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 The Review of
English Studies
VOL. XVII.- No. 68 OCTOBER,1941

AUTHORITY, TRUTH, AND JUSTICE IN

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.
BY M. C. BRADBROOK.
Judge not, that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what
measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again. (Matthew, vnI.i-ii.)
This play is more theoretical than most of Shakespeare's writings,
less easy, without his accustomed refusal to theorise or analyse. It
differs from Troilus and Cressida, the problems of which are epistemo-
logical, and the method therefore impersonal but elaborate. In
Measure for Measure the problems are ethical, and concern conduct
rather than belief: the style is barer, sharper, and harder, the language
simpler and plainer, and the characters allegorical rather than sym-
bolical. The method, however, is akin to that of Troilus and Cressida
in being largely based upon the debate: not the massed public
debate, but the naked antagonism of conflict, as between Isabel and
Angelo, Claudio and Isabel, and Claudio and the Duke.
In this play Shakespeare adopts a technique as analytic as that of
Donne to something resembling the late medieval Morality.l It
might be named The Contention between Justice and Mercy, or
False Authority unmasked by Truth and Humility; Angelo stands
for Authority and for Law, usurping the place of the Duke, who is
1 Critics as different as Wilson Knight in The Wheel
of Fire (1930) and R. W.
Chambers in Man's Unconquerable Mind (1939) have treated Measurefor Measure
as primarilya study of ethics in terms of the Christianfaith.
25 385
386 R. E. S., VOL. 17, 1941 (NQ 68, OCT.)
not only the representative of Heavenly Justice but of Humility,
whilst Isabel represents both Truth and Mercy.
The first necessity is to grasp the importance of the Duke. His-
torically he belongs to a familiar dramatic type; that of the omni-
potent disguised character1 who directs the intrigue, often hearing
strange things of himself by the way-the type of Malevole, Vindice,
the husband in Eastward Ho! and the father in Englishmenfor My
Money, a type to which the early Hamlet perhaps also belonged.
Wilson Knight sees in him a Christlike figure come from a far
country to save Vienna 2: all powerful, all merciful, and perhaps in
his marriage to Isabel only ratifying her position as the Bride of the
Church. It is certain that the Duke is more than the average disguised
puppet master of which Brainworm is the best known example: he
is at least the representative of Heavenly Justice.
I perceiue, your grace, like powre diuine
IHathlook'd vpon my passes.3
says Angelo. But as the play was written for performance at Court
in 1604, it is possible that he also represents that pillar of justice,
the British Solomon, James I, still in the first flush of popularity.
Several compliments to his humility and dislike of crowds are pal-
pably meant for the ear of James (i. i. 67-72: 11. iv. 28-31).
No idea was more stressed by Elizabethan playwrights than that
Justice lay in the hands of the magistrate,4 as God's vice-gerent on
earth. Hence Lord Chancellor Bacon deprecated Revenge, 'a kind
of wild Justice', even in cases where the magistrate cannot or will not
act.
As the Duke represents unerring Justice, and in his readiness to
live as a poor Friar, helping his meanest and most criminal subjects,
represents also Humility as it resides in true authority; so Isabel
stands for unerring Truth, and Truth is always merciful.
How would you be,
If he which is the top of Iudgement should
But iudge you, as you are? (ii. ii. 75-7)
she asks Angelo. The marriage of Truth and Justice resolves the
frenzy of lies, prevarications, truths and half-truths which in the
1 See V. 0. Freeburg, Disguise Plots in Elizabethan Drama (Columbia Uni-
versity Press 1915); P. V. Kreider, 'Mechanics of Disguise in Shakespeare's Plays',
Shakespeare Association Bulletin, ix, 1934, I67-180; and Comic Conventions in
Chapman (Michigan, 1935), Chapter III. 3
1II. ii. 235; v. i. 313-4. . i. 370-1.
4 See L. B. Campbell 'Theories of Revenge in Renaissance England' (Modern
Philology, 1931) and F. T. Bowers, Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy (Milford 1940).
 MEASURE FOR MEASURE 387
last scene records the hollowness of all externaljudgment, even as
in The Faerie Queene,the marriageof Truth and Holiness, in the
persons of Una and the Red Cross Knight, defeats the calumnious
and evil forces representedby Duessa and Archimago.
Angelo stands for the letter of the Law, for a false Authority: he
also stands for Seeming or False Semblant. At the very moment he
is about to tempt Isabel he says:
I (now the voyce of the recorded Law)
Pronounce a sentence on your Brothers life. (In.iv. 62-3.)
