The Revenger's Tragedy Lust Quotes

Vindice kicks off the play with a complaint about how lustful the Duke's family is. Mostly, the play proves him to be pretty accurate in his assessment. But is what he says about Spurio here fair? Sure, Spurio was born out of wedlock, but that's hardly his fault, even if, like Vindice, you consider sex outside marriage a sin.

Gee, Lussurioso's not doing so well at proving Vindice wrong. He even calls himself "past my depth in lust," which is a fancy old-timey way of saying he's in over his head with longing. Since their society places such a premium on chastity and marriage, it seems pretty unfair for him to call Castiza "foolish-chaste." Maybe she's happy as a virgin; maybe she's just not into him; or maybe she just knows that her chastity is the only thing she really has going for her as a poor woman.

Go Castiza. There's some serious girl power here as Castiza refuses a sexual offer she doesn't want, even though Lussurioso is wealthy and powerful and she's poor. But should she have to consider society's expectations about her honor, or should she be able to make this decision based on her own beliefs and emotions?

Castiza may be brave enough to hold out for what she wants, but her mother seems really worried about being poor—so much so that she's willing to pressure her own daughter to have sex for money. From a character perspective, do you think she's right that Castiza is more likely to cave in to pressure from her mother than bribes from Lussurioso?

Vindice thinks that practically everyone is having illicit sex. Seems like there's something unhealthy about his obsession with it—they might be having it, but he's the one thinking about it nonstop.

This is getting seriously creepy. Vindice plans to trick the Duke into kissing the poisoned skull, believing it to be a living woman (those must be some seriously low lights). But the big point is that, as usual in revenge tragedy, the Duke will be undone by his own sins as much as by Vindice's plotting. Lust made the Duke kill Gloriana, and lust will bring him to the place where Vindice kills him.

Castiza's pretty spunky, and she's not going to let someone else drag her away from what she believes is right. In a play where women are all too often pawns or victims in a conflict among men, she holds on to her integrity and asserts herself by insisting on her commitment to chastity.

This play probably won't be quoted in any Mother's Day cards, but at least we get a happy reconciliation between mother and daughter here. It's also one of the play's few positive comments relating to sex. Castiza's mother sees giving birth to her daughter as one thing that saves her, so sex and childbirth do have some positive function in the play.

Lots of irony in this one. Lussurioso doesn't seem to be in a great position to criticize other people for lustfulness, but it's interesting that the Duchess only gets banished, while most of the other wicked characters die. Is this because she doesn't kill anyone, even though she has been lustful? The play may be drawing a distinction between her and the rest of her family, who are lustful and murderous.

Well, at least a few characters are safe from lust, which the play seems to see as one of the primary dangers to a human soul (feel free to disagree). Castiza escapes seduction and the risk of violence that has threatened so many of the other chaste women in the play.