QUOTABLE QUOTES

These are quotations from THE DUCHESS OF MALFI   that i feel are significant to the play's characters and concerns.... hope u find them helpful.

‘some cursed example poison’d near the head, death and diseases through the whole land spread’ (Antonio to Delio)

‘The only court gall; yet I observe his railings are not for simple love of piety; indeed, he rails at those things which he wants’ (Antonio on Bosola)

‘for places in the court are like beds in the hospital, where this man’s head lies at that man’s foot, and so lower and lower’ (Bosola)

‘Tis great pity he should be thus neglected, I’ve heard he’s very valiant (Antonio’s important comment on Bosola)

‘this foul melancholy will poison all his goodness’ (Antonio on Bosola)

'when shall we leave this sportive action, and fall to action indeed ?' (Ferdinand to Castruchio)

‘that realm is never long in quiet where the ruler is a soldier.’ (Castruchio)

‘he is a melancholy churchman. The spring in his face is nothing but the engendering of toads; where he is jealous of any man, he lays worse plots for them, than ever was imposed on Hercules; for he strews in his way flatterers, panders, intelligencers, athiests; and a thousand such political monsters.’ (Antonio on Ferdinand)

‘A most perverse and turbulent nature; what appears in mirth is merely outside, if he laugh heartily, is the laugh all honesty out of fashion.’ (Antonio on Ferdinand)

‘Then the law to him is like a foul black cobweb to a spider, he makes it his dwelling and a prison to entangle those shall feed him.’ (Antonio on Ferdinand)

‘Her days are practiced in such a noble virtue, that, sure her nights, nay more, her very sleeps, are more in heaven than other ladies shrifts.’ (Antonio on the Duchess)

‘these cursed gifts would make you a corrupter, me an impudent traitor (Bosola to Ferdinand)

‘Your darkest actions, nay, your privat’st thoughts will come to light (Ferdinand to the Duchess)

‘Such weddings may more properly be said to be executed. (Cardinal to Duchess)

‘The marriage night is the entrance to some prison (Cardinal to Duchess)

‘For I am going into a wilderness, where I shall find nor path, nor friendly clew to be my guide.’ (Duchess to Cariola)

‘I look young for your sake.’ (Duchess to Antonio)

‘Ambition, madam, is a great man’s madness, that is not kept in chains and close pent rooms, but in fair lightsome lodgings and is girt with the wild noise of prattling visitants which makes it lunatic beyond all cure.’ (Antonio to the Duchess)

‘This goodly roof of yours is too low built, I cannot stand upright in it, nor discourse, without I raise it higher; raise yourself.’ (Duchess to Antonio)

‘We are forced to woo, because none dare woo us’ (Duchess)

‘This is flesh and blood, sir, tis not the figure cut in alabaster kneels at my husband’s tomb.’ (Duchess to Antonio)

‘yet should they know it, time will easily scatter the tempest’ (Duchess to Antonio)

'When you come to be a president in criminal causes, if you smile upon a prisoner, hang him, but if you frown upon him, and threaten him, let him be sure to escape the gallows.' (Bosola to Castruchio)

‘man stands amazed to see his deformity in any other creature but himself.’ (Bosola)

‘and though continually we bear about us a rotten and dead body, we delight to hide it in rich tissue.’ (Bosola)

‘the devil takes delight to hand at a woman’s girdle, like a false rusty watch, that she cannot discern how time passes.’ (Bosola on virginity)

‘She’s exposed unto the worst of torture, pain and fear.’ (Antonio on the Duchess)

‘a letter that shall make her brother’s galls overflow their livers’ (Bosola)

'sure i did hear a woman shriek' (Bosola in soliloquy)

'I am Bosola, your friend' (Bosola to Antonio)

‘I have this night digg’d up a mandrake.’ (Ferdinand to the Cardinal)

'She hath had most cunning bawds to serve her turn, and more secure conveyances for lust' (Ferdinand)

‘Why do you make yourself so wild a tempest?’ (Cardinal to Ferdinand)

‘The smarting cupping glass, for that’s the men to purge infected blood, such blood as hers.’ (Ferdinand on the Duchess)

‘Or my imagination carry me to see her in the shameful act of sin.’ (Ferdinand)

