A villain is a person who, for a selfish end, willfully and deliberately violates the standards of morality sanctioned by the audience or reader. From the start, the Elizabethan villain had been entirely self-conscious, and entirely black, a complete embodiment of evil. Revenge is not a Christian attribute. Christian virtue, with its great emphasis on forgiveness, is a higher mode of behavior than pagan revenge. As Prospero observes in William Shakespeare's The Tempest , forgiveness is a nobler action than vengeance.
Anger is most often the motive with hatred a close second.
Hatred, in the eyes of another, was defined as natural wrath which had endured too long and had turned to unnatural malice. Anger can be cured by patience, but hatred is everlasting. Anger wants the victim to recognize the revenger, whereas hatred only desires to watch the destruction of the victim without recognition. Jealousy is another prime motive of revenge, it stems from the belief that an adversary or rival is an obstacle, that this adversary may hinder or cross the design and purpose of the revenger. Envy was considered the greatest Elizabethan vice, and it may be one of the most powerful of the passions inducing revenge.