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Malfi Act V scene iii Delio and Antonio meet under the Cardinal’s window…. Webster has set this in the ruins of an “ancient abbey” - there would have been many more obvious ones around after the depredations of the previous seventy years – The Dissolution of the Monasteries. Ironically, the Blackfriars Playhouse, where the play was first performed, had been created from the chapel or refectory of the Black Friars Monastery. There is a sense here of temporal instability – Rome would have been filled with classical ruins, Britain with religious ones. All things pass…. Delio warns of the echo – a way of getting her back into the play as a spirit. Where we have had parallels and mirrors – now there is a literal echo underlying the melancholic tone and emphasising the words said. Webster also uses the echo ironically – sometimes it commands – sometimes it comments. Like a ghost in the “cellarage” it seems left over from a previous time. Like most of the individuals in the play it has no control – no power. There is little real here – a poignant reminder of a lost world and happiness. Antonio seems now (like Hamlet) resolved to lose all, or nothing – living with regret is only half a life.