Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy": The Play Explains Itself

Author(s): Ejner J. Jensen

Source: The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 64, No. 1 (Jan., 1965), pp. 7-16
Published by: University of Illinois Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27714580 .
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 KYD'S SPANISH TRAGEDY:
THE PLAY EXPLAINS ITSELF

Ejner J, Jensen, University ofMichigan

Fredson Bowers' Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy1 has long been a useful

guide to the study of a specific type of drama in the context of Eliza
bethan attitudes toward its central theme. The book, like others of its
kind, helps us to read the plays of an earlier period with greater knowl
of the probable reaction of the audience to the presentation of
edge
certain ideas and attitudes. Professor Bowers' book, however, has had
an unfortunate influence on later views of Kyd's Spanish Tragedy.
Bowers points out certain conditions in which revenge could be taken
with impunity according to the Elizabethan moral code;2 he then as
sumes that the Elizabethan audience would have kept these conditions
in mind and would have rejected anyone who overstepped them. He
insists that, according to the Elizabethan ethic, Andrea and Revenge
are not essential to the play;3 that the revenge which interested the
audience is the blood revenge of Hieronimo on Lorenzo and Balthazar,
a revenge which is in no way connected with revenge for Andrea;4 and
that Hieronimo became, in the eyes of the audience, a villain who was
forced to take his own life in compliance with the doctrine that
was the concern solely of God.5
vengeance
Certain arguments have been advanced against the case presented
further
by Bowers,6 but no one has dealt with all three of his charges;
more, no one has replied effectively to the charge that seems implicit
in his argument?that The Spanish Tragedy, though of great historical
interest, is flawed by lack of focus, extraneous characters, and a hero
who becomes a villain.

1Fredson
Bowers, Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy, (Princeton, 1940).
1 ten years before the appearance of Bowers' book Lily
Bowers, pp. 35-38. Nearly
B. Campbell had discussed Renaissance attitudes toward revenge, citing numerous
illustrative from contemporary writers and thinkers ("Theories of Revenge
quotations
in Renaissance England," MP, xxviii [1931], 281-96).
*
Bowers, pp. 68, 71, 74.
4 5
Bowers, p. 74. Bowers, p. 82.
John D. Ratnff, for example, claims that in this Vindicta Mihi speech (IILxiii.i
which excuse his action; and he suggests that
45) Hieronimo presents arguments
Him
Hieronimo is, in fact, "an honorable, justified revenger" ("Hieronimo Explains
self," SP, Liv [1957], 112-18).

7
8 Jensen

The critical arguments advanced by Bowers may be answered most

readily if we examine in detail the specific faults he imparts to the
play. The assumption that there is an excess of contingent ele
ments in the play attributes to it faults which grow not from Kyd's
drama itself but from its failure to square with Bowers' theory of
revenge. The play is in reality highly organized. Its chief unifying
theme is not revenge but the problem of justice. From first to last The
Spanish Tragedy is filled with discussions of the nature of justice, its
machinery and its operation. Hieronimo, as Knight Marshal, is himself
a judge.
Andrea's ghost introduces the theme of justice in his opening
speech when he recounts his journey to the underworld. His approach
to Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanth is unsuccessful, for they are un
able to reach a decision. Minos effects a compromise, and Andrea is
sent on
to Pluto for judgment. When he arrives at Pluto's court
Proserpine asks to be given the power of decision; it is her verdict,
whispered to Revenge, which sends Andrea's ghost back to the world
above. Thus divine judgment summons Andrea as spectator of the
action; and Revenge, who has been informed of the decision, an
nounces to him:
thou art arriv'd
Where thou shalt see the author of thy death,
Don Balthazar the prince of Portingale,

Depriv'd of life by Bel-imperia. (I.i.86-89)7

In the next scene the victorious Spanish army returns, and the king
is faced with a problem of judgment. He must decide who is to receive
the honors for the capture of Balthazar. Like Minos, he determines
upon a Horatio the ransom and Balthazar's
compromise, awarding
armor and Lorenzo the horse and Lorenzo
giving prisoner's weapons.
is to provide accommodations for Balthazar because Horatio is not in a
position to entertain the Portuguese and his retinue.8
The Portugal scenes, which, except for the Alexandro-Villuppo
plot, are filled primarily with the sending and receiving of emissaries,
are often dismissed as inconsequential; yet they serve to point up a
significant lesson on the problem of justice.9 Alexandro narrowly
7All
references to the play are to the edition by Philip Edwards in the Revels Plays
series (London, 1959).
8Edwards
(I.ii.182, n. 1) points out that Horatio's inferior social position is stressed
here and at other points throughout the play. It might be noted that Andrea was also
without favor in this respect.
9 "The
viceroy's grief and the Bazulto episode also serve to reenforce the grief of
 Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy11 9

