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George Washington University
Substitution in "Measure for Measure"
Author(s): Alexander Leggatt
Source:
Shakespeare Quarterly,
Vol. 39, No. 3 (Autumn, 1988), pp. 342-359
Published by: Folger Shakespeare Library in association with George Washington University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2870931 .
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Substitution
in
Measure
for
Measure
ALEXANDER LEGGATT
IN THE
SOURCES THAT
SHAKESPEARE USED
FOR
MEASURE FOR
MEASURE,
the her-
oine
gives
her own
body
to the
judge in
order to save her brother.
Shake-
speare
spares
Isabella that fate
by putting
Mariana
in
her
place.
This substitution
is
part
of a pattern
of
substitution,
virtually
a chain
reaction,
that runs
through
the
play.
A. D. Nuttall
has called "vicarious action" the
"principal
idea" of
the
play,1
and James Black
has shown how
pervasive
the idea is: not
only
does
Mariana substitute
for
Isabella, but
Angelo
substitutes
for
the
Duke; then
Is-
abella asks
Angelo
to
put
himself in
Claudio's place, and he does. When the
bed-trick
fails, "Maidenhead-for-maidenhead"
becomes "head-for-head";2
Barnardine for
Claudio; Ragozine
for Barnardine.
In fact,
Ragozine
has the
distinction
of
being
a substitute substitute. Not
long ago I took
part
in a pro-
duction of this
play;3
at the first rehearsal when
we were
allegedly
off
book,
the Provost
approached
Angelo
and
asked, "Is it
your
will
Angelo
shall
die
tomorrow?"-leaving Angelo
somewhat at
a loss for an answer that
fitted
the
script.
Throughout
rehearsals-and performances-the transpositions
contin-
ued. Quite
late in
the
run Escalus was heard to
exclaim,
"But yet,
poor
An-
gelo!" The names chime
together: Angelo
and
Claudio,
Barnardine and
Ragozine;
but
this
was
only
a symptom
of
something
deeper.
Some
gremlin
of substitution
was in the
air,
like
the
evil
spirits
that
haunt
performances
of Macbeth. This
gremlin
can
be seen at
work in the text.
Why
does Friar Peter take
over from
Friar
Thomas? One could
be clever and
say
that
as part
of
the
play's comic
movement
we go from
the
doubting apostle
to the
rock
on which
the Church
is founded;
but
I suspect
it's simply
the
gremlin
at
work. Part of
the
manu-
factured confusion
of
the last
scene
stems
from the fact that
characters do not
speak
for
themselves.
Friar Peter identifies
himself as
Friar Lodowick's mouth-
piece, "To speak,
as from
his
mouth,
what he doth
know / Is true
and false"
(V.i. 157-58).4 He does this rather
oddly,
seeming
to defend
Angelo
and attack
the
women,
while the "real" Friar Lodowick
does
just
the
opposite.
Angelo
says
of Isabella and
Mariana:
I do
perceive
These
poor
informal
women are
no more
But instruments
of some
more
mightier
member
That sets them
on.
(V.i.234-37)
"Measure
for
Measure:
Quid
Pro
Quo?" Shakespeare
Studies,
4 (1968) 231-51, esp. p. 232.
2 "The Unfolding
of 'Measure
for
Measure'," Shakespeare
Survey,
26 (1973), 119-28, esp.
pp. 124, 125.
3 The production,
directed
by
Ronald
Bryden, played
at the Robert Gill
Theatre,
University
of
Toronto,
in March
1987.
4
All references
to Measure
for
Measure
are to the Arden
edition,
ed. J.
W. Lever
(London:
Methuen, 1965).
References
to other
Shakespeare plays
are to The
Complete
Works
of Shakespeare,
ed. David Bevington
(Glenview,
Ill.: Scott,
Foresman
and
Co., 1980).
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SUBSTITUTION IN
MEASURE FOR
MEASURE 343
Lucio casts
the
Friar
in his own
role as slanderer
of the
Duke:
Had
he been
lay,
my
lord,
For certain
words
he
spake
against
your
Grace
In
your
retirement,
I had
swing'd
him
soundly.
(V.i.
131-33)
Later the
Duke, as Friar,
declares,
"You must,
sir,
change
persons
with
me,
ere
you
make
that
my
report"
(V.i.334-35). Part
of the
business
of the
de-
nouement
is quite
simply
getting people
to
appear
as themselves
and
speak
as
themselves,
clearing away
substitutions
and
reversing transposed
identities.
The idea
of substitution
appears
not
just
in
the
comic
machinery
of the
play,
where its
presence
could
be seen
as conventional,
but in
the
language
of
the
more serious
scenes.
When
Angelo
hints
that Claudio
could
be saved
by
sin,
Isabella
takes it that
he
sees
mercy
as a sin,
and she
offers to
assume the
guilt
herself:
.. you
granting
of
my
suit,
If that be
sin,
I'll
make it
my
morn
prayer
To have
it added
to the
faults of
mine,
And
nothing
of
your
answer.
(II.iv.70-73)
She offers,
in
effect,
to
take
his
place. When Claudio
at first
agrees
with
her
refusal
to
give
up her
chastity,
she
declares,
"There
my
father's
grave
/ Did
utter
forth a voice" (III.i.85-86); Claudio is speaking
as her
father,
saying
what
he would
say. His declaration,
"I will encounter
darkness
as a bride /
And
hug
it
in mine arms"
(III.i.83-84) suggests
another
bed-trick,
with death
taking
the
place of Juliet.
The idea has other ramifications.
Not
just in the
Duke's peculiar
decision
to
leave
Angelo
in
charge
of
the
city,
but
in the normal
workings
of
society
as a whole,
substitution
is pervasive.
Elbow
owes his
job
to
it;
he says
of his
neighbors,
"As they
are
chosen,
they
are
glad
to
choose
me for them." Escalus's order,
"Look you
bring
me
in
the
names of some
six
or
seven,
the most
sufficient
of
your parish"
(II.i.265-70), makes it
clear
that
he is going
to
find a substitute
for
Elbow.
In Isabella's plea for
mercy,
we touch
on the
greatest
substitution
of all:
Why,
all the
souls that
were,
were
forfeit
once,
And
He that
might
the
vantage
best have
took
Found
out the
remedy. (II.ii.73-75)
This
is the doctrine
of the
Atonement.
Since this
is arguably
the
central and
defining
doctrine
of
Christianity,
it
is tempting
to do what
some critics
have
done and
see it as central to
the
play,5
but that
is to
ignore
the theatrical
effect
of
its
placement
in the
scene.
It is
part
of
Isabella's argument
but
not
the
climax
of
it;
it
has no effect
on
Angelo,
and the
scene
sweeps
on
past
it.
Angelo
puts
himself
not
in the
place
of Christ
but
in
the
place
of
Claudio;
Isabella
herself,
as James
Black has noted,
will not
take the
way
of substitution:
she
will
not
sacrifice
herself to
save Claudio.6
Another
kind
of divine substitution
is sug-
5
See especially
Roy W. Battenhouse,
"Measure
for
Measure and Christian
Doctrine
of the
Atonement,"
PMLA,
61 (1946), 1029-59.
6 Black,
p. 124.
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344 SHAKESPEARE
QUARTERLY
gested
when
Angelo
laments
his fallen
spiritual
state.
