Previous
Act 3, Scene 12
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Spanish Tragedy, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Revenge and Justice
Class, Gender, and Society
Love and Madness
Betrayal
Summary
Analysis
Hieronimo enters with a book. “Vindicta mihi!” he cries. He knows revenge is heaven’s responsibility, but he still desires it. “Per scelus semper tutum est sceleribus iter,” Hieronimo says and decides he will seek revenge for Horatio’s death. All times are not fit for revenge, Hieronimo notes, as the sound of a servant distracts him. The servant enters and tells Hieronimo that some citizens have come to argue legal disputes.
The book in Hieronimo’s hand is a copy of the play that he will stage later to exact his revenge. “Vindicta mihi!” is Latin for “my punishment,” and is a reference to Romans 12.19 in the Bible, in which God declares vengeance his sole responsibility. Hieronimo’s next Latin line—“The safe way with crime is more crime”—is a line from a play written by Seneca, a playwright from ancient Rome, which, in addition to reflecting Kyd’s classical influence, also highlights Hieronimo’s “blood with blood” policy of justice. Hieronimo knows that revenge is God’s responsibility and not his to take, but he is determined to seek it anyway.
Themes
Two citizens come in fighting about a lease, and they hand Hieronimo their legal papers. Hieronimo asks who the quiet man behind them with the “mournful eyes” is, and he tells the man to step forward. His name is Bazulto, and he has come to find justice for his son’s murder. Hieronimo corrects Bazulto. It is his own son, Hieronimo says, Horatio, who has been murdered. He tells Bazulto to dry his eyes and offers him a handkerchief, handing him Horatio’s bloody scarf by mistake. Hieronimo apologizes and digs in his purse for a different handkerchief. That was Horatio’s scarf, Hieronimo explains.
The presence of Horatio’s bloody scarf symbolizes Hieronimo’s determination for revenge, and Hieronimo’s confused behavior again suggests that he is slipping into insanity. Hieronimo thinks Bazulto must be mistaken, for it is Hieronimo’s son, not Bazulto’s, who has been murdered. Hieronimo doesn’t initially consider that Bazulto’s son has been murdered, too, because Hieronimo is too wrapped up in his own grief.
Themes
Hieronimo launches into a soliloquy about his grief and sorrow. He must get revenge for Horatio, he says, and he promises to torture Lorenzo and Balthazar for killing his son. He threatens to tear them limb from limb, ripping the legal documents in his hands for effect. Hieronimo exits, and the citizens run after him, complaining about their documents and wasted money. Hieronimo enters again and speaks directly to Bazulto. “Go back my son, complain to Aeacus, / For here’s no justice; gentle boy be gone.” Bazulto tells Hieronimo that he is not his son; he has come only to get justice for his own son. Hieronimo says he knows and leads Bazulto away.
Hieronimo’s confusion that Bazulto is Horatio again suggests that he is going insane. Bazulto is an old man and looks nothing like Horatio, but Hieronimo, lost in his soliloquy, is in a different world. Hieronimo gets carried away and rips up the legal documents, which again suggests he is going mad, but it also implies that Hieronimo has little time for frivolous arguments when murder goes unavenged. Like Hieronimo, Bazulto doesn’t get justice either, which reflects Kyd’s argument that justice for the lower classes can be difficult to come by in 16th-century society.
Themes