escapes death when the ambassador from Spain returns just in time
with the news that Balthazar is alive. Villuppo is then given suitable
punishment false accusation. Later in the play, when Hieronimo
for his
delays his revenge even after he has received the letter from Bel
imperia, the lesson of the Portuguese subplot might be remembered
and would suggest the reasonableness of Hieronimo's initial delay.
Immediately before the accusing letter falls, Hieronimo delivers
his famous "O eyes, no eyes" speech (IILii. 1-23). The speech is a plea
to the incomprehensible divine powers who are apparently willing to
allow the existence and even the success of evil in this world. It is the
address of a man defeated by evil, of a man who is unable to reconcile
his experience of an evil world with the concept of a b?n?ficient deity:
How should we term your dealings to be just,
If you unjustly deal with those that in your justice trust?
(III.ii.9-10)

In spite of his perplexity in the matter of divine justice, Hieronimo

subdues his confusion and faces up to his own responsibilities as the
dispenser of public justice in his capacity as Knight Marshal:
Thus must we toil in other men's extremes,
That know not how to remedy our own;
And do them justice, when unjustly we,
For all our wrongs, can compass no redress. (III.vi. 1-4)

And he makes a direct comment on the principle of that justice;

crimes of blood are to be avenged in kind :
For blood with blood shall, while I sit as judge,
Be satisfied, and the law discharg'd;
And though myself cannot receive the like,
Yet will I see that others have their right. (III.vi.35-38)

Pedringano is hanged for the murder of Serberine, a deed to which he

readily confesses; and the rapid execution emphasizes by contrast the
difficulties faced by Hieronimo in his attempt to discover and punish
the murderers of his son just as the self-assuredness of Pedringano
the craftiness of Lorenzo.
emphasizes
The difficulty of his position begins to have serious effects on
Hieronimo; justice and revenge, he says, "Resist my woes, and give
my words no way" (III.vii.18). But when the hangman presents to

Hieronimo over his son's death" (Ashley H. Thorndike, "The Relations of Hamlet to
Contemporary Revenge Plays," PMLA, xvii [1902], 144).
 io Jensen

him the letter from Pedringano to Lorenzo, his reaction indicates that
he hopes to obtain redress through legitimate channels. It is also clear
that blood for blood is the legal punishment for murder, for Hieronimo
stresses that only the death of the conspirators will satisfy him. He
realizes that he has been given, for the first time, both proof and the
opportunity for action; and he moves to take immediate advantage of
the situation:
But wherefore waste I mine unfruitful words,
When naught but blood will satisfy my woes?
I will go plain me to my lord the king,
And cry aloud for justice through the court. (III.vii.67-70)

Hieronimo's attempts to find justice, however, are not successful ;

Lorenzo effectively blocks the accepted legal channels and makes it
impossible for Hieronimo to present his suit. Once again he bemoans
the lack of justice in this world, and he seems ready to take his own
life ;but he recalls himself to reality when he comprehends that Hora
tio's death will then go unavenged (III.xii.1-19). He shouts three
times for justice while the king continues to conduct state business
with the Portuguese ambassador (III.xii.27, 63, 65); and once again
Lorenzo is able to keep Hieronimo from securing an audience, this
time discrediting him by the imputation of lunacy.
And, in fact, Hieronimo ismad. His scene with the four petitioners
reveals the extent to which he has lost his reason. Yet in his madness
he reveals the same concern with justice that he has evinced through
out the play. Fancying that B azul to is his son, he addresses a question
to the old man:
And art then come, Horatio, from the depth,
To ask for justice in his upper earth? (Hl.xiii. 133-34)

And he suggests that this is not the place to seek justice, that it would
be better to return and "complain to Aeacus" (IILxii. 138-39). When
Bazulto protests that he is not Hieronimo's son, the Knight Marshal
imagines that the old petitioner is a fury sent by the judges of the
underworld to rebuke him for not obtaining revenge for Horatio.
When Bazulto finally explains to Hieronimo that he has come to seek
justice in the matter of his own son's death, Hieronimo names him
correctly, "the lively image of my grief" (III.xiii.162).
Hieronimo's obsessive concern with the problem of justice reflects
the informing theme of The Spanish Tragedy. When Isabella dies she
echoes this concern:
 Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy11 n