But Authority is arbitrary(why pick out Claudio?), it apes a state
unfit for humanity,encourageshidden vice in its own representative
by endowing him with arbitrarypower, and strives to overthrow
truth and justice.'
Claudio and Juliet stand for human nature, originalsin; Mariana
for eros(as distinctfrom agape);Barnadineis contrastedwith Claudio
to show how much below panic-struckegoism is mere brute insensi-
bility. Juliet, whom Claudio'wrong'd',is penitent from the first and
thereforeabsolvedby the Duke; nor apparentlydoes she ever stand
in peril of her life, and she is not given a judgment in the final scene
as all the others are.2In the last scene measurefor measureis meted
out to all; not, perhaps,their measureaccordingto earthly law-for
Barnadineis pardoned-but the measure best devised to save their
souls. The main purpose of the scene is to bring Angelo to repent-
ance, and to achieve it againstso strong a characterterrificpressure
has to be brought to bear. The Duke, who is as ruthlessly efficient
in his means as he is benevolent in his ends, proceeds to apply the
third degree with the skill of a Grand Inquisitor: and to this end
he is ready to inflict any temporarysufferingon Marianaand Isabel.
Had they known his purpose they would have acceptedthe situation
readily-Isabel from charity and Marianafrom affection.Before the
scene opens, Isabel complains that she must dissemble-'I would
say the truth' (iv. vi. 2)-but the friar has told her it is 'bitter to
sweet end'. The technique is only an advanceupon the enacted lie
of Mariana'svisit, and that the Duke has justified beforehand:'Craft
1Athority I. ii.
2
129; I. iv. 56; II. ii. II8, 134, 176; Iv. ii. 114; Iv. iv. 7, 27.
Perhaps she is not really meant to appear. The stage directions are in very
bad condition; and it seems likely that Juliet and Mariana might otherwise be
doubled by the same boy, thus emphasizing their likeness as characters. They seem
to have been in similar positions as regards their marriage contracts. See below.
In the original story Juliet was required to wear 'some disguised Apparel' i.e.
a mark of infamy comparable to that worn by the heroine of Hawthorne's Scarlet
Letter.
388 R. E. S., VOL. 17, 1941 (N9 68, OCT.)
against vice I must applie'. (III. ii. 299.) He is naturally a merciful
character; in theory he can condemn Barnadine, but when he
actually sees the murderer, 'A creature unpre-par'd, vnmeet for
death', he realizes 'To transport him in the minde he is, Were
damnable' (Iv. iii. 75-6). It is not Shakespeare's relenting before the
miracle of his own creation, as the critics have sometimes stated,
which reprieves Barnadine-in this play Shakespeare is hardly in a
relenting mood-but the Duke's instinctive revolt from applying
the penalties of the law without regard to their consequences. He
gives Barnadine to Friar Peter to receive religious instruction, for he
anticipates the maxim of Kant, and considers every human being
as an end and never as a means, whether a means to the demonstra-
tion of the law or to other ends.
The debate between Justice and Mercy, which is the main theme
of the play-see especially II. ii. and v. i.1-is conducted mainly
between Isabel and Angelo, for of the Duke it might be said as it
was of archetype and ectype in The Faerie Queene:
'He merciful is, but Mercy's self is she' (cf. F.Q. II. ix. 43).
This debate can also be seen as a debate between Law and Religion,
of which Angelo and Isabel are by profession the representatives.
The Duke as secular head of the state is bound to punish not only
offences but the offenders: yet Christianity, which he also professes,
bids condemnation of the sin, not the sinner. 'Judge not that ye be
not judged ...' 'Forgive us our trespasses. .. .' 'Unto seventy
times seven. .. .' The two sides of his dilemma are stated by Isabel
and Angelo:
I haue a brother is condemn'd to die,
I doe beseech you let it be his fault,
And not my brother. . .
Condemne the fault, and not the actor of it,
Why, euery fault's condemnd ere it be done:
Mine were the verie Cipher of a Function. . . (I. ii 34-9.)
On the other hand, Angelo's 'devilish mercy' is, as the Duke sees,
the very converse of true forgiveness:
When Vice makes Mercie; Mercie's so extended,
That for the faults loue, is th' offender friended. (iv. ii. 15-6.)
