Gratiana, the widowed mother of Vindice, Hippolito and Castiza, uses a series of closely related metaphors in her attempt to convince Castiza to offer her virginity to the wealthy and powerful Lussurioso, heir to his father’s Dukedom, in exchange for financial privileges. Admonishing her daughter for her reluctance, Gratiana states that:
Oh if thou knewest
What t’were to lose it, thou would never keep it.
But there’s a cold curse laid upon all maids,
Whilst other clip the sun, they clasp the shades!
Virginity is paradise locked up.
You cannot come by yourselves without fee,
And it was decreed that man should keep the key.
According to Gratiana, to preserve virginity is, in a metaphor, akin to preferring “the shades” to the warmth of “the sun.” Her language here associates virginity with the cold and dark, in contrast to the heat and brightness of the sun. Further, she claims that “Virginity is paradise locked up,” metaphorically comparing sexual activity to a heavenly or wonderful location that is barred or “locked” against those traveling alone. A “fee” is required to enter this paradise, and only “man” has the “key” that opens the door. In these metaphors, Gratiana implies that her daughter shuns the pleasures and comforts that come with sex and companionship. A disguised Vindice is horrified to hear his mother speak in this frank and, to him, immoral manner.
After Vindice and Hippolito brutally criticize their mother for her willingness to offer Castiza to Lussurioso in exchange for financial security, they are moved by her apparent change of heart. As she cries in shame and remorse, they use a series of closely related metaphors that imagine her tears as a purifying rain:
Vindice. Nay and you draw tears once: go you to bed.
Wet will make iron blush and change to red.
Brother, it rains; ’twill spoil your dagger, house it.Hippolito. ’Tis done. Vindice. I’faith ’tis a sweet shower, it does much good.
The fruitful grounds and meadows of her soul
Has been long dry: pour down, thou blessed dew.
Rise, mother; troth, this shower has made you higher.Mother. O you heavens. Take this infectious spot out of my soul,
I’ll rinse it in seven waters of mine eyes;
Make my tears salt enough to taste of grace.
First, Vindice persuades his brother to put down his weapons, as Gratiana’s tears will make his sword “blush” just as metal rusts under conditions of rain. Next, Hippolito notes encouragingly that the “sweet shower” of her tears will have a positive spiritual effect, fertilizing the “fruitful grounds and meadows of her soul” after a long period of drought. Gratiana herself picks up on their metaphorical language and prays to the heavens to cleanse her of the “infectious spot” of sin and to “rinse” her clean with the “seven waters” issuing from her eyes. To Vindice and Hippolito, their mother’s tears validate her redemption.
Prior to the conclusion of their revenge plot at a royal banquet in honor of Lussurioso, Vindice and Hippolito confront their mother about her willingness to give over her daughter to the Duke’s family in exchange for financial privileges. They shame her for prioritizing money over honor, and Vindice uses a metaphor that compares a woman whose virtue has been compromised to cracked ice:
Hippolito. To be miserably great; rich, to be eternally wretched.
Vindice. O common madness. Ask but the thriving’st harlot in cold blood,
She’d give the world to make her honour good.
Perhaps you’ll say, but only to the duke’s son
In private; why, she first begins with one,
Who afterward to thousand proves a whore.
Break ice in one place, it will crack in more.
Together, Hippolito and Vindice condemn their mother in harsh terms and highlight the grave consequences that they believe follow from sex work, which they believe leaves a woman both “miserably great” and “eternally wretched,” terms that position earthly wealth against the dire fate of a "fallen" woman’s eternal soul. Anticipating and countering any excuses that their mother might use to justify her actions. Vindice argues that even if Castiza only ever had sex with one man, in private, this transgression would surely lead to a broader pattern of similar behavior. “Break ice in one place,” he claims, “it will crack in more.” Vindice’s metaphor suggests that a woman who compromises her virtue once will be morally weakened by her transgression and therefore more likely to repeat it, until she “proves a whore”—to use his words—to a thousand different men.
