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The 'Painter' Scene

‘The first half ended with the painter scene – or rather, with the Citizens’ already notorious version of it. The King of Portugal had become a blind Pope, kept prisoner – and kept ignorant of his son’s good luck – by the King of Spain. Intermittently seen wandering in the night and speaking the Fortune’s wheel speeches, he was a deliberately grotesque figure who now became a painter in Hieronimo’s sick imagination and was wretched enough to accept that or any other role. […] As the old man writhed, Revenge sat in bored irritation, waiting for self-destructiveness to turn to open violence.’

Tony Howard, ‘Renaissance Drama Productions: Kyd – The Spanish Tragedy 1978, Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama, 21 (1978), 64-66 (65)