His
line,
"Heaven in
my
mouth" should almost
certainly
read "God in
my
mouth";7
it
has been
damaged
by
the
general
expunging
of
oaths
in
the
Folio. The passage
then reads:
God
in
my
mouth,
As
if I did but
only
chew his
name,
And
in
my
heart the
strong
and
swelling
evil
Of
my conception. (II.iv.4-7)
The bread
of the
communion
substitutes
for the
body
of
Christ;
and
Angelo's
image
suggests
that
in
chewing
the
name
only,
with his
heart full
of
evil
thoughts,
he is incurring
the
condemnation
of
which St. Paul
writes:
"he that
eateth and
drinketh
unworthily,
eateth
and drinketh
damnation
to
himself,
not
discerning
the
Lord's
body"
(I Corinthians, 11:29). Angelo's
image
is central
to
Christian
liturgy,
as Isabella's is central
to Christian
theology;
but
once
again,
this
time
more
directly,
the
context
makes
it
ironic. One route
of salvation
is ignored,
the other
is perverted.
God acts
on man
through
a series
of
substitutions:
the
Incarnation,
the
Eu-
charist,
and
the
priesthood-represented
here
by
a Duke who dresses
up
as a
Friar
and
goes around
hearing
confessions
in
a manner
that
would
produce
a
major
scandal
in an actual
Catholic
community.
In
every
case the
substitution,
as it
appears
in
Measure
for
Measure,
is in some
way
clouded
by irony.
The
substitutions
that are
central
to the
plot
are
all, in various
ways,
unsatisfying.
Angelo
and Elbow
have this
in
common:
they
fail to
perform
adequately
in the
roles
assigned
to them.
The bed-trick
fails to
appease
Angelo;
the
substitution
of Barnardine
for Claudio is called off
when
Barnardine
refuses
to die. We
need, then,
to do more than
note
the
pervasiveness
of substitution
in the
play;
we need
also to note
its
problematic
quality,
for this
may
help
us to
understand
why
Shakespeare
was so interested
in it
and took
the trouble
to
explore
it
from
such
a great
variety
of
angles.
Let
us
begin
with
the first
of the
play's substitutions,
Angelo
for the
Duke.
The Duke has two
deputies,
but
in the
first
scene
he speaks
to them
in
very
different
terms.
He tells
Escalus,
... I am
put
to know that
your
own
science
Exceeds,
in
that,
the
lists
of all
advice
My
strength
can
give you.
Then
no more
remains
But
that,
to
your
sufficiency,
as your
worth
is able,
And
let them
work.
(I.i.5-9)
The
passage
is obscure in detail but its drift
is clear: the Duke trusts to Escalus's
own ability.
He is worthy
in himself;
nothing
needs to be given
to him.
In
sharp
contrast,
the Duke bestows
his own role on Angelo,
as though Angelo
himself is nothing
and must be given
the
Duke's office and
capacities
before
he can function:
What
figure
of
us,
think
you,
he
will
bear?
For
you
must
know,
we have with
special
soul
7
Lever admits
this
in his note
on
the
passage,
but
retains
the Folio
reading,
as do most
editors
except
J. M. Nosworthy
in the
New
Penguin
edition
(Harmondsworth:
Penguin
Books, 1969).
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SUBSTITUTION
IN MEASURE
FOR
MEASURE 345
Elected
him our
absence
to
supply;
Lent
him our
terror,
drest
him
with
our
love,
And
given
his
deputation
all
the
organs
Of
our
own
power.
What
think
you
of
it?
(I.i.
16-21)
His persistent
questioning
suggests
an
edginess
about
the
decision,
as does
his
repeated
insistence
on Angelo's substitute
role later
in the
scene: "In our re-
move,
be thou
at full
ourself"
(1.
43); "Your scope
is as mine
own" (1.
64).
Angelo
is also nervous
about
his
assignment:
Now,
good
my
lord,
Let there
be some
more test
made
of
my
metal,
Before
so noble
and
so
great
a figure
Be stamp'd
upon
it. (I.i.47-50)
He imagines
that
the
Duke
will
give
him
his
identity
as the
stamp
turns
a piece
of
metal
into a coin;
but
he
wonders
if the
metal
itself
is
worthy
of the
impres-
sion.
Why
does
the
Duke
make
Angelo
his substitute?
We will
consider
the
Duke
more
fully
later;
but we may
note
here that
the
motives
he expresses
overtly
come
close to
cancelling
each
other
out:
Angelo
will
make
up
for
the
Duke's
failure to
clean
up
the
city,
and
in the
process
his
own nature
will
be tested.
The first motive
suggests
trust
in Angelo,
the
second
distrust.
We may
also
note that
certain
similarities
link the
two
men:
both
profess
a dislike
of
crowds,
though
the
Duke's is qualified-"I love
the
people,
/ But
do not
like
to
stage
me to their
eyes" (I.i.67-68)-while Angelo
is more
simply
critical
of
the
"foolish
throngs"
(II.iv.24). There
may
be more
to this
than
an
expression
of
sympathy
for James
I's similar
feelings.
The
Duke's love
of "the
life
remov'd"
(I.iii.8) is something
that
links
him
both
with
Angelo,
who takes
on public
office with
reluctance,
and
with
Isabella,
who has
to
be
practically
dragged
out
of
the
convent to
plead
for her
brother's
life.
Making
Angelo
act
for
him
solves
a problem
for the
Duke's reputation:
Angelo
may
in th'
ambush
of
my
name
strike
home,
And
yet
my
nature
never
in
the
fight
To do
in
slander.
(I.iii.41-43)
He is made to
undergo
not
only
the
responsibility
but
the
public
exposure
the
Duke
shuns.
The Duke
picks
for this
role
not
someone
who
enjoys
the
limelight
but
someone
who in
this
respect
is
like
himself;
and
Angelo
is made
to
undergo
worse than
this.
The
Duke's "Believe not
that
the
dribbling
dart
of
love
/
Can
pierce
a complete
bosom" (I.iii.2-3) is the
equivalent
of
Angelo's
"Eve[r]
till
now /
When
men
were
fond,
I smil'd,
and
wonder'd
how" (II.ii. 186-87). The
Duke throws
Angelo,
on
his
behalf,
not
only
into
the
arena
of
power
but
into
the
arena
of
sexual
experience.8
Angelo
suffers
the
disgrace
and
torment;
the
Duke comes
along
when
it
is all over
and
proposes
marriage.
To put
it that
way
may
seem
to credit
the Duke
with
a foreknowledge
of
the
8
This was pointed
out to
me
by
Kate
Helwig
in
an extremely
interesting
undergraduate
essay
on Measure
for
Measure
and The
Tempest.
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346 SHAKESPEARE
QUARTERLY
plot
that
is hardly
believable.
But his
curiosity
about how
Angelo
will
behave
is centered
on the
question
of
whether he can control his
appetites:
Lord
Angelo
is
precise;
Stands
at a guard
with
Envy;
scarce
confesses
That his
blood
flows;
or
that his
appetite
Is more
to
bread than
stone.
Hence shall
we
see
If
power
change
purpose,
what our
seemers
be.
(I.iii.50-54)
To take
on
power
is to
undergo
temptation,
and
Angelo
is to do both on the
Duke's behalf.
The
Duke
professes
abstinence;
so does
Angelo.
In
seeing
how
Angelo
behaves,
the
Duke may
be revealing
a curiosity,
even
anxiety,
about
himself.
