At the end of Act 1, Revenge heavily foreshadows later events in the play. His comment is sparked by Andrea’s own dissatisfaction with the events that they have witnessed. Andrea complains that he has returned to earth for revenge rather than “pleasant sights,” and Revenge urges him to delay judgment:
ANDREA: Come we for this from depth of underground,
To see him feast that gave me my death's wound?
These pleasant sights are sorrow to my soul—
Nothing but league, and love and banqueting!REVENGE: Be still, Andrea: ere we go from hence,
I'll turn their friendship into fell despite,
Their love to mortal hate, their day to night,
Their hope into despair, their peace to war,
Their joys to pain, their bliss to misery.
Andrea insists that they have encountered “Nothing but league, and love and banqueting” rather than vengeance. Beckoning him to “be still,” Revenge claims that he will bring about a complete reversal of the present situation, converting love into hate, day into night, hope into despair, peace into war, etc. In other words, Revenge will bring chaos and misery to the Spanish court.
Revenge’s words here also hint at the moral complications that the story will later explore in more detail. The cycle of revenge will not only punish Balthazar but will bring general disorder to the Kingdom, turning “bliss to misery.” Revenge, the story suggests, can be a messy affair that ultimately affects many people who are not directly involved.
Fortune serves as a prominent motif in The Spanish Tragedy. Like later works written in the genre of the revenge tragedy, Kyd’s play seems to be set in a world in which the Christian God plays little role. Instead, figures such as Fortune are invoked to emphasize the sense of moral chaos and social disorder. Where God punishes the bad and rewards the good, the goddess Fortune seems indifferent to this moral logic, instead distributing her blessings randomly.
Fortune is invoked in a pivotal scene in the play, in which Horatio and Bel-Imperia discuss their love for one another in a garden before Horatio is brutally murdered by Lorenzo and Balthazar:
HORATIO: What means my love?
BEL-IMPERIA: I know not what myself,
And yet my heart foretells me some mischance.HORATIO: Sweet, say not so; fair fortune is our friend,
And heavens have shut up day to pleasure us.
The stars, thou see'st, hold back their twinkling shine,
And Luna hides herself to pleasure us.BEL-IMPERIA: Thou hast prevailed; I'll conquer my misdoubt,
And in thy love and counsel drown my fear:
I fear no more; love now is all my thoughts.
In a scene that heavily foreshadows the tragedy to come, Horatio notes Bel-Imperia’s unease, and she is unable to attribute her own anxiety to any clear source. Horatio encourages her to be optimistic, insisting that “fair fortune is our friend.” Ultimately, she agrees to “conquer her misdoubt” and enjoy their evening together.
Horatio’s optimistic outlook is unfortunately mistaken: Fortune, the play suggests, is nobody’s “friend” but rather, a figure who symbolizes unexpected twists of fate. While Fortune seems, at this point in the play, to favor Lorenzo and Balthazar, she will ultimately turn on them too. Fortune, then, is a fitting goddess for the bleak moral vision of The Spanish Tragedy.
