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The Duchess of Malfi is a macabre, tragic play, written by the English dramatist John Webster and first performed in 1614 at the Globe Theatre in London, and published for the first time in 1623. It is loosely based on true events that occurred between about 1508 and 1513, recounted in William Painter's The Palace of Pleasure (1567). It begins as a love story, with a Duchess who marries beneath her class, and ends as a nightmarish tragedy as her two brothers exact their revenge, destroying themselves in the process.

The play is sometimes ridiculed by modern critics for the excessive violence and horror in its later scenes^{[citation needed]}. Nevertheless, the complexity of some of its characters, particularly Bosola and the Duchess, and Webster's poetic language, give it a continuing interest, and it is still performed in the 21st century.

Contents 1 Characters 2 Plot 3 Quotations 4 The 1623 Quarto 5 Media Adaptations 6 References 7 In Other Works 8 External links

• Antonio Bologna. The Duchess's steward, and later her husband, recently returned from France, and full of scorn for the Italian courtiers whom he sees as more corrupt than the French. His social status, lower than that of the Duchess's aristocratic family, hinders his relationship with her.
• Delio. A courtier, who tries to woo Julia. A friend of Antonio. His name means I delete.
• Daniel de Bosola. A former servant of the Cardinal, now returned from imprisonment in the galleys. Sent by Ferdinand to spy on the Duchess. Later, on Ferdinand's command, he orders her execution, and still later, he seeks to avenge her. Being the malcontent of the play, he tends to view things cynically, and makes numerous critical comments on the nature of Renaissance society.
• The Cardinal. Brother of the Duchess. A cool, rational, Machiavellian churchman who apparently gained his power through bribery and corruption.
• Ferdinand. The Duke of Calabria, and twin brother of the Duchess. Unlike his rational brother the Cardinal, Ferdinand is given to fits of rage and violent outbursts. He also appears to have an incestuous desire for his twin sister.
• Castruchio. An old lord. His name is a play on the word "castrated", suggesting impotence. He belongs to the conventional character type of the elderly man with a young, unfaithful wife (Julia).
• Roderigo. A courtier.
• Grisolan. A courtier.
• Silvio. A courtier.
• Pescara. A marquis.
• The Duchess. The chief tragic protagonist, and a young widow. She has three children in the play, two sons and a daughter, by Antonio. There is an inconsistency about earlier children by her deceased husband in the play, put down to a careless mistake by Webster himself.
• Cariola. Duchess's waiting-woman. Dies tragically by strangling shortly after the Duchess and the youngest children. Her name is a play on the Italian carriolo meaning "trundle-bed", where personal servants would have slept.
• Julia. Castruchio's wife, and the Cardinal's mistress. She dies at the Cardinal's hands from a poisoned Bible.
• Malateste. A hanger-on at the Cardinal's court. The name means 'headache'.
• Doctor. Sent for to diagnose and remedy Ferdinand's madness and his supposed "lycanthropia".

The play is set in the court of Malfi (now Amalfi), Italy over the period 1504 to 1510. The Duchess, recently widowed, falls in love with Antonio, but her brothers, not wishing her to share their inheritance, forbid her from remarrying. However, she secretly marries Antonio, a lowly steward, and bears him several children.

The Duchess' lunatic and incestuously obsessed brother Ferdinand threatens and disowns her. In an attempt to escape, the Duchess and Antonio concoct a story that Antonio has swindled her out of her fortune and has to flee into exile. She takes Bosola into her confidence, not knowing that he is Ferdinand's spy, and arranges that he will deliver her jewellery to Antonio at his hiding-place in Ancona. She will join them later, whilst pretending to make a pilgrimage to a town nearby. The Cardinal hears of the plan, instructs Bosola to banish the two lovers, and sends soldiers to capture them. Antonio escapes with their eldest son, but the Duchess, her maid and her two younger children are returned to Malfi and executed by Bosola. This experience, combined with a long-standing sense of injustice and his own feeling of a lack of identity, turns Bosola against the Cardinal and his brother, deciding to take up the cause of "Revenge for the Duchess of Malfi" (V.2).

The Cardinal confesses to his mistress Julia his part in the killing of the Duchess, and then murders her to silence her, using a poisoned Bible. Next, Bosola overhears the Cardinal plotting to kill him (though he accepts what he sees as punishment for his actions), and so visits the darkened chapel to kill the Cardinal at his prayers. Instead, he mistakenly kills Antonio, who has just returned to Malfi to attempt a reconciliation with the Cardinal. Ferdinand, who by this time has gone mad, stabs the Cardinal, who dies. In the brawl that follows, Ferdinand and Bosola stab each other to death.

Antonio's elder son by the Duchess appears in the final scene, and takes his place as the heir to the Malfi fortune, despite his father's explicit wish that his son "fly the court of princes", a corrupt and increasingly deadly environment.

We are merely the stars' tennis balls, struck and bandied

Which way please them.

-- Bosola, to Antonio after accidentally stabbing him. Act 5, Sc.4

A Spanish fig for your impudence

-- Bosola, to Antonio after being accused of poisoning the Duchess. Act 2, Sc.2

Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle. She died young

-- Ferdinand, after looking at the dead body of his sister the Duchess. Act 4, Sc.2

Like diamonds we are cut with our own dust.

-- Ferdinand's dying words. Act 5, Sc.5

"Diamonds are of most value

They say, that have pass'd through most jewellers

hands"

-- The Duchess, talking about remarrying

"Whores, by that rule, are precious."

-- Ferdinand, in response to the above quote

The first printed edition contains a combined cast list for two productions of The Duchess of Malfi by the King's Men, ca. 1614 and ca. 1621, providing valuable information about the structure and evolution of the key dramatic company of the era. Webster dedicated the play to George Harding, 8th Baron Berkeley, a noted patron of literature in his era. The phrasing of Webster's dedication indicates that the dramatist was soliciting the Baron's patronage, rather than acknowledging support already given; it is unknown to what degree that solicitation was successful.

Television - In 1972, produced by the BBC
Audio - In 1980, produced by the BBC
Recording - In 1962 read by Dylan Thomas by Caedmon^[1]

1. ^ See [1] for additional info.

• Agatha Christie's detective novel Sleeping Murder, published posthumously in 1976, features a killer who aptly quotes from The Duchess of Malfi immediately after a murder.
• The 1982 detective novel The Skull Beneath the Skin by P. D. James centers around an aging actress who plans to perform The Duchess of Malfi in a Victorian castle theatre. The novel takes its title from T.S. Eliot's famous characterization of Webster's work in his poem 'Whispers of Immortality'. In addition, James's first detective novel, Cover Her Face, takes its title from the quotation listed above.
• Mike Figgis's 2001 film Hotel involves a film crew trying to make a Dogme film of The Duchess of Malfi. The actors playing the Duchess, Antonio and Bosola are played by Saffron Burrows, Max Beesley and Heathcote Williams.
• The title of Stephen Fry's novel The Stars' Tennis Balls is a quotation from the play.
• In the Oxford University Film Foundation's 1982 film Privileged, the students produce and rehearse lines from the play.

• The Complete Text, with Notes and Commentary
• The Duchess of Malfi, available at Project Gutenberg.