Duchesses

I've just been dragged (ok, winsomely invited) by G to see The Duchess. It was surprisingly good, considering - with a deeply unsympathetic, but not entirely inhuman portrayal of the Duke by Ralph Fiennes. It seemed an unusually steady representation of the combination of social duties and personal authority in a member of the aristocracy. His unflinching response to his wife's infidelity, with cruelty fired by underlying personal jealousy, was reminiscent of another Duke... Sure enough, as I checked when I got home, the parallels to Robert Browning's My Last Duchess were striking:

She thanked men, — good! but thanked

Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name

With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame

This sort of trifling? Even had you skill

In speech — (which I have not) — to make your will

Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this

Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,

Or there exceed the mark" — and if she let

Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,

--E'en then would be some stooping, and I choose

Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,

Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without

Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;

Then all smiles stopped together...