Yet Isabel pardons Angelo when he is forfeit to the law, and asks
the Duke to pardon him also. The Duke deliberately reminds her
1
Justice: I. i. II; I. ii. 132; I. iii. 29, 32; II. i. 21-30; II. ii. 41, 76, loo, 177; II.
iv. 53; Im. ii. 263-4, 275; IV. i. 75; iv. ii. 83, 89, IoI, I99; V. i. 6, 20, 25, 27, 54,
159, i66, 288, 297, 308, 30o, 444,473. Mercy: II. i. 306; II. ii. 50, 60-3, 78; II. i. 63,
I48; iv. ii. 115; V. i. 408, 435, 477, 485.
 MEASURE FOR MEASURE 389
of the lex talionis, as well as appealing to all her feelings of rage and
resentment: 'He dies for Claudio's death' (v i.. 444). Yet although
Isabel's first and natural impulse on hearing of her brother's execu-
tion had been 'Oh, I wil to him, and plucke out his eies!' she kneels
'in mercy of this fact', and perhaps it is this, rather than any of the
Duke's ingenious tortures, which finally breaks the spirit of Angelo,
though-an exquisite touch-only to the applying of his own legal
standard to himself.
And so deepe . . . sticks it in my penitent heart,
That I craue death more willingly then mercy,
'Tis my deseruing, and I doe entreat it. (v. I. 476-8.)
The retributive aspect of criminal law seems always to have dis-
tressed Shakespeare. The cry of the tragedies is 'None does offend,
I say: none', and in the final plays the penalties of the law are
waived for the most flagrant evil-doers-lachimo, Alonzo, Sebastian.
The problem that a law to be just in general, must always be only an
approximation to justice in particular cases, is stressed both by
Claudio who suffers under it and the Duke who administers it.
On whom it will, it will,
On whom it will not (soe) yet still tis iust. (I. ii. 131-2.)
Lawes, for all faults,
But faults so countenanc'd, that the strong Statutes
Stand like the forfeites in a Barbers shop,
As much in mocke, as marke. (v. i. 317-20.)
Yet here as in other plays Law in the sense of civil law is a
constant subject of praise. Ulysses' speech in defence of order and
degree (Troilus and Cressida I. iii.) is the most comprehensive eulogy,
with its assimilation of human institutions, contracts and laws to the
universal order of times and seasons. In Henry IV, Part II, the Lord
Chief Justice stands as the embodiment of everything that's excel-
lent, and clearly represents civil law. He is the real antagonist of
Falstaff, and it is he whom King Henry V admits as 'a father to my
youth' (v. ii. II8) after the judge has made his noble defence of his
own act in committing to prison 'the immediate heir of England'.
I then did vse the Person of your Father . . .
Your Highnesse pleased to forget my place,
The Maiesty, and power of Law, and Iustice,
The Image of the King, whom 1 presented,
And strooke me in my very Seate of Iudgement . . . (v. ii. 73 ff.)
This adoption seals the doom of Falstaff, the grey haired iniquity
who was even then saying, 'The Lawes of England are at my
390 R. E. S., VOL. 17, 1941 (N? 68, OCT.)
command'ment. Happie are they, which haue been my Friendes: and
woe vnto my Lord Chiefe Iustice!' (v. iii. I40-3.)
No doubt for the purposes of the stage the Lord Chief Justice
walked around in Eastcheap in full robes of office, and he is in a sense
the pivot of the play, Henry IV being shown as a weak and dying man,
a father rather than a king.
In Measure for Measure civil law enters the story chiefly through
the marriage contracts. Juliet and Mariana are both contracted:
Claudio says,
Vpon a true contract
I got possession of Iulietas bed,
You know the Lady, she is fast my wife,
Saue that we doe the denunciationlacke
Of outward Order. . .. (I. ii. i55-9.)
which was deferred for financial reasons. It is not clear whether this
was a marriage 'per verba de praesenti', as was the Duchess of
Malfi's; if so, the child would be legitimate, as the union was cus-
tomary, and neither party could have married elsewhere according
to the English law and habit.1 Nevertheless the marriage was not
regular, and in Chapman's continuation of Hero and Leander it may
be seen what immense stress was laid on the public nature of the
marriage contract, both in the vision of the goddess Ceremony, who
descends to rebuke Hero, and in the Tale of Teras, which is a
glorification of the social aspect of marriage.
Mariana was publicly affianced 'as strongly as words could make
up vows' (v. i. 220-22I), and the marriage settlements had been
actually drawn up. Angelo is therefore her 'combynate husband', and
the Duke envisages that the result of their union may be a child
whose existence will 'compell him to her recompense' (III. i. 263-4).
