finished_summaries/gradesaver/The White Devil/section_0_part_0.txt
The White Devil.act 1.scene 1-scene 2
act 1
{"name": "Act 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180409073731/http://www.gradesaver.com/the-white-devil/study-guide/summary-act-1", "summary": "The play opens in Rome. Three men enter: Count Lodovico, and his two friends Antonelli and Gasparo. Antonelli and Gasparo tell Lodovico that he has been banished from Italy for his crimes, and explain that his noblemen friends now laugh at his misery, considering him like a worthless meteor pulled from the earth - an evil omen. Gasparo reveals that Lodovico has been banished because he has murdered several people in Rome. When Lodovico asks why the court will not simply execute him, Gasparo explains that the court wants to prevent further bloodshed and give Lodovico a chance at penance. Lodovico complains that other wicked men are spared banishment. He offers as example the Duke of Brachiano, who is secretly trying to seduce Vittoria Corombona. Antonelli tries to soothe Lodovico, but Lodovico instead threatens to cut his enemies into shreds. Lodovico finally accepts his fate and decides to leave. Before he goes, he gives Gasparo and Antonelli money with which to try and repeal his banishment. Scene 2 Brachiano, Camillo, Flamineo, Vittoria, and several unidentified gentlemen, holding torches, enter. Vittoria welcomes Brachiano to Rome, and then leaves with Camillo, her husband. Flamineo, her brother, whispers to Brachiano that she will meet with him in private, and then tells the men with torches to leave. Now that they are alone, Flamineo can speak to Brachiano freely. He explains that Vittoria is enamored of Brachiano, and that her servant, Zanche the Moor, will help facilitate an affair. He also criticizes feminine coyness, accusing women of manipulating men's desire for their own gain. When Brachiano inquires about the obstacle of Camillo, Flamineo quickly dismisses him, claiming Camillo has grown dispassionate and impotent because of syphilis. Hearing Camillo returning, Flamineo tells Brachiano to hide in the closet so that Flamineo can trick Camillo. Under his breath, Flamineo mocks Camillo's rich clothing and poor wit as the latter enters. Flamineo asks Camillo if he is going to Vittoria's bed, and Camillo admits that he cannot remember the last time he slept with Vittoria. Flamineo laments that Camillo has lost his \"count,\" punning on the similarity of the word to \"cunt.\" Camillo then admits his suspicion over Brachiano's motives. He compares Brachiano's visit to a game of bowls, subtly accusing Brachiano of \"bowl booty,\" or of conspiring with another player against a third in order to get a desired object . Flamineo dismisses Camillo's fears, insisting Camillo is both wise and born under lucky stars, but Camillo counters, claiming that the stars have nothing to do with being cuckolded. Flamineo sarcastically advises him to lock Vittoria up for a fortnight, to ensure he will not be cuckolded. When Camillo pleads for serious advice, Flamineo suggests that women are most chaste when they have the most liberty. He claims Camillo's jealousy is coloring his vision, making him see threats where there are none. Vittoria enters, and Flamineo tells Camillo to watch from a distance as he convinces his sister to sleep with Camillo. Flamineo pulls Vittoria aside, where he privately tells her that Camillo is upset. She insists she was respectful to him at dinner - she \"carved\" to him, in her language. He puns in response, saying she didn't need to \"carve\" him, since he already has the reputation of being a eunuch. He then loudly compliments Camillo, so that the latter can hear, and Camillo remarks to himself that Flamineo will now arouse Vittoria. However, Flamineo privately undermines his compliments in conversation with Vittoria, even as he continues to speak them aloud. Aloud so that Camillo can hear, Flamineo tells Vittoria that she will go to bed with \"his lord,\" who will give her a ring adorned with a philosopher's stone as they lie in a bed stuffed with turtle dove feathers. Camillo believes \"lord\" refers to him, wheras Flamineo is subtly suggesting Brachiano to his sister. She quietly asks Flamineo how they will get rid of Camillo, and Flamineo then speaks to Camillo, suggesting she is almost ready, but that he should deny her this night so as to increase her desire for the next night. Camillo thanks Flamineo for his wise advice, and tells Vittoria that he will not sleep with her that night. Flamineo asks how he can ensure Camillo will not renege on his commitment to wait, and Camillo offers to be locked in his room for assurance. He then leaves, happy with the way things have gone. As Camillo leaves, Brachiano enters from the shadows where he was hiding, and begins wooing Vittoria with courtly vows. At the same time, Zanche brings out a carpet and two pillows to set up a bed for their affair. Cornelia, Vittoria and Flamineo's mother, enters and hears the planning. She laments to herself how her family is sinking into ruin, predicting that this affair will ruin them all. Brachiano gives Vittoria a jewel for her \"jewel,\" punning on the female sexual organ, and tells her to wear it at the base of her dress bodice. Vittoria then tells him of her most recent dream. She was sitting under a yew tree when Brachiano's wife and Camillo confronted her, accusing her of trying to uproot the yew. They decided to bury her alive and began to dig a grave for her, when the yew tree killed them with one of its branches. Flamineo whispers to himself that the smart and devilish Vittoria has subtly insisted that Brachiano kill his wife and Camillo. Brachiano promises to protect Vittoria from their spouses, and to devote himself to her entirely. Cornelia enters from the shadows as Flamineo chases Zanche away. She lectures Vittoria and Brachiano on the sinfulness of their illicit relationship, and Vittoria pleads with her mother to understand. Cornelia reveals that Brachiano's sick wife is returning to Rome, and Vittoria protests that she could only have resisted Brachiano's love at the cost of bloodshed. Together, Cornelia and Vittoria kneel for forgiveness, and Vittoria flees from shame. Flamineo insists to Brachiano that he can bring her back, but Brachiano is upset, and tells Cornelia that she has stirred up a storm. He then leaves. Flamineo accuses Cornelia of betrayal, insisting this was the only way he knew to increase