Pride is a major theme in the poem. The speaker's overbearing pride-or in moral terms, his hubris-is incorporated into the very situation of Browning's monologue. In it, the Duke addresses an inferior, the emissary of a nobleman ("the Count, your master") whose daughter he intends to make his second wife. There are financial negotiations at stake-the matter of a dowry that the Duke intends to collect from the Count.