Bel-Imperia’s Scarf Symbol Analysis

Bel-Imperia’s scarf first appears in The Spanish Tragedy when Horatio takes it from Andrea’s body after Andrea is killed by Balthazar. The scarf symbolizes love—the love between Bel-Imperia and Andrea, Andrea and Horatio, and Horatio and Bel-Imperia—but after Horatio’s death, the scarf also comes to represent revenge. When Horatio returns from war with Portugal wearing the scarf, which he has vowed to keep in the memory of his dear friend, Bel-Imperia explains that she gave the scarf to Andrea to wear in her honor before he left for war. Bel-Imperia, who has fallen in love with Horatio since Andrea’s death, therefore asks him to wear the scarf in both her honor and Andrea’s. Horatio, who also loves Bel-Imperia, accepts, and he is wearing the scarf the night he is murdered by Lorenzo and Balthazar in the garden. When Hieronimo finds his son dead in the garden, he takes the scarf from his body and, drenching it in Horatio’s blood, vows to keep it until Horatio’s death is avenged. Hieronimo indeed keeps the bloody scarf, even as he begins to spiral into insanity over the grief of losing his beloved son. When Hieronimo, who serves as Spain’s Knight Marshall, hears the case of Bazulto, an old man who is seeking justice for the murder of his own son, Hieronimo accidentally hands Bazulto the bloody scarf to dry his eyes instead of a handkerchief, metaphorically indicating how hard it is to separate the pursuit of justice from the bloodiness of revenge. After Hieronimo exacts his revenge in the play-within-a-play during the last act, which results in the murder of Lorenzo and Balthazar and the unexpected suicide of Bel-Imperia, Hieronimo produces the bloody scarf and shows the audience, proof of the justification of his bloody crime. While the scarf initially symbolizes the deep love shared by several of the characters, it is ultimately associated with Hieronimo’s revenge, which, like the scarf, is soaked in the blood of others. The beauty of love, the scarf suggests, can easily transform into the stain of madness and revenge.