SOURCES

The first literary treatment of the plot of Measure for Measure was Claude Rouillet's Philanira (1556), a Latin play which was translated into French seven years later. This was followed by the version given in Giraldi's Hecatommithi, a collection of tales in which Shakespeare also found the plot of Othello. There was a French translation by Gabriel Chappuys in 1584. Giraldi also wrote a dramatic version of the story, entitled Epitia, which was published posthumously in 1583; it was never acted. Meanwhile George Whetstone's play on the same theme, Promos and Cassandra, had been published in 1578, and this was Shakespeare's principal source. Three years later Thomas Lupton retold the story in the second part of Siuquila, and in 1582 Whetstone rehandled it as one of the tales in his Heptameron of Civil Discourses. There were a other versions of the story, but they appear to have had no influence, direct or indirect, on Shakespeare's play. Shakespeare probably wrote Measure for Measure in 1603-04.

GENERAL COMMENTS

Of the many sources Shakespeare had at his disposal, none are as effective as his Measure for Measure. The earlier versions are rather crude in theme and the characterization is not believable. Accordingly, Shakespeare decided to write a play on the subject of forgiveness--not the forgiveness prompted by sexual passion as in Whetstone, but Christian forgiveness--that is, the forgiveness of enemies. Indeed, this play is perhaps Shakespeare's most "religious" work although interestingly it is also one in which he deals most explicitly with sexuality: fornication, seduction, prostitution, and unbridled sexual passion are everywhere apparent.

The first point to be noted is that Measure for Measure, unlike some of the comedies, has a highly significant title, a phrase which not only sums up the basic theme of the play, but is brought out and emphasized at the crisis in the last act, when the Duke condemns Angelo: "'An Angelo for Claudio, death for death.' / Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure; / Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure" (V, i, 414-16). Shakespeare is of course thinking of the Sermon on the Mount: "Do not judge lest you be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you" (Matt. 7:1-2). In both the Matthew and Luke passages where this idea occurs, it is of course an integral part of a larger passage on Christ's great pronouncement about Christian forgiveness (Read Luke 6:27-42).

One of the interesting questions about judgment suggested by this passage is who does the judging. That is, who actually is to return rash judgment for rash judgment, condemnation for condemnation, like for like? The same men who have just been explicitly commanded to forbear judgment and forgive injuries? God? The same God whom His Son has just described as being "kind to ungrateful and evil men"? One Renaissance commentator of the Bible says that though God does not will men to return evil for evil, and those who indulge in the practice are miserable sinners, God nevertheless uses their wickedness to punish the other miserable sinners who have done evil in the first place. This may be a reasonable explanation but perhaps a more significant one for our understanding of Measure for Measure is the Renaissance belief that the authority of all civil rulers is derived from God; as a result, a prince or king could legitimately judge men on earth in God's stead. This is very important in terms of the play because in many ways the Duke functions as God's substitute.

Actually, in their capacity as God's substitutes, rulers have four privileges:

1) Sanctity of person; that is, no man may raise his hand against him, or even disparage him in speech or thought. Consider this in view of Lucio's verbal abuse of the Duke, abuse that modern audiences take without offense.

2) Rulers have absolute power; all men should obey him without question unless his commands directly contradict God's laws. Even then disobedience must have been entirely passive, and any retaliation from the authorities endured with patience.

3) The right to enforce the law; in civil matters, the avenging of evil, which God has strictly forbidden to private individuals, is the office and duty of the ruler and his subordinates.

4) The right of using extraordinary means; that is, the ruler may do whatever is necessary to bring about justice and good fortune for his people. Consider Solomon's ordering of the child to be divided. In the play, consider the Duke's various extreme measures to help expose Angelo.

