In Thomas Kyd’s play The Spanish Tragedy, Revenge is a character that is introduced as the companion of the murdered Don Andrea’s ghost. Revenge and Justice are two main themes that occur constantly throughout the play and are personified by the two female characters; Bel-Imperia and Isabella. Bel-Imperia is the quintessential complex heroine of one of the most popular Renaissance era plays, The Spanish Tragedy. “Women characters often act as mediators for peace, are victims of corruption, and symbolize the welfare of the state” (Voros 146). A war is happening between Spain and Portugal, and Don Andrea is one of the claimed lives. The Spanish Duke of Castile’s daughter, Lady Bel-Imperia has been secretly involved in a relationship with the recently deceased Don Andrea. The passionate sexuality of Bel-Imperia is apparent as we see her lustfully drawn to men of a lower class. The Lady Bel-Imperia, poised at the center of the surrounding drama, is stricken by her lover’s death, but rapidly begins to dote on Horatio, the Knight Marshall of Spain’s son. Horatio had been fighting in Portugal alongside Don Andrea and captures his murderer, Balthazar, the Portuguese Viceroy’s son. Bel-Imperia takes a liking to her lovers avenger, Horatio, son of the knight Hieronimo. Bel-Imperia describes her love as a ship to Horatio, and he, its harbor. The King of Spain, in an attempt to conquer Portugal and bring the two nations together peacefully, decides to marry Bel-Imperia to Balthazar. Balthazar is indeed enchanted with the beautiful Bel-Imperia, but she does not feel the same for him. Her brother, Lorenzo, asks Balthazar how Bel-Imperia is reacting to his courting her and he replies, “Yet might she love me to uprear her state. I; but perhaps she [loves] some nobler mate. Yet might she love me as her beauties thrall. I; but I fear she cannot love at all” (Kyd II, i). Balthazar observes the passion in his prize. Bel-Imperia’s effeminized masculinity, underlined by Balthazar shows how complex her character is, “She is wilder, and more hard withall, than beast or bird, or tree or stony wall! But wherefore blot I Bel-Imperia’s name?” (Kyd II, i). The metaphors with which Balthazar describes the heroine are all either powerful, strong (the beast, tree, wall), and/or free (the bird). When Balthazar and Lorenzo discover that Bel-Imperia is in love with Horatio, they plan the killing of Horatio to leave Bel-Imperia no other choice but to love Balthazar and marry him. The radical and uncontrollable factor in the king’s marriage plan makes it improbable in that Bel-Imperia is a wild mustang; untamable. Bel-Imperia’s unwillingness to be conquered emphasizes her paradoxical masculinity, and her power to carry out an act of revenge.
Bel-Imperia’s sexuality is truly her only power and she embraces it to control her own destiny. In conversation with Horatio, Bel-Imperia’s ship metaphor creates an understanding of how independent she is. “My heart, sweet friend, is like a ship at sea: She wisheth port, where, riding all at ease, She may repair what stormy times have worn, And, leaning on the shore, may sing with joy, That pleasure follows pain, and bliss annoy” (Kyd II, i). The ship and harbor metaphor parallels the relationship between the conquering of Portugal and the conquering of Bel-Imperia by Balthazar. Corruption takes over and motivates the king to use Bel-Imperia as a pawn in his conquering of Portugal, decides to have her marry the young Balthazar. Little to the king’s attention, Balthazar is the one who murdered Don Andrea. To little surprise, Bel-Imperia would rather kill him and herself than marry him. “Yet although the Spanish heiress does conform to this dark convention, she does so only after she has been granted the stereotypically masculine ‘privilege’ of killing her enemy, Balthazar. This murder is the pinnacle of Bel-Imperia’s departure from the limited sphere of womanly expectation” (Grimmett). Bel Imperia’s suicide is a personal sacrifice that restores order to the court. Not only is she bound to herself but, she is bound to her people, she commits the act of revenge to prove justice exists, and to prove her own integrity. As a woman, she is already marginalized, silenced, and imprisoned since her father and Lorenzo sequesters her to Balthazar.
As Hieronimo, the Knight Marshall of Spain, seeks justice for Horatio’s murder, investigating everyone in the court in an attempt to discover who is responsible for killing Horatio, Isabella’s reaction to Horatio’s death assists in constructing a stereotypical weak feminine presence in The Spanish Tragedy. True to the misogyny of the times, a traditional woman like Isabella secretly succumbs to her powerlessness within society. Isabella, Horatio’s mother, commits suicide as a social statement or protest against the unjust action of her son’s planned murder. She fulfills the female wife/mother stereotype whose life revolves around her family, and without her son or her husband, she has nothing else to live for. Hoping for justice, Isabella realizes the corruption within the Spanish court and the only possible outcome of Hieronimo’s revenge will end in his death as well. After Horatio is killed, Isabella’s suicide forebodes the death of Hieronimo. Isabella’s strength is a very subdued and powerless one, where she would rather end her life than wait until she is the last one standing, since Hieronimo will meet his fate is seeking justice for their son’s murder. Isabella’s death is a simple poetic justice where her reaction is a result equal to another action. Isabella’s suicide does not actively seek revenge, like that of Bel-Imperia. “Whilst the heiress clearly does not embody a paradigm of angelic chastity, we cannot entirely condemn her transgressions either, since they illustrate the converse social vulnerability of any woman who does attempt to fulfill such unrealistic models” (Grimmett). Bel-Imperia commits suicide only after she has found justice in killing Balthazar. Bel-Imperia’s character goes a step further in killing Balthazar she restores order to the court, and becomes the ultimate avenger.
The importance of the character Revenge makes one question arise, if justice has been served at the end of the play. Justice is usually carried out by the law however it is the law that has ordered the murder of Horatio. When the law is corrupt, justice is taken into the very hands of Hieronimo. Hieronimo is the highest ranking knight in the king’s court, so it is fitting that he is the only one who can avenge his son Horatio’s death, and the subsequent death of Isabella, Horatio’s mother, who commits suicide upon hearing the news of his death. Hieronimo has the motivation for revenge, but could not be justified in murdering the killer of his son, especially when it is Lorenzo, Bel-Imperia’s brother, this is why he kills himself at the end of the play within a play. Hieronimo must devise a plan to kill Lorenzo, so he organizes a play for all to act in to display for the Duke to see. The plan for revenge involves all the court including Belimperia, who actually does get the satisfaction of killing Balthazaar herself, followed by her own suicide. Justice cannot be served without revenge, because of the corrupt court, there is no trial or prison sentence, available if Hieronimo could even prove the case. Hieronimo’s only choice for justice it seems is conclusively to take an eye for an eye, in this case, a life for a life.
Revenge in this play is symbolized by murder committed in a couple of ways. Beginning with revenge for Don Andrea’s death, Horatio captures Balthazaar. Revenge for Horatio’s death is climactically Belimperia’s murder-suicide of Balthazaar and then herself. Horatio’s death is also avenged in waves by Isabella’s suicide, and then by Hieronimo’s suicide later on. Both Horatio’s parents commit suicide at different points in the play over the corrupt murder of their son. Revenge is a reciprocal action evening out the playing field. Death is a tragedy, but revenge of death by death is a double tragedy.
Madeline Bertot 