The Revenger’s Tragedy: Irony 4 key examples

In a scene rife with dramatic irony, Lussurioso unknowingly orders a disguised Vindice to serve as a “panderer” (or a “middleman” between a sex worker and a client) for his own sister. After offering to set up Lussurioso with any woman he chooses, the Duke’s eldest son reveals his deep desire for Castiza: 

Vindice. You have gi’en it the tang, i’faith, my lord.     
Make known the lady to me, and my brain 
Shall swell with strange invention; I will move it 
Till I expire with speaking, and drop down 
Without a word to save me; – but I’ll work –

Lussurioso. We thank thee, and will raise thee. 
Receive her name: it is the only daughter to 
Madam Graziana, the late widow. 

Vindice. [Aside] Oh, my sister, my sister! 

Lussurioso. Why dost walk aside? 

Vindice. My lord, I was thinking how I might begin,      
As thus, ‘oh lady’ – or twenty hundred devices:

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The scenes in which Vindice assumes the disguise of a “panderer” (similar to a “pimp”) are heavily suffused with dramatic irony, as other characters do not realize that they are speaking with Vindice and behave very differently than they ordinarily would in his company. When Lussurioso unknowingly requests that Vindice “pander” his own sister and insinuates that Gratiana would approve, Vindice decides to test his mother’s virtue: 

Vindice. You took great pains for her once when it was:   
Let her requite it now, though it be but some. 
You brought her forth, she may well bring you home. 

Mother. O heavens! This overcomes me. 

Vindice. [Aside] Not, I hope, already? 

Mother. It is too strong for me. Men know that know us, 
We are so weak their words can overthrow us. 
He touched me nearly, made my virtues ’bate 
When his tongue struck upon my poor estate. 

Vindice. [Aside] I e’en quake to proceed. 
My spirit turns edge? I fear me she’s unmothered, yet I’ll venture:

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Under the guise of Piato the “panderer,” Vindice arranges a sexual encounter between the Duke and the poisoned skeleton of his own late fiancée, Gloriana, who was poisoned by the Duke nine years before the events depicted in the play. Vindice’s language in this scene exemplifies verbal irony, as his speech, full of morbid double entendres, exploits the darkly comedic potential of the Duke’s ignorance of his plan: 

Duke. Piato, well done. Hast brought her; what lady is’t? 

Vindice. ’Faith my lord, a country lady: a little bashful at first as most of them are, but 
after the first kiss, my lord, the worst is past with them. Your grace knows now what
you have to do. She’s somewhat a grave look with her – but – 

Duke. I love that best: conduct her. 

Vindice. [Aside] Have at all! [Brings forward the dressed skull.] 

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In Act 4, Scene 2, Lussurioso orders the death of “Piato” who is in fact Vindice in disguise. In a turn of both dramatic and situational irony, he decides to find a new “panderer” and asks Hippolito about Vindice, who then assumes a new disguise as a lawyer. In their “first” meeting, Vindice offers a harsh satire of lawyers, a conventional target for satirical works in the early modern period: 

Lussurioso. What, three and twenty years in law? 

Vindice. I have known those that have been five and fifty, and all about pullin and pigs.  

Lussurioso. May it be possible such men should breathe, 
To vex the terms so much?

Vindice. ’Tis food to some, my lord. There are old men at the present, that are so poisoned with the affectation of law-words – have had many suits canvassed – that their common talk is nothing but Barbary latin. They cannot so much as pray, but in law, that their sins may be removed, with a writ of error; and their souls fetched up on heaven with a sasarara.

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