"Our
seemers,"
interestingly,
is
plural.
We
see how
nettled the
Duke
is
by
Lucio's slanders;
and
most
of
these
concern
his
sexual
behavior. A similar
defensiveness
is suggested
by
the
Duke's jest
with the
Provost,
when he
asks
to be left alone
with
Isabella: "My mind
promises
with
my
habit no
loss shall
touch
her
by my
company"
(III.i.176-77). This is odd and
pointless-even,
in
view of
what
Isabella
has
just
been
through,
a bit
tasteless.
Like
his
reactions
to
Lucio, it
may
reflect
the Duke's touchiness
about
his
own
sexuality.
In more
than
one
sphere,
then,
the
Duke gets
Angelo
to do his
dirty
work.
Rosalind
Miles observes
that
"the
Duke's realisation
of
the
mistake
of
trying
to enforce
the
law too strictly
seems
to have been learned
entirely
through
Angelo,
and
at his
expense."9
Whether
the
Duke does realize
the
mistake
is
a moot
point,
but
it is certainly
true
that
Angelo,
on
the
difficult
matter of
law
enforcement,
takes
both
the risk
and
the
blame.
He is
clearly
the
most
unpopular
man
in
Vienna. If
the
tough
action
needed
to
clean
up
the
city
involves
some
risk
to
the
soul, or
at
least to
the
moral
nature,
of
the
authority
who
tries
it
(it
is not
business
for
a saint),
then
Angelo
must
bear
that too.10
In
being
the
Duke's substitute,
Angelo
is
also his
victim.
Moreover,
there is
only
one
respect
in
which
the
substitution
is
clearly
successful.
The
defiance of
Pompey
and
the
final
distribution
of
pardons
make
law
enforcement look
futile;
there
is
no
cer-
tainty
that the
city
will
ever
be cleaned
up. Though
Angelo
may
be
taking
the
risk
of
erotic
involvement
on
the
Duke's behalf,
the
connection
is
not so
clearly
established
as it
might
be, and in
any
case Isabella's silence
in
the
face
of
the
Duke's proposal
leaves
the
theme
unresolved.
What
has
been
achieved,
without
question,
is the
testing,
exposure,
and humiliation
of
Angelo.
Whatever
his
last
thoughts
are after
the
denouement,
his
last
words
express
a longing
for
death.
As achievements
go, this
one is negative.
In
the
last
scene,
the
Duke's initial
action
of
withdrawing
from
Vienna
and
leaving
deputies
to
rule for
him
is
not
just
reversed but
parodied.
Putting
Angelo
and
Escalus
in
charge
of
the
inquiry
into
Isabella's accusations,
the
Duke
leaves
the
stage
again. He then
returns
as the Friar
and
asks
for
himself.
Escalus's
reply,
"The Duke's in us" (V.i.293) is sharply
ironic.
The Duke is not in
Angelo
or
Escalus;
he is
on
stage
in
the
person
of
the
Friar.
And
when
Escalus
in the
Duke's name
goes on to badger
and threaten
the
Friar,
the
effect is
increasingly
comic.
We
would
expect
Shakespeare,
as part
of
the
denouement,
to
have
the
Duke finally
speak
and
act for
himself,
but
he goes beyond
this,
subjecting
the
whole
idea of
political
substitution
to
ironic
comedy,
making
it
look
futile.
9
The
Problem
of
Measure
for
Measure
(London:
Vision
Press,
1976),
p. 214.
'1 See Nuttall,
"Quid Pro
Quo?" p. 245.
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SUBSTITUTION IN
MEASURE
FOR MEASURE 347
The
play's
other
major
substitution,
the
bed-trick,
has its own
futility.
Quite
simply,
Angelo
takes his
price
and
orders Claudio's execution
anyway.
And
just as the Duke's motives in putting
Angelo
in his place seem
mixed
and
shadowy,
so there
are
aspects
of
the bed-trick that remain
curiously
unexplored.
Experts may
debate whether
Mariana loses her
virginity
under the
same
legal
conditions as Juliet
did; what the
play is at pains
to emphasize
is that
the
personal
relationship
is
utterly
different.
Claudio
and
Juliet are
simply
in
love:
the
key
word for
their
sexual
relationship
is Juliet's
"Mutually" (II.iii.27).
Mariana,
on the
other
hand,
is obsessed with a man who
wants
nothing
to
do
with
her,
and who
beds
her
thinking
she is someone else. This
raises
questions
about the
nature and
quality
of their sexual
encounter,
questions
that
I think
are
more than
just
vulgar
curiosity.
In
the
production
I was
involved
in,
Angelo
and
Mariana
spoke
to each
other
in
the last moments of
the
play,
in
dialogue
that,
since it was not
intended
to be heard
by
the
audience,
gave
the
performers
a certain latitude
for mischief.
One night Angelo
asked
Mariana,
"How was
I?" to which
she
replied,
"Well, I still
want to
marry you."
In the text
there
is nothing
of the kind. We do not
know how
Angelo
feels
about
the
experience
he was so desperate
to
have;
his
decision to have
Claudio
executed
might
indicate
disappointment,
but
I think it more
likely
reflects the
peculiar
legal
turn of his mind. The
self-disgust
he shows
in
his
final
soliloquy
is nothing
new;
he has felt it
all along. Certainly
he feels no better,
and he
has
evidently
made no
attempt
to meet Isabella
again;
once was
enough.
About
Mariana's
feelings
we know
nothing.
Should
we
expect
to know
anything?
We
have
the
precedent
of
Helena's words
following
the
bed-trick in
All's Well That
Ends
Well: "O my
good
lord,
when
I was
like
this
maid,
/
I found
you
wondrous
kind"
(V.iii.307-8). The
sad,
touching
irony
of this line reverberates
through
the
whole
relationship
of Bertram and Helena. He was a good lover for her
because
he
thought
she
was
someone
else. He also seems to have been a better
lover
than
his
cynical
indifference to
Diana once
the
encounter
is over
would
indicate;
he is not
just a lecherous
young
brute. Or is Helena's "wondrous
kind" a charitable
exaggeration?
Or,
to take a darker
reading,
is she
simply
grateful
for
anything?
However one takes
it,
the line
encourages
speculation
about
the
quality
of the
encounter,
speculation
that illuminates the characters
in
a variety
of
ways.
No such illumination
is
provided
in
Measure
for
Measure.
We have
no indication that
the encounter humanizes
Angelo
or satisfies Mar-
iana; neither
character
seems different.
There is something
blank and
anony-
mous about it. James Trombetta
has
suggested
that
"Sexuality
is
deeply
threatening
to
Angelo
because it
presents
itself
as the solvent of
character,
a fall
into
an-
onymity";11
whether this is true of
Angelo's
own
thinking,
it
certainly
seems
true of
the bed-trick.
All
cats
are
grey
in the dark. It
does
not
represent
a stage
in
the
relationship
of
the
participants,
as it does
for
Bertram and Helena.
One
simple sign
of this is that
we know Helena
is pregnant
at
the end of the
play,
while
about Mariana's condition
we know
nothing.
But at
least
Mariana,
like
Angelo,
has taken
the
risk
of
acting
for
another
person,
and she
has done so more
willingly
than he. As James
Black points
out,
"Hers is the
first act of
wholehearted
substitution."12 We might
add
that
for
Mariana all cats are
not
grey
in the
light.
