Measure for Measure

Measure for Measure, a “dark” comedy in five acts by William Shakespeare, written about 1603–04 and published in the First Folio of 1623 from a transcript of an authorial draft. The play examines the complex interplay of mercy and justice. Shakespeare adapted the story from Epitia, a tragedy by Italian dramatist Giambattista Giraldi (also called Cinthio), and especially from a two-part play by George Whetstone titled Promos and Cassandra (1578).

The play opens with Vincentio, the benevolent duke of Vienna, commissioning his deputy Angelo to govern the city while he travels to Poland. In actuality, the duke remains in Vienna disguised as a friar in order to watch what unfolds. Following the letter of the law, Angelo passes the death sentence on Claudio, a nobleman convicted for impregnating his betrothed, Juliet. Claudio’s sister Isabella, a novice in a nunnery, pleads his case to Angelo. This new deputy ruler, a man of stern and rigorous self-control, finds to his consternation and amazement that he lusts after Isabella; her virgin purity awakens in him a desire that more profligate sexual opportunities could not. Hating himself for doing so, he offers to spare Claudio’s life if Isabella will have sex with him. She refuses and is further outraged when her brother begs her to reconsider. On the advice of the disguised Vincentio, Isabella schedules the rendezvous but secretly arranges for her place to be taken by Mariana, the woman Angelo was once engaged to marry but whom he then disavowed because her dowry had been lost. Afterward, Angelo reneges on his promise to save Claudio, fearing that the young man knows too much and is therefore dangerous. Vincentio, reemerging at last from his supposed journey, presides over a finale in which Angelo is discredited and ordered to marry Mariana. Claudio, having been saved from execution by the secret substitution of one who has died in prison, is allowed to marry Juliet. Lucio, an engaging but irresponsible woman chaser and scandalmonger, is reproved by Vincentio and obliged to marry a whore with whom he has had a child. The rascally underworld figures (the bawd Mistress Overdone, her pimp Pompey, and her customer Froth) who have exploited the sexual freedom of Vienna despite the wonderfully inept policing attempts of Constable Elbow are finally brought to justice, partly through the careful supervision of the magistrate Escalus. Vincentio asks Isabella to give up her idea of being a nun in order to become his wife. (Whether she accepts is today a matter of theatrical choice.)

For a discussion of this play within the context of Shakespeare’s entire corpus, see William Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s plays and poems.