his and the family's financial and social position. Cornelia regrets having given birth to him, and he counters that he would rather have been born to a prostitute in Rome. Cornelia leaves upset, and Flamineo resolves to continue with his mischief, using deception and indirect methods if necessary.", "analysis": "As a revenge tragedy, John Webster's The White Devil promises its audience imminent violence, bloodshed, and betrayal. It delivers on all counts. Few characters in the work are marked by goodness or purity, and the perspective on humanity is rather bleak and pessimistic. However, to Webster's credit, he also mostly avoids a simplistic understanding of evil, by giving his villains motives that are as much symptoms of society as of original sin. Significantly, Webster chooses to open his play with the scene of Lodovico's banishment. Lodovico is a side character compared to Brachiano, Vittoria, or Flamineo, yet he both opens and closes the play. Arguably, this is because his story so perfectly encapsulates the play's conflict between powerful social forces and the anarchic individual. Lodovico is a dangerous man without any regard for law and order, and he is banished precisely because he openly refuses to bow before the laws of the land. The Roman rulers have decided  that Lodovico is too unstable and violent to live within their society, and so wish him gone. Similarly, the same social forces will reject Vittoria for her unruly sexuality, and Brachiano for his unbridled lust. These social forces, however, are not to be trusted as inexorably just. In fact, Flamineo wishes not to flaunt these forces but rather to be embraced by them, and through Flamineo's social-climbing, Webster makes an implicit attack on the forces of money and power than define society. Like Lodovico, Flamineo is a desperate and dangerous man who will balk at nothing to get what he wants, including prostituting his sister and killing his own brother, but he does so surreptitiously. He wishes respect and acceptance, whereas Lodovico is willing to forgo those. One distinction is that Flamineo is born poor, and hence has to rely on his wit to balance the score with his social 'betters.' His use of wit, puns, and double-entendres touches on the discrepancy between what appears and what truly is, a crucial motif in the play. One instance of Flamineo's wit comes when Camillo remarks that he cannot remember that last time that he and Vittoria slept together, and Flamineo responds, \"Strange you should lose your count.\" Flamineo is superficially referring to Camillo's count of the days since his last union with Vittoria, but he also is referring to female genitals, punning on the pronunciation of the word \"count.\" This distinction between what appears and what is, extends from Flamineo's verbal acrobatics to the moral natures of many of the play's characters. Flamineo is a low-born man but will use subterfuge to gain prestige even as he does not admit his goal to anyone but his mother. However, class inequality is not the only factor that creates a hierarchy forcing people to use subterfuge for their gain. Women, too, are rather powerless unless they use manipulation. Flamineo indicates as much in his first conversation with Brachiano, but the latter is nevertheless easily fooled when Vittoria plants the idea of murder by relating her dream.  In the dream , she subtly compares Brachiano to the yew tree, which has several psychological implications. The first is a compliment to his ego - the tree is large, a foundation, a powerful institution that dwarfs the people under it. However, the language is also effective, as \"yew\" is a homophone of \"you,\" which leads Brachiano to associate himself with the tree. Its final rhetorical effect relies on the symbolic connection between a yew tree and death, a common motif in revenge tragedy. While Vittoria never explicitly admits that she uses the dream as tactic, the play's general perspective on humanity, and her later admission that a woman's only weapon is her words, suggest that she is compensating for her lack of power through a trickery similar to that of her brother. What she presents is not what she truly is, which conforms to one of the play's most pervasive themes. A woman's position in the world is also explored through the fear of cuckoldry that Camillo expresses in his discussion with Flamineo. A cuckold is a husband whose wife has been unfaithful to him. The word stems from the cuckoo bird, who is known to change mates frequently and lay its eggs in other nests. The many references to a cuckold's horns refer to the mating practice of stags, where defeated male stags lose their horns. As the husband of the unfaithful Vittoria, Camillo is a classic cuckold. Traditionally, there were fewer worse insults that a man could suffer, whereas male infidelity was nowhere near as grievous. The extremity of the fear serves as reminder that a wife was considered as much possession as partner, and hence was limited in her agency. Flamineo manipulates this excessive fear. While Vittoria keeps Camillo sexually impotent by refusing to copulate with him, Flamineo emasculates him verbally by subtly insulting him over and over again. Cornelia's entrance at the end of Scene Two evokes a symbolic morality play. Morality plays, popular in the medieval period, usually detailed one individual's path as he fell from innocence into sin, repented, and was ultimately saved. The plays personified concepts like virtues and sins in order to make them more understandable. In the case of The White Devil, Brachiano and Vittoria's love-bed would likely be placed at the center of the stage, with Flamineo and Zanche representing Vice on one side, and Cornelia representing Virtue on the other. The contrast between the two groups vividly and visually depicts the two possibilities for the lovers. Invoking these morality plays makes the play's narrative arc easier to understand, and it prepares the audience for the imminent drama. Of course, Webster's morality is far more ambiguous, and he ends his Act with Flamineo to remind us that evil comes not from simple choice, but rather from complicated social desires. Flamineo is not interested in a moral choice, but in a physical gain, in achieving a social position to which he feels entitled. It is unlikely that many characters will choose the side of Virtue that Cornelia represents, and the audience can feel this even at the end of Act I."}
ACT I SCENE I