The fact that the contract had been public and approved by the lady's
friends would weigh very strongly with the Elizabethans, for to steal
1 See C. L. Powell,
English Domestic Relations, 1487-I653 (Columbia U.P.,
1917), ch. I. 'Spousals de praesenti were . . . vows made similarly to the defuturo
but in the present tense, and were in effect, though not in name, absolute marriage.
They could be broken only by death or by entrance into holy orders. In case of
cohabitation after either form of spousals, without any marriage ceremony, the
offenders laid themselves open to punishment by the Church, but their union was
recognised as a valid marriage by both church and state. It was thus possible to
contract an irregular but perfectly legal marriage without the sanction or the inter-
vention of either civil or ecclesiastical authority' (pp.3-4). For a briefer account see
A. Underhill, art. 'Law' in Shakespeare's England, i, pp. 407-8.
In The Miseries of Inforct Marriage, Clare regards her spousals to Scarborow as
a binding union and her subsequent marriage as adulterous. In Ford's Broken Heart,
Penthea thinks that 'her name is strumpeted' because while betrothed to Orgilus,
her brother has forced her to marry Bassanes.
 MEASURE FOR MEASURE 391
a marriage was almost a misdemeanour, as the case of the Duchess
of Malfi demonstrated.
Isabella is the Bride of the Church, and to the horror of proposed
violation Angelo adds a direct crime against religion. As a novice
she is as it were betrothed, and apparently on the eve of her 'appro-
bation'. If she were a novice she would be subject to the authority
of the Mother, would wear the novice's dress, and obey the Rule,
which was that of the Poor Clares, an order of great poverty, seclusion,
and austerity, reformed into still further strictness by the work of
St. Colette (c. 1400) and the Capuchines (c. 1540). Isabel's vows
should have been taken between her first and second interview with
Angelo; in the second, she is introduced as'One Isabell, a Sister',
and the friar addresses her as 'sister', in iii. i, a term he would not use
to a novice; but if in the interval she had been given the first veil-
it is scarcely likely that she was at a more advanced stage-she would
hardly accuse herself publicly of incontinence, considering the dis-
grace to her order. It seems more reasonable that she should defer
her vows, and that in the last scene she should appear in secular
clothes, perhaps in mourning for Claudio. The Duke also appears
again in secular habit, and changes of clothes had a strong effect upon
the Elizabethan stage. An Isabel in a secular habit could be arrested
with more propriety than an Isabel in a veil; and the final tableau
also would look less unnatural.
Some indication of the Elizabethan view of marriage as a public
contract rather than a private relationship may be gained, as has
been said, from Chapman; though English youth was more free
than that of most countries, the rule was still that marriage should
be determined by social equality, family duty, and public advantage
rather than by personal inclination. Juliet and Mariana are parallel
in misfortune: in the view of the friar Juliet is more guilty than
Claudio, but in the view of Isabel the sin is Claudio's:
Women? Helpe heauen: men their creation marre
In profiting by them: Nay, call us ten times fraile,
For we are soft, as our complexions are,
And credulous to false prints. (nI. iv. I28-3I.)
It is the old story, 'Men have marble, women waxen minds', and
their fatal vulnerability lies in their sympathetic natures: they lack
judgment and intellectual detachment. Hence even the Duke adjures
Claudio to marry her he has 'wrong'd', and he insists on a full
marriage ceremony for Mariana to 'safe-guard' her 'honor' against
392 R. E. S., VOL. 17, 1941 (N9 68, OCT.)
'Imputation' (v. i. 420-3). Even Lucio, though forgiven for his other
forfeits, is obliged to make an honest woman of Mistress Kate
Keepdown. The four marriages represent, in descending order of
dignity, variations upon this basic social contract. In The Merchant
of Venice, a forerunner of this play in so many ways, the marriage
contract is symbolized in the story of the rings, and contrasted with
Shylock's purely legal bond. Marriage is the highest form of contract,
in that it contains subtler possibilities for good, for evil, for variety
than other types of contract: it not only imposes a legal obligation,
but contains a promise of personal and general prosperity of the
highest kind.
The basis of Justice and of Law is the establishment of truth.