Angelo
has added
to his
other
offenses the
intention
(and,
so far as he
knows,
the
act)
of
infidelity.
The
Duke
1I "Versions of
Dying
in
Measure
for
Measure," English
Literary
Renaissance,
6 (1976), 60-
76, esp. p. 67.
12
Black,
p. 124.
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348 SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY
points
out,
"It is your
husband mock'd
you
with a husband"
(V.i.416). He
was consummating
their
relationship
only
in
the
most
literal,
physical way;
in
his mind
he was having
sex with
Isabella. In that
sense
he was not
the
real
thing
but
a substitute,
a mock-husband.
Yet
when the Duke offers to
give
Mar-
iana
Angelo's
estate
"To buy you
a better husband" she
replies,
"O my
dear
lord,
/
I crave no
other,
nor
no
better man" (V.i.423-24). For
her there is a
point
at which
the
game
of substitution has to
stop;
for
whatever
reason,
An-
gelo's value to her
is unique,
and no other man will do. If there is indeed
something
impersonal
and
anonymous
about
sex, this is Mariana's answer
to
it.
We may
think
that the bed-trick frees Isabella from all risk
and all respon-
sibility.
Mariana will
simply
do the
job for her.
But
Isabella is not let off: in
the last scene their
relationship
is
reversed,
as she
substitutes
for
Mariana.
She
has to undergo
the
embarrassment
and-it must seem for a while-the very
considerable
danger
of
accusing
Angelo
in
public,
claiming
he has done
to her
what
he actually
did to Mariana.
She undergoes
this trial with characteristic
reluctance:
To speak
so
indirectly
I am
loth;
I would
say
the
truth,
but to
accuse
him
so
That is
your
part; yet
I am advis'd to do
it,
He
says,
to veil
full
purpose.
(IV.
vi.
1-4)
Mariana has
nothing
worse to
confess than the
fact that
she has
slept
with
her
husband;
Isabella must
confess,
falsely
and publicly,
to the
fornication
she
actually
refused
to commit.
This is not the
same as doing
the
deed,
of
course,
but
theatrically
she
is forced
to imitate
the fallen woman
she
would not be in
reality;
in
its own
way
this
is a kind of
surrogate
action.
She goes
further
in her
plea for
Angelo's
life.
Once
again
she
acts
on Mar-
iana's behalf,
answering
the
other
woman's
request,
"Sweet Isabel, take
my
part"
(V.i.428), speaking
not
for what
she
wants but
for
what Mariana wants.
But she can do more
than
just
substitute
for Mariana. In one
sense
her
plea is
very
different,
cold and reserved as Mariana's is not:
I partly
think
A due
sincerity govern'd
his deeds
Till
he
did
look
on me.
(V.i.443-45)
This is not Mariana's
style.
In another
way,
however,
Isabella's plea has far
greater
force. Mariana
can do little
more than
express
her own desire
and her
hope
that
Angelo
will reform.
Isabella,
as the
party
most
deeply
wronged,
can
address
with real
authority
the
central
question
of
Angelo's
offense. Since there
is
no self-interest
behind
it,
a plea
from
her
has
greater
weight
than a plea
from
Mariana.
As Mariana,
not
Isabella,
was
the sexual
partner
Angelo
should have
had,
so Isabella, not
Mariana,
is the
advocate
he
really
needs.
This
substitution,
like the
others,
fails
in its
apparent
purpose.
The
Duke's
reply,
"Your suit's
unprofitable"
(V.i.453), makes it
seem
futile,
and
his
ul-
timate intention
of
mercy
means
that it
was never
necessary
in
the
first
place.
Or,
at
least,
it was never
necessary
as
a
way
of
saving
Angelo.
It was
necessary,
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350 SHAKESPEARE
QUARTERLY
. . . perpetual
durance;
a restraint,
Though
all the
world's
vastidity you
had,
To
a determin'd
scope. (III.i.67-69)
Claudio too
would
carry
his
prison
with him.
But the
substitution of
Barnardine
for
Claudio
does not,
like
the
bed-trick,
fail;
it
does
not
even take
place.
Not
only
does
Barnardine
refuse,
but in
literal
terms he was never
a good duplicate
in
the
first
place. The Provost
objects,
"Angelo
hath seen
them
both,
and will
discover
the
favour";
the
Duke
replies,
"0, death's a great
disguiser;
and
you
may
add
to it.
Shave
the
head,
and tie
the
beard" (IV.ii.
172-75). Though
the Duke shows his
usual
confidence,
it is
clear
that this will
need more
technical work
than
the
bed-trick
seems
to
do.
In
the
end
it is Ragozine
who
takes
Claudio's place (and
Barnardine's).
He is
"more
like
to
Claudio," "A man of
Claudio's years;
his
beard
and
head /
Just
of
his
colour"
(IV.iii.75, 71-72). His severed
head makes
a brief
appearance,
but he is otherwise
unseen.
He never
establishes,
like
Barnardine,
an
onstage
identity
that makes
him
an individual. All we know of
him
is that he is "a
most
notorious
pirate"
who
has
just
died of "a cruel
fever"
(IV.iii.69-70).
He might
be
linked
with the
sanctimonious
pirate
of
I.ii, who
went to sea with
the Ten Commandments
minus
one; but
that too is an
offstage
character,
and
while
we may
say
of
Claudio and
Angelo
that
they
respect
all the
command-
ments
but
one, the
connection
is, I think,
too
general
to be very
significant.
Ragozine's "fever"
might
have
suggested
the
fires of
lust
if
such
imagery
had
been
as pervasive
in this
play
as it
is in
Troilus
and Cressida;
but
it is not.
There are
suggestions,
perhaps,
that
Ragozine
bears the
sins of
the
other
char-
acters
and
purges
them
by
his
death;
but these
suggestions
do not
go
very
far,
and the
main
impression,
certainly
the
theatrical
impression,
is that
Ragozine
will
do as a
Claudio-substitute
because he
is
not
really
an
individual.
Barnardine
is; so, of
course,
is Claudio. When
the
Provost
unmuffles him
at the
end of
the
play,
he
calls him
"As like
almost to
Claudio as himself"
(V.i.487). The
phrasing
really
conveys
that there is
no one
like
Claudio.
He is,
like all
human
beings,
unique
and
irreplaceable.
So is
Barnardine.
When
Barnardine is
simply
described,
he
sounds
expendable.
When we actually
see him,
we
recognize
in
his
brute
stubbornness
and
pride-"If you
have
anything
to
say
to
me,
come
to
my
ward" (IV.iii.61-62)-something we would hate
to lose. Shakespeare
acknowledges
this
by
bringing
Barnardine
on stage
for
public
forgiveness.
In
strict
plot
terms
Barnardine is a red
herring.
We could cut him
and
go straight
to
Ragozine,
and the
story
would be
unaffected.
But
he
is
there
as an
acid
test
of
the
principle
that
no human
being
is replaceable
or
expendable.
If
we can
say
that of
Barnardine,
we can say
it of
anybody.
The
question
of
whether
Barnardine can
really
be equated
with
Claudio has
other
implications
for
the
play's treatment
of
substitution,
to which
I would
now
like
to turn.
Angelo
is like the
Duke and unlike
him;
Barnardine
is like
Claudio and
unlike
him-and so on through
the
play.
