The Duchess of Malfi: Act 4, Scene 2 Summary & Analysis

In the Amalfi palace, the Duchess and Cariola hear a horrible noise offstage. Cariola says that it’s the cohort of madmen that Ferdinand relocated from the asylum to torture the Duchess and keep her sleepless. The Duchess replies that the madmen’s noise and nonsense actually keep her distracted, while silence and reason drive her insane. She then asks Cariola to tell her a tragic tale to make her own grief seem smaller. She comments that, like a bird in a cage, she will not live long. The Duchess says she wishes it were possible to commune with the dead so that she could learn from them. She says it’s a miracle that she hasn’t gone insane yet, but she acknowledges that she is becoming more comfortable with her suffering.

A servant then enters and informs them that Ferdinand is sending in the madmen as a sort of cure to treat her melancholy. The servant describes some of the madmen who will enter, including a mad lawyer, a secular priest, a doctor, an astrologer and a crazed English tailor. The madmen enter, sing a song, take turns speaking nonsense, and do a dance. Then Bosola enters, disguised as an old man, and the madmen and the servant exit.

Bosola says that he has come to make the Duchess’s tomb. She asks if he thinks that she is sick, and he responds that he does, and that it’s all the more dangerous since the disease is unfelt and therefore undetectable to her. She asks if he knows her, and he responds that she is a mummy. He launches into a speech about the fragility of flesh and he likens the body to a prison of the soul. She asks if she is his duchess, and he responds that she’s a great woman and that her hairs are going gray early. He tells her that she loses sleep because of her debauchery.

At this point, the Duchess proclaims that she is still the Duchess of Malfi. She calls Bosola plain (though she doesn’t know his identity), and he responds that he’s simply a tomb maker there to flatter the dead. She asks what the tomb will be made of and how the dead are prepared in the tombs before asking him why he has really come. He says that he’ll explain, and as he says it Executioners enter with a coffin, cords, and a bell. Bosola tells the Duchess that the executioners are a present from her brothers, and that she is going to die.

In the face of this horror, she says that she has obedience in her blood and explains that death does not frighten her. Bosola rings the bell, and then gives a rhyming speech to prepare the Duchess for death. Cariola starts yelling for help, but the Duchess knows that it is hopeless and, as executioners force Cariola out, the Duchess asks Cariola to look after her children. The Duchess says she’s not afraid of death since she’ll meet such good company in the next world. Bosola replies that the cord should terrify her, but she says that it doesn’t matter how she dies, since there are thousands of ways to die. She asks her killers to tell her brothers that death is the best gift that they can give her, and she asks them to give her body to her women once she is dead. Once one executioner agrees, she tells him to pull strongly. The Duchess kneels and calls out for violent death to serve as a stupefying drug and put her to sleep. The executioners then strangle her.

Bosola instructs some of the executioners to go and strangle the children. Cariola is brought by other executioners back into the room, and she begins begging for her life. She says that she can’t die yet, since she hasn’t had a judicial hearing, but Bosola ignores this. She pleads that she is engaged, but an executioner says that the noose will be her wedding ring. She tells them that if she dies now she’ll be damned since she hasn’t been to confession for two years, and she even says that she’s pregnant, but they strangle her anyway and exit with her body.

Ferdinand enters and asks if the Duchess is dead, to which Bosola responds that she is. Bosola asks what the children have done to deserve this fate, but Ferdinand says the death of young wolves is not to be pitied. He stares at the Duchess’s body, and Bosola asks if this causes him to weep, since, while other sins speak, “murder shrieks out” and “blood flies upwards” to heaven. Ferdinand says that she died young, but Bosola says he thinks she suffered for too long and covers her face.

Ferdinand then reveals that he and the Duchess were twins, and he asks Bosola to uncover her face. He asks why Bosola didn’t pity the Duchess and disobey him, saying that if Bosola had disobeyed he might have prevented this revenge from happening. Ferdinand confesses that he had hoped that the Duchess wouldn’t marry so that he could inherit her wealth, and he adds that Bosola is like a good actor cursed to play a villain in a tragedy. Bosola asks for payment, and Ferdinand says that he’ll pay him with a pardon, since technically the death was ordered extra-judicially and is therefore a murder. Ferdinand threateningly tells Bosola that Bosola will die for this crime, and when Bosola asks who will reveal it, Ferdinand responds that wolves will find the Duchess’s grave and dig her up to reveal the murder.

Bosola demands his payment, but Ferdinand rebuffs Bosola’s request and tells him to get out of his sight. Bosola says that Ferdinand and his brother have rotten hearts, and that they are truly brothers since treason, like the plague, runs in the blood. Bosola says that he feels like he has woken up from a dream and is now angry at himself for serving the Duke even though he hated what he was doing. Bosola says he only obeyed because he believed his duty to the Duke was greater than his guilt and his desire not to do the evil acts. The Duke admits it was an act of darkness, and exits.

Bosola reflects that if he had the opportunity to do everything again, he wouldn’t trade peace of conscience for all of the wealth in Europe. He then notices that the Duchess is stirring, and he calls on her soul to return and lead his to hell. For a moment, she wakes up and says “Antonio?” Bosola tells her that her husband is in fact alive, explaining briefly that the dead bodies she saw were tricks. The Duchess cries “mercy” and then dies for real.

Bosola cries over her death, exhibiting what he calls “manly sorrow,” and he notes that he wishes that he had allowed these emotions to sway him when she was still alive. He decides to carry out her last will by bringing her body to the women like she requested. Afterwards, he says, he’ll head to Milan.