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Thomas KydA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and analyzes the source text’s depiction of violence, murder, self-harm, and death by suicide.
“Here finding Pluto with his Proserpine,
I showed my passport humbled on my knee;
Whereat fair Proserpine began to smile,
And begged that only she might give my doom.
Pluto was pleased, and sealed it with a kiss.
Forthwith, Revenge, she rounded thee in th’ ear,
And bade thee lead me through the gates of Horn,
Where dreams have passage in the silent night.
No sooner had she spoke but we were here,
(I wot not how) in twinkling of an eye.”
The judges of the afterlife (Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus) defaulted to the judgement of the gods of the underworld to determine what should happen to the soul of Don Andrea. Since he died violently but lived his life for love, Proserpine allows him to return as a revenant spirit to judge the living and witness his death avenged. Kyd draws on classical mythology in The Spanish Tragedy, depicting the Spanish as driven more by classical values than Christian virtues.
“KING. Then by my judgment, thus your strife shall end:
You both deserve, and both shall have reward.
Nephew, thou tookst his weapon and his horse:
His weapons and his horse are thy reward.
Horatio, thou didst force him first to yield;
His ransom therefore is thy valor’s fee;
Appoint the sum, as you shall both agree.”
From the beginning, Lorenzo presents himself as an untrustworthy figure. Unlike Horatio, who defeated Balthazar in fair combat, Lorenzo is an opportunist, who used Horatio’s victory to seize Balthazar’s horse and possessions and thus claim a part in the victory. The king judiciously divides the spoils among the two young men, with Horatio receiving the prince’s ransom, and Lorenzo being rewarded with Balthazar’s possessions and the opportunity to host the prince in his home.
“BEL-IMPERIA. Yes, second love shall further my revenge:
I’ll love Horatio, my Andrea’s friend,
The more to spite the Prince that wrought his end.
And where Don Balthazar, that slew my love,
Himself now pleads for favor at my hands,
He shall, in rigor of my just disdain,
Reap long repentance for his murderous deed”
While Bel-Imperia does begin to fall in love with Horatio, Andrea’s death still weighs heavily on her mind. Ultimately, she decides to use her love for Horatio as a means of getting revenge upon Balthazar: As long as Horatio is around, she can snub Balthazar’s advances and thus cause him pain. She has no way of recognizing the danger in which this places Horatio.
“Why so: Tam armis quam ingenio:
Where words prevail not, violence prevails;
But gold doth more than either of them both.”
The Latin phrase tam armis quam ingenio (“both in arms and in wit”) describes Lorenzo’s actions throughout the play. Lorenzo is an imperious, manipulative figure who knows how to use rhetoric, violence, and bribery to get what he wants. He takes a cynical view of humanity, believing that people can be paid to act against their own interest, and he will soon prove this by bribing Pedringano to kill his fellow servant, Serberine.
“BEL-IMPERIA. Why stands Horatio speechless all this while?
HORATIO. The less I speak, the more I meditate.
BEL-IMPERIA. But whereon dost thou chiefly meditate?
HORATIO. On dangers past, and pleasures to ensue.
BALTHAZAR. On pleasures past, and dangers to ensue.
BEL-IMPERIA. What dangers, and what pleasures dost thou mean?
HORATIO. Dangers of war, and pleasures of our love.
LORENZO. Dangers of death, but pleasures none at all.”
This exchange, between Horatio and Bel-Imperia, overheard by Lorenzo and Balthazar, anticipates the doomed nature of their love affair. Kyd creates dramatic tension by keeping Lorenzo and Balthazar concealed from Bel-Imperia and Horatio; only the play’s audience hears their interjections. In addition, this passage uses a variety of rhetorical devices, including anaphora (repetition), antithesis (contrast), and epistrophe (the repetition of a word at the end of successive sentences), to create a rhetorically dense exchange in a relatively short length of time.
“KING. Then, Lord Ambassador of Portingale,
Advise thy King to make this marriage up,
For strengthening of our late-confirmed league;
I know no better means to make us friends.
