The Jew of Malta Act 3, Scene 4 Summary

  • Barabas is reading a letter from Abigail, and is pissed to find out that she's decided to become a nun For Real Now.
  • He figures out that she knows he arranged Lodowick and Mathias's deaths.
  • Barabas is so angry that he disowns Abigail on the spot, and takes up Ithamore as his heir.
  • Well, not quite. He tells Ithamore that he has one final thing for him to do, before he truly becomes Barabas's heir and thereby achieves the right to inherit all of his stuff.
  • He asks Ithamore to bring in a pot of porridge, and when he arrives with it Barabas explains that he's going to poison Abigail with it.
  • We hereby confiscate Barabas's Number One Dad coffee mug.
  • He tells Ithamore to sneak the poisoned porridge into the nunnery. Since Ithamore can't exactly hand deliver the porridge to Abigail, so they're going to have to poison the entire nunnery.
  • Ithamore runs off to the nunnery with the porridge, excited that he only has one final thing to do before he gets his big payoff.
  • Wrong! Barabas is actually already plotting against Ithamore. DUN DUN DUN.