How we cite our quotes: Act.Scene
Quote #1
Flam. …Her coyness! that 's but the superficies of lust most women have; yet why should ladies blush to hear that named, which they do not fear to handle? Oh, they are politic; they know our desire is increased by the difficulty of enjoying; whereas satiety is a blunt, weary, and drowsy passion. If the buttery-hatch at court stood continually open, there would be nothing so passionate crowding, nor hot suit after the beverage. (1.2)
Flamineo mocks the "coyness" of women—he claims that women act embarrassed about sexual talk, but not about the actual act itself. He argues that this is just a way of playing hard to get—they all want sex, but by acting shy or coy about it, they feed the male sexual appetite. Um…why don't you ask the ladies to verify that one, Flam?
Quote #2
Isab… Are all these ruins of my former beauty
Laid out for a whore's triumph? (2.1)
Isabella angrily calls Vittoria a "whore," and laments that her own beauty has fallen apart. By comparing it to ruins, it's like she's some ancient, noble, forgotten city, whereas Vittoria is just some newcomer setting up a sleazy sin city on top of it.
Quote #3
Mont. I shall be plainer with you, and paint out
Your follies in more natural red and white
Than that upon your cheek.Vit. Oh, you mistake!
You raise a blood as noble in this cheek
As ever was your mother's. (3.2)
Monticelso is playing off the idea of a "painted lady"—a prostitute who wears a lot of makeup. Vittoria boldly says that she doesn't wear any, and her cheeks are made red by noble blood, just like Monticelso's mother's. It's a pretty brave, cheeky thing to say (no pun intended).
Quote #4
Mont. Shall I expound whore to you? sure I shall;
I 'll give their perfect character. They are first,
Sweetmeats which rot the eater; in man's nostrils
Poison'd perfumes. They are cozening alchemy;
Shipwrecks in calmest weather. What are whores!
Cold Russian winters, that appear so barren,
As if that nature had forgot the spring.
They are the true material fire of hell:
Worse than those tributes i' th' Low Countries paid,
Exactions upon meat, drink, garments, sleep,
Ay, even on man's perdition, his sin. (3.2)
Monticelso's attack on "whores" reaches a peak of near-madness pretty quickly. This is supposed to feel deranged—it turns off everyone in the court, and Francisco needs to add a note of rationality and moderation.
Quote #5
They are those brittle evidences of law,
Which forfeit all a wretched man's estate
For leaving out one syllable. What are whores!
They are those flattering bells have all one tune,
At weddings, and at funerals. Your rich whores
Are only treasuries by extortion fill'd,
And emptied by curs'd riot. They are worse,
Worse than dead bodies which are begg'd at gallows,
And wrought upon by surgeons, to teach man
Wherein he is imperfect. What's a whore!
She 's like the guilty counterfeited coin,
Which, whosoe'er first stamps it, brings in trouble
All that receive it. (3.2)
This is just part two of Monticelso's tirade—the same comments above apply.
Quote #6
Vit. You are deceiv'd:
For know, that all your strict-combined heads,
Which strike against this mine of diamonds,
Shall prove but glassen hammers: they shall break.
These are but feigned shadows of my evils.
Terrify babes, my lord, with painted devils,
I am past such needless palsy. For your names
Of 'whore' and 'murderess', they proceed from you,
As if a man should spit against the wind,
The filth returns in 's face. (3.2)
Vittoria's rebuttal is way more convincing than Monticelso's unhinged rant. But that's part of the irony—we, the audience, know that Vittoria's not being entirely honest. It forces us to marvel at how genuine she seems.
Quote #7
Vit. …Take it for words—O woman's poor revenge
Which dwells but in the tongue, I will not weep… (3.2)
Vittoria argues that women can only get revenge verbally—which would be a poignant cry against patriarchy, if we didn't know that Vittoria played a crucial role in a plot to murder her husband and her lover's wife (which goes a little bit beyond verbal violence).
Quote #8
Brach. Right! there are plots. Your beauty! Oh, ten thousand curses on 't! How long have I beheld the devil in crystal! Thou hast led me, like an heathen sacrifice, With music, and with fatal yokes of flowers, To my eternal ruin. Woman to man Is either a god, or a wolf. (4.2)
Brachiano attacks Vittoria when he thinks she's cheated on him (she hasn't) and makes a crazy generalization about all women. Unable to accept that he basically chose to murder his own wife and Camillo (though Vittoria had some input, it seems), he casts off blame on her beauty.
Quote #9
Flam. What a damn'd imposthume is a woman's will!
Can nothing break it? [Aside.] Fie, fie, my lord,
Women are caught as you take tortoises,
She must be turn'd on her back. Sister, by this hand
I am on your side. (4.2)
Flamineo sees women as being excessively willful—which is funny, since he and Vittoria are both incredibly willful, in a negative way.
Quote #10
Vit. O ye dissembling men!
Flam. We suck'd that, sister,
From women's breasts, in our first infancy. (4.2)
Flamineo claims that the male ability to fake people out is really inherited from women, who are the true masters of deception. Charming.
Quote #11
Flam… Know, many glorious women that are fam'd
For masculine virtue, have been vicious,
Only a happier silence did betide them:
She hath no faults, who hath the art to hide them. (5.6)
Flamineo cynically says that many women famed for virtue were really guilty of sin—it's just that no one ever discovered it. Being someone who loves to deceive, Flamineo tends to find deception in others, as well.