Perfect truth resides only in God: the devil is the father of lies, and
in the current morality representations of him, his power of disguise,
particularly of disguising himself as a virtue, was his subtlest weapon
for the destruction of man.' Hence the question of Truth apparent
and real, of Falsehood conscious and unconscious is crucial to the
plot. Shakespeare had before him the great visionary panorama of the
first book of The Faerie Queene. This problem he had himself
approached in King Henry IV, Part II, where the Prologue is spoken
by Rumour 'painted full of tongues'. Rumour sets the tone for the
play by appearing in this fashion: her nearest modern equivalent
would be the Fairy Wish-Fulfilment. But the question of 'Where
lies Truth?' is not overtly debated. The contrast between True and
False Seeming is stronger and more painful in Troilus and Cressida,
where the whole tragedy of 'True Troilus' turns on the gap between
fact and imagination, Diomede's Cressida and his own: 'If there be
rule in unitie itselfe, This is not she'. In AMeasure for Measure, the
issue is prominent, but it is not a subject for debate or doubt. The
main contrast between seeming and reality lies of course in 'the
prenzie Angelo', 'the well-seeming Angelo', 'this outward-sainted
deputy'. The Duke's first speech is an ironic comment on this:
There is a kinde of Characterin thy life
That to th' obsseruer, doth thy history
Fully vnfold. (I. i. 27-8.)
1Moralities persisted into the seventeenth century: e.g. The Contention of
Liberality and Prodigality was acted before the Queen in 1602 (see Hazlitt's Dodsley,
A Collection of Old English Plays, vol. viii). For an account of the later Tudor
Moralities, see Louis B. Wright in Anglia, vol. LIV; and for the disguising of evil
characters see W. R. Mackenzie, The English Morality Play from the Point of View
of Allegory (Boston 1914), p. 9. See also E. S. N. Thompson, The English Moral
Play (Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. I4, I910).
 MEASURE FOR MEASURE 393
But it is made plain in the next scene but one that the Duke is by
no means reading Angelo's life in the accepted version.1
The 'seeming' of the deputy is echoed so often and so bitterly
that to dwell on it would be tedious.2 Angelo has in him something
of the dissembling power of Claudius King of Denmark, and also
of his gnawing conscience; he is 'At warre, twixt will and will not.'3
Isabel, who, like Hamlet, 'knows not "seems" ' but is forced to learn
it, maintains the truth although Angelo's false outweighs her true:
'Truth is truth To th' end of reckning' (v. i. 44-5). After describing
Angelo's 'seeming', she concludes to the Duke:
Let your reason serue
To make the truth appeare,where it seemes hid,
And hide the false seemes true. (v. i. 65-7.)
She is traduced as sorely as the Duke had been traduced by Lucio:
yet she remains steadfast, more steadfast than the Duke would have
been, for to him, as to Prospero, life itself is a dream and all its events
but 'seeming'.4
Thou hast nor youth, nor age
But as it were an after-dinnerssleepe
Dreaming on both. (III. i. 32-4.)
Yet the Duke is capable of turning every occasion to his own pur-
pose, as in his ironic speech to Angelo on his return, which is designed
to give a smart lash to the conscience of the deputy, and to express
his own scepticism on 'the vanity of wretched fooles'.
Giue me your hand,
And let the Subiect see, to make them know
That outward curtesies would faine proclaime
Fauours that keepe within. (v. i. 13-I6.)
On two occasions the Duke is surprised: he did not expect that
Angelo would have Claudio executed, and he did not expect Isabel,
to whom he had promised 'revenges to your heart' (Iv. iii. 144), to
forgive Angelo, though with his usual keenness he immediately seizes
the opportunity to test the depth of her impulse.
Angelo himself upheld the doctrine of seeming. He admits to
1 . iii. 50-54. Cf. the words of Duncan, 'There's no Art, To finde the Mindes
construction in the Face' (Macbeth, I, iv. 11-12), and of Malcolm, 'Angels are
bright still, though the brightest fell. Though all things foule, would wear the
brows of grace Yet Grace must still looke so' (IV. iii. 22-24).
2 Angelo's Seeming: i. i. 66; i. iii. 54; I. iv. 15, 147, 151; III. i. 231; III. ii. 40-41;
v. i.'52-7. The mood is that of Sonnet xciv: 'They that have power to hurt and will
do none', with its terrible last line, 'Lilies that fester smell far worse than weedes'.
s II. ii. 33. Cf. II. iv. I-17, and Hamlet, hi. iii. 36-66.
4 The
comparison between Claudio on death, and Hamlet, 'To be or not to be',
has often been noticed.
 394 R. E. S., VOL. 17, 1941 (N9 68, OCT.)
Escalus that a jury may contain worse criminals than the prisoner
it condemns, yet the known crime must be punished.
What knowes the Lawes
That theeues do passe on theeues? (n. i. 22-3.)
But, he continues,
When I, that censure him, do so offend,
Let mine owne Iudgement patterneout my death. (Il. i. 29-30.)