Enter Count Lodovico, Antonelli, and Gasparo


Lodo.   Banish'd!


Ant.   It griev'd me much to hear the sentence.


Lodo.   Ha, ha, O Democritus, thy gods
  That govern the whole world! courtly reward
  And punishment.  Fortune 's a right whore:
  If she give aught, she deals it in small parcels,
  That she may take away all at one swoop.
  This 'tis to have great enemies!  God 'quite them.
  Your wolf no longer seems to be a wolf
  Than when she 's hungry.


Gas.   You term those enemies,
  Are men of princely rank.


Lodo.   Oh, I pray for them:
  The violent thunder is adored by those
  Are pasht in pieces by it.


Ant.   Come, my lord,
  You are justly doom'd; look but a little back
  Into your former life: you have in three years
  Ruin'd the noblest earldom.


Gas.   Your followers
  Have swallowed you, like mummia, and being sick
  With such unnatural and horrid physic,
  Vomit you up i' th' kennel.


Ant.   All the damnable degrees
  Of drinking have you stagger'd through.  One citizen,
  Is lord of two fair manors, call'd you master,
  Only for caviare.


Gas.   Those noblemen
  Which were invited to your prodigal feasts,
  (Wherein the phoenix scarce could 'scape your throats)
  Laugh at your misery, as fore-deeming you
  An idle meteor, which drawn forth, the earth
  Would be soon lost i' the air.


Ant.   Jest upon you,
  And say you were begotten in an earthquake,
  You have ruin'd such fair lordships.


Lodo.   Very good.
  This well goes with two buckets: I must tend
  The pouring out of either.


Gas.   Worse than these.
  You have acted certain murders here in Rome,
  Bloody and full of horror.


Lodo.   'Las, they were flea-bitings:
  Why took they not my head then?


Gas.   O, my lord!
  The law doth sometimes mediate, thinks it good
  Not ever to steep violent sins in blood:
  This gentle penance may both end your crimes,
  And in the example better these bad times.


Lodo.   So; but I wonder then some great men 'scape
  This banishment: there 's Paulo Giordano Ursini,
  The Duke of Brachiano, now lives in Rome,
  And by close panderism seeks to prostitute
  The honour of Vittoria Corombona:
  Vittoria, she that might have got my pardon
  For one kiss to the duke.


Ant.   Have a full man within you:
  We see that trees bear no such pleasant fruit
  There where they grew first, as where they are new set.
  Perfumes, the more they are chaf'd, the more they render
  Their pleasing scents, and so affliction
  Expresseth virtue fully, whether true,
  Or else adulterate.


Lodo.   Leave your painted comforts;
  I 'll make Italian cut-works in their guts
  If ever I return.


Gas.   Oh, sir.


Lodo.   I am patient.
  I have seen some ready to be executed,
  Give pleasant looks, and money, and grown familiar
  With the knave hangman; so do I; I thank them,
  And would account them nobly merciful,
  Would they dispatch me quickly.


Ant.   Fare you well;
  We shall find time, I doubt not, to repeal
  Your banishment.


Lodo.   I am ever bound to you.
  This is the world's alms; pray make use of it.
  Great men sell sheep, thus to be cut in pieces,
  When first they have shorn them bare, and sold their fleeces.
                                                                  [Exeunt



SCENE II


Enter Brachiano, Camillo, Flamineo, Vittoria


Brach.   Your best of rest.


Vit.   Unto my lord the duke,
  The best of welcome.  More lights: attend the duke.
                                            [Exeunt Camillo and Vittoria.


Brach.   Flamineo.


Flam.   My lord.


Brach.   Quite lost, Flamineo.


Flam.   Pursue your noble wishes, I am prompt
  As lightning to your service.  O my lord!
  The fair Vittoria, my happy sister,
  Shall give you present audience--Gentlemen,                   [Whisper.
  Let the caroch go on--and 'tis his pleasure
  You put out all your torches and depart.


Brach.   Are we so happy?


Flam.   Can it be otherwise?
  Observ'd you not to-night, my honour'd lord,
  Which way soe'er you went, she threw her eyes?
  I have dealt already with her chambermaid,
  Zanche the Moor, and she is wondrous proud
  To be the agent for so high a spirit.


Brach.   We are happy above thought, because 'bove merit.


Flam.   'Bove merit! we may now talk freely: 'bove merit! what is 't you
  doubt? 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.


