After an old woman interrupts his conversation with Castruchio in Act 2, Scene 1, Bosola turns on her. He insults her appearance and uses imagery and descriptive language to berate her and make his point. The audience is able to infer, from the way that he’s speaking, that he is angry and deeply troubled. His rant is ultimately about pleasure and passion, and though it’s directed at the old woman and inspired by her appearance and her transgression on Bosola’s conversation, the audience knows that Bosola is thinking about the Duchess. Bosola’s use of imagery grounds his critique of the overly passionate in sensory, descriptive language. He says:
The lusty spring smells well, but drooping autumn tastes well
Bosola draws on both smell and taste as he remarks on how easy it is to be misled by lust over the more important virtues. In this scene, it’s clear to the audience that Bosola is fuming about the Duchess. His philosophy about love and desire is shaped by his disapproval of the Duchess’s behavior, but he comes to life in his tirade against the old woman. By using the senses to describe the experience of lust and longing, he connects the audience to the sensation of experiencing these things. This makes his disapproval more powerful. Bosola’s connection to the Duchess is clear to the audience because of the strength of his response to the old woman. Their experience of his insults is heightened by his use of descriptive language. The imagery he uses here invokes the passage of time and the sensations of lust and pleasure by linking those experiences to the senses.