In this alone Angelo is not a seemer; he has the consistency to sentence
himself.
Immediate sentence then, and sequent death,
Is all the grace I beg. (v. i. 374-5.)
In his fate, the Elizabethans would recognize the best and indeed the
only true justice, that which is invoked by the title: Heaven's justice
or Providence. They believed that justice could be left to the magis-
trate because if he were unable or unwilling to execute it, Heaven
would deal justice to the evil-doer. Whoever else forgot his contract
God would not, and 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord'.'
The Duke, in his own way, is as great a seemer as Angelo. In
his role as a poor Friar he is continually placed in ironic situations,
his real and his seeming character being perpetually brought into
conflict by unconscious words of Isabella, Escalus, the Provost and
Lucio-such phrases as 'But (oh) how much is the good Dukedeceiu'd
in Angelo: if euer he returne, and I can speake to him, I will open
my lips in vaine, or discouer his gouernment'. (HI. i. I95-8.)
Some of the situations the Duke enjoys2 and more he turns to good
account, but on one occasion he is rudely disillusioned. He had at
least believed that the people loved him, and had retired only to
preserve his reputation with them; yet he learns with cruel elabora-
tion from Lucio how little a public man can claim immunity from
slander. He is almost driven, in forgetfulness of his habit and his
office alike, to challenge Lucio:
Duke. . . I am bound to call vppon you, and I pray you your name?
Lucio. Sir my name is Lucio, wel known to the Duke. (ilI. ii. 171-3.)
In the last scene he suffers defamation from the same quarter in his
1 This fact is a central theme in Revenge Tragedy and examples may be found
in L. B. Campbell, and F. T. Bower, op. cit. In particular, Tourneur's Revenger's
Tragedy shows the corruption of earthly justice and the inevitability of heaven's
redress. Cf. Hamlet: 'I am justly killed with mine owne Treacherie' (v. ii. 321);
King Lear: 'The Wheele is come full circle; I am heere' (v. iii. 176); Macbeth:
'This euen-handed Iustice Commends th' Ingredience of our poyson'd Challice To
our owne lips' (r. vii. Io-12).
2
There are at least three stories as to why the friar is absent in v. i-he is sick,
constrained by a vow, gone away.
 MEASURE FOR MEASURE 395
person as a friar, when Lucio coolly puts into his own mouth all the
slanders which he had been obliged to listen to. The Duke is wounded
in his one vulnerable point, the dignity of his office, and it requires
a second thought before he can pardon Lucio.
The difference between the Duke's seeming and that of Angelo is
of course that the Duke's is purely an external change. In one sense
he is a benevolent Haroun-al-Raschid; but his purposes are better
than mere curiosity, and he is not defaming the cloak of religion.
Come hither Isabell.
Your Frier is now your Prince: As I was then,
Aduertysing, and holy to your businesse,
(Not changing heart with habit) I am still,
Atturnied at your seruice. (v. i. 382-6.)
He who was greatest has been as a servant amongst them.
In the actions of Angelo, Isabel, and the Duke, the question of
Truth and Seeming is stated, and they have thus a double burden of
symbolism to carry. Nevertheless, the allegorical nature of Measure
for Measure does not preclude a human interest in the characters.
Though based perhaps on the Moralities, it is not a Morality. Angelo
has always been recognized as a superb character study; Isabel and
the Duke, though less impressive, are subtly presented. She is
possibly the most intelligent of all Shakespeare's women; even poor
Claudio recognizes her power in 'reason and discourse' (i. ii. i96);
yet she is young, and pitifully inexperienced. Outraged by Angelo's
proposal, she turns to Claudio, the only man to whom she can turn-
to ask for comfort as much as to give it:
Ile to my brother,
Though he hath falne by promptureof the blood,
Yet hath he in him such a minde of Honor. . . (1I. iv. I78-80.)
But Claudio gives her an even crueller shock than Angelo had done,
though to the eye of the spectator he is not without a case. He had
had to listen to poor Isabel's bungled attempts at religious consola-
tion. 'Dar'st thou die? . . .' she says, galling the sorest point with
intolerable accuracy; and whereas the friar had persuaded Claudio
to at least temporary resignation, Isabella's efforts to 'fit his mind to
death' make him snarl very excusably:
Why giue you me this slhame?
Think you I can a resolution fetch
From flowrie tendernesse? (III. i. 79-8I.)1
l The Duke restores Claudio's resolution by the cool falsehood that Angelo is
only testing Isabel's virtue. Many critics have rebuked him for this unducal be-
haviour. But the aim is to prepare Claudio for a Christian death: the Duke lies
promptly for this end.
