As the poem "My Last Duchess" opens, the Duke shows a visitor a painted portrait of his former wife. Line 7 groups the hearer in with "strangers," so we can assume the visitor has never been there before. The man, whom the Duke addresses as "Sir," has evidently remarked about the "spot of joy" in the Duchess' cheek, as others have done. But it is not until line 49 that the reader gets information about why the visitor is being given this tour of the Duke's art gallery.
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self . . .
Is my object.
From these lines the reader at last discerns that the Duke is speaking to a representative of a Count, arranging a marriage between the Count's daughter and the Duke. Interestingly, and somewhat humorously, it appears that the Duke's rant about his last duchess, and his implied treatment of her, causes the Count's representative to want to hightail it out of there. The Duke has to restrain him from making a hasty exit by saying, "Nay, we'll go together down, sir." That reaction gives the reader hope that the Count's daughter will not become the Duke's next duchess.
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