Bosola's Haunting

    At the very beginning of the play Bosola has just come in and then the Cardinal comes in after him; Bosola addresses him bluntly: "I do haunt you still" (1.1.27).  Bosola goes onto explain that he has been on a slave galley for some time in some way connected to the Cardinal.  To the Cardinals retreat he says "Some fellows, they say are possessed with the devil, but this great fellow were able to posses the greatest devil, and make him worse" (1.1.44-46).  This sets up what Bosola and the rest of society think about Cardinals and this one in particular.  Then there is the even more "haunting" line:

    "He and his brother are like plum trees that grow crooked over standing pools; they are rich and o'erladen with fruit, but none but crows, pies, and caterpillars feed on them.  Could I be one of their flattering panders, I would hang on their ears like a horse-leech till I were full, then drop off" (1.1.48-53).

    Bosola tells an enormous chunk of the plot all right here before the 54th line of the entire play!  He espouses how crooked the Cardinal and Ferdinand are, how rotten they are, and how it would be wise of him or good for him to grab on while he can and when full or when profited from them, let go and vanish.  If one pays attention to this line then it makes the end where he turns on the brothers inevitable but it seems to be easy to forget all this in the "dark" of the murder of the duchess and her children.  

    Bosola does indeed echo his own lines in actions by becoming full and dropping off but after he does so, he sees it fit to kill both brothers and in doing this dies himself...like a poor horse-leech.