Her dowry shall be large and liberal:
Besides that she is daughter and half-heir
Unto our brother here, Don Cyprian,
And shall enjoy the moiety of his land,
I’ll grace her marriage with an uncle’s gift
And this it is: in case the march go forward,
The tribute which you pay shall be released,
And if by Balthazar she have a Son,
He shall enjoy the kingdom after us.”
One of the central problems of The Spanish Tragedy is that the king does not have a direct descendent. Lorenzo and Bel-Imperia, children of the king’s brother, Cyprian, Duke of Castille, are therefore in the direct line of descent to inherit the kingdom. This makes a match between Bel-Imperia and Balthazar highly strategic: It would unite Spain and Portugal and ensure the continuity of the royal lineage—though Bel-Imperia is treated like a pawn with no say in the matter.
“BEL-IMPERIA. Set forth thy foot to try the push of mine.
HORATIO. But first my looks shall combat against thine.
BEL-IMPERIA. Then ward thyself; I dart this kiss at thee.
HORATIO. Thus I retort the dart thou threwest at me.”
Bel-Imperia and Horatio exchange flirtatious couplets during their third and final meeting in the play. While Bel-Imperia is cautious at first, she quickly lets down her guard. Their love for each other is indicated by the union of their rhymed couplets in Lines 38-41, an example of stichomythia, a common rhetorical device in the plays of Seneca, who was a major influence of Kyd’s.
“HORATIO. What, will you murder me?
LORENZO. Aye, thus, and thus: these are the fruits of love.
[They stab him.]
BEL-IMPERIA. Oh save his live, and let me die for him.
Oh save him, brother; save him, Balthazar:
I loved Horatio, but he loved not me.
BALTHAZAR. But Balthazar loves Bel-imperia.
LORENZO. Although his life were still ambitious-proud, …
Yet is he at the highest now he is dead.”
Bel-Imperia attempts to save Horatio’s life by claiming that she was the one who pursued Horatio, not the other way around. Lorenzo exhibits his characteristic cruelty, not only killing Horatio but mocking his death, punning on “the fruits of love” and calling it his “highest” point, because he is hanged from a tree.
“HIERONIMO. Oh poor Horatio, what hadst thou misdone
To leese thy life, ere life was new begun?
Oh wicked butcher, whatsoe’er thou wert,
How could thou strangle virtue and desert?
Aye me most wretched, that have lost my joy
In leesing my Horatio, my sweet boy!”
In a scene of pathos, Hieronimo enters the bower after hearing Bel-Imperia’s cries to find Horatio’s corpse hanging from the tree. It takes a moment for the realization of his loss to sink in; he initially thinks someone left a body in his garden to frame him. The murder of his beloved son upends his sense of reason: He cannot fathom how a just world could allow such a vile act to occur.
“HIERONIMO. It was a man, sure, that was hanged up here:
A youth, as I remember: I cut him down.
If it should prove my son now after all.
Say you? say you? Light, lend me a Taper;
Let me look again. Oh God,
Confusion, mischief, torment, death and hell,
Drop all your stings at once in my cold bosom,
That now is stiff with horror; kill me quickly:
Be gracious to me, thou infective night,
And drop this deed of murder down on me;
Gird in my waste of grief with thy large darkness,
And let me not survive, to see the light
May put me in the mind I had a son.
ISABELLA. Oh sweet Horatio, O my dearest son.
HIERONIMO. How strangely had I lost my way to grief.”
These lines, added in the 1602 folio of The Spanish Tragedy, are the first instance of grief clouding Hieronimo’s senses, causing him to rave, much to the alarm of Isabella. Hieronimo enters a state of denial, unable to acknowledge the death of his son. It is only upon further inspection of the body that he is forced to (again) acknowledge that it is indeed Horatio’s body.
“REVENGE. Thou talkst of harvest, when the corn is green:
The end is crown of every work well done;
The Sickle comes not til the corn be ripe.”
Andrea is impatient to see his death avenged; what’s more, he has now born witness to his friend’s murder and his love being mistreated. Revenge teaches Andrea patience. The spirit likens vengeance to harvesting corn: One must wait until the crop is ripe to harvest it, meaning revenge cannot be acted upon until the time is right.