Brach.   Oh, but her jealous husband----


Flam.   Hang him; a gilder that hath his brains perished with quicksilver
  is not more cold in the liver.  The great barriers moulted not more
  feathers, than he hath shed hairs, by the confession of his doctor.  An
  Irish gamester that will play himself naked, and then wage all
  downward, at hazard, is not more venturous.  So unable to please a
  woman, that, like a Dutch doublet, all his back is shrunk into his
  breaches.
  Shroud you within this closet, good my lord;
  Some trick now must be thought on to divide
  My brother-in-law from his fair bed-fellow.


Brach.   Oh, should she fail to come----


Flam.   I must not have your lordship thus unwisely amorous.  I myself
  have not loved a lady, and pursued her with a great deal of under-age
  protestation, whom some three or four gallants that have enjoyed would
  with all their hearts have been glad to have been rid of.  '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.  Away, away, my lord.
                                       [Exit Brachiano as Camillo enters.


  See here he comes.  This fellow by his apparel
  Some men would judge a politician;
  But call his wit in question, you shall find it
  Merely an ass in 's foot-cloth.  How now, brother?
  What, travelling to bed with your kind wife?


Cam.   I assure you, brother, no.  My voyage lies
  More northerly, in a far colder clime.
  I do not well remember, I protest,
  When I last lay with her.


Flam.   Strange you should lose your count.


Cam.   We never lay together, but ere morning
  There grew a flaw between us.


Flam.   'T had been your part
  To have made up that flaw.


Cam.   True, but she loathes I should be seen in 't.


Flam.   Why, sir, what 's the matter?


Cam.   The duke your master visits me, I thank him;
  And I perceive how, like an earnest bowler,
  He very passionately leans that way
  he should have his bowl run.


Flam.   I hope you do not think----


Cam.   That nobleman bowl booty? faith, his cheek
  Hath a most excellent bias: it would fain
  Jump with my mistress.


Flam.   Will you be an ass,
  Despite your Aristotle? or a cuckold,
  Contrary to your Ephemerides,
  Which shows you under what a smiling planet
  You were first swaddled?


Cam.   Pew wew, sir; tell me not
  Of planets nor of Ephemerides.
  A man may be made cuckold in the day-time,
  When the stars' eyes are out.


Flam.   Sir, good-bye you;
  I do commit you to your pitiful pillow
  Stuffed with horn-shavings.


Cam.   Brother!


Flam.   God refuse me.
  Might I advise you now, your only course
  Were to lock up your wife.


Cam.   'Twere very good.


Flam.   Bar her the sight of revels.


Cam.   Excellent.


Flam.   Let her not go to church, but, like a hound
  In leon, at your heels.


Cam.   'Twere for her honour.


Flam.   And so you should be certain in one fortnight,
  Despite her chastity or innocence,
  To be cuckolded, which yet is in suspense:
  This is my counsel, and I ask no fee for 't.


Cam.   Come, you know not where my nightcap wrings me.


Flam.   Wear it a' th' old fashion; let your large ears come through,
  it will be more easy--nay, I will be bitter--bar your wife of her
  entertainment: women are more willingly and more gloriously chaste,
  when they are least restrained of their liberty.  It seems you would
  be a fine capricious, mathematically jealous coxcomb; take the height
  of your own horns with a Jacob's staff, afore they are up.  These
  politic enclosures for paltry mutton, makes more rebellion in the
  flesh, than all the provocative electuaries doctors have uttered since
  last jubilee.


Cam.   This doth not physic me----


Flam.   It seems you are jealous: I 'll show you the error of it by a
  familiar example: I have seen a pair of spectacles fashioned with such
  perspective art, that lay down but one twelve pence a' th' board,
  'twill appear as if there were twenty; now should you wear a pair of
  these spectacles, and see your wife tying her shoe, you would imagine
  twenty hands were taking up of your wife's clothes, and this would put
  you into a horrible causeless fury.


Cam.   The fault there, sir, is not in the eyesight.


Flam.   True, but they that have the yellow jaundice think all objects
  they look on to be yellow.  Jealousy is worse; her fits present to a
  man, like so many bubbles in a basin of water, twenty several crabbed
  faces, many times makes his own shadow his cuckold-maker.  [Enter
  Vittoria Corombona.]  See, she comes; what reason have you to be
  jealous of this creature? what an ignorant ass or flattering knave
  might be counted, that should write sonnets to her eyes, or call her
  brow the snow of Ida, or ivory of Corinth; or compare her hair to the
  blackbird's bill, when 'tis liker the blackbird's feather?  This is
  all.  Be wise; I will make you friends, and you shall go to bed
  together.  Marry, look you, it shall not be your seeking.  Do you stand
  upon that, by any means: walk you aloof; I would not have you seen
  in 't.--Sister [my lord attend you in the banqueting-house,] your
  husband is wondrous discontented.


Vit.   I did nothing to displease him; I carved to him at supper-time.


Flam.   [You need not have carved him, in faith; they say he is a capon
  already.  I must now seemingly fall out with you.]  Shall a gentleman
  so well descended as Camillo [a lousy slave, that within this twenty
  years rode with the black guard in the duke's carriage, 'mongst spits
  and dripping-pans!]--


Cam.   Now he begins to tickle her.


Flam.   An excellent scholar [one that hath a head fill'd with calves'
  brains without any sage in them,] come crouching in the hams to you for
  a night's lodging? [that hath an itch in 's hams, which like the fire
  at the glass-house hath not gone out this seven years]  Is he not a
  courtly gentleman? [when he wears white satin, one would take him by
  his black muzzle to be no other creature than a maggot]  You are a
  goodly foil, I confess, well set out [but cover'd with a false stone--
  yon counterfeit diamond].


