Give the substance of the poem My Last Duchess

Q: Give the substance of the poem.

Ans. A stern, severe, Italian nobleman, with a nine-hundred-year's name, is showing his picture gallery to the envoy of a count whose daughter he is about to marry. He is standing before the portrait of his last duchess; he is a widower and is telling his companion that his last duchess paid attention to all. The depth and passion of her earnest glance was not reserved for her husband only. The slightest courtesy or attention was sufficient to call up the spot of joy in her face. Her heart was too soon made glad, too easily impressed. She smiled on her husband - she was his property and that was right; she smiled on others, and that was a violation of the rights of property which the duke could not tolerate. So he gave commands and then all smiles stopped together. He ordered to kill the lady and she was killed. The heartless duke dismisses the memory of the duchess. He asks the ambassador to go down together. As they descend he draws his guest's attention to a fine bronze statue and discusses the question of the dowry he is to receive with the woman who is to succeed his last duchess.