The Spanish Tragedy

by

Thomas Kyd

Lorenzo Character Analysis

Bel-Imperia’s brother, the Duke of Castile’s son, and the antagonist of The Spanish Tragedy. Lorenzo is a despicable man who treats his sister badly and steals a fellow soldier’s glory on the battlefield. He occasionally speaks his lines in Italian, lending him an air of Machiavellian evil. After Horatio captures Balthazar on the battlefield, Lorenzo lies and claims he was the one to take Balthazar’s horse and weapons. Lorenzo befriends Balthazar when he is as a prisoner at Lorenzo’s estate, and he encourages Balthazar to continue vying for Bel-Imperia’s love, even though she has made it perfectly clear that she hates Balthazar and isn’t interested. Lorenzo bribes Bel-Imperia’s servant, Pedringano, to tell him who Bel-Imperia’s love interest is, and after Pedringano tells him it is Horatio—whom Lorenzo disapproves of on account of his lower class status—Lorenzo murders Horatio with the help of Balthazar, Pedringano, and Serberine. Lorenzo holds his sister captive, and to tie up loose ends, he pays Pedringano to murder Serberine and abandons Pedringano at the gallows, where he is hung for his crime. Bel-Imperia manages to get a letter to Hieronimo about Horatio’s murder, but Lorenzo blocks Hieronimo’s efforts to get justice for his son. When Hieronimo tries to go to the King of Spain and plead Horatio’s case, Lorenzo tells the king that Hieronimo is insane and his complaints are merely the ramblings of a madman. After Lorenzo finally releases Bel-Imperia, Lorenzo claims that he has really helped to maintain her honor. Horatio was below Bel-Imperia in class and social status, Lorenzo says, just like Andrea was, and neither was an appropriate match for her. Hieronimo finally gets revenge for Horatio’s death and kills Lorenzo in the play-within-a-play during the last act, and Andrea requests that Lorenzo spend eternity on Ixion’s wheel, which is to say that Lorenzo will be strapped to a fiery wheel that is forever spinning. Lorenzo represents betrayal within the play and deceives nearly everyone he comes into contact with. Kyd argues that betrayal is everywhere in 16th-century society, and Lorenzo is evidence of this.

Lorenzo Quotes in The Spanish Tragedy

The The Spanish Tragedy quotes below are all either spoken by Lorenzo or refer to Lorenzo. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Revenge and Justice  Theme Icon
).
Act 2, Scene 1 Quotes

I have already found a stratagem,
To sound the bottom of this doubtful theme.
My lord, for once you shall be ruled by me:
Hinder me not whate’er you hear or see.
By force or fair means will I cast about
To find the truth of all this question out.
Ho, Pedringano!

Related Characters: Lorenzo (speaker), Bel-Imperia, Balthazar, Pedringano
Page Number: 30
Explanation and Analysis:

Both well, and ill: it makes me glad and sad:
Glad, that I know the hinderer of my love,
Sad, that I fear she hates me whom I love,
Glad, that I know on whom to be revenged,
Sad, that she’ll fly me if I take revenge.
Yet must I take revenge or die myself,
For love resisted grows impatient.
I think Horatio be my destined plague:
First, in his hand he brandished a sword,
And with that sword he fiercely waged war,
And in that war he gave me dangerous wounds,
And by those wounds he forced me to yield,
And by my yielding I became his slave.

Related Characters: Balthazar (speaker), Lorenzo, Bel-Imperia, Horatio
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2, Scene 4 Quotes

What, will you murder me?

Ay, thus, and thus; these are the fruits of love.

Related Characters: Lorenzo (speaker), Horatio (speaker), Bel-Imperia, Balthazar, Pedringano, Serberine
Page Number: 41
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 2 Quotes

This sly enquiry of Hieronimo
For Bel-lmperia breeds suspicion,
And this suspicion bodes a further ill,
As for myself, I know my secret fault;
And so do they, but I have dealt for them.
They that for coin their souls endangered,
To save my life, for coin shall venture theirs:
And better it’s that base companions die,
Than by their life to hazard our good haps.
Nor shall they live, for me to fear their faith:
I’ll trust myself, myself shall be my friend,
For die they shall, slaves are ordained to no other end.

Related Characters: Lorenzo (speaker), Hieronimo, Bel-Imperia, Horatio, Pedringano, Serberine
Page Number: 57
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 5 Quotes

My master hath forbidden me to look in this box, and by my
troth ’tis likely, if he had not warned me, I should not have had
so much idle time; for we men’s-kind in our minority are like
women in their uncertainty: that they are most forbidden,
they will soonest attempt. So I now. By my bare honesty, here’s
nothing but the bare empty box. Were it not sin against secrecy,
I would say it were a piece of gentleman-like knavery. I must
go to Pedringano, and tell him his pardon is in this box; nay, I
would have sworn it, had I not seen the contrary. I cannot choose
but smile to think how the villain will flout the gallows, scorn
the audience, and descant on the hangman, and all presuming
of his pardon from hence. Will’t not be an odd jest, for me to
stand and grace every jest he makes, pointing my finger at this
box, as who would say, ‘Mock on, here’s thy warrant.’ Is’t not a
scurvy jest that a man should jest himself to death? Alas, poor
Pedringano, I am in a sort sorry for thee, but if I should be
hanged with thee, 1 cannot weep.

