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We have strict statutes and most biting laws,
The needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds,
Which for this fourteen years we have let slip,
Even like an o’ergrown lion in a cave
That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers,
Having bound up the threat’ning twigs of birch
Only to stick it in their children’s sight
For terror, not to use—in time the rod
More mocked than feared—so our decrees,
Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead,
And liberty plucks justice by the nose,
The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart
Goes all decorum.
(Act 1, scene 3, lines 20–32)
As he prepares to don his disguise as a friar, the Duke reflects on the current state of affairs in Vienna. He laments that, despite having severe statutes and laws, his government has been rather lax about enforcing them. Like a lion that remains in its cave instead of venturing out to hunt his prey, the Duke has sat around doing little and has thus become “o’ergrown.” The laws Vienna has in place are designed to curb even the most “headstrong” criminals. Yet without proper enforcement, the Duke says the laws have effectively died: “our decrees, / Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead.” Spared the “rod” justice, the citizens of Vienna do as they please, resulting in a topsy-turvy world where “the baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart / Goes all decorum.”
The Duke’s description of Vienna as a den of iniquity helps to establish the play’s key themes related to justice and the mismatch between crime and punishment. As things currently stand, crimes are going unpunished in the city, resulting in an upswell of injustice. In other words, the moral order has been upset, and with this speech the Duke makes a tacit indication of his intention to restore the moral order. How precisely he will achieve this goal is what the remainder of the play will reveal. However, in the true spirit of a Shakespearean comedy, in order for the moral order of Vienna to be restored, it will first have to fall even further out of balance. As we will see in subsequent acts, the Duke’s elaborate plan to save Vienna from itself will involve many deceptions and substitutions, beginning with his own transformation. Indeed, the Duke addresses the above words to Friar Thomas, who is assisting him in donning the monk’s cowl he’ll wear to disguise his identity.
The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.
Those many had not dared to do that evil
If the first that did th’ edict infringe
Had answered for his deed. Now ’tis awake,
Takes note of what is done, and, like a prophet,
Looks in a glass that shows what future evils—
Either now, or by remissness new-conceived,
And so in progress to be hatched and born—
Are now to have no successive degrees
But, ere they live, to end.
(Act 2, scene 2, lines 117–26)
In act 1, the Duke gave a speech in which he claimed that because the severe laws against fornication hadn’t been enforced in a long time, they were essentially dead. He made this argument in the context of a lament about how Vienna had been afflicted by widespread criminality. As such, his assessment of the law’s status was rather bleak, which in turn made him reluctant to prosecute anyone lest they clap back at him for perceived injustice. By contrast, Angelo, to whom the Duke has deputized his power, has no such qualms. Instead of being dead, he views the law as having merely lain dormant. And what’s been left in a state of dormancy may just as easily be awakened. He expresses precisely this view in the speech quoted above. Here, he’s specifically defending his decision to have the young man Claudio arrested and sentenced to death for the crime of fornication. Angelo is apparently aware of the severity of this sentence, but he reasons that a harsh punishment will do a more effective job of making an example of Claudio: “Those many had not dared to do that evil / If the first that did th’ edict infringe / Had answered for his deed.”
Angelo’s approach to the law does turn out to be effective, but at great cost, both to Claudio, to his friends and family, and to the citizens of Vienna more broadly. Indeed, his vision for the rebalancing of crime and punishment entails enforcing the full extent of the law until all forms of criminality are eradicated. He announces this chilling vision in the second half of the quote here. Personifying the law, he describes how, now that it’s awake, it prophesies a future in which every crime of any degree that either has been or will be committed will be prosecuted. Such a vision demonstrates an idealistic and frankly extremist view of the law that cannot possibly bear out. As his vicious personification suggests, Angelo fails to comprehend the human element that is the law’s reason for being. That is, the law isn’t in place simply to correct people by punishing their every offense. The law is there to protect people from harm. For Angelo to believe otherwise indicates a significant shortcoming on his part.
Claudio: Death is a fearful thing.
Isabella: And shamèd life a hateful.
Claudio: Ay, but to die, and go we know not where,
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot,
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbèd ice,
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling—’tis too horrible.
The weariest and most loathèd worldly life
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
(Act 3, scene 1, lines 131–47)
After Angelo propositions Isabella about having sex with him to save his brother’s life, Isabella goes to visit Claudio in prison and report on her meeting with the Duke’s deputy. She indicates to her brother that there is one possible way for her to save his life, but it would endanger her immortal soul in the process. Once Claudio fully understands the terms of Angelo’s immodest proposal, he immediately agrees with Isabella that she mustn’t submit to him. However, as they continue to talk, thoughts of death become increasingly burdensome for Claudio. Just prior to Isabella’s arrival, the Duke—disguised as a friar—had attempted to comfort Claudio and help him to accept his fate. Though he’d come to terms with his death earlier, now he finds it hard to ignore the possibility that there’s a way to save his life. In the exchange quoted above, Claudio expresses his fearful view of death. His conclusion that “’tis too horrible” sets him up to make a terrible request of his sister: that she should go through with Angelo’s proposal, sacrificing her chastity for his life.
