24:38 Measure for Measure

Day 24 of 38:38
Measure for Measure

I've been waiting for this day since we started this project. I love this play. It's my favorite work in the canon. It would not be a stretch to say I'm obsessed with it. So there are a million different topics I could tackle in this blog posting, because I can talk forever about this play. I've performed scenes from the play in an education setting twice. I've performed scenes in a performance setting twice. I've done the play once. I hope to do it several more times. I read scholarly articles about it FOR FUN. I told you I was obsessed.

The topic I am choosing for this blog posting, since it does have relevance to Shakespeare's other works, is Shakespeare and his sources. Shakespeare's genius did not lie in coming up with stories. In nearly every play he wrote, the story was pre-existing, and often in multiple forms. But Shakespeare never just took the most common version of the story and presented it straight. He changed details, deleted characters, combined other plots, etc. And what Shakespeare chooses to keep and what he chooses to change is often a fascinating window into what he was trying to accomplish, particularly with Measure for Measure.

Shakespeare makes two major changes to the traditional story behind Measure for Measure. Two major, striking changes. But before we get into that, let's visit that traditional story. It's known as the story of the bad magistrate. There are many variations, but basically the story goes that there is a man who is awaiting execution due to a crime he committed (originally murder). A female relative of his (usually his wife, but sometimes his sister) pleads to the judge for mercy. The judge says he will free the man if she sleeps with him. The woman does, but the judge still has the man executed. The woman complains to the ruler of the land. The judge's punishment is two-fold: first he has to marry the woman, second, he is executed.

The first major change Shakespeare makes to this story is that Isabella does not sleep with Angelo. I'm pretty sure that in every other version of the story I've been able to read the woman gives up her honor in order to save the man's life. This is, we can all agree, a terrible choice to have to make, and Shakespeare heightens the stakes even more by making Isabella an almost nun (and therefore virgin). Unlike all the other heroines, Isabella says no and sticks to that.

Secondly, Shakespeare changes Angelo's punishment. It's pretty horrifying to imagine that a raped woman would then be forced to marry her attacker. In the versions of the story where he is immediately put to death, this is somewhat more bearable. But there are versions (Cinthio's novella Hecatommithi is one) where the woman, after being married to the corrupt magistrate, then pleads for mercy for him, and he is spared. This plot point seems absolutely ludicrous. Shakespeare changes the nature of this entirely by adding the character Mariana. Isabella says no, but someone still sleeps with Angelo. Angelo is still forced to marry the woman he slept with (but not the woman he wanted to rape), death is threatened, Angelo's wife begs for mercy, and Angelo is pardoned.

By making these changes, Shakespeare also ensures the play's ambiguity (the very characteristic for which I love it). If we had this play today, and Isabella slept with Angelo and then was forced to marry him, I doubt any one would produce it with anything but a dark ending. But Shakespeare's Measure for Measure is produced and interpreted with a wide variety of tones. Add to this the fact that the woman of the tale still is confronted with marriage. But here Isabella is asked by the Disguised Ruler, further complicating our response to this play. Isabella is not forced into marriage to the Bad Magistrate; instead she is forced into marriage with the Disguised Ruler; or is she? Her chosen state of virginity first comes under assault from Angelo, and then again at the end of the play, albeit in a very different way, from the Duke. How are we supposed to react to this? Every production of this play will have a different answer, which is exactly why I think Measure for Measure is so brilliant.

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Favorite Female Character:
Isabella
Favorite Male Character:
Lucio

Laugh out loud:
Escalus What do you think of the trade, Pompey? Is it a lawful trade?
Pompey If the law would allow it, sir.

"That's what she said!":
Duke Know you this woman?
Lucio Carnally, she says.

How insulting:
Isabella O you beast!
O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!

Shakey loves his meta:
Duke I love the people,
But do not like to stage me to their eyes:
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause and Aves vehement

Oh, misogyny:
Duke So then it seems your most offenceful act
Was mutually committed?
Juliet Mutually.
Duke Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.

Boys are silly:
Isabella Women? Help heaven! Men their creation mar
In profiting by them.

Favorite Moment/Line:
Be absolute for death; either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyey influences,
That dost this habitation, where thou keep’st,
Hourly afflict. Merely, thou art death’s fool;
For him thou labour’st by thy flight to shun,
And yet run’st toward him still. Thou art not noble:
For all th’ accommodations that thou bear’st
Are nurs’d by baseness. Thou art by no means valiant;
For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork
Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,
And that thou oft provok’st; yet grossly fear’st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;
For thou exist’st on many a thousand grains
That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;
For what thou hast not, still thou striv’st to get,
And what thou hast, forget’st. Thou art not certain;
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou’rt poor;
For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear’st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none;
For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,
Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,
For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age;
But, as it were, an after-dinner’s sleep,
Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
To make thy riches pleasant. What’s yet in this
That bears the name of life? Yet in this life
Lie hid moe thousand deaths: yet death we fear,
That makes these odds all even.