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The Duchess of Malfi

Overview

Gender
Male
Playing Age
Adult
Style
Dramatic
Act/Scene
Act 2, Scene 5
Time & Place
A private chamber in Rome, Italy, during the seventeenth century.
Length
Short
Time Period
Classical
Show Type
Play
Age Guidance
Youth (Y)/General Audiences (G)

Context

Text

Apply desperate physic:

We must not now use balsamum, but fire,

The smarting cupping-glass, for that's the mean

To purge infected blood, such blood as hers.

There is a kind of pity in mine eye,

I’ll give it to her handkercher; and now ‘tis here,

I’ll bequeath this to her bastard.

John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi, Act 2, sc.5 ll.24-29.

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