Characters,
ideas, and
actions are
explored
for
their
similarities and
differences,
and
the
result is a
series of
mirroring
effects,
of
likenesses
that are
striking
but not
quite
exact
(just
as a literal
mirror
image
is not
quite
exact,
since
it flattens
and
reverses
what
it
reflects).
Claudio's crime is fornication,
Barnardine's is murder,
and
different
characters
pick
away
at the
possibility
of an equation
between
these
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SUBSTITUTION IN MEASURE
FOR MEASURE 351
crimes. Lucio asks Claudio if his crime is murder
or
lechery
(I.ii.129). For
Angelo
there is no real
difference:
It were
as
good
To
pardon
him
that hath from
nature stolen
A man
already
made,
as to remit
Their
saucy
sweetness that do coin
heaven's
image
In
stamps
that are
forbid. 'Tis all as
easy
Falsely
to
take
away
a life true
made,
As
to
put
mettle in restrained means
To make a false
one.
(II.iv.42-49)
He then
goes on
to
give
Isabella the
choice
of sex with him
or
death
for
her
brother. Her
decision,
"I had
rather
my
brother
die by
the
law, than
my
son
should be
unlawfully
born"
(III.i. 188-90), continues the
experiment
of
weigh-
ing
sex and
killing
in
the same
set
of balances.
From
this
point
of view Claudio
has violated life no less than
Barnardine has. It is an interesting
notion.
But
we
should
listen to the
straightforward
common sense of
the
Provost,
comparing
the
two
men:
"Th' one has
my pity;
not a jot the
other,
/
Being
a murderer,
though
he were
my
brother"
(IV.ii.59-60).
The
equation
of Claudio and
Barnardine is
unexpected,
interesting,
and
worth
pursuing
for
a while,
but it
finally
breaks
down.14
The same could be said
of
other
character
equations.
For
example,
the two
great
scenes
that
pit Angelo
and Isabella against
each other
bring
out
ironic
resemblances
between
them.
Both have been led out,
reluctantly,
into a world of
practical
action
that
is
dangerous
to
them.
The Duke's words
to
Angelo-
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)
-form a rough parallel
to Lucio's insistence that Isabella come out
of
the
convent
to
save
her brother.
Describing
the
frailty
of
women,
Isabella uses
the
image Angelo
had used for his own
frailty:
". . . we
are
soft
as our
complexions
are,
/
And
credulous to false
prints"
(II.iv. 128-29). More
important,
their two
scenes
together
are
mirror
images
of
each other. In the
first,
Isabella argues
against
absolute
standards-"That
in
the
captain's
but
a choleric
word,
/ Which
in
the soldier is
flat
blasphemy"
(II.ii. 131-32)-while Angelo
insists
on
them.
In the
second,
it
is Angelo
who
argues
against
the
absolute,
reacting
to
Isa-
bella's "'Tis set
down
so in
heaven,
but
not
in
earth"
with
"Say you
so? Then
I shall
pose you quickly"
(II.iv.50-51), and
driving
her into the
strict
legalism
that
had been his. There is some
point
in
his
challenge,
"Were
you
not then
as cruel as the sentence / That
you
have slandered
so?" (II.iv.
109-10). In
the
first
scene,
Angelo
is backed
into
a corner,
and he ends
the scene
with
a so-
liloquy expressing
his
dilemma;
in the
second,
this
move is repeated by
Isa-
14 According
to
Darryl
J.
Gless,
Angelo's equation
of murder with
fornication was against
con-
temporary
Protestant
doctrine,
which insisted that some sins were
heavier than
others.
See Measure
for
Measure,
the
Law, and the
Convent
(Princeton:
Princeton Univ.
Press,
1979),
pp. 122-24.
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352 SHAKESPEARE
QUARTERLY
bella.15
She admits,
up to a point,
that she
has used
dubious
arguments
that
he can now
turn
against
her:
Ang. You seem'd of
late to
make
the law a tyrant,
And rather
prov'd
the
sliding
of
your
brother
A merriment
than a vice.
Isab. 0 pardon
me,
my
lord;
it oft
falls
out
To have
what we would
have,
we speak
not
what
we mean.
I something
do excuse
the
thing
I hate
For
his
advantage
that I dearly
love.
(II.iv.
114-20)
Yet she never
succumbs
to Angelo's attempt
to equate
her
legalistic
cruelty
with his:
Ignomy
in ransom
and free
pardon
Are of
two
houses:
lawful
mercy
Is nothing
kin to
foul
redemption.
(II.iv.111-13)
Like the
Provost,
she insists
on a clear,
final
distinction
based on common
sense.
Angelo's offense,
up to a point,
resembles
Claudio's. Isabella asks
him
to
imagine
an exchange:
"If he had been
as you,
and
you
as he,
/
You would
have
slipp'd
like
him" (II.ii.64-65), and
later,
more
directly,
Go to
your
bosom,
Knock
there,
and ask
your
heart
what
it
doth know
That's
like
my
brother's
fault.
(II.ii.
137-39)
These are
the
words
that
trigger
his first
guilty
aside: "She speaks,
and 'tis
such
sense
/
That
my
sense
breeds
with
it" (II.ii. 142-43). Escalus
has
already
raised
the
question
of
Angelo's
committing
Claudio's
sin,
and
Angelo
has
given
the
answer:
You may
not
so extenuate his
offence
For I have
had such
faults;
but
rather
tell
me,
When I that
censure him
do so offend,
Let
mine
own
judgement
pattern
out
my
death,
And
nothing
come in
partial.
(II.i.27-31)
It
appears
at
the
end
that
this is exactly
what will
happen:
'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
would'st
deny,
denies
thee
vantage.
15
This
was
reflected in
the
blocking
of
Ronald
Bryden's
production,
in
which first
Angelo,
then
Isabella, was cornered
behind
a desk;
the
two
soliloquies
were
delivered from the
same
position
on stage.
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SUBSTITUTION
IN
MEASURE
FOR
MEASURE 353
We
do condemn thee
to the
very
block
Where
Claudio
stoop'd
to
death,
and with like
haste.
(V.i.407-13)
Far
from
denying
the
justice
of the
sentence,
Angelo
insists on it: "'Tis my
deserving,
and
I do entreat it" (V.i.475). Yet it
is central
to Isabella's plea
that
the
cases are
not alike:
My
brother
had but
justice,
In that he
did the
thing
for which he
died:
For
Angelo,
His act
did
not
o'ertake his
bad
intent,
And
must
be
buried but as an
intent
That
perish'd by
the
way. (V.i.446-51)
She
means that
Angelo
did not
sleep
with
her,
but
with
Mariana;
and her
words
have a greater
resonance than she
knows,
for
he did not
kill
Claudio either.
(The Duke's words
have a similar resonance: so long
as Angelo
is condemned
to the block
where Claudio
died,
he is perfectly
safe.)
Isabella makes a legal
distinction between
the
sexual
offenses,
making
Angelo's
seem
lighter.
We
have
already
made a personal
distinction
that
makes it heavier: we cannot
react
to
the
meeting
of
lovers,
mutally agreed,
as we
do
to
Angelo's
brutal
commands,
"Fit
thy
consent
to
my sharp appetite"
and "Redeem
thy
brother /
By
yielding
up
thy
body
to
my
will" (II.iv.
160,
162-63). The
equation
of
Angelo's
offense
with Claudio's is an irony
that is significant
up to a point;
but
beyond
that
point
it fails.
The same could be said of
equations
that surround
it,
that are touched
on
more
lightly:
Lucio's image
for Claudio and Juliet,
"her
plenteous
womb /
Expresseth
his full
tilth
and
husbandry"
(I.iv.43-44), is echoed
by
the Duke's
hope
for
the bed-trick: "Our corn's to
reap,
for
yet
our tithe's to sow" (IV.i.76).
Yet
the
differences,
as we have
seen,
are crucial. Isabella and Juliet are
adopted
cousins
(I.iv.45-48); Angelo
sees himself
as taking
their
relationship
a stage
farther: "Give up your body
to
such sweet uncleanness / As she that
he
hath
stain'd" (II.iv.54-55). But the
parallel
is false,
for
there is no sweetness
in
what he offers.
This denial
of
apparent
resemblance is repeated
in
incidental
touches
throughout
the
play.
The First Gentleman's
"Well, there
went but a
pair
of shears between us" is countered
by Lucio's "I grant:
as there
may
between
the lists
and the velvet"
(I.ii.27-29). More
important,
when
Escalus
feels
called
upon
to defend Claudio's sentence,
he
adopts
one of
Angelo's
ar-
guments:
"Mercy
is not
itself,
that oft looks
so; / Pardon
is still the nurse of
second woe" (II.i.280-81). Minutes later
Angelo
will
declare that
he shows
pity
most of all when
I show
justice;
For then
I pity
those
I do
not
know,
Which a dismiss'd
offence
would after
gall,
And do
him
right
that,
answering
one foul
wrong,
Lives not to act another.
(II.ii. 101-5)
The
difference
is
that
Escalus
adds,
in
his next
breath,
"But
yet, poor
Claudio!"
(II.i.282), and
we see at once that
the two
men
cannot
finally
be equated.
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354 SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY
In
setting up
parallels only
to
question
them,
the
play
is in
effect
examining
its own
processes,
for
the
drawing
of
parallels
through
action,
images,
and
ideas is a device
that
lends both
unity
and resonance to the work
as a whole.
The play produces
several
variations
on Lear's "change
places, and
handy-
dandy,
which is the
justice,
which
is the thief?"
(IV.vi.153-54), a question
that
might
well be asked of
Angelo
and Claudio. Elbow's "mistaking
words"
is a conventional
stage-constable
joke,
but
in
transposing
varlets and
honorable
men,
and
making "respected"
a term of
abuse,
he
casts an ironic
light
on
the
respected
varlet
Angelo.
When Abhorson
objects
to
having
Pompey
as his as-
sistant,
the
Provost
retorts,
"you weigh
equally;
a feather
will
turn the scale"
(IV.ii.28-29). Pompey's
jests
about
cutting
off
men's heads
and
women's heads
(IV.ii. 1-4), given
that fornication
is
a
capital
offense in
Vienna,
make the crime
and
the
punishment
alike. Given the
bawdy
implication
of "serve
your
turn"
(cf.
Love's Labor's Lost,
I.i.289-90), Pompey's punning
on
the
word
"turn"
is more than
just
gallows
humor
(IV.ii.54-57). As Josephine
Waters
Bennett
points
out,
in calling
out Abhorson's customers
he is acting
as pimp
to the
headsman.16
Coming
from brothel
to prison, Pompey
does not notice much
difference: "I am
as well
acquainted
here
as I was
in
our house of
profession:
one
would think
it
were Mistress Overdone's
own
house,
for
here
be many
of
her old
customers"
(IV.iii. 1-4). His
catalogue
of
prisoners
is
like the
catalogue
of brothel
customers that forms
one of the
stock
devices of
Jacobean
comedy.
17
Also conventional in Jacobean
comedy
is the
linking
of the whore and the
usurer,
both
illicit
breeders.18 This lends some
point
to
Pompey's
complaint,
"'Twas never
merry
world
since,
of
two
usuries,
the
merriest was
put
down"
(III.ii.6-7). Wedding
and
hanging, proverbially equated,
come
together
in
the
punishments
that threaten
Angelo
and Lucio. The
latter
complains, "Marrying
a punk, my
lord,
is pressing
to
death,
/
Whipping,
and
hanging"
(V.i.520-
21). The sex-death
equation
returns
here,
as it
does in
Pompey's
change
of
jobs. If
bedding
and
killing
are
imaginatively
so close, there would
seem
to
be
something finally
interchangeable
about life and death. As Claudio
declares,
"To sue
to
live,
I find I seek to
die,
/ And
seeking
death,
find life" (III.i.42-
43).
Yet however we may play
with the
idea, death
and life are
not
finally
the
same. The Duke's insistence
on wedding
but
not
killing,
and on
keeping
ev-
eryone,
even
Barnardine,
alive
at the
end of
the
play,
shows
Claudio's resolve
as heroic
but out
of
tune
with the
comic world. The ironic
equation
of
brothel
and
prison
is
perhaps
more
convincing,
but
Pompey
finally
admits
that
the new
life of
the
inmates
is not
really
the same as the
old one:
they
were "all great
doers in our
trade,
and are
now 'for the Lord's sake' " (IV.iii.18-20). And
for all
his
breezy
self-confidence,
Pompey
the assistant executioner
is
a smaller
figure
than
Pompey
the
bawd. We see him
taking
orders from
Abhorson,
as
he
never
does from Mistress Overdone
(in
their
relationship
he seems,
if
any-
thing,
to
have
the
initiative).
The Provost's
"Come, sir,
leave
me
your
snatches,
and
yield
me a direct
answer"
(IV.ii.5-6) suggests
that his
other
role as clown
will
be
restrained from
now
on;
while the Fourth Act
may
create the
impression
16 Measure for
Measure as Royal
Entertainment
(New
York
and
London:
Columbia
Univ.
Press,
1966), p. 41.
17 See, for
example,
Marston's The
Dutch Courtesan
(II.ii) and
Sharpham's
The
Fleer (III).
18 See, for
example,
the alliance
of
Syndefy
and
Security
in
Chapman,
Jonson,
and Marston's
Eastward
Ho; and the
marriages
of Hoard and
the
Courtesan
in Middleton's A Trick
to
Catch
the
Old One, and
of
Throat and Frances
in
Barry's
Ram
Alley.
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SUBSTITUTION IN
MEASURE
FOR MEASURE 355
that
he will survive and
prosper,
he
lapses
into
uncharacteristic
silence
partway
through
his
last
scene,
and
in
the
Fifth Act
he
has simply
disappeared.
The play
of
likeness and
difference
also affects
Isabella's plea to
Angelo.
Not
to
Isabella
but to Claudio and
Lucio-and eventually
to
Angelo
himself-
it is
like a sexual
seduction. Claudio
imagines
that her
appeal
will
be
physical,
not
just
intellectual:
... in her
youth
There is
a prone
and
speechless
dialect
Such
as move men. ...
(I.ii.
172-74)
Egging
her on from the sidelines and
refusing
to let
her
leave till she has won
her
man,
Lucio behaves
in
the first
Angelo-Isabella
scene
very
much as Pan-
darus does in the first
encounter
between Troilus and
Cressida.19
Angelo's pun,
"She speaks,
and 'tis such sense
/
That
my
sense
breeds
with
it" (II.ii.142-
43), acknowledges
the
link. His odd instruction to
his
servant
when
Isabella
comes
for the second
meeting,
"Teach her
the
way" (II.iv. 19), suggests
that
Isabella is about to enter a labyrinth,
and
this
idea is echoed
in
the
elaborate
instructions for
finding
the
place
of their sexual encounter: "he did show
me
/
The way
twice
o'er" (IV.i.40-41).20 In both
scenes she comes
for a debate
on a legal,
moral,
and
spiritual
question
of
great
importance
to
her
only
to
find
that what is on the line is
not
her mind
but
her
body.
But
of
course the
equation
of her
plea with
a sexual
seduction breaks
down as soon as we see her
own
reaction when
the
trap
is sprung.
We may
note
another
parallel,
smaller
but
suggestive:
the scene in which
the
Duke brings
the two women
together
is
followed
immediately by
the
scene in which
the Provost
brings
Pompey
and
Abhorson
together.
A small
spark
leaps
from
the Duke's line,
"Welcome;
how
agreed?" (IV.i.65), to the
Provost's
"Are you
agreed?" (IV.ii.46). But
the
comic
piquancy
of the
resemblance,
like
the
irony
of
Isabella's plea-cum-se-
duction,
depends
as much
on
difference as on likeness.
Can
characters stand
for
each other?
Can actions stand for each other?
Mea-
sure
for
Measure
gives
the
usual
Shakespearean
answer:
yes
and no. Much
of
its
imaginative
and intellectual
life
depends
on this
play
of likeness and
dif-
ference,
which
is
also a play
on one
of
the
essential
conditions of
poetry
itself,
which
both
examines
the
likeness
of
things
and asserts
their
uniqueness:
lovers
are a pair
of
compasses,
my
mistress'
eyes
are
nothing
like the
sun,
a rose
is
a rose is a rose.
The
play
also provokes
the
question,
can characters stand
for
concepts larger
than
themselves?
It
is
remarkable
how often
in criticism
of the
play
the
characters
have
been
assigned
allegorical
roles.
Some
critics
have
whole
lists
of
these
assignments.
Here is G. Wilson
Knight's:
"Isabella stands
for
sainted
purity,
Angelo
for Pharisaical
righteousness,
the Duke for a psycho-
logically
sound
and
enlightened
ethic.
Lucio represents
indecent
wit,
Pompey
and Mistress Overdone
professional
immorality.
Barnardine
is hard-headed,
criminal,
insensitiveness."21
Here
is M. C. Bradbrook's:
"Angelo stands for
Authority
and for
Law, usurping
the
place of the
Duke, who is not
only
the
representative
of
Heavenly
Justice
but
of
Humility,
whilst Isabel
represents
both
19
On the
erotic overtones
in
Lucio's encouragement,
see Richard
Fly, Shakespeare's
Mediated
World
(Amherst:
Univ. of
Massachusetts
Press,
1976), p. 68.
20 Black also notes that
Angelo's
locked
garden
is like
Claudio's prison,
p. 125.
21 The
Wheel
of
Fire, (1930; rpt.
London:
Methuen,
1949), p. 74.
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356 SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY
Truth
and
Mercy." Bradbrook later
refines
Angelo's
role,
making
him
stand
for
"the letter
of
the
Law, for a false
Authority"
and
for
"Seeming
or
False
Semblant."22 The
marriage
of
Isabella and the Duke has been
seen,
variously,
as "the marriage
of
understanding
with
purity;
of
tolerance
with
moral fer-
vour"23
and as the
wedding
of
erring
but
forgiven
humanity
with
Christ the
Bridegroom.24
Other critics have cautioned
against
such
allegorical
readings,
pointing
to
the
complexity
and
inconsistency
of the
characters.25
The
good
sense
of this
warning
seems
obvious;
yet, just
as there
is some
gremlin
in
the text
that makes actors
transpose
names,
there
is another
that makes critics
think
they
are
reading
a morality
play.
Angelo pursues
Claudio "To make him an
example"
(I.iv.68), as his insis-
tence
on
parading
him
through
the
streets
suggests.
He is to stand
for
the for-
nicators of
Vienna,
as Lucio
realizes
when
he
undertakes to save him "for
the
encouragement
of the
like,
which else would stand under
grievous
imposition"
(I.ii. 177-79). Isabella's "Who is it that hath
died
for
this
offence? / There's
many
have committed it"
provokes
Lucio's
comic
aside,
"Ay,
well said"
(II.ii.89-
90). Vienna,
we are
told,
is
seething
with
corruption,
and it is a
rare
production
that
does
not
fill
out the
lowlife scenes with additional silent
characters
miming
various
kinds
of
debauchery.
The text
itself,
however,
is
surprisingly
econom-
ical. We hear
something
of
Lucio's conduct,
but
in
theatrical
terms Claudio
and
Juliet
stand for it
all; they
are the
only couple
the
play picks
out. In I.ii
we hear of an unnamed
"yonder
man" carried
to
prison
(11.
56-85), but the
text is ambiguous
at this
point,
and the man could be Claudio himself.
The
Provost,
speaking
from
within
the
play,
is struck
as
Isabella
is
by
the unfairness
of the
legal procedure:
"All sects,
all ages
smack of this
vice,
and he
/
To die
for't!" (II.ii.5-6). We as audience
may
be struck
by the unfairness of the
dramatic
procedure.
Claudio's
case
is
too
special,
the
extenuating
circumstances
too
great
to
let
him stand
for the
sexual
corruption
of Vienna.26 The
problem
comes
to
a head
in
Isabella's bitter
accusation,
"Thy
sin's not
accidental,
but
a trade"
(III.i. 148),
against
which we
instinctively
protest:
Claudio is not Pom-
pey.
Pompey,
Lucio, Froth,
and Mistress
Overdone stand
for the
trade
itself and
for its
clients. As Jonathan
Dollimore
points
out,
the
actual
prostitutes
"have
no
voice,
no
presence."27
There are
no brothel scenes as such;
we hear a little
about the life of the
stews,
but
theatrically
we
stay
on
the
fringes
of it. Escalus's
inability
to
get
a clear account
of what
happened
to Mistress
Overdone is the
comic
equivalent
of our
inability
to see past
the individual
characters to the
brothel
life
they represent.
In the same
way,
the unseen
Flavius,
Valencius,
Rowland,
and
Crassus,
with the
visible but silent
Varrius-if
they
are not sim-
ply
ghost
characters-stand
for a network
of
power
the Duke uses but the
play
never
allows us
to
see (IV.v.6-13). In
all these
cases the characters are
given
roles
that
seem to
be
representative,
but what
they represent
remains
shadowy.
22 "Authority,
Truth and Justice
in Measure
for
Measure,"
Review
of
English
Studies,
17
(1941),
385-89, esp. pp. 385-86, 387.
23 Knight,
p.
95.
24 Gless, p. 255.
25 See, for
example,
Lever,
Arden
Introduction,
p. lix.
26 See Lever,
p. lxxv.
27 "Transgression
and Surveillance
in Measure
for
Measure," in Political
Shakespeare,
eds.
Jonathan
Dollimore and
Alan Sinfield
(Ithaca
and
London: Cornell
Univ. Press,
1985), pp. 72-
87, esp. p. 86.
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358 SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY
dilemma.
His solution
does not
work,
however,
and
providence
itself
has to
bail
him out
by providing
Ragozine.