For sorrow and despair hath cited me

To hear Horatio plead with Rhadamanth. (IV.ii.27-28)
The play ends as it began, with Andrea's ghost and Revenge pro
viding the focus of the drama. The sentence pronounced by Proserpine
at the beginning of the action has been extended to give Andrea fur
ther power. He has seen Bel-imperia kill Balthazar; now he is to
superintend the dispensing of rewards to all of the characters in the
drama. He is to be the judge when he descends with Revenge, who
encourages him in this role :
Then haste we down to meet thy friends and foes,
To place thy friends in ease, the rest in woes. (IV.v.45-46)

In the case of The Spanish Tragedy it is not a tautology to say that

we are dealing with a revenge play whose theme is justice. Justice com
prehends revenge; justice is the whole system of rewards and punish
ments, judgments of good and evil, and ethical decisions of which
revenge forms only a part. Incident after incident echoes the theme of
the tragedy, and the revelation by Andrea and Revenge of the judg
ments to come demonstrates the essential orderliness of divine justice.
Justice in Kyd's play is delivered by the characters themselves
with the approval of those agents of divinity, the ghost and Revenge,
who watch over the entire action. The Spanish Tragedy is not based on
the moral order which the Elizabethan thought of as controlling his
world. The justice of that order, as Lily B. Campbell has shown, was
grounded on the text of Romans, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay,
saith the Lord" (12:19). In this Christian view of justice, "private
revenge was forbidden alike by God and by the state as his representa
tive."10 To the Elizabethan, then, revenge was condemned both on
religious and political grounds. But Miss Campbell's treatment of
Renaissance theories of revenge also provides a suggestion which
should direct the reader to a clearer understanding of Kyd's play. She
grants that those plays which are dependent on Seneca present a
special problem of interpretation.11 The obvious debt to Seneca in The
Spanish Tragedy indicates that the Christian principles which formed
the Renaissance attitude toward revenge, justice, and mercy cannot
satifactorily be applied to this play. Philip Edwards declares that
"Marlowe never wrote a less Christian play than The Spanish
Tragedy; the hate of a wronged man can speak out without check of

10
Campbell, p. 290.
11
Campbell, p. 296.
 12 Jensen

mercy or reason; when a sin is committed, no one talks of forgiveness;

the word 'mercy' does not occur in the play."12 Although it is possible
to say of the Elizabethan dramatists generally that "in solving their
dramatic problems?which are inescapably the problems of justice?
they had all the data of the Graeco-Je wish-Christian civilization in
which they were born,"13 it should be clear that Kyd ignores (or per
haps defies) that tradition in The Spanish Tragedy, a play in which
"retribution is not only the demand of divine justice but also a con
descension to human wants."14 The revenge approved by the gods and
secured by Hieronimo is just only when considered in the context of
the moral order revealed in the play.
The theme of justice runs throughout Kyd's tragedy. It is intro
duced by Andrea, reflected in the Portuguese scenes, repeated with
variations by Hieronimo, touched upon in Isabella's death scene, and
brought in to provide the conclusion of the drama. There is, in this
respect, neither a lack of focus nor a failure to establish and justify
relationships of parts of the play to the whole. But the element of re
venge is part of the larger pattern, and it is in the treatment of this
element that Bowers would say Kyd had failed to make his drama
whole. Bowers would claim that the audience would be concerned only
with Hieronimo's revenge for for a murder com
Horatio, revenge
mitted in their sight; and he maintains that Andrea's ghost has no
part in the play after the second revenge motif is begun.15 This attitude
fails to give due importance to the larger theme of justice; it also ig
nores some of the more obvious connections which bind the play
together and make Andrea an essential part of the drama.
To begin with, it is significant that Andrea and Revenge are on
stage during the entire play; as the chorus they have certain duties to
perform. In addition, Bel-imperia represents a link between Andrea
and Horatio, declaring as she does that she is able to love her second
lover because of his affection for her first (I.iv.58-76). The attitude of
Lorenzo seems to have been the same toward both Andrea and

Horatio; perhaps their similarity in social standing may be seen as

another element unifying the two revenge themes. Howard Baker has
provided additional justification for considering Andrea's ghost (and
Revenge also) essential to the play. He suggests that both the ghost
and Revenge derive from stock characters in medieval metrical
12
Edwards, p. lii.
13
Marion Hope Parker, The Slave of Life: A Study of Shakespeare and the Idea of
Justice (London, 1955), p. 234.
14
Edwards, p. Ii.
16
Bowers, p. 71.
 Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy" 13

tragedy.16 Thus they would be familiar to the audience, and they

would have a specific and necessary share in the proceedings.
There may be still another link relating Andrea and Horatio and
establishing their common interest in revenge on Lorenzo and Bal
thazar. Horatio relates to Bel-imperia the circumstances attending the
death of Andrea; at the close of his account he shows her the scarf
which he took off the arm of the dead Andrea and which he now wears
in remembrance of his friend. Bel-imperia recognizes the scarf:

For 'twas my favour at his last depart.

