Barkilphedro plots to humiliate Josiana

Barkilphedro’s plot to humiliate Josiana begins in a deliberate reversal of gratitude: having received benefits from her, he resolves to make her suffer. His revenge is sharpened by the difference between their positions and pursued through patient observation at Queen Anne’s court. The episode establishes his intention, his chosen target, and the political opening he hopes to use, but does not yet show him carrying out the humiliation he anticipates.

Motive and target

The account presents Barkilphedro’s ingratitude as the starting point of the scheme. Josiana has benefited him, but he treats her generosity not as a reason for loyalty but as an additional cause for resentment. The narrator makes that inversion central: Barkilphedro wants revenge precisely on someone who has done him good. His grievance is therefore not presented as a response to an injury by Josiana; it is a hostility that feeds on the benefit itself.

The difference between the two also supplies the plot’s social charge. Josiana is described as beautiful, young, wealthy, powerful, and illustrious, while Barkilphedro is old, poor, dependent, and obscure. His plan grows out of this contrast as well as out of her favors: he resents not only what she has done for him, but the advantages and standing she possesses. The narrative links his personal animus to a wider inequality of rank, making her high position part of what attracts his attack.

A harm deliberately limited to humiliation

Barkilphedro does not expect to destroy Josiana altogether. The objective he settles on is narrower: to diminish and grieve her, and to make her proud eyes fill with tears of anger. This limit matters to the shape of the plot. His anticipated success is not the removal of his powerful target but a reversal, however temporary, in which he can make her feel the effects of his concealed hostility.

His intention is firm before its means are settled. He takes pleasure in the prospect of doing harm even though he has not yet decided what specific action to take. The distinction between a formed purpose and an unformed plan defines the episode: Barkilphedro has chosen Josiana as his target and humiliation as his desired result, but the opportunity and method remain to be found. The evidence records his preparation and expectation, not the accomplishment of the revenge.

Waiting for an opening

Barkilphedro’s method is to remain ready for an unforeseen circumstance rather than commit himself to a detailed scheme in advance. The narrative contrasts this opportunistic watchfulness with a fixed plan that might fit the eventual situation badly. He waits for an opening he can turn to immediate advantage, treating uncertainty not as a barrier but as the condition in which his kind of calculation works.

This approach makes observation part of the plot. Barkilphedro studies the court and considers what access to the queen might permit. His position there gives him a foothold, and he takes Queen Anne’s occasional malicious smiles as evidence that he has gained some license to act. Yet he does not assume that this access is enough. Josiana is the queen’s sister, so a misjudged move could cost him the position he has acquired. His watchfulness is consequently both predatory and cautious: he seeks an opening while assessing the risk of using it.

The court as an instrument

Barkilphedro considers the relationship between Queen Anne and Josiana before deciding how their position might serve his purpose. He asks himself whether the queen loves her sister, recognizing that the answer could determine whether an attack on Josiana is safe. The text does not establish what Anne feels or show Barkilphedro carrying out a maneuver against either woman; it presents his calculation as an unresolved assessment.

He also weighs the sisters’ ages: Josiana is twenty-three and Anne forty-one. Barkilphedro regards the difference as potentially useful, construing the queen’s age as a source of resentment toward the younger woman’s beauty. This is his strategic reading of their circumstances, not proof that Anne acts against Josiana. The age comparison gives him a possible point of leverage, while the question of sisterly affection remains a danger to be measured. By ending with Barkilphedro watching, the episode leaves the plot poised between intention and action. His access, resentment, and observation have prepared a possible route to humiliation, but the decisive opportunity has not yet appeared.