Malfi

• "he and his brother are like plum trees that grow crooked over standing pools; they are rick and overladen with fruit, but none but crows, pies, and caterpillars feed on them"
• "I am Duchess of malfi still"
• "for know whether I am doomed to live, or die, I can do both like a prince" (Duchess)
• "diamonds are of most value, they say, that have passed through most jewellers hands"
• "we are forced to woo because none dare woo us"
• "French courtiers wear their hats on before the king"
• "take fire when I give fire, that is, laugh when I laugh"
• "how tedious is a guilty conscience" (cardinal)
• "black-birds fatten best in hard weather; why not I in these dog days"
• "whores, by that rule, are precious"
• "two letters that are wrought here for my name are drowned in blood"
• "tis not your whore's milk that shall quench my wild-fire but your whore's blood"
• "this deadly air is purged"
• "I do not like this jesting with religion"
• RIBNER: "bosola is the most important unifying element in the Duchess of malfi"
• MURRAY: "the radiant spirit of the duchess cannot be killed"
• OAKES: "the duchess becomes the woman carved in stone that Ferdinand wanted her to be"
• HART: "the brothers are not driven by any sense of possessive outrage, but by a delight in malice itself"
• BLISS: "the cardinals cool, unemotional detachment is more terrifying than Ferdinand impassioned raving"
• ROIDER: "the play is a cautionary tale which shows what can happen when women marry without being granted the proper consent"
• PACHECO: "the Duchess' power in hindered by the fact that she is a woman in a patriarchal society"
• GREENBLATT: "Ferdinand's rage at his sister's marriage is an expression of his own sexual frustration"