But now wear thou it both for him and me. (I.iv.47-48)

When Hieronimo discovers his murdered son he finds a handkercher:

Seest thou this handkercher besmear'd with blood?
It shall not from me till I take revenge. (II.v.51-52)

Thus the handkercher is to be a reminder of the need for revenge.

Percy Simpson has stated that the handkercher belongs to Hieronimo
and that he has merely dipped it in Horatio's blood as a token.17 But
the handkercher is surely Horatio's; Hieronimo draws it out (accord
ing to the stage direction "He draweth out a bloody napkin") to offer
the weeping Bazulto when he suddenly recognizes the memento:
O no, not this: Horatio, this was thine,
And when I dy'd it in thy dearest blood
This was a token 'twixt thy soul and me
That of thy death revenged I shall be. (IILxiii.86-89)
The importance of the handkercher is stressed again in Hieronimo's
long speech of explanation when he draws the curtain to reveal the
body of his son:
And here behold this bloody handkercher,
Which at Horatio's death I weeping dropp'd
Within the river of his bleeding wounds:
It is propitious, see, I have reserv'd,
And never hath it left my bloody heart. (IV.iv.122-26)

The handkercher is for Hieronimo an objective reminder of his

duty as a revenger. Might it not also be a symbolic link, joining the
revenge for Horatio to that for Andrea? We have no stated evidence
that the handkercher displayed by Hieronimo is the scarf given by
Bel-imperia which Horatio uncovered from the body of Andrea. But

16 "Ghosts and Guides: and the Medieval

Kyd's Spanish Tragedy Tragedy," MP,
xxxiii (193s), 27-36.
17 "The Theme of Revenge in Elizabethan Studies in
Percy Simpson, Tragedy,"
Elizabethan Drama (Oxford, 1955), p. 146.
 14 Jensen

scarf and handkercher were interchangeable terms, and it appears from

the stage direction cited above that napkin was another word for the
same article. It is impossible to say that Hieronimo's handkercher is
the scarf of the first act, but one might suggest that it could well have
been. If it were, Kyd might be credited with more skill as a dramatist
than he is now conceded. Furthermore, the play would appear as a
more unified whole; for the handkercher-scarf would symbolize the
connection between two revenge motifs. In the absence of proof that
the handkercher-scarf was employed to achieve these ends we may at
least suggest that it would provide a singularly effective piece of stage
business; perhaps its use in a modern production might serve to
counteract those critics who charge that the play lacks focus, or that
its revenge themes are never successfully joined, or that Andrea is a
character.
superfluous
Two of the objections to The Spanish Tragedy have been answered;
the play does have a focus; it is unified, and Andrea is essential to its
wholeness. It now remains to deal with the final charge, the claim that
Hieronimo would have been rejected by the Elizabethan audience and
that in securing vengeance by private means and with Italianate
methods he lost all claim to the sympathy of the spectators. In the
consideration of this claim it might be well to keep in mind the ques
tions with which Miss Campbell concluded her investigation of
Elizabethan attitudes toward revenge: "Does the dialogue make clear
whether the avenger has the right to take upon himself the prerogative
of public vengeance, executing God's justice upon others? Does the
plot make clear whether or not God executes vengeance upon the
avenger?"18
Bowers insists that Hieronimo became a villain in the eyes of
Kyd's Elizabethan audience and that he was forced to commit suicide
because the doctrine forbade murder.19 He even maintains
accepted
that "The audience is sympathetic with his [the dramatist's] revenger
so long as he does not become an Italianate intriguer, and so long as he
does not revenge."20 But does Hieronimo become a complete villain?
To say no is to reply to Miss Campbell's first question in the affirma
tive. Hieronimo retains his belief in the need for justice even when he
is unable to receive justice in his own case; he continues to fulfill his
duties as Knight Marshal. He does not contemplate action against
Horatio's murderers until he has certain proof. Even then he does not