Cam.   He will make her know what is in me.


Flam.   Come, my lord attends you; thou shalt go to bed to my lord.


Cam.   Now he comes to 't.


Flam.   [With a relish as curious as a vintner going to taste new wine.]
  [To Camillo.]  I am opening your case hard.


Cam.   A virtuous brother, o' my credit!


Flam.   He will give thee a ring with a philosopher's stone in it.


Cam.   Indeed, I am studying alchemy.


Flam.   Thou shalt lie in a bed stuffed with turtle's feathers; swoon in
  perfumed linen, like the fellow was smothered in roses.  So perfect
  shall be thy happiness, that as men at sea think land, and trees, and
  ships, go that way they go; so both heaven and earth shall seem to go
  your voyage.  Shalt meet him; 'tis fix'd, with nails of diamonds to
  inevitable necessity.


Vit.   How shalt rid him hence?


Flam.   [I will put brize in 's tail, set him gadding presently.]  I have
  almost wrought her to it; I find her coming: but, might I advise you
  now, for this night I would not lie with her, I would cross her humour
  to make her more humble.


Cam.   Shall I, shall I?


Flam.  It will show in you a supremacy of judgment.


Cam.   True, and a mind differing from the tumultuary opinion; for, quae
  negata, grata.


Flam.   Right: you are the adamant shall draw her to you, though you keep
  distance off.


Cam.   A philosophical reason.


Flam.   Walk by her a' th' nobleman's fashion, and tell her you will lie
  with her at the end of the progress.


Cam.   Vittoria, I cannot be induc'd, or as a man would say, incited----


Vit.   To do what, sir?


Cam.   To lie with you to-night.  Your silkworm used to fast every third
  day, and the next following spins the better.  To-morrow at night, I am
  for you.


Vit.   You 'll spin a fair thread, trust to 't.


Flam.   But do you hear, I shall have you steal to her chamber about
  midnight.


Cam.   Do you think so? why look you, brother, because you shall not say
  I 'll gull you, take the key, lock me into the chamber, and say you
  shall be sure of me.


Flam.   In troth I will; I 'll be your jailor once.


Cam.   A pox on 't, as I am a Christian! tell me to-morrow how scurvily
  she takes my unkind parting.


Flam.   I will.


Cam.   Didst thou not mark the jest of the silkworm?
  Good-night; in faith, I will use this trick often.


Flam.   Do, do, do.                                        [Exit Camillo.
  So, now you are safe.  Ha, ha, ha, thou entanglest thyself in thine own
  work like a silkworm.  [Enter Brachiano.]  Come, sister, darkness hides
  your blush.  Women are like cursed dogs: civility keeps them tied all
  daytime, but they are let loose at midnight; then they do most good, or
  most mischief.  My lord, my lord!


Zanche brings out a carpet, spreads it, and lays on it two fair cushions.
  Enter Cornelia listening, but unperceived.


Brach.   Give credit: I could wish time would stand still,
  And never end this interview, this hour;
  But all delight doth itself soon'st devour.
  Let me into your bosom, happy lady,
  Pour out, instead of eloquence, my vows.
  Loose me not, madam, for if you forgo me,
  I am lost eternally.


Vit.   Sir, in the way of pity,
  I wish you heart-whole.


Brach.   You are a sweet physician.


Vit.   Sure, sir, a loathed cruelty in ladies
  Is as to doctors many funerals:
  It takes away their credit.


Brach.   Excellent creature!
  We call the cruel fair; what name for you
  That are so merciful?


Zan.   See now they close.


Flam.   Most happy union.


Corn.   [Aside.]  My fears are fall'n upon me: oh, my heart!
  My son the pander! now I find our house
  Sinking to ruin.  Earthquakes leave behind,
  Where they have tyranniz'd, iron, or lead, or stone;
  But woe to ruin, violent lust leaves none.


Brach.   What value is this jewel?


Vit.   'Tis the ornament of a weak fortune.


Brach.   In sooth, I 'll have it; nay, I will but change
  My jewel for your jewel.


Flam.   Excellent;
  His jewel for her jewel: well put in, duke.


Brach.   Nay, let me see you wear it.


Vit.   Here, sir?


Brach.   Nay, lower, you shall wear my jewel lower.


Flam.   That 's better: she must wear his jewel lower.


Vit.   To pass away the time, I 'll tell your grace
  A dream I had last night.


Brach.   Most wishedly.


Vit.   A foolish idle dream:
  Methought I walked about the mid of night
  Into a churchyard, where a goodly yew-tree
  Spread her large root in ground: under that yew,
  As I sat sadly leaning on a grave,
  Chequer'd with cross-sticks, there came stealing in
  Your duchess and my husband; one of them
  A pickaxe bore, th' other a rusty spade,
  And in rough terms they 'gan to challenge me
  About this yew.


Brach.   That tree?


Vit.   This harmless yew;
  They told me my intent was to root up
  That well-grown yew, and plant i' the stead of it
  A wither'd blackthorn; and for that they vow'd
  To bury me alive.  My husband straight
  With pickaxe 'gan to dig, and your fell duchess
  With shovel, like a fury, voided out
  The earth and scatter'd bones: Lord, how methought
  I could not pray.


