In Thomas Middleton’s play Women Beware Women (c.1623-24), which I wrote about here, women are presented as their own worst enemies. At the centre of the play is the character Livia, who engineers the downfall of two young women, Bianca and Isabella, persuading them to embark on dangerous sexual relationships (Bianca’s adulterous and precipitated by a rape, Isabella’s incestuous) which bring about their downfalls and ultimate demise. In her dying breath Bianca, realising what Livia has done, laments ‘the deadly snares / That women set for women’. Continue reading “Dangerous women”
Tag: women
A Greedy Villain
The Count … plaintively devoured the greater part of a fruit tart, submerged under a whole jugful of cream – and explained the full merit of the achievement to us, as soon as he had done. ‘A taste for sweets’, he said in his softest tones and his tenderest manner, ‘is the innocent taste of women and children. I love to share it with them – it is another bond, dear ladies, between you and me.’ Continue reading “A Greedy Villain”
Apricots
As we bid farewell – for the time being – to Shakespeare, and move on a few years into gory Jacobean revenge drama, we say hello to the apricot. It has been speculated that the apricot originated in either Armenia – about 50 different varieties of the fruit are grown there nowadays – India or China. By Roman times apricots had spread into the Mediterranean region, and they have been known in England since the 16th century; one story says that Henry VIII’s gardener introduced apricots to England from Italy in 1542. Continue reading “Apricots”