The Spanish Tragedy Society and Class Quotes

Before Balthazar realizes that Bel-Imperia despises him and has a new lover in Horatio, he waxes badly poetic while trying to wrap his head around why this woman doesn't immediately fall into his arms. He attempts to use logic to figure out love (bad move), and his logic is very telling. He surmises that Bel-Imperia has a good reason to love him because he can "uprear her state." Which is to say, Bel-Imperia would be "movin' on up" the social scale by marrying a prince.

The only problem with this, according to his logic, is that there's always someone nobler. He doesn't even stop to consider that he could possibly lose out to a man beneath his social station. And this probably explains why murder sounds like a good option after he finds out Bel-Imperia favors Horatio. The elitist, out-of-touch snob sees the fruits of life as his privilege, and this includes living, breathing human beings endowed with freewill. What a jerk.

Here we see that royal marriages in the 16th century had nothing to do with love—it was about movable property and national relations. The king wants to marry Bel-Imperia to Balthazar to create peaceful ties between Spain and Portugal. And because he apparently doesn't have children of his own, the match gives him a way to make sure his family retains control of Spain. So yeah, there's a bit of pressure on Bel-Imperia.

Later, the king makes this pressure heavily concrete by saying, "If she (Bel-Imperia) neglect him (Balthazar) and forgo his love/ She both will wrong her own estate and ours." The king essentially treats Bel-Imperia as just another commodity beside the dowry and tribute money he references. And wait a second, wasn't that tribute money supposed to go to Horatio's family? This is a necessary passage to help modern folks (like us) understand just how scandalous it is for Bel-Imperia to degrade her worth (from the king's perspective) by dating below her station.

Wow. Tell us what you really think of the common folks. The basic gist is that Lorenzo sees the lower classes as expendable people (or slaves, as he calls them) meant to die for his needs. Oh yeah, at least he pays them. While he's extraordinarily villainous, the play does speak to the rigidity and cruelty of the Renaissance class system. The speech is about Lorenzo paying henchmen to do his evil deeds. But the money won't do these guys much good since he intends to kill them off to cover his tracks. His reasoning? It's better for "base companions" to die than us noble folks of "good haps" (or good fortune). Yeah, you wouldn't want all that rich living to go to waste there, Mr. Thoughtful.