Did She Know Something We Don't?

I know death hath ten thousand several doors
For men to take their exits: and ‘tis found
They go on such strange geometrical hinges,
You may open them both ways.

John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi, Act 4, Scene 2

I saw this quote on Laudator Temporis Acti this morning.

Now that sounds rather intriguing as thus isolated from the context of this play, as if the Duchess knew something about the strange labyrinths of the After Life. But the image turns more prosaic as we look at it more in context. Herewith the Duchess speaking just before she dies by strangling:

What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut
With diamonds? or to be smothered
With cassia? or to be shot to death with pearls?
I know death hath ten thousand several doors
For men to take their exits; and ‘tis found
They go on such strange geometrical hinges,
You may open them both ways: any way, for heaven-sake,
So I were out of your whispering. Tell my brothers
That I perceive death, now I am well awake,
Best gift is they can give or I can take.
I would fain put off my last woman’s fault,
I’d not be tedious to you.

The play was first performed in 1613 and belongs to the drama of its time in the context of England of that time—the Shakespearean era. The poor Duchess of Malfi. Her first husband died and she fell for the steward of her estate, well beneath her station. No matter. They married in secret—which enraged her two brothers who had their eyes on the estate. We'd call that a portfolio today. They connive and maneuver until, at last, she is strangled to death. But their own fates are also sealed. They eventually destroy each other. Gore upon gore. Now, mind you, there are some distinct similarities to this day and age if we look high enough up. And the folk in the pits in those days no doubt enjoyed this lurid tale as much as we delight in similar series...

Now that word, cassia. It is the name of the plant from which cinnamon comes and may mean either: the flowering plant or cinnamon itself. Since cinnamon was expensive then, it fits with the other “means” the Duchess cites. But John Webster perhaps also knew that cinnamon was used in Egypt as part of the embalming process, and so the word has additional “heavenly” resonance...