Related Characters: Lorenzo’s Page (speaker), Lorenzo, Pedringano, Serberine
Related Symbols: The Box 
Page Number: 65
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 4, Scene 4 Quotes

And you, my lord, whose reconciled son
Marched in a net, and thought himself unseen
And rated me for brainsick lunacy.
With “God amend that mad Hieronimo!”—
How can you brook our play’s catastrophe?
And here behold this bloody handkercher,
Which at Horatio’s death I weeping dipped
Within the river of his bleeding wounds:
It as propitious, see I have reserved,
And never hath it left my bloody heart,
Soliciting remembrance of my vow
With these, O these accursed murderers:
Which now performed, my heart is satisfied.

Related Characters: Hieronimo (speaker), Lorenzo, Bel-Imperia, Horatio, Balthazar, King of Spain
Related Symbols: Bel-Imperia’s Scarf
Page Number: 120
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Spanish Tragedy LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Spanish Tragedy PDF

Lorenzo Quotes in The Spanish Tragedy

The The Spanish Tragedy quotes below are all either spoken by Lorenzo or refer to Lorenzo. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Revenge and Justice  Theme Icon
).
Act 2, Scene 1 Quotes

I have already found a stratagem,
To sound the bottom of this doubtful theme.
My lord, for once you shall be ruled by me:
Hinder me not whate’er you hear or see.
By force or fair means will I cast about
To find the truth of all this question out.
Ho, Pedringano!

Related Characters: Lorenzo (speaker), Bel-Imperia, Balthazar, Pedringano
Page Number: 30
Explanation and Analysis:

Both well, and ill: it makes me glad and sad:
Glad, that I know the hinderer of my love,
Sad, that I fear she hates me whom I love,
Glad, that I know on whom to be revenged,
Sad, that she’ll fly me if I take revenge.
Yet must I take revenge or die myself,
For love resisted grows impatient.
I think Horatio be my destined plague:
First, in his hand he brandished a sword,
And with that sword he fiercely waged war,
And in that war he gave me dangerous wounds,
And by those wounds he forced me to yield,
And by my yielding I became his slave.

Related Characters: Balthazar (speaker), Lorenzo, Bel-Imperia, Horatio
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2, Scene 4 Quotes

What, will you murder me?

Ay, thus, and thus; these are the fruits of love.

Related Characters: Lorenzo (speaker), Horatio (speaker), Bel-Imperia, Balthazar, Pedringano, Serberine
Page Number: 41
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 2 Quotes

This sly enquiry of Hieronimo
For Bel-lmperia breeds suspicion,
And this suspicion bodes a further ill,
As for myself, I know my secret fault;
And so do they, but I have dealt for them.
They that for coin their souls endangered,
To save my life, for coin shall venture theirs:
And better it’s that base companions die,
Than by their life to hazard our good haps.
Nor shall they live, for me to fear their faith:
I’ll trust myself, myself shall be my friend,
For die they shall, slaves are ordained to no other end.

Related Characters: Lorenzo (speaker), Hieronimo, Bel-Imperia, Horatio, Pedringano, Serberine
Page Number: 57
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 5 Quotes

My master hath forbidden me to look in this box, and by my
troth ’tis likely, if he had not warned me, I should not have had
so much idle time; for we men’s-kind in our minority are like
women in their uncertainty: that they are most forbidden,
they will soonest attempt. So I now. By my bare honesty, here’s
nothing but the bare empty box. Were it not sin against secrecy,
I would say it were a piece of gentleman-like knavery. I must
go to Pedringano, and tell him his pardon is in this box; nay, I
would have sworn it, had I not seen the contrary. I cannot choose
but smile to think how the villain will flout the gallows, scorn
the audience, and descant on the hangman, and all presuming
of his pardon from hence. Will’t not be an odd jest, for me to
stand and grace every jest he makes, pointing my finger at this
box, as who would say, ‘Mock on, here’s thy warrant.’ Is’t not a
scurvy jest that a man should jest himself to death? Alas, poor
Pedringano, I am in a sort sorry for thee, but if I should be
hanged with thee, 1 cannot weep.

Related Characters: Lorenzo’s Page (speaker), Lorenzo, Pedringano, Serberine
Related Symbols: The Box 
Page Number: 65
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 4, Scene 4 Quotes

And you, my lord, whose reconciled son
Marched in a net, and thought himself unseen
And rated me for brainsick lunacy.
With “God amend that mad Hieronimo!”—
How can you brook our play’s catastrophe?
And here behold this bloody handkercher,
Which at Horatio’s death I weeping dipped
Within the river of his bleeding wounds:
It as propitious, see I have reserved,
And never hath it left my bloody heart,
Soliciting remembrance of my vow
With these, O these accursed murderers:
Which now performed, my heart is satisfied.

Related Characters: Hieronimo (speaker), Lorenzo, Bel-Imperia, Horatio, Balthazar, King of Spain
Related Symbols: Bel-Imperia’s Scarf
Page Number: 120
Explanation and Analysis: