Measure For Measure – William Shakespeare, 1604 ★★★★½

A Comedy about Something

Roughly half the time I observed him in action, I figured the Duke at the center of Shakespeare’s satisfying Measure For Measure to be a stand-in for God. The other half, I thought he was the Bard’s answer to J. Peterman, the genially patrician, obtusely pompous character who is Elaine Benes’ boss on the TV series “Seinfeld.”

Well, it is a comedy.

The Duke was no doubt written as an ambiguous figure; ambiguity is baked into the heart of this play. We are not sure what to feel about him any more than we do the various situations with which we are presented.

Are we supposed to be amused by a play which centers on the coercing of sexual favors from a novitiate nun in exchange for granting mercy to the woman’s unjustly condemned brother? Or is it the abuse of power by the one doing the coercing, an excessively zealous prescriber of morality named Angelo whom the Duke entrusts with control of Vienna during his absence?

Maybe it’s the Duke’s own odd twist on civil administration, dressing up as a friar to see what people say and do in his imagined absence? Anyway, you see why many Shakespeare students regard this as one of those “problem plays.”

At the heart of the matter in Measure For Measure is man’s quest for love, and his common fallback position, lust. As Claudio, condemned for fornication, puts it: “Our natures do pursue,/Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,/A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die.” [Act I, scene ii, lines 131-133]

The problem of controlling that lust is what troubles the Duke. There is a body of laws in place, but without enforcement, that is like “an o'ergrown lion in a cave,/That goes not out to prey.” [I.iii.22-23]. Prostitutes and pimps peddle openly in the streets, while soldiers josh each other irreverently about bastard offspring. It is a time when religion is not only still popular but a bulwark of public order. What’s a God-fearing Duke to do?

In this Duke’s case, the answer is to go undercover and discover how bad things really are. Apparently, the Duke means not only to test his people, but also his seemingly faithful lieutenant, Angelo, whom he abruptly puts in complete charge of Vienna during his absence.

This is one of the many pregnant mysteries of Measure For Measure, why the Duke leaves Angelo in charge. He says it is because he knows Angelo is the right man for the job; later, however, we learn the Duke harbors sympathies for a woman to whom Angelo was betrothed, though she was eventually turned away for not being rich enough. Maybe he is testing Angelo’s discretion in office?

If so, Angelo proves unworthy of the challenge. His handling of poor Isabella is one of the signature dastardly acts in the oeuvre of a playwright who made such deeds a staple of his work. Not long after proclaiming himself a rigid upholder of law (“We must not make a scarecrow of the law,/Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,/And let it keep one shape, till custom make it/Their perch and not their terror” [II.i.1-4]), he is working out how to use his new powers to steal Isabella’s virginity, settling upon her natural fear for her brother Claudio’s life as his fulcrum. Oh, and he’s going to have Claudio killed anyway after having his way with his sister.

Claudio is charged with a sex crime. At least his act involved a consensual partner.

Where is the comedy? Some of it comes in the form of various rustics, a kind of troupe of usual suspects for Shakespeare which includes bawds, clowns, and strumpets. The jests rely on puns and malaprops, some of which can still draw a laugh.

POMPEY

Yonder man is carried to prison.

MISTRESS OVERDONE

Well; what has he done?

POMPEY

A woman. [I.ii.88-90]

How Australians do Shakespeare: The Bell Shakespeare Company's 2005 take on the Vienna demimonde as it is depicted in Measure For Measure. More than most Shakespeare productions, Measure For Measure seems to inspire modern-dress updating. Image from http://www.theage.com.au/

But the real humor as I see it lies in Shakespeare’s presentation of the Duke, the central character in the play given not only his authority but the way he bridges the play’s comic and tragic elements with his over-the-top, busy-body antics. It’s here I see him as J. Peterman before his time.

Like the “Seinfeld” character, the Duke is given to lengthy, self-important pedantry that leaves listener and audience wondering what he’s on about. It occurs twice in the opening scene alone, first when he talks up his faithful and competent deputy Escalus in what appears a prelude to putting Escalus in charge of Vienna, only to suddenly shift gears and hand the keys to the city over to Angelo instead. Then, when it comes time for the Duke to take his leave, he takes up half the remaining scene saying his goodbyes, so caught up is he by his own grandiloquence and false modesty (he says he can’t stand exultant crowds) that he makes two false exits.

The notion of the Duke as stand-in for Christ is made by G. Wilson Knight in his essay, “Measure For Measure And The Gospels,” included in my Signet Classic paperback edition. The play does present a very overt Christian message of forgiveness, and by putting on a friar’s robes in his disguise, the already pious-sounding Duke cements an association with divine purpose of some kind.

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike
As if we had them not. [I.i.32-35]

Where I see more of J. Peterman is in the Duke’s subsequent activity in the friar disguise, where he seems less an avatar for the spiritual life than a slyly delivered, walking punchline who acts, like Peterman, with colossal myopia even when trying, with considerable effort but not always success, to be humane and gentle. When visiting Claudio in prison, for example, the disguised Duke’s idea of cheerful spiritual counsel is to basically tell the condemned fellow that his situation doesn’t matter because he’s just a collection of atoms anyway who will be gone to dust sooner or later. Why fret?

Be absolute for death; either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter. [III.i.5-6]

It’s a powerful scene later on when we hear Claudio’s poignant musings in the face of death, but I sense there’s comedy here to be plumbed as well, in how the Duke bandies empty words with one in extremis.

More overt comedy shows up for the Duke in the character of Lucio, Measure For Measure’s agent provocateur. He’s one of the ribald soldiers we meet early in the play, yet a loyal friend of Claudio’s whose petitioning of Isabella for help saving her brother gives us something to root for. Alas, Lucio’s powers of self-preservation are less evident, as he can’t stop himself from talking about that perve the Duke whenever he gets a chance to chat up that mysterious friar:

I say to thee, he would mouth with a beggar, though she smelled brown bread and garlic. [III.ii183-85]

The “friar’s” ominous rumblings and pregnant silences throughout the onslaught of Lucio’s left-field calumny suggests Shakespeare was encouraging us to have some fun at the old boy’s expense. Throughout his time in disguise, whether discomfited or offering advice, there’s something odd about the Duke. The words come out alright, but we are left to wonder at the intent behind them.

That Shakespeare works this character for humor while simultaneously using him to drive the tragedy of the play speaks to the able construction which makes Measure For Measure so enjoyable.  

The play has a lot of things going for it, even if you aren’t a “Seinfeld” fan. The character of Isabella, for example, is one of Shakespeare’s most curiously engaging heroines, a woman who wants chastity but provokes lust, who manages to bring two men to fall in love with her not with her beauty but with what she has to say. There’s also the very modern message of a society that fails to live up to its high cultural standards being called into account for its failure.

But it’s really as a comedy I was most enchanted by Measure For Measure, a surprise as Shakespearean comedies usually work for me more in the vein of rustic stories with moral messages than out-and-out sitcoms. The more the Duke worked his angles, while Lucio talked himself deeper into a hole, the more amused I was. It’s a comedy with a singular power for drawing out resonances and laughter in equal, hearty measure.