Of course above all else it was the ruler's responsibility to enforce justice and this was to be balanced by the exercise of mercy. If we look at the two rulers, the Duke and Angelo, in Measure for Measure, we see excesses on either end. The Duke, at the beginning of the play, has failed as a good ruler because he has been too merciful to enforce the laws properly; accordingly Vienna is overrun with brothels and sexual practices are lax. The Duke is essentially a wise and noble man who has erred from an excess of good will; he has put an end to his foolishness before the action of the play begins, and so later can step into the role of hero and good ruler; but Shakespeare does not disguise the fact that he has been wrong, at one point describing the Duke's laxity as a "vice". Angelo, on the other hand, is guilty of a too harsh enforcement of justice--he demands that the people live by the letter of the law. He is the epitome of all men who have "nothing in their mouths but the law, the law: and Justice, Justice, in the meantime forgetting that Justice always shakes hands with her sister mercy." This harshness Shakespeare traces to the personal flaw described in the measure-for measure passage: the bitter and uncharitable narrowness in judging others that springs from a refusal to recognize or deal with one's own faults. Unlike the Duke, Angelo has not contended especially to know himself; he has no real conception of the potentialities of his own character. As a result, he thinks so well of himself that he neither has any defense against sudden overwhelming temptation nor possesses the humility and comprehension necessary to deal properly with Claudio.

Measure for Measure has been called one of the "problem plays" since it does not fit neatly in either the comic or tragic category. Some critics insist that it is a tragicomedy since "it wants death which is enough to make it no tragedy, yet brings some near it which is enough to make it no comedy." Further, it employs in the main action all the conventional devices of this genre: disguise, mistaken identity, complex intrigue, and the surprise ending. The play may not be one of Shakespeare's most successful artist efforts; the incongruity between the tragic theme, the tragicomedy technique, and the realistic background is too harsh. On the other hand, the play affords, as few other of his comedies do, a direct insight into Shakespeare's mind and heart, a mind working along the lines of Christian ethics and a heart full of sympathy for even the lowest forms of life.

CHARACTERIZATION

The verdicts passed upon the main characters vary with the ethical and aesthetic presuppositions of the critics. One of them condemns the Duke as too timid or irresolute to enforce his own laws; another says that his sense of human responsibility is delightful and that "within the dramatic universe he is automatically comparable with Divinity"; still another affirms that he is not a live man at all, but essentially "a puppet, cleverly painted and adroitly manipulated." Angelo is variously described as 1) a villain by nature, 2) an object of ridicule, and 3) virtuous because untried. Perhaps the extremes of clashing judgment are found in the verdicts upon Isabella. She has been called 1) "Shakespeare's first wholly Christian woman, 2) acknowledged for her "self-centered saintliness" and lack of "human feeling," 3) a prude, guilty of "rancid chastity." My comments on the characters, then, may reflect, as is obvious from the just mentioned comments, more about me than about the characters!

1) Duke: There is no doubt how Shakespeare meant us to regard the Duke. "One that, above all other strifes, contended especially to know himself: a gentleman of all temperance," says Escalus. Isabel, in her moment of dire distress, remembers him as the "good Duke." Angelo, in his moment of deepest humiliation, addresses him with profound reverence and awe. Lucio (like moderns) regards the Duke cynically; but he ends by admitting that he deserves a whipping for so doing. The only thing I would add to these comments and the ones I made earlier is to note that in the last half of the play he acts as a deus ex machina or "God in a box" who suddenly appears and sees that everything is worked out justly in the end.

2) Angelo: Shakespeare is of course punning on angel in the use of Angelo's name. He is "angel on the outward side"--an ascetic saint in the judgment of his fellow citizens. Unfortunately, he is self-righteous and, as we discussed above, too intent on enforcing the law to the letter. Further, he attempts to enjoy his power by forcing Isabella to yield to his sexual desires. Still it is wrong to regard him as a villain. Though morally guilty of lust and murder and actually guilty of hypocrisy, meanness, and treachery, he is not a villain. Indeed, his sin has been in thought, not in act, and human law cannot judge thought. He is a sincere self-deceiver. "He is betrayed by the subtler temptation which would mean nothing to a grosser man. He is moved by the sight of the beauty of a distressed woman's mind." Even more to the point is that he makes a full and immediate confession to the Duke, pleading for swift death as his judgment.

3) Isabel: If we fail to see the nobility of Isabel, we cannot see the story as we should. Though her refusal to save Claudio by giving in to Angelo's sexual designs is often criticized as cold-hearted self-righteousness, such a view is patently false. As one critic has noted, Christianity could never have lived through its first three hundred years of persecution if its ranks had not been stiffened by men and women who never hesitated in the choice between righteousness and the ties to their kinsfolk. We must remember that she is a novice--one preparing to enter the convent--not a nun who has already renounced ties to the world; consequently, her refusal is a part of her testing to see if she is really meant for the convent. Then too we can perhaps see her as remembering the words of Jesus: "He that loves his father or mother more than me. . . If any man comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and brother and sister, he cannot be my disciple."