‘Till I know who leaps my sister, I’ll not stir: that known, I’ll find scorpions to string my whips and fix her in a general eclipse.’(Ferdinand on the Duchess)

'the Lord Ferdinand, that's newly come to court, doth bear himself right dangerously' (Delio to Antonio)

'I will force confession from her' (Ferdinand to Bosola on the Duchess)

‘whether I am doomed to live or die, I can do both like a prince.’ (Duchess to Ferdinand)

‘Why should only I of all other princes of the world be cased up like a holy relic, I have youth and a little beauty’ (Duchess to Ferdinand)

‘That these are rogues, that in it’s prosperity, but to have waited on his fortune, could have wished his dirty stirrup riveted through their noses; and folled after’s mule, like a bear in a ring. Would have prostituted their daughters to his lust, made their first born intelligencers.’ (Bosola on the courtiers)

I do not like this jesting with religion, this feigned pilgrimage (Cariola to the Duchess)

‘These factions amongst great men, they are like foxes when their heads are divided; They carry fire in their tails, and all the country about them goes wrack for it.’

‘Mark Prince Ferdinand, a very salamander lives in’s eye, to mock the eager violence of fire.’ (Pescara on Ferdinand)

‘Heaven fashioned us out of nothing; and we strive to bring ourselves to nothing’ (Ferdinand to the Duchess)

‘Let me look upon you once more; for that speech came from a dying father; your kiss is colder than I have seen a holy anchorite give to a dead man’s skull’ (Duchess to Ferdinand when they last see each other)

‘my heart is turned to a heavy lump of lead’ ‘my laurel is all withered’ (Duchess)

‘like to a rusty o’vercharged cannon, shall I never fly to pieces? Come, to what prison?’ (Duchess)

‘I am armed against misery: Bent to all sway of the oppressor’s will. There’s no deep valley but near some great hill.’ (Duchess to Ferdinand)

‘a behaviour so noble as majesty gives to adversity; you may discern the shape of loveliness more perfectly in her tears than in her smiles.’ (Bosola on the Duchess)

‘you were too much in the light’ (Ferdinand to the Duchess)

‘I account this world a tedious theatre, for I do play a part in’t against my will (Duchess to Cariola)

‘Look you, the stars shine still.’ (Bosola to the Duchess)

‘I long to bleed. It is some mercy when men kill with speed.’ (Duchess to Bosola)

‘indeed, I thank him for nothing but noise, and folly can keep me in my right wits, wheareas reason and silence make me stark mad.’ (Duchess on Ferdinand’s madmen)

‘to hear of greater grief would lessen mine.’ (Duchess to Cariola)

‘Like to your picture in the gallery, a deal of life in show, but none in practice; or rather like some reverend monument whose ruins are even pitied.’(Cariola to Duchess)

‘I am the Duchess of Malfi still.’ (Duchess to Bosola)

‘I know death hath ten thousand doors for men to take their exits, and tis found they go on such strange geometrical hinges, you may open them both ways.’ (Duchess)

‘heaven’s gates are not so highly arched as prince’s palaces: they that enter must go upon their knees. (kneels) come, violent death, serve for mandragora to make me sleep; go tell my brothers when I am laid out, they then may feed in quiet (Duchess)

‘her infelicity seemed to have years too many.’ (Bosola on the Duchess)

‘your brother and yourself are worthy men, you have a pair of hearts like hollow graves, rotten and rotting others; and your vengence like to chained bullets, still goes arm in arm; you may be brothers, for treason, like the plague doth take much in blood.’ (Bosola to Ferdinand and the Cardinal)

‘I stand like one that hath long tane a sweet and golden dream. I am angry with myself now that I wake.’ (Bosola’s realisation)

‘these tears, I am certain, never grew in my mother’s milk’ (Bosola cries)

‘but all things have their endl churches and cities, which have dieseases like men must have death that we have.’ (Antonio to Delio)

Antonio: Fly your fate. Echo: O fly your fate!

‘the man I would have saved above mine own life’ (Bosola on killing Antonio)

‘that thou which stood’st like a huge pyramid begun upon a large and ample base, shalt end in a little paint, a kind of nothing’ (Bosola to the Cardinal) 

notes compiled by Amanda Elizabeth Koh  on 1^st September 1998 (Tuesday)

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