“ALEXANDRO. My guiltless death will be avenged on thee,
On thee, Viluppo, that hath maliced thus,
Or for thy meed hast falsely me accused.”
The minor subplot between Alexandro, Villuppo, and the viceroy parallels Lorenzo and Horatio, though, luckily for Alexandro, the news that Balthazar lives arrives in time to save his life. Like Lorenzo, Villuppo is a Machiavellian character who puts his own ambitions above the lives of those around him, willing to frame the innocent Alexandro as a murderer to improve his own standing with the viceroy.
“What’s here? a letter? tush, it is not so:
A letter written to Hieronimo. [Red ink.]
For want of ink, receive this bloody writ:
Me hath my hapless brother hid from thee;
Revenge thyself on Balthazar and him:
For these were they that murdered thy son.
Hieronimo, revenge Horatio’s death,
And better fare than Bel-imperia doth.
What means this unexpected miracle?”
“They that for coin their souls endangered,
To save my life, for coin shall venture theirs:
And better it’s that base companions die,
Than by their life to hazard our good haps.
Nor shall they live, for me to fear their faith:
I’ll trust myself, myself shall be my friend;
For die they shall, slaves are ordained to no other end.”
This part of Lorenzo’s soliloquy, after paying Pedringano to murder Serberine, exemplifies Lorenzo’s cruel, Machiavellian character. A noble would not see their servants as equals, but Lorenzo sees them as utterly expendable. He is perfectly fine with sacrificing Pedringano and Lorenzo to save himself, rationalizing that they brought it upon themselves by risking their lives for gold, and even going as far as to give Pedringano the false hope of a pardon to motivate him.
“PEDRINGANO. Nay, soft, no haste.
DEPUTY. Why, wherefore stay you? Have you hope of life?
PEDRINGANO. Why, aye.
HANGMAN. As how?
PEDRINGANO. Why, rascal, by my pardon from the King.
HANGMAN. Stand you on that? Then you shall off with this.
[He turns him off.]
DEPUTY. So, Executioner, convey him hence;
But let his body be unburied.
Let not the earth be choked or infect
With that which heaven contemns, and men neglect. [Exeunt.]”
Pedringano has a misplaced faith in Lorenzo’s promise of a full pardon. His confidence even causes him to crack jokes as he ascends to the gallows, disgusting Hieronimo, who reflects on the boldness of murderers. However, as revealed in Act III, the box containing the “pardon” is empty. Serberine’s death is avenged, Lorenzo has tied up two loose ends, and Pedringano’s body will go unburied so as not to contaminate hallowed ground with a murderer’s corpse.
“Now see I what I durst not then suspect,
That Bel-imperia’s Letter was not feigned.
Nor feigned she, though falsely they have wronged
Both her, myself, Horatio, and themselves.
Now may I make compare ‘twixt hers and this,
Of every accident I ne’er could find
Til now, and now I feelingly perceive
They did what heaven unpunished would not leave.
Oh false Lorenzo: are these thy flattering looks?
Is this the honor that thou didst my son?
And Balthazar, bane to my soul and me:
Was this the ransom he reserved thee for?”
Pedringano’s letter to Lorenzo, which the executioner intercepted, is the proof that Hieronimo needed to affirm the veracity of Bel-Imperia’s letter, connecting Lorenzo, Balthazar, Pedringano, and Serberine to the murder of Horatio. Hieronimo curses the entire chain of events that have led to the current situation, before resolving to entreat the king for justice for Horatio.
“LORENZO. Your melancholy, sister, since the news
Of your first favorite Don Andrea’s death,
My father’s old wrath hath exasperate.
BALTHAZAR. And better was’t for you, being in disgrace,
To absent yourself, and give his fury place.
BEL-IMPERIA. But why had I no notice of his ire?
LORENZO. That were to add more fuel to your fire,
Who burnt like Aetna for Andrea’s loss.”