Flam.   No; the devil was in your dream.


Vit.   When to my rescue there arose, methought,
  A whirlwind, which let fall a massy arm
  From that strong plant;
  And both were struck dead by that sacred yew,
  In that base shallow grave that was their due.


Flam.   Excellent devil!
  She hath taught him in a dream
  To make away his duchess and her husband.


Brach.   Sweetly shall I interpret this your dream.
  You are lodg'd within his arms who shall protect you
  From all the fevers of a jealous husband,
  From the poor envy of our phlegmatic duchess.
  I 'll seat you above law, and above scandal;
  Give to your thoughts the invention of delight,
  And the fruition; nor shall government
  Divide me from you longer, than a care
  To keep you great: you shall to me at once
  Be dukedom, health, wife, children, friends, and all.


Corn.   [Advancing.]  Woe to light hearts, they still forerun our fall!


Flam.   What fury raised thee up? away, away.               [Exit Zanche.


Corn.   What make you here, my lord, this dead of night?
  Never dropp'd mildew on a flower here till now.


Flam.   I pray, will you go to bed then,
  Lest you be blasted?


Corn.   O that this fair garden
  Had with all poison'd herbs of Thessaly
  At first been planted; made a nursery
  For witchcraft, rather than a burial plot
  For both your honours!


Vit.   Dearest mother, hear me.


Corn.   O, thou dost make my brow bend to the earth.
  Sooner than nature!  See the curse of children!
  In life they keep us frequently in tears;
  And in the cold grave leave us in pale fears.


Brach.   Come, come, I will not hear you.


Vit.   Dear my lord.


Corn.   Where is thy duchess now, adulterous duke?
  Thou little dream'st this night she 's come to Rome.


Flam.   How! come to Rome!


Vit.   The duchess!


Brach.   She had been better----


Corn.   The lives of princes should like dials move,
  Whose regular example is so strong,
  They make the times by them go right, or wrong.


Flam.   So, have you done?


Corn.   Unfortunate Camillo!


Vit.   I do protest, if any chaste denial,
  If anything but blood could have allay'd
  His long suit to me----


Corn.   I will join with thee,
  To the most woeful end e'er mother kneel'd:
  If thou dishonour thus thy husband's bed,
  Be thy life short as are the funeral tears
  In great men's----


Brach.   Fie, fie, the woman's mad.


Corn.   Be thy act Judas-like; betray in kissing:
  May'st thou be envied during his short breath,
  And pitied like a wretch after his death!


Vit.   O me accurs'd!                                              [Exit.


Flam.   Are you out of your wits? my lord,
  I 'll fetch her back again.


Brach.   No, I 'll to bed:
  Send Doctor Julio to me presently.
  Uncharitable woman! thy rash tongue
  Hath rais'd a fearful and prodigious storm:
  Be thou the cause of all ensuing harm.                           [Exit.


Flam.   Now, you that stand so much upon your honour,
  Is this a fitting time a' night, think you,
  To send a duke home without e'er a man?
  I would fain know where lies the mass of wealth
  Which you have hoarded for my maintenance,
  That I may bear my bear out of the level
  Of my lord's stirrup.


Corn.   What! because we are poor
  Shall we be vicious?


Flam.   Pray, what means have you
  To keep me from the galleys, or the gallows?
  My father prov'd himself a gentleman,
  Sold all 's land, and, like a fortunate fellow,
  Died ere the money was spent.  You brought me up
  At Padua, I confess, where I protest,
  For want of means--the University judge me--
  I have been fain to heel my tutor's stockings,
  At least seven years; conspiring with a beard,
  Made me a graduate; then to this duke's service,
  I visited the court, whence I return'd
  More courteous, more lecherous by far,
  But not a suit the richer.  And shall I,
  Having a path so open, and so free
  To my preferment, still retain your milk
  In my pale forehead?  No, this face of mine
  I 'll arm, and fortify with lusty wine,
  'Gainst shame and blushing.


Corn.   O that I ne'er had borne thee!


Flam.   So would I;
  I would the common'st courtesan in Rome
  Had been my mother, rather than thyself.
  Nature is very pitiful to whores,
  To give them but few children, yet those children
  Plurality of fathers; they are sure
  They shall not want.  Go, go,
  Complain unto my great lord cardinal;
  It may be he will justify the act.
  Lycurgus wonder'd much, men would provide
  Good stallions for their mares, and yet would suffer
  Their fair wives to be barren.


Corn.   Misery of miseries!                                        [Exit.


Flam.   The duchess come to court!  I like not that.
  We are engag'd to mischief, and must on;
  As rivers to find out the ocean
  Flow with crook bendings beneath forced banks,
  Or as we see, to aspire some mountain's top,
  The way ascends not straight, but imitates
  The subtle foldings of a winter's snake,
  So who knows policy and her true aspect,
  Shall find her ways winding and indirect.




