The most chilling passage I've read in recent months, and one that creeps up on me when my thoughts are elsewhere, is the final scene of this play, with Bosola and the Cardinal on the verge of death.
Even as he dies, even with only seconds left to him, Bosola cannot let go of his hatred for the Cardinal:
"I hold my weary soul in my teeth;
'Tis ready to part from me. I do glory
That thou, which stood'st like a huge pyramid
Begun upon a large and ample base,
Shalt end in a little point, a kind of nothing."
As a man who had been badly used and cheated, Bosola is crippled with resentment; and this resentment, a constant motif during the play, will not let him rest, not even at the end.
"Revenge for the Duchess of Malfi murdered
By the Arragonian brethren; for Antonio
Slain by this hand; for lustful Julia
Poison'd by this man; and lastly for myself,
That was an actor in the main of all
Much 'gainst mine own good nature, yet i' the end
Neglected."
Neglected. The word rings out like an epitaph.
As for the Cardinal, who can be angry "without rupture," who conceals his emotions even as he burns with hatred, his final words are even more disturbing:
"Look to my brother:
He gave us these large wounds, as we were struggling
Here i' th' rushes. And now, I pray, let me
Be laid by and never thought of."
At the very least, Bosola can be seen and understood, but the Cardinal is not a man to reveal himself. In the end, he not only wants to die, he wants to be erased from human history.
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