After keeping her captive in the days following Horatio’s murder, Lorenzo attempts to convince Bel-Imperia to see Balthazar as a proper suitor, using rhetoric appealing to courtly honor and propriety. Lorenzo reminds Bel-Imperia that their father was outraged by her affair with Andrea, but a marriage with Balthazar would be a proper match for the niece of the king. Bel-Imperia is a match for her brother’s wit, however, and recognizes the danger in Lorenzo’s words; she feigns friendliness with him, and he fails to recognize the sarcasm in her words.
“HIERONIMO. Oh, forbear,
For other talk for us far fitter were.
But if you be importunate to know
The way to him and where to find him out,
Then list to me, and I’ll resolve your doubt.
There is a path upon your left-hand side
That leadeth from a guilty conscience
Unto a forest of distrust and fear,
A darksome place, and dangerous to pass:
There shall you meet with melancholy thoughts,
Whose baleful humors if you but uphold,
It will conduct you to despair and death:
Whose rocky cliffs when you have once beheld,
Within a hugy dale of lasting night,
That, kindled with the world’s iniquities,
Doth cast up filthy and detested fumes: —
Not far from thence, where murderers have built
A habitation for their cursed souls”
Asked by two Portuguese men where to find Lorenzo, Hieronimo launches into a fantasy of Lorenzo suffering the torments of hell for the murder of his beloved Horatio. This exchange illustrates Hieronimo’s need to articulate his loss and his need for justice. He all but accuses Lorenzo of murder; however, to the men, Hieronimo seems to be a raving dotard, and they merely laugh at him.
“HIERONIMO. Justice, Oh, justice, justice, gentle King.
KING. Who is that? Hieronimo?
HIERONIMO. Justice! Oh justice: Oh my son, my son,
My son, whom naught can ransom or redeem.
LORENZO. Hieronimo, you are not well-advised.
HIERONIMO. Away, Lorenzo, hinder me no more.
For thou hast made me bankrupt of my bliss.
Give me my son; you shall not ransom him.
Away, I’ll rip the bowels of the earth, [He diggeth with his dagger.]
And ferry over to th’ Elysian plains,
And bring my son to show his deadly wounds.
Stand from about me;
I’ll make a pickaxe of my poniard,
And here surrender up my marshalship;
For I’ll go marshal up the fiends in hell,
To be avenged on you all for this.”
Lorenzo thwarts Hieronimo’s chance to petition the king for justice for Horatio. This will later cause rumors (alluded to by Cyprian in Act IV) that Lorenzo has somehow wronged Hieronimo. Frustrated by his inability to articulate his grievances, Hieronimo digs wildly at the earth with his dagger—one of the most iconic scenes in The Spanish Tragedy.
“HIERONIMO. Draw me like old Priam of Troy,
crying: ‘the house is a-fire, the house is a-fire, as the torch over
my head!’ Make me curse, make me rave, make me cry, make
me mad, make me well again, make me curse hell, invocate
heaven, and in the end leave me in a trance—and so forth.
PAINTER. And is this the end?
HIERONIMO. Oh no, there is no end: the end is death and madness.
This scene, from the 1602 folio additions, is one of the few instances in The Spanish Tragedy where Hieronimo does not speak in rhyming verse—a key indication to scholars that someone other than Kyd wrote this scene, likely William Shakespeare. Hieronimo is finally able to articulate his grief to someone who understands; Bazardo, the painter, is also grieving for a murdered son. Hieronimo uses classical allusions here, comparing his grief to that of King Priam of Troy mourning the death of his son, Hector, at the hands of the Greek hero Achilles.
“REVENGE. Content thyself, Andrea; though I sleep,
Yet is my mood soliciting their souls.
Sufficeth thee that poor Hieronimo
Cannot forget his son Horatio.
Nor dies Revenge, although he sleep awhile;
For in unquiet quietness is feigned
And slumb’ring is a common worldly wile.
Behold, Andrea, for an instance, how
Revenge hath slept, and then imagine thou
What tis to be subject to destiny. [Enter a Dumb Show.]”