Act 1
The play opens in Rome. Three men enter: Count Lodovico, and his two friends Antonelli and Gasparo. Antonelli and Gasparo tell Lodovico that he has been banished from Italy for his crimes, and explain that his noblemen friends now laugh at his misery, considering him like a worthless meteor pulled from the earth - an evil omen. Gasparo reveals that Lodovico has been banished because he has murdered several people in Rome. When Lodovico asks why the court will not simply execute him, Gasparo explains that the court wants to prevent further bloodshed and give Lodovico a chance at penance. Lodovico complains that other wicked men are spared banishment. He offers as example the Duke of Brachiano, who is secretly trying to seduce Vittoria Corombona. Antonelli tries to soothe Lodovico, but Lodovico instead threatens to cut his enemies into shreds. Lodovico finally accepts his fate and decides to leave. Before he goes, he gives Gasparo and Antonelli money with which to try and repeal his banishment. Scene 2 Brachiano, Camillo, Flamineo, Vittoria, and several unidentified gentlemen, holding torches, enter. Vittoria welcomes Brachiano to Rome, and then leaves with Camillo, her husband. Flamineo, her brother, whispers to Brachiano that she will meet with him in private, and then tells the men with torches to leave. Now that they are alone, Flamineo can speak to Brachiano freely. He explains that Vittoria is enamored of Brachiano, and that her servant, Zanche the Moor, will help facilitate an affair. He also criticizes feminine coyness, accusing women of manipulating men's desire for their own gain. When Brachiano inquires about the obstacle of Camillo, Flamineo quickly dismisses him, claiming Camillo has grown dispassionate and impotent because of syphilis. Hearing Camillo returning, Flamineo tells Brachiano to hide in the closet so that Flamineo can trick Camillo. Under his breath, Flamineo mocks Camillo's rich clothing and poor wit as the latter enters. Flamineo asks Camillo if he is going to Vittoria's bed, and Camillo admits that he cannot remember the last time he slept with Vittoria. Flamineo laments that Camillo has lost his "count," punning on the similarity of the word to "cunt." Camillo then admits his suspicion over Brachiano's motives. He compares Brachiano's visit to a game of bowls, subtly accusing Brachiano of "bowl booty," or of conspiring with another player against a third in order to get a desired object . Flamineo dismisses Camillo's fears, insisting Camillo is both wise and born under lucky stars, but Camillo counters, claiming that the stars have nothing to do with being cuckolded. Flamineo sarcastically advises him to lock Vittoria up for a fortnight, to ensure he will not be cuckolded. When Camillo pleads for serious advice, Flamineo suggests that women are most chaste when they have the most liberty. He claims Camillo's jealousy is coloring his vision, making him see threats where there are none. Vittoria enters, and Flamineo tells Camillo to watch from a distance as he convinces his sister to sleep with Camillo. Flamineo pulls Vittoria aside, where he privately tells her that Camillo is upset. She insists she was respectful to him at dinner - she "carved" to him, in her language. He puns in response, saying she didn't need to "carve" him, since he already has the reputation of being a eunuch. He then loudly compliments Camillo, so that the latter can hear, and Camillo remarks to himself that Flamineo will now arouse Vittoria. However, Flamineo privately undermines his compliments in conversation with Vittoria, even as he continues to speak them aloud. Aloud so that Camillo can hear, Flamineo tells Vittoria that she will go to bed with "his lord," who will give her a ring adorned with a philosopher's stone as they lie in a bed stuffed with turtle dove feathers. Camillo believes "lord" refers to him, wheras Flamineo is subtly suggesting Brachiano to his sister. She quietly asks Flamineo how they will get rid of Camillo, and Flamineo then speaks to Camillo, suggesting she is almost ready, but that he should deny her this night so as to increase her desire for the next night. Camillo thanks Flamineo for his wise advice, and tells Vittoria that he will not sleep with her that night. Flamineo asks how he can ensure Camillo will not renege on his commitment to wait, and Camillo offers to be locked in his room for assurance. He then leaves, happy with the way things have gone. As Camillo leaves, Brachiano enters from the shadows where he was hiding, and begins wooing Vittoria with courtly vows. At the same time, Zanche brings out a carpet and two pillows to set up a bed for their affair. Cornelia, Vittoria and Flamineo's mother, enters and hears the planning. She laments to herself how her family is sinking into ruin, predicting that this affair will ruin them all. Brachiano gives Vittoria a jewel for her "jewel," punning on the female sexual organ, and tells her to wear it at the base of her dress bodice. Vittoria then tells him of her most recent dream. She was sitting under a yew tree when Brachiano's wife and Camillo confronted her, accusing her of trying to uproot the yew. They decided to bury her alive and began to dig a grave for her, when the yew tree killed them with one of its branches. Flamineo whispers to himself that the smart and devilish Vittoria has subtly insisted that Brachiano kill his wife and Camillo. Brachiano promises to protect Vittoria from their spouses, and to devote himself to her entirely. Cornelia enters from the shadows as Flamineo chases Zanche away. She lectures Vittoria and Brachiano on the sinfulness of their illicit relationship, and Vittoria pleads with her mother to understand. Cornelia reveals that Brachiano's sick wife is returning to Rome, and Vittoria protests that she could only have resisted Brachiano's love at the cost of bloodshed. Together, Cornelia and Vittoria kneel for forgiveness, and Vittoria flees from shame. Flamineo insists to Brachiano that he can bring her back, but Brachiano is upset, and tells Cornelia that she has stirred up a storm. He then leaves. Flamineo accuses Cornelia of betrayal, insisting this was the only way he knew to increase his and the family's financial and social position. Cornelia regrets having given birth to him, and he counters that he would rather have been born to a prostitute in Rome. Cornelia leaves upset, and Flamineo resolves to continue with his mischief, using deception and indirect methods if necessary.