396 R. E. S., VOL. 17, 1941 (N? 68, OCT.)
Yet it is the same girl who cries to Claudio, 'Die, perish!' and who
cries, when he is in all appearance dead, for revenge on Angelo: 'Oh,
I wil to him, and plucke out his eies!' It is the same girl to whom
Mariana appeals for help-
They say best men are moulded out of faults-
and at that word Isabel, who not five minutes before had called
Angelo a devil, recalls Claudio, recalls her own position as a suppliant
for a dear but guilty life, and astounds even that skilled psychologist
the Duke. Impulsively she kneels: intelligently she at once proceeds
to justify the action.1 The garden house affair was after all an attempt
to bribe Angelo, and he did not break the law in disregarding that
illegal contract: 'My Brother had but Iustice, In that he did the thing
for which he dide'. Whilst to the Duke, who had himself prevented
Angelo's worst crime, she points out that Angelo is innocent before
the law with respect to herself. It is a legal quibble worthy of Portia,
and devised with the same speed as the sudden attempt to turn
Angelo's attack upon herself to advantage:
Signe me a present pardon for my brother,
Or with an out-stretchtthroate Ile tell the world aloud
What man thou art. (II. iv. 153-5.)
But while there the answer had been 'Who will beleeue thee Isabell'
(II. iv. I55), here justice recognizes, as Isabel points it out, the one
grain of good in Angelo :2 'A due sinceritie governed his deedes, Till
he did looke on me' (v. i. 447-8). Having been overruled with regard
to Angelo, the Duke proceeds to pardon Barnadine, Claudio, Lucio-
though somewhat more reluctantly-and everybody else.
The Duke himself is a type of character whom Shakespeare did not
often depict. His relations with his people are comparable with those
of Henry V with Bates and Williams-Williams in particular is left
rather in the position of Lucio; and, like Henry V, he can be extremely
peremptory, is a born administrator, and enjoys probing and in-
vestigating into the lives of the common people-he would have
appreciated Prince Hal's conversation with the drawer. On the other
hand he more resembles Prospero in that all his actions are controlled
by one purpose, in that complete self-confidence justifies his
seeming cruelties (compare Prospero to Ferdinand), and in his
1 The antithesis of
Angelo's appalling deliberation in taking the curb off his
impulses: 'Now I giue my sensuall race the reine' (i. iv. 161).
2
"Loue talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer loue' (III. ii.
163-I64) as the Duke says. Truth alone can be truly charitable and charity alone
can discern truth completely.
 MEASURE FOR MEASURE 397
almost unerring moral insight-being only twice deceived or sur-
prised by other people's reactions. He resembles Prospero also in
the absolute power which he maintains over the lives of the rest of
the characters, except indeed the minor comic characters. These,
the human sediment of Vienna, are not capable of being systematized:
they exist independently of the moral framework and help further to
give the play its naturalism and solidity. The difference between
Pompey and Barnadine is the difference between a character and a
portent-between the Artful Dodger and Bill Sikes.
In respect of the style, as of the plot, the structural pattern of main
themes does not inhibit local energy, especially in the first part of
the play. There are several images that run through the play, e.g.
the 'hidden ulcer'-the dominant image of Hamlet: this is as it were
the physical equivalent of the False Semblant, which skins and films
the ulcerous places. There are also the images of great heat and cold:
Angelo's blood is 'Snow-broth'; Claudio fears the intense cold, the
'thrilling Region of thicke-ribbed Ice' which may receive his soul
after death; but on the whole there is comparatively little imagery
after the third act. The acting possibilities of the latter half of the play
are great; but it depends upon repetition and cross references. The
nature of the writing here is fairly represented by Isabel's plea to
the Duke. Angelo, accusing her of madness, says 'she will speake
most bitterly, and strange':
Isabel. Most strange: but yet most truely wil I speake,
That Angelo'sforsworne, is it not strange?
That Angelo'sa murtherer,is't not strange?
That Angelo is an adulterousthiefe,
An hypocrite, a virgin violator,
Is it not strange? and strange?
Duke. Nay it is ten times strange?
Isabel. It is not truer he is Angelo,
Then this is all as true, as it is strange;
Nay, it is ten times true, for truth is truth
To th' end of reckning.(v. i. 37-46.)
