"My Last Duchess" a subtly patterned poem in pentameter that steps into the next line is the dramatic monologue of the Duke Ferrara as he negotiates a new marriage with the emissary for another wealthy family. As the Duke passes the portrait of the young Duchess who has died, he mentions her with less than regret to his guest that the painter Fra Pandolf made "by design when he portrayed "that picured countenance." Continuing his narrative, the Duke tells the emissary that 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.'
As the Duke's monlogue about the painting continues, it becomes apparent that the young woman's "looks went everywhere." When the Duchess
thanked men--good! but thanked/Somehow--I know not how--as if she ranked/My gifft of a nine-hundred-years-old name/With anybody's gift
the Duke is too insulted to excuse her and chooses "Never to stoop. He gives his wife "commands," but she ignores them. So, "all smiles stopped together." And, in the same breath, the duke nonchalantly says, "There she stands/As if alive" and continues his business of a new marriage without missing a beat of the pentameter. The Duke dismissed her life just as he has dismissed the painting. And, since this poem's setting is the Renaissance, the assumption by the reader must be that the Duchess has been killed since divorce in Renaissance Italy was nonexistent.
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