As a revenge tragedy, John Webster's The White Devil promises its audience imminent violence, bloodshed, and betrayal. It delivers on all counts. Few characters in the work are marked by goodness or purity, and the perspective on humanity is rather bleak and pessimistic. However, to Webster's credit, he also mostly avoids a simplistic understanding of evil, by giving his villains motives that are as much symptoms of society as of original sin. Significantly, Webster chooses to open his play with the scene of Lodovico's banishment. Lodovico is a side character compared to Brachiano, Vittoria, or Flamineo, yet he both opens and closes the play. Arguably, this is because his story so perfectly encapsulates the play's conflict between powerful social forces and the anarchic individual. Lodovico is a dangerous man without any regard for law and order, and he is banished precisely because he openly refuses to bow before the laws of the land. The Roman rulers have decided  that Lodovico is too unstable and violent to live within their society, and so wish him gone. Similarly, the same social forces will reject Vittoria for her unruly sexuality, and Brachiano for his unbridled lust. These social forces, however, are not to be trusted as inexorably just. In fact, Flamineo wishes not to flaunt these forces but rather to be embraced by them, and through Flamineo's social-climbing, Webster makes an implicit attack on the forces of money and power than define society. Like Lodovico, Flamineo is a desperate and dangerous man who will balk at nothing to get what he wants, including prostituting his sister and killing his own brother, but he does so surreptitiously. He wishes respect and acceptance, whereas Lodovico is willing to forgo those. One distinction is that Flamineo is born poor, and hence has to rely on his wit to balance the score with his social 'betters.' His use of wit, puns, and double-entendres touches on the discrepancy between what appears and what truly is, a crucial motif in the play. One instance of Flamineo's wit comes when Camillo remarks that he cannot remember that last time that he and Vittoria slept together, and Flamineo responds, "Strange you should lose your count." Flamineo is superficially referring to Camillo's count of the days since his last union with Vittoria, but he also is referring to female genitals, punning on the pronunciation of the word "count." This distinction between what appears and what is, extends from Flamineo's verbal acrobatics to the moral natures of many of the play's characters. Flamineo is a low-born man but will use subterfuge to gain prestige even as he does not admit his goal to anyone but his mother. However, class inequality is not the only factor that creates a hierarchy forcing people to use subterfuge for their gain. Women, too, are rather powerless unless they use manipulation. Flamineo indicates as much in his first conversation with Brachiano, but the latter is nevertheless easily fooled when Vittoria plants the idea of murder by relating her dream.  In the dream , she subtly compares Brachiano to the yew tree, which has several psychological implications. The first is a compliment to his ego - the tree is large, a foundation, a powerful institution that dwarfs the people under it. However, the language is also effective, as "yew" is a homophone of "you," which leads Brachiano to associate himself with the tree. Its final rhetorical effect relies on the symbolic connection between a yew tree and death, a common motif in revenge tragedy. While Vittoria never explicitly admits that she uses the dream as tactic, the play's general perspective on humanity, and her later admission that a woman's only weapon is her words, suggest that she is compensating for her lack of power through a trickery similar to that of her brother. What she presents is not what she truly is, which conforms to one of the play's most pervasive themes. A woman's position in the world is also explored through the fear of cuckoldry that Camillo expresses in his discussion with Flamineo. A cuckold is a husband whose wife has been unfaithful to him. The word stems from the cuckoo bird, who is known to change mates frequently and lay its eggs in other nests. The many references to a cuckold's horns refer to the mating practice of stags, where defeated male stags lose their horns. As the husband of the unfaithful Vittoria, Camillo is a classic cuckold. Traditionally, there were fewer worse insults that a man could suffer, whereas male infidelity was nowhere near as grievous. The extremity of the fear serves as reminder that a wife was considered as much possession as partner, and hence was limited in her agency. Flamineo manipulates this excessive fear. While Vittoria keeps Camillo sexually impotent by refusing to copulate with him, Flamineo emasculates him verbally by subtly insulting him over and over again. Cornelia's entrance at the end of Scene Two evokes a symbolic morality play. Morality plays, popular in the medieval period, usually detailed one individual's path as he fell from innocence into sin, repented, and was ultimately saved. The plays personified concepts like virtues and sins in order to make them more understandable. In the case of The White Devil, Brachiano and Vittoria's love-bed would likely be placed at the center of the stage, with Flamineo and Zanche representing Vice on one side, and Cornelia representing Virtue on the other. The contrast between the two groups vividly and visually depicts the two possibilities for the lovers. Invoking these morality plays makes the play's narrative arc easier to understand, and it prepares the audience for the imminent drama. Of course, Webster's morality is far more ambiguous, and he ends his Act with Flamineo to remind us that evil comes not from simple choice, but rather from complicated social desires. Flamineo is not interested in a moral choice, but in a physical gain, in achieving a social position to which he feels entitled. It is unlikely that many characters will choose the side of Virtue that Cornelia represents, and the audience can feel this even at the end of Act I.