The Spanish Tragedy Memory and the Past Quotes

Hieronimo is both Spain's highest judge and a murderous vigilante. How's that for conflict? In this moment, Hieronimo is reminded of his vigilantism while executing government-sanctioned justice. The real juicy part is that Hieronimo is unwittingly putting one of his son's murderers to death. So he doesn't even know that he just legally got justice for his son. It's heavily ironic that the memory of avenging Horatio's murder pops up while he unknowingly kills one of the murderers.

What does this irony say about the relationship between justice and revenge? Is it hauntingly arbitrary? Are we supposed to think of justice and revenge as one and the same? Or is the irony present to remind us that revenge is an unknowing, destructive force. Good luck with all that.

Memory is also about forgetting. And here Bel-Imperia questions how Hieronimo could have forgotten the letter she sent him. After all, the letter tells Hieronimo who's behind the murder (and it was written in blood). While Hieronimo hasn't exactly forgotten the letter, he doesn't put enough trust in it either.

Maybe this is all about the unreliability of the written word when it comes to recollection and motivation. Hieronimo is consistently motivated by his own memories, but Bel-Imperia's written recollection does little to move him. It's as if there's something visceral and even palpable about personal memory that cannot be translated to text. Bloody or not, the letter doesn't accomplish much. So, um, what does this say about the bloody play we're studying? Can a play really change us? Or is personal experience the only way to truly learn? Maybe you should play it safe by both reading and living as much as you can.

History is just another form of memory, right? And here Bel-Imperia warns Hieronimo about becoming a bad historical example for forgetting his duties as an avenger. She makes the point that she can't forget Horatio's death even though she's really a stranger to him in comparison with his father. This passage reminds us that there are multiple forms of memory competing in the play: the memory of a father's love for his son, the memory of a murdered lover, the memory of a lost friend, how memory lives on in the afterlife, and the way that recorded history will remember our actions. Revenge is complicated, and The Spanish Tragedy explores how all these memories are impossible to reconcile on the vexed path of revenge.