As conventional rhetoric depending on anaphora and epiphora, this
is reminiscent of Constance or the Lady Anne rather than of the
language of Shakespeare's maturity. However, it fits the dramatic
situation-Isabel is almost in the position of a prosecuting counsel-
and her own natural anger-she plays with the Duke's phrase as
bitterly as she does with Angelo's. Beyond this, the full values of
'true' and 'strange', as they chime through the speech like the rhymes
398 R. E. S., VOL. 17, 1941 (N9 68, OCT.)
of a canzone, depend upon this being the finale of a great movement;
the phrases take their value from their previous use, and the broad
treatment here given to them is only possible because their full
implications have been already worked out. This is more definitely
illustrated in the Duke's consolation to Isabel for Claudio's supposed
death.
That life is better life past fearing death,
Then that which liues to feare: make it your comfort,
So happy is your Brother (v. i. 398-400.)
he says, condensing his great speech in in. i. to an epigram.
The flattening out of the language in the latter half of this play is
similar to the flattening out in The Jew of Malta, where Marlowe
also began in a style rich and flexuous with imagery, and ended with
a bare, 'figurative', and comparatively prosaic speech. Measure for
Measure remains a problem play, not because it is shallower, more
unfinished or more incoherent than Shakespeare's other plays, but
because it is stiffened by its doctrinaire and impersonal consideration
of ethical values. The dryness, the pain behind the play, seem to
depict a world in which external personal relationships are so hope-
lessly false and unreliable that it is necessary to cut below them to the
moral substratum.' To look for happiness is childish: what should
be looked for is the good, proper, socially fitting relation; the basis
is impersonal morality.
The relationships between justice and mercy, contract and ful-
filment, appearance and reality are summed up in the relationship
between earthly and heavenly justice; between the Duke in his
secular and religious roles; between Isabel as a sister to her 'vnhappie
brother Claudio', and the bosom friend of Julietta, and Isabel as the
sister of St. Clare among the "fasting Maides, whose mindes are
dedicate to nothing temporall'. When the Duke asks her hand he
invokes her human sisterhood:
'Giue me your hand, and say you will be mine,
He is my brothertoo.' (v. i. 493-4.)
It was a large charity in the Duke to accept Claudio, who is not
exactly an eligible relative for the head of the state, and with whose
failings he is particularly well acquainted. If this conclusion seem a
trifle laboured in the working out, the play perhaps justifies it as the
representation of a bitterness which could as yet find but little heart
to conceive that triumph of the good which is most firmly asserted,
1 This is the mood of Sonnets xciii, xciv, xcvi, cxx, cxxi, cxlvii.
 MEASURE FOR MEASURE 399
and believed, but which was not to be fully embodied till eight years
later in The Tempest. As a final check upon Shakespeare's intentions,
it is of interest to see how he modified his source, Whetstone's
Promos and Cassandra (I578).1 He invented almost the entire role
of the Duke-it is for this reason that the understanding of the Duke's
character becomes especially necessary-for in Whetstone's play the
King appears only in the final scene to deliver judgement. He split
the heroine Cassandra into two characters, Isabel and Mariana; for
in the original Cassandra yields, comes to love Promos, in spite of
his having seemingly presented her with the bleeding head of her
brother, and finally pleads for his life because she loves him, and he
is her husband. Shakespeare has made Isabel a nun, which adds a
completely different complexion to Angelo's temptation: in Whet-
stone there are not only no religious characters, there is no invoking
of any religious standards. Shakespeare has changed the story of
Claudio, who as Andrugio was allowed to escape by the Provost, the
Provost being alone responsible for the substituted head; in the final
scene Andrugio delivers himself up to save Promos, in pity for his
sister's misery. Finally, Shakespeare has added all the minor comic
characters, and moralized the main story: adding, that is to say, the
whole structure of themes. A careful comparison of Shakespeare's
and Whetstone's plays is not required. Whetstone's is wretched
drivel; but the baldest summary records how completely Shake-
speare transformed a shallow and barbarous story. The purposive
nature of these changes makes it seem very unlikely that Measurefor
Measure contains many accidental, idle or automatic incidents. If it
is strange, it is because Shakespeare conceived it in that way. It is
deliberately, if not dogmatically, set down. Perhaps its best com-
mentator would have been Ben Jonson: it is one of the few of
Shakespeare's writings of which he might wholeheartedly have
approved.
1 Editions
by W. C. Hazlitt, Shakespeare's Library, vi. 201 (I875) and J. S.
armer, Tudor Facsimile Texts (i9I0). The play is in two parts. The story comes
from Giraldo Cinthio's Hecatommathi (also the source of Othello).