How we cite our quotes: Act.Scene
Quote #1
Lodo. …Fortune's a right whore:
If she give aught, she deals it in small parcels,
That she may take away all at one swoop. (1.1)
Lodovico doesn't see any greater meaning or higher purpose in Fortune or Fate. He sees Fortune as primarily vengeful—draining away life and honor after it gives you just a little. It's a pretty pessimistic way of seeing things.
Quote #2
Flam. …Tis just like a summer bird-cage in a garden: the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out. (1.2)
This is Flamineo, riffing on marriage. It's an old-timey version of the dumb "can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em saw." (Yeah, we could've put this in the "Family" theme section—but it's a pessimistic statement so why not put it here?)
Quote #3
Vit. …No, I do scorn to call up one poor tear
To fawn on your injustice: bear me hence
Unto this house of—what's your mitigating title?Mont. Of convertites.
Vit. It shall not be a house of convertites:
My mind shall make it honester to me
Than the Pope's palace, and more peaceable
Than thy soul, though thou art a cardinal.
Know this, and let it somewhat raise your spite,
Through darkness diamonds spread their richest light. (3.2)
Vittoria seems pretty Stoic here. Like Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, the great Stoic philosophers, Vittoria knows that if she can't control what's going on outside of her, she can at least control her own mind, and try to use it to see external events in a more positive light… Basically, life is giving her lemons and she's making lemonade.
Quote #4
Flam. …We endure the strokes like anvils or hard steel,
Till pain itself make us no pain to feel. (3.3)
This is a villain's version of "pain is medicine for the soul." We learn how to resist pain, or get over pain, by experiencing it. This saying has a Stoic tinge to it, although Flamineo is way too evil for a genuine Stoic.
Quote #5
Flam…Religion, oh, how it is commeddled with policy! The first blood shed in the world happened about religion. Would I were a Jew!
Marc. Oh, there are too many!
Flam. You are deceived; there are not Jews enough, priests enough, nor gentlemen enough.
Marc. How?
Flam. I 'll prove it; for if there were Jews enough, so many Christians would not turn usurers; if priests enough, one should not have six benefices; and if gentlemen enough, so many early mushrooms, whose best growth sprang from a live by begging… (3.3)
Flamineo counters his brother's reprehensible Anti-Semitism with some clever, pseudo-Machiavellian reasoning: if there were more Jews, there wouldn't be so many Christian usurers (money-lenders).
Quote #6
Lodo. Precious rogue!
We'll never part.Flam. Never, till the beggary of courtiers,
The discontent of churchmen, want of soldiers,
And all the creatures that hang manacled,
Worse than strappadoed, on the lowest felly
Of fortune's wheel, be taught, in our two lives,
To scorn that world which life of means deprives. (3.3)
Flamineo and Lodovico are both guys who believe in getting while the getting's good. They have a Machiavellian outlook: a life that has no "means" (no opportunity to get on in the world and get what's good) isn't worth living at all. And they're both willing to do anything to get that life—even if it's immoral.
Quote #7
Lodo. …Ud's death! how did my sword miss him?
These rogues that are most weary of their lives
Still 'scape the greatest dangers. (3.3)
Paradoxically, cynical rogues like Flamineo manage to survive longest. Maybe it's because their pessimistic worldview is more realistic and actually gives them a leg up?
Quote #8
Fran. 'Tis a ridiculous thing for a man to be his own chronicle: I did never wash my mouth with mine own praise, for fear of getting a stinking breath.
Marc. You 're too stoical. The duke will expect other discourse from you.
Fran. I shall never flatter him: I have studied man too much to do that. What difference is between the duke and I? no more than between two bricks, all made of one clay: only 't may be one is placed in top of a turret, the other in the bottom of a well, by mere chance. If I were placed as high as the duke, I should stick as fast, make as fair a show, and bear out weather equally.
Flam. If this soldier had a patent to beg in churches, then he would tell them stories. (5.1)
Marcello criticizes Francisco for being too "stoical", rather than singing his own praises. Francisco—or at least the North African soldier he's pretending to be—believes in Stoic principles like the basic equality of people and avoiding bluster and egotism. Flamineo cynically says Francisco ("Mulinassar") probably would beg in churches and boast about his past to get charity, if he needed to.
Quote #9
Flam. Misery of princes,
That must of force be censur'd by their slaves!
Not only blam'd for doing things are ill,
But for not doing all that all men will:
One were better be a thresher. (5.3)
This might be a pessimistic viewpoint—but it's actually closer to the Greek philosophy of Epicureanism (the main rival of Stoicism). The Epicureans thought it was better to "live unknown" and enjoy simple pleasures, rather than to strive for power and success.
Quote #10
Flam… I have liv'd
Riotously ill, like some that live in court,
And sometimes when my face was full of smiles,
Have felt the maze of conscience in my breast.
Oft gay and honour'd robes those tortures try:
We think cag'd birds sing, when indeed they cry. (5.4)
This is fairly pessimistic in tone. Flamineo admits that he's full of inner sadness and has affected a cheerful, devil-may-care attitude on the outside. He suggests, with the bird comment, that this might be the way a lot of people and beings in the world behave: happy on the outside, sad on the inside.
Quote #11
Flam. …Fate 's a spaniel,
We cannot beat it from us. What remains now?
Let all that do ill, take this precedent:
Man may his fate foresee, but not prevent;
And of all axioms this shall win the prize:
'Tis better to be fortunate than wise. (5.6)
This is another pessimistic statement from Flamineo. Wisdom isn't even necessary, just a good fate (which is out of our control). If you have a bad fate, you can't escape it, since it's inevitable. And if you have a good fate you can't escape it either… Flamineo should probably shrug in the stage directions after he says this.
Quote #12
Lodo. …What dost think on?
Flam. Nothing; of nothing: leave thy idle questions.
I am i' th' way to study a long silence:
To prate were idle. I remember nothing.
There 's nothing of so infinite vexation
As man's own thoughts. (5.6)
Flamineo seems to think that death is "a long silence"—he's not concerned about going to hell, and he doesn't think about heaven or God as he's about to die. His main belief is in nothingness, and that's what he expects will greet him after death.