Nor
is the
Duke
so omniscient
as Angelo
thinks;
Angelo
himself
can
catch
him
by surprise.
Darryl
J. Gless
gives
a sen-
sible
statement
of
how
far this
particular
identification
can
go: "Of course,
he
is not
providence,
but
an
earthly
and
therefore
imperfect
and intermittent
sim-
ulacrum
of it."31
He can also be seen
as a representative
on stage
of God's
substitute
in
Westminster,
King
James
I. His thinking
about
government,
his
love of
withdrawal
and
dislike
of
crowds,
his
delight
in
his own
"craft,"
his
acute
sensitivity
to
criticism-on
all these
points
he is like
the
King.32
King
James
evidently
admired
his
grandfather
James
V, who
practiced
the
Duke's
trick
of
going
disguised
among
his
people.33
Yet Josephine
Waters
Bennett,
who
gives
a
very
full
account
of
the
reasons
for
seeing
the
Duke
as
a
compliment
to
James,
also points
out
that
direct
impersonation
would
have
given
offense;
indeed,
the
King's
Men
had
already got
into
trouble
for
a play
about
the
Gowry
conspiracy.34
If
the
identification
were
too
direct,
the
Duke's
occasional
failures
would
compound
the
offense.
Where
a court
masque
turns
to
the
King
himself,
present
in the
audience,
for
its
image
of
kingship,
the
play
(which
we know
was
.performed
at
court)
gives
instead
an
image
of
an
imperfect
ruler,
leaving
the
presence
of the
King
in the
audience
to
act,
for
the
loyal
imagination,
as
a standard
by
which
the
Duke may
be
judged
and
found
wanting.35
Finally,
and
most
important
for
our
purpose,
the
Duke
is a surrogate
for
the
playwright
himself.
This
is in
line
with the
play's
own
interest-characteristic
of such
earlier
comedies
as Love's Labor's Lost and
A Midsummer
Night's
Dream-in examining
its
own
procedures,
an interest
that
I have
already
touched
on. The last
act
has
all the
characteristics
of
a play-within-the-play,
contrived
by
the
Duke.36
In an odd
touch
in
his scene
with
Friar
Thomas,
the
Duke
seems
to be
trying
to
write
the
Friar's
part
of
the
dialogue:
"You will
demand
of
me,
why
I do this" (I.iii.17). Bennett,
finally
withdrawing
from
an identification
of the
Duke with
King
James,
imagines
Shakespeare
himself
playing
the
role,
with some
piquant
ironies
when
we
see the
Duke
at
a
loss,
needing
Providence's
help,
unable
to
control
Lucio.37
I would
argue,
in
fact,
that
the
identification
of Duke
with
playwright,
whether
reinforced
by
casting
or
not,
is
mostly
ironic
in
its
effect,
for
the
Duke
is
not
a
very
good
playwright.
Giving
himself
motives
for
leaving
the
city,
he seems
to be doodling;
the
motives,
as we have
seen,
do not
add up, and the
effect
of
the
scene
with
Friar
Thomas
is of
a rough
draft
that
needs
more
work
to bring
it to consistency.
At other
times
he is
arbitrary.
His deception
of
Isabella, when
he tells
her Claudio
is dead,
is no-
torious:
.. I will
keep
her
ignorant
of
her
good,
To
make
her
heavenly
comforts
of
despair
When
it is
least
expected. (IV.iii.
108-10)
31
See Gless,
p. 248.
32 For
a full discussion
of the
resemblances,
see Bennett,
pp. 78-104.
33
See Bennett,
p. 97.
34
See Bennett,
pp. 105, 107.
35 If
William
Blissett
is correct,
there
is a bolder
effect
in Bartholomew
Fair, where
Overdo
is
a joking
version
of the
King
in the audience.
See "Your Majesty
is Welcome
to
a Fair," in
The
Elizabethan
Theatre,
4, ed. G. R. Hibbard
(Toronto:
Macmillan, 1974), pp. 80-105.
36
See Trombetta,
p. 72.
37
See Bennett,
pp. 135-37.
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SUBSTITUTION IN MEASURE FOR MEASURE 359
We may
wish other motives on him-making
Isabella realize how
much her
brother's death means to
her,
sharpening
the test on her when
she
is asked
to
plead
for
Angelo-but the
motive
the Duke
professes
is a playwright's
motive:
he
will
heighten
the
effect
of Isabella's final
joy
by
putting
her
through
a period
of
suffering
first. But
good
playwrights
do not
impose
suffering
on their char-
acters
arbitrarily. Everything they
undergo
is accounted for
by
their own ac-
tions,
or
by
some
logical
turn
in
the
plot.
The Duke
simply
lies. The
flurry
of
contradictory
letters he sends to Angelo
and Escalus suggests
an attempt
to
create
that
period
of
confusion that
precedes
the resolution of a comedy. Again
it is arbitrary,
confusion
for confusion's sake. Equally arbitrary
are
the twists
and
turns that make
the
final
scene
so complicated.
We may
contrast this
with
what
Shakespeare
does in
plays
like
The
Comedy of
Errors or A Midsummer
Night's
Dream,
where
every
stage
in
the confusion
is honestly
earned.
The Duke as playwright,
then,
works
no better
than
any
of the other
sub-
stitutions-indeed,
it
is less successful
than
some. But we may
also wonder
how much of the
play's
irony
at the Duke's expense
is
cast back at the
figures
he
is
representing:
if he stands for
God,
for
James
I, and
for
Shakespeare,
how
much of his
imperfection
can be seen as a reflection of theirs? The author of
King
Lear was not
afraid
to
question
and
even
to
protest
the
ways
of
Providence;
anyone
who would
criticize
Providence
might
also (in
a tactfully implicit way)
criticize James
I; and for
a writer to
poke
fun
at
himself is one of
the oldest
tricks
of
the trade. Is there,
in
fact,
one last substitution
to
discuss-that of
Measure
for
Measure
for the
play Shakespeare
would
have liked
to write? Ros-
alind
Miles observes that
"any
discussion of Measure
for
Measure
eventually
comes down
to a discussion
of the
play
as it seems to have been intended,
rather than
as it
is."38 Its inconsistencies
are
central
and
notorious: Isabella's
moral
dilemma is solved
by
an
unprepared
technical
trick;
the
scrupulous
An-
gelo
of
the first two acts is
replaced
by
a cynic
who
rejects
Mariana for
material
reasons;
at the
end,
key
relationships-Angelo
and
Mariana,
Isabella and
Clau-
dio,
Isabella
and
the Duke-are left
hanging
in silence. The
central
figure,
on
whom so much
depends,
seems not so much a bewildering
character as a be-
wildering piece
of
characterization.
It seems
appropriate
that
the
comedy
should
end with a marriage
proposal
to which
no answer
is given.
I am not
saying
that
Shakespeare,
in order to make
a point
about
the
imperfection
of his
art,
deliberately
wrote
an
imperfect play.
I would
prefer
to believe that
every play
of
his
is as good as he could make
it,
and
I am
tempted
to
add
that none of
them
is perfect.
He seems,
however,
to have found Measure
for
Measure a
harder
struggle
than
most,
and as he faced the
gap between
conception
and
embodiment,
his imagination generated image
after
image
of
representations
that
are vivid
but not
quite adequate,
and substitutions that are
revealing
and
fascinating
but
incomplete.
38 Miles, p. 285.
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