, and brushes away human beings like flies.

Tourneur faithfvlly continued the Kydian tradition. In The Revenger's Tragedy,

a son revenges a murdered father, whose ghost docs not appear, but Vindice

has at least the skull of his poisoned sweetheart, whom he is also revenging,

to remind him. However, a new feature developed. Vindice is a malcontent;

the character of which owed specific debts to Marston's The Malcontent.

Tourneur here had a break, heralded by The Malcontent, with the old stero-

typed plat, consisting of revenge, idyllic lovestory, etc., to more piquant motives

such as seduction and pandering. Stoll puts it well: "One of the most striking

elements of this is the consolidation of malcontent, revenger, and (by playing

a part in disguise) of tool villain, as in Vindice;—of itself^'a sign of the decay

of the revenge motive."37 Webster's debt to Kydian tragedy has been noted in

detail in Stoll's book —the wanton bloodshed, torture, use of the tool villain,

omens and the like.38 Webster also combines the character of malcontent,

tool-villain and revenger in the person of Bosola. However, he exalts the

irony of the catastrophe in The Duchess of Malfi and provides a more fitting

doom for his villains by removing the element of accident from the accomplice's

betrayal and founding such betaryal on a psychological change in character.

Footnotes:

1. Boyer, C. V., The Villain As Hero In Elizahethan Tragedy, New York,1914, p. 163.

2. Bowers, F. T., Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy, Princeton, 1959, p. 40.

3. Boyer, p. 54.

4. Marlowe, C., The Jew of Malta, I, i. 18-32

5. Bowers, p. 107.

6. Boyer, p. 150.

7. Kyd, T., The Spanish Tragedy, II, v. 40-41.

8. Ibid., II, v. 105-108

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9. ibid., Ill, ii, 37-43.

10. The Jew of Malta, \, ii. 210.

11. Ibid., II, iii. 146-150.

12. Tourneur, C., The Revenger's Tragedy, I, i. 43-47. Text taken from TheWorks of Cyril Tourneur, ed. by .A. Nicoll, New York, 1963.

13. The Spanish Tragedy, III, xii, 1-2; 12-13.

14. Ibid., Ill, xii, 27; 62; 63-64

15. Holzknecht, K. J., Outlines of Tudor and Stvart Plays, New York, 1961,

p. 7316. Ibid., p. 73

17. The Spanish Tragedy, III, xiv. 156-161.

18. Ibid., IV. iv. 214-221.

19. The Jew of Malta, II, i i i , 176-206; See also Holzknecht, pp. 92-93

20. Ibid., The Prologue, 33-35.

21. Ibid., Ill, i i i . 1-3

22. Ibid., IV, i. 49-53

23. Ibid., V, i i i . 27-29

24. Ibid., V, vi. 47-50

25. Bowers, p. 107.

26. Bradbrook, M. C., Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan Drama,Cambridge University Press, 1957, p. 167.

27. Ibid., p. 168

28. Bradbrook, p. 160. She says: "The purely arbitrary and dissociated natureof Vindice's different personalities can be felt most strongly in the scenewhere he puts one of his disguises on to the dead Duke, to pretend thatthe particular personality has killed the Duke and fled: it is a role thatis of no particular use to him. Moreover, as he has actually killed theDuke and has also been hired to kill himself in this secondary role,he is bringing down more than two birds with one stone."

29. Salingar, L. G. "The Revenger's Tragedy and the Morality Tradition"in Elizabethan Drama, ed. by R. J. Kaufmann, Oxford, 1961, p.215.

30. Stoll, E. E. John Webster, Cambridge, Mass., 1905, pp. 122-123

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31. The Spanish Tragedy, IV, iv. 241-244

22. The Jew of Malta, V, vi, 73-81.

33. Ibid., V, vi. 82-85

34. Ibid., I, ii, 266

35. The text is taken from The Plays and Poems of C. Tourneur, Vol. 2.ed. by John Churtor Collins, London, 1878, p. 149

36. The Duchess of Malfi , V, v. 99-108

37. Stoll, p. I l l

38. Ibid., pp. 93; 118-145

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