Justice Without Revenge
by Lope De Vega, Jill Booty

The play deals with the events which lead up to the gory climax to which the title refers: The Duke of Ferrara is a rake with an illegitimate son, and he marries a young wife - not for love but in hopes of providing himself with a legitimate heir.

The illegitimate son, Frederico, meets Cassandra, soon to be his stepmother, quite by accident, and their initial attraction to one another confounds matters, as the Duke continues to neglect his wife and remains immoral.

Lope de Vega, one of the major figures of Spain's Golden Age, has gone to great pains to show how Cassandra's common sense is only gradually overcome by her outraged pride and by her mounting passion, - the key figure in this play.