18
Campbell, p. 296.
19
Bowers, pp. 80, 82.
20
Bowers, p. 95.
 Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy11 15

consider taking private vengeance; instead he determines to put his

case before the king (III.vii. 69-70).
Hieronimo seeks to obtain redress through every legitimate means,
but Lorenzo effectively prevents him from gaining even a hearing.21
Hieronimo is forced to resort to secret ways because all other avenues
seem closed to him, and he does not seem capable of gaining revenge
by direct violent methods. Thus Hieronimo's revenge scheme is the
product of necessity, for he finds that he must fight policy with policy.
Hieronimo's actions should not be regarded as a violation of moral
standards, nor should one assume that he lost the sympathy of his
Elizabethan audience. Kyd's play is not based on the Christian
morality which, in theory, would provide the basis for Renaissance
ideas of justice ; and the device of the Soliman-Perseda play is just as
much an of common sense,
example give-them-their-own-medicine
morality as it is an example of Italianate intrigue.
Even if it were granted that Hieronimo does become a plotter to
achieve his ends, it is doubtful that this alone would alienate the
audience. Malevole, inMarston's The Malcontent, employs subterfuge
and guile throughout the play; but he is restored to his dukedom at the
end, and the play comes to a joyful conclusion. Of course, Malevole
does not commit murder; nevertheless, his case appears to demonstrate
that the use of Italianate intrigue would not disqualify a hero from
receiving the sympathy of the audience. Another of Marston's
heroes, Antonio, is not only an intriguer but the perpetrator of acts of
violence which are among the most horrible ever presented on the
stage. After cutting out Piero's tongue, binding him to a chair, and
serving him a platter containing the remains of his son, Antonio leads
his accomplices in the raging butchery of their helpless foe. Yet An
tonio is offered both riches and public office by the Venetian senators,
and he rejects their offer because he has chosen to retire to religious
solitude. Against these examples one might set The Revenger's Tragedy
and point to Vindice as a revenger who transgressed the bounds of
justice; but it is just that transgression which makes Vindice a differ
ent case. It is possible to judge the revenger only with respect to the
context of the play. When he is forced to employ intrigue it is usually
because he must contend with policy on its own terms. Perhaps there
is in Elizabethan tragedy a "hero as villain" just as there is a "villain
21Ratlif?
(p. 144) claims that the difference in birth, Hieronimo being low-born and
his opponents men of power, makes The Spanish Tragedy a revenge play. But the
revenge and, more significant, the form it takes are determined not by a power belonging
to the nobly born but by the necessity for Hieronimo to counter Lorenzo's "policy"
intrigues with intrigues of his own devising.
 16 Jensen

as and this "hero as villain" in every case, a man

hero,"22 perhaps is,
who must contend with those whom he is unable to defeat in direct
conflict and who depend for the security of their positions upon the
employment of policy. Such a hero is Hieronimo, whose concern with
justice is everywhere in evidence but who must himself resort to
policy and intrigue in order to gain the revenge which is his legitimate
due.
It is now necessary to inquire into the fate of Hieronimo. The
answer to Miss Campbell's second question is also affirmative; not
only does the play reveal the judgment on Hieronimo, it also makes it
quite clear that he is to suffer no punishment for taking his revenge.
"Good Hieronimo" is to enjoy the blessing of everlasting delights, for
Andrea promises:
I'll lead Hieronimo where Orpheus plays,
Adding sweet pleasure to eternal days. (IV.v. 23-24)

The principle of justice controls the play's conclusion; and even an

Elizabethan audience, I think, would not have condemned an Hieron
imo whose revenge was sanctioned by the gods of his world in The
Spanish Tragedy.n
I do not wish to quarrel unnecessarily with the work of Professor
Bowers. It seems important, however, to point out some of the limita
tions of his theory and some of the difficulties involved in the applica
tion of social and ethical values, however admirably derived, to
literary works. The effect of attempts at historical reconstruction
should be illuminating, not restrictive. My general disagreement with
Bowers has taken the specific form of objections to his treatment of
The Spanish Tragedy, for his criticisms of Kyd's play are primarily the
result of his attempt to make the play fit his theory. The rigid observ
ance of theoretical strictures would discard large parts of the work as
superfluous and make its conclusion ethically untenable. But Kyd's
a
tragedy is unified whole, and it supplies all of the solutions to the
moral and ethical questions which it raises. Elizabethan attitudes
toward revenge notwithstanding, The Spanish Tragedy is a greater
play than Professor Bowers would lead us to believe.
22Clarence Valentine The Villain as Hero in Elizabethan
Boyer, Tragedy (London,
1914).
23For a brief but discussion of the morality of the play see Edwards,
significant
pp. lviii-lx. A recent article by S. F. Johnson contains some illuminating comments on
the question of justice in Kyd's drama {"The Spanish Tragedy, or Babylon Revisited,"
in Essays on Shakespeare and Elizabethan Drama in Honor of Hardin Craig, ed. Richard
Hosley [Columbia, Mo., 1962], pp. 23-36).