That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive.

The speaker opens the poem with these lines, which are enormously loaded despite how conversational they initially seem. First of all, when the speaker refers to his late wife as “my last Duchess,” he’s alluding to the larger context of the scene depicted in the poem. We won’t learn this until near the poem’s end, but the person the speaker is addressing is an emissary who’s been sent to Ferrara to negotiate the terms for the Duke’s new marriage. As such, the speaker is simply clarifying that the portrait depicts his previous Duchess, as distinct from the prospective new one. Yet there’s something profoundly sinister about the Duke’s use of the word “last,” which connotes a sense of disposability. As we will also learn later in the poem, the speaker orchestrated his late wife’s death for seemingly minor reasons that he may even have made up in his own head. The seeming ease with which he “gave commands” (line 45) and had her killed confirms the initial hint of disposability suggested in the poem’s first line. The sinister adds to the sinister vibe in the second line, where he reflects that his late wife looks uncannily alive in her portrait.

                     Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek; perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps
Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat.” Such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy.

This passage (lines 13–21) comes just after the Duke implies that most people who look at his late wife’s portrait are struck by the Duchess’s expression. Here, the Duke proceeds to explain “how such a glance came there” (line 12). It seems that the most notable element in the portrait is a flush of red that extends from the Duchess’s neck up into her cheeks. Twice in this passage the Duke refers to this flush as a “spot of joy,” as if to indicate that his late wife had a habit of blushing with joy. Yet, the fact that he specifically calls it “that spot of joy” makes it sound as if the Duchess was notorious for her blushing. And indeed, this is the Duke’s point. She apparently blushed quite easily, and not only from her husband’s attention. The repeated reference to “that spot of joy” therefore reflects the Duke’s residual jealousy. It’s also worth noting how the Duke paraphrases Fra Pandolf’s description of the Duchess’s blush as “the faint / Half-flush that dies along her throat.” These words foreshadow the Duke’s later revelation that he orchestrated her death. Was she killed by strangulation?

                  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.

In lines 31–43, the Duke devolves into a rant and begins to dart rapidly from one thought to another. Browning emphasizes this darting with the frequent use of long dashes, which indicate interruptions in the Duke’s thought process. As his thoughts twist and turn, it becomes clear that the Duke is growing increasingly upset as he gets sucked into old feelings of jealousy. His sense of personal hurt comes through most clearly when he implies that his late wife trampled on his “gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name.” Another key aspect of this passage is the way it reveals the speaker’s unreliability. In the beginning of the passage, he complains about being unable to express his jealous feelings to his late wife. By the passage’s end, however, he reframes this inability as a form of refusal. That is, he declares that he didn’t say anything out of a sense of pride, since addressing the subject with her would be tantamount to stooping—“and I choose / Never to stoop.” The unreliability revealed in this contradiction forces us readers to consider what else we should question in the Duke’s narrative.

              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. There she stands
As if alive. Will’t please you rise?

Lines 43–47 contain the key moment in the poem, where the Duke strongly implies that he was responsible for orchestrating his late wife’s death. As he puts it, in order to stop all the smiles of promiscuous flirtation, he “gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together.” One notable aspect of this short passage is the way it grows increasingly terse. Compared to the passage that directly precedes it, in which the Duke speaks in sprawling, convoluted sentences that make him sound unstable, the sentences in this passage are short and pointed. The terseness of these sentences indicates that the Duke is attempting to regain control over his emotions. This same terseness also communicates the brutality of the Duke’s solution to his interpersonal problems. With just a simple command he demonstrated that he had the ultimate power over the Duchess. And yet, immediately after declaring his superior power, the Duke looks back at his late wife’s portrait and says, “There she stands / As if alive.” Does he feel guilty under her gaze? If so, it would explain why he swiftly puts an end to the viewing of her portrait and steers the emissary away.

                       We’ll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,    
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

The Duke closes the poem with these lines (47–56), where he reasserts control of a situation that has gotten him a bit riled up. He does so first by ushering the emissary away from his late wife’s portrait, then by steering the conversation to the marriage negotiations that are about to commence. Here we learn that the emissary the Duke has been addressing is in Ferrara on behalf of a “Count,” whose “fair daughter” the Duke now wishes to marry. Our speaker makes a politically astute move by complementing the Count’s generosity. He then draws the emissary’s attention to another work of art in his collection. This work is a bronze statue that depicts the Roman sea god Neptune taming a seahorse. The statue reaffirms the Duke sense of himself as a man who’s in control, considering how it sinisterly mirrors the way the speaker has “tamed” his late wife. Yet the Duke’s gesture to this statue is another political maneuver. He makes a point of name-dropping Claus of Innsbruck partly to brag about the artist. But he also does so to demonstrate that his connections extend to Innsbruck, where the Count has his capital.

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