Act 3, Scene 8 Summary

Isabella considers taking herbal remedies that her Maid has told her will ease her troubled thoughts and calm her tears, but then says there's no medicine for her heart. The Maid tries to calm her, but Isabella imagines herself flying to heaven where she will find Horatio, having become an angel. Her thoughts then return to the men who killed her son, and she runs out in a near-insane search for them.

Act 3, Scene 8 Analysis

The noteworthy element in this brief but intense scene is the imagery of the Christian heaven, a very different kind of imagery from the majority of afterlife imagery in the play which, as has been discussed, is that of classic Roman myth. One possible explanation for this shift in imagery is the nature of Isabella's grief, pure as it is and unconcerned with revenge the way...