Actually, we should remember, Isabel would give her life to save her brother; she cannot, however, give her chastity. Her willingness to die for her brother is suggestive of "greater love hath no man than this." She says: "The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies, / And strip myself to death, as to bed / That longing have been sick for, ere I'd yield / My body up to shame."

In the person of Isabel the theme of forgiveness is focused. At the end of the play after Angelo has been exposed and condemned to death, Mariana, his betrothed, pleads with the Duke for his life; the Duke is insistent--Angelo must die in order to pay for the supposed death of Claudio. In desperation, Mariana turns to Isabel and asks her three times to kneel and plead for Angelo's life. When she does so after the third appeal, we see that the play has come full circle. Only two days before Angelo had refused mercy for Claudio with the words: "When I, that censure him, do so offend / Let mine own judgment pattern out my death." Then Isabel had longed for Angelo's power; now Angelo, publicly shamed, longing for death, faces an Isabel who can bring herself to say, after an agony of silent struggle, "let him not die." There can be no doubt what the words of the Sermon on the Mount demand: "Judge not lest ye be judged." That had been Isabel's plea for Claudio. It is a test of her sincerity, if she can put forward a plea for mercy for her dearest foe, as well as for him whom she dearly loves. No woman in Shakespeare is more individual than Isabel: silent yet eloquent, sternly righteous yet capable of infinite forgiveness, a very saint and a very vixen. But, first and last, she "stands for" mercy.

(Notes taken from Muir's Sources, E. L. Pope's "The Renaissance Background of Measure for Measure," in Shakespeare Survey, 2(1949): 66-80, Parrott, and R. W. Chambers' "Measure for Measure," in Muir's Shakespeare: The Comedies.)

MEASURE FOR MEASURE AND GENRE

Measure for Measure, although grouped with the comedies, is very different in tone from the previous comedies we have studied. Some scholars refer to it as a "problem play"; that is, a play in which "a perplexing and distressing complication in human life is presented in a spirit of high seriousness"; moreover, "the theme is handled so as. . . to probe the complicated interrelations of character and action, in a situation admitting of different ethical interpretations" (Lawrence). R. W. Chambers says that a problem play is concerned "with a moral problem which is central to it, presented in such a manner that we are unsure of our moral bearings, so that uncertain and divided responses to it in the minds of the audience are possible or even probable." Such views of this play, however, turn it into something of a tract.

A better classification is to view the play as a tragicomedy. "In tragicomedy, the concluding phase of the action is adjusted to meet our desire that those who are--at least by inclination and intention--good should neither suffer irreparable wrong nor be the cause of it to others . . . . To will, and to do, harm are, according to the logic of Shakespearean tragicomedy, distinct; moreover, the doer of an ill act from which no harm results may share in the final amnesty" (Lascelles). And according to another critic: "He who composes tragicomedy takes from tragedy its great persons but not its great action, its verisimilar plot by not its true one, its movement of feelings but not its disturbance of them, its pleasure but not its sadness, its dangers but not its death; from comedy it takes laughter that is not excessive, modest amusement, feigned difficulty, happy reversal, and above all comic order" (Guarini).

MEASURE FOR MEASURE AND BIBLICAL PASSAGES

1. Ex. 21:23-25: But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

2. Lev. 24:17-20: And if a man takes the life of any human being, he shall surely be put to death. And the one who takes the life of an animal shall make it good, life for life. And if a man injures his neighbor, just as he has done, so shall it be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; just as he has injured a man, so it shall be inflicted on him.

3. Deut. 19:21: Thus you shall not show pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

4. Matt. 5:38-39: You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist him who is evil; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.

5. Matt. 7:1-2: Do not judge lest you be judged yourselves. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it shall be measured to you.

6. Luke 6:35-38: But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. And do not pass judgment and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you shall not be condemned; pardon and you will be pardoned. Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap. For whatever measure you deal out to others, it will be dealt to you in return.