The Uncertain Nature of Bel-Imperia

It is easy, at least initially, to feel sorry for Bel-Imperia. In the first two acts alone, she loses not one, but two apparent lovers: Andrea in war and Horatio to the treachery of Lorenzo. Yet her actions and words should provoke our suspicions, and call into question our initial sympathy. Bel-Imperia immediately finds a replacement for Andrea in Horatio, a rebound which devalues both her love for Andrea and her new feelings for his Horatio. Furthermore, her romance with Horatio, although seeming partly to stem from true feelings, also derives from a desire for revenge. She reveals that her "second love shall further [her] revenge./ [She'll] love Horatio, [her] Andrea's friend, / The more to spite the prince that wrought his end" (I, iv, 67-69). Bel-Imperia uses Horatio in a game of revenge which ultimately leads to his death. Even if she could not foresee Horatio's murder at the hands of Lorenzo and Balthazar, she hardly acts like a mourning woman we should feel sorry for, mixing love and revenge in a deadly combination.