A ESCRAVA ISAURA

A Escrava Isaura 8.173 · 8.173

'Interest and duty'

Read the full text in our reader

que era do interesse e dever della render-se a seos desejos.

Word by word

quekethateraE-rait wasdoduin theinteressein-te-RE-siinteresteianddeverde-VERdutydellaDE-laof herrender-sehen-DER-sito yieldaatoseosSE-ushhisdesejosde-ZE-zhushdesires.

The setting

that it was in her interest and her duty to yield to his desires.

A note on this passage

The content of his 'persuasion' is exposed and it is monstrous logic: that surrender was 'do interesse e dever della,' in her interest and her duty. He recasts his assault as her obligation, twisting the language of virtue — 'dever,' duty — into a demand for its opposite. The same word Malvina used for the freeing of Isaura, a real duty flouted, is here perverted into a duty to submit. His whole rhetoric inverts right and wrong.

Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.

Open A Escrava Isaura 8.173 in the full reader

Always open passages in the reader

From the Great Library

You are reading a page of the A Escrava Isaura — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.

The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.

Also on our shelves:

A Escrava Isaura 8.173 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/escravaisaura/8.173/