Once again, Andrea finds himself frustrated with Revenge’s apparent sloth, impatient to see Balthazar. Revenge’s slumber parallels Hieronimo’s plan to lure Lorenzo and Balthazar into a false sense of security by acting friendly: Just as Hieronimo has not forgotten Horatio, so too has Revenge continued to manage the situation, even as he slumbers. Revenge illustrates his point with a didactic dumb show, which foreshadows the bloody events of Balthazar and Bel-Imperia’s wedding day.
“HIERONIMO. Now, my good Lord, could you entreat
Your sister Bel-imperia to make one?
For what’s a play without a woman in it?
BEL-IMPERIA. Little entreaty shall serve me, Hieronimo;
For I must needs be employed in your play.
HIERONIMO. Why this is well: I tell you, Lordings,
It was determined to have been acted
By Gentlemen and scholars too,
Such as could tell what to speak.
BALTHAZAR. And now it shall be played by Princes and Courtiers,
Such as can tell how to speak:
If, as it is our Country manner,
You will but let us know the Argument.”
With a solid plan for revenge and a co-conspirator in Bel-Imperia, Hieronimo can finally take charge, using drama, a medium with which he has already proven himself to be particularly adept. He appeals to Lorenzo and Balthazar’s vanity in order to get them to participate in his play. Hieronimo mentioning women in plays is likely a joke: Women were forbidden from acting in Elizabethan England, while they were a regular feature in plays in Spain.
“ISABELLA. Tell me no more: —oh monstrous homicides.
Since neither piety nor pity moves
The King to justice or compassion,
I will revenge myself upon this place,
Where thus they murdered my beloved son.
[She cuts down the arbor.]
Down with these branches and these loathsome boughs
Of this unfortunate and fatal pine:
Down with them, Isabella; rent them up,
And burn the roots from whence the rest is sprung.
I will not leave a root, a stalk, a tree,
A bough, a branch, a blossom, nor a leaf.
No, not an herb within this garden-plot.
Accursed complot of my misery.”
Isabella has been absent for much of the action of the play, but she has been experiencing the same grief as her husband over the death of her beloved Horatio. Unable to take direct action against her son’s killers, she turns her attention to the bower where he was slain, destroying the tree upon which Horatio was hanged and stabbed, cursing the very soil where it grew.
“HIERONIMO. Now do I applaud what I have acted.
Nunc iners cadat manus.
Now to express the rupture of my part,
First take my tongue and afterwards my heart.”
Having at last achieved his revenge, Hieronimo does not care to explain himself to his horrified audience, who did not care to listen to him when it was most urgent. He laughs at their threat of torture, mocking the anguish that Cyprian, the viceroy, and the king feel due to the deaths of Lorenzo, Balthazar, and Bel-Imperia. Hieronimo bites out his own tongue to deny his persecutors the satisfaction of coercing a confession from him.
“GHOST. Then, sweet Revenge, do this at my request:
Let me be judge, and doom then to unrest;
Let loose poor Tityus from the Vulture’s gripe,
And let Don Cyprian supply his room;
Place Don Lorenzo on Ixion’s Wheel,
And let the lover’s endless pains surcease
(Juno forgets old wrath and grants him ease);
Hang Balthazar about Chimera’s neck,
And let him there bewail his bloody love,
Repining at our joys that are above;
Let Serberine go roll the fatal stone,
And take from Sisyphus his endless moan;
False Pedringano, for his treachery,
Let him be dragged through boiling Acheron,
And there live, dying still in endless flames,
Blaspheming Gods and all their holy names.
REVENGE. Then haste we down to meet thy friends and foes:
To place thy friends in ease, the rest in woes;
For here though death hath end their misery,
I’ll there begin their endless tragedy.”
The ghost of Don Andrea is satisfied at last, having witnessed the death of his killer. Andrea takes on the role of a judge, sanctioned by Proserpine and Revenge. While the cycle of revenge has consumed the lives of innocents (Horatio, Isabella, Hieronimo, and Bel-Imperia), Andrea promises to lead them to rest, while he and Revenge set about tormenting Balthazar, Lorenzo, Cyprian, Pedringano, and Serberine.