Though objectively awful, Claudio’s request powerfully expresses a key theme of the play related to the attachment humans feel to their lives. Claudio’s reflection on the hatefulness of death will be echoed elsewhere, such as when the prisoner Barnardine refuses to be executed. Speaking with the Provost, the Duke gets the idea to hasten Barnardine’s beheading as a strategy to defer Claudio’s execution. This idea initially seems sound to the Duke, since, as the Provost says, Barnardine is “a man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but as a drunken sleep” (4.2.154–55). However, as the Duke soon learns, the prisoner does indeed prize his life: “I will not consent to die this day, that’s certain” (4.3.58–59). Another example of the attachment to life comes from the clown Pompey. Speaking to the judge Escalus, he says with sober clarity: “Truly, sir, I am a poor fellow that would live” (2.1.231). Pompey’s simple words offer a plain but powerful declaration of a basic—even primal—desire for life. All these examples suggest that we shouldn’t be too harsh on Claudio, even if the request he makes of his sister is indeed cruel and unfair.
O prince, I conjure thee, as thou believest
There is another comfort than this world,
That thou neglect me not with that opinion
That I am touched with madness. Make not impossible
That which but seems unlike. ’Tis not impossible
But one, the wicked’st caitiff on the ground,
May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute
As Angelo. Even so may Angelo,
In all his dressings, caracts, titles, forms,
Be an archvillain. Believe it, royal prince,
If he be less, he’s nothing, but he’s more,
Had I more name for badness.
(Act 5, scene 1, lines 55–67)
In these lines, Isabella summons all her courage and rhetorical power to approach the Duke and accuse Angelo of criminal behavior. Although Isabella has been coached by the Duke for this performance in previous scenes, it’s important to note that she only knows him in his disguised persona as a friar. Thus, when she addresses the Duke here, she doesn’t know that he himself is acting. It’s all the more impressive, then, that she strenuously refutes his attempts to dismiss her as a madwoman. Applying reason to her case, she instructs the Duke, “neglect me not with that opinion / That I am touched with madness.” The charge of madness is one that Angelo has also laid against Isabella, as he’d tacitly promised to do earlier when she threatened to testify against him. As he put it then, in a classic threat of “he said/she said”: “Who will believe thee, Isabel? / My unsoiled name, th’ austereness of my life, / My vouch against you, and my place i’ th’ state / Will . . . your accusation overweigh” (2.4.168–71). In fighting back against attacks meant to discredit her, Isabella powerfully refutes patriarchal authority and asserts her honor and strength of will.
After implicitly tearing down the presumption of her frailty and weakness, Isabella proceeds with her accusation against Angelo. But she does so carefully, especially in light of Angelo’s earlier assertion that his perceived authority will effectively make him immune to her accusations. So, instead of coming straight out with her charges, Isabella begins by making the clever move of drawing explicit attention to Angelo’s public persona. Likening the man to a dog, she argues that “the wicked’st caitiff on the ground, / May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute / As Angelo.” In other words, for all that he may appear to be the very embodiment of absolute justice, Angelo in fact turns out to be the opposite: “an archvillain.” Isabella’s opening plea for the Duke to look past appearances touches on another important theme in Measure for Measure, which features a great deal of duplicity by way of disguise and substitutions. As we see again and again in the play, appearance can be deceiving.
For this new-married man approaching here,
Whose salt imagination yet hath wronged
Your well-defended honor, you must pardon
For Mariana’s sake. But as he adjudged your brother—
Being criminal in double violation
Of sacred chastity and of promise-breach
Thereon dependent for your brother’s life—
The very mercy of the law cries out
Most audible, even from his proper tongue,
“An Angelo for Claudio, death for death.”
Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;
Like doth quit like, and measure still for measure.—
Then, Angelo, thy fault’s thus manifested,
Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage.
We do condemn thee to the very block
Where Claudio stooped to death, and with like haste.—
Away with him.
(Act 5, scene 1, lines 455–75)
In the latter half of act 5, after Angelo’s crimes have finally been made public, the Duke takes on the role of the judge and begins to dole out punishments. The first sentence he passes is against Angelo, whom he orders to formalize his marriage vows to Mariana, to whom he’d previously been engaged and with whom he’s now had sex. The Duke dispatches the couple to go off and say their vows. Here, however, as they return to the group, the Duke issues a second decree. Whereas the first sentence responded to the crime of fornication, the Duke has yet to pass judgment on Angelo’s crime of wrongful execution. That is, despite promising to spare Claudio’s life in exchange for sex, Angelo went ahead with his orders for Claudio’s beheading. This crime carries the steeper penalty of death, which the Duke frames as an adequate exchange that will balance the scales of justice: “An Angelo for Claudio, death for death.” Of course, the Duke knows that Claudio is actually alive, and he will reveal this fact in due course. For the moment, however, he wants to teach Angelo a lesson about what constitutes an appropriate match between crime and punishment.
As part of this lesson, the Duke makes a biblical reference that, as it turns out, gives the play its title. Still playing the part of the judge, the Duke philosophizes in a rhyming couplet: “Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure; / Like doth quit like, and measure still for measure.” These lines, which further elaborate on the theme of justice, derive from two verses in the Gospel of Matthew: “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 7:1–2). This is essentially another version of the Golden Rule, which states that you should treat others as you would like to be treated. Angelo’s extreme hypocrisy in committing the same crime for which he’s sentenced Claudio to death is the play’s chief example of someone failing to “measure” justly. But another—and arguably more severe—example of this hypocrisy came when Angelo, fearing retribution from Claudio, ordered his execution regardless of his agreement with Isabella. The Duke did manage to save Claudio, but before he reveals this truth, he wants Angelo to squirm under the threat of justice.
