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Definition of Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved directly or indirectly, by making... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the... read full definition
Act 1, Scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Bowling:
Early in the play, Camillo, husband to Vittoria, speaks with Flamineo, Vittoria’s brother, about a recent visit by the Duke of Brachiano, who is conducting an affair with Vittoria. Camillo uses a simile that registers his apprehensions regarding Brachiano and foreshadows an important later event in the play.
CAMILLO
The Duke your master visits me. I thank him,
And I perceive how like an earnest bowler
He very passionately leans that way
He should have his bowl run.FLAMINIO
I hope you do not think –CAMILLO
That noblemen bowl booty? ’Faith, his cheek
Hath a most excellent bias: it would fain
Jump with my mistress.
Camillo tells Flamineo that he has been visited by Flamineo’s “master,” Brachiano, a powerful and wealthy Duke in the city of Rome. He is suspicious of Brachiano, noting in a simile that “like an earnest bowler,” Bachiano “leans” in the direction that “[h]e should have his bowl run.” Bowls was a common game in Renaissance Europe, which involves rolling weighted balls across a lawn. An “earnest bowler,” Camillo states, often unconsciously “leans” in the direction he hopes his ball will go. Similarly, he claims, Brachiano’s “cheek” has a “bias” (or turns towards) Camillo’s wife, Vittoria, suggesting that he desires her sexually.
Flamineo, who is in fact helping Brachiano to carry out his affair with Vittoria, interprets Camillo’s statement as an accusation, and he responds with alarm. Camillo, in turn, perceives Flamineo’s anxiety and jokes that “noblemen bowl booty,” or in other words, work together to cheat at games. Camillo’s simile, then, both expresses his suspicions regarding the affair but also foreshadows a later event in the play, in which Brachiano and Flamineo gang up on Camillo and murder him prior to a horse-race.
