Measure for Measure- for a play so rarely performed it has had a major part in my Shakespeare experience. was a play I did in my senior year high school Shakespeare class. I distinctly remember Mr. Austin asking who of us in the class had siblings and Meaghan Sloane assuring the class that no one was as close with their sibling as she was with her twin. This, of course, was the perfect moment for Mr. Austin to make his point- as we work on this play, I want you to think about if you'd give up your virginity to a creepy dude blackmailing you in exchange for your brother's life.
This was a VERY surprising thing to hear/think about at my private Catholic school. In fact, sometimes i wonder if Sr. Joan would have had a conniption if she knew that we were studying this particular selection in class. The play has a lot of catholic twitches and issues in the play were certainly easier to understand with my background in that faith, but there's a lot of healthy, and even cynical speculation and hardly veiled criticism of the church structure as well. So that was the beginning of my experience with this play.
I then made this play one of the three early modern pieces to which I devoted my thesis. My project was on staging pregnancy and for the purpose of clarity/defining my boundaries, I needed characters whose pregnancy was most definitely staged (as opposed to the well this character COULD be pregnant/could be showing/etc. etc) and that had enough of a performance history that I could research choices. So the Juliet in this play became a central piece of my research and consequently I have read this play enough times to make my head spin, but I still find new things!
However, you should not be surprised if I still focus on/highlight the pregnancy parts. I promise it is just out of habitual behavior and not due to anything you should be reading into in my newlywed life.
so now that you have the intro... let's begin!
1.1
Remember when I said I'd be naturally inclined to find all the pregnancy stuff? Here's one right off the bat. The duke tells Escalus:
For common justice, you're as pregnant in
As art and practise hath enriched any
That we remember.
Why is the Duke commenting on this? well... basic set up of the play, the duke is going to leave town for a while, for exact reasons he will not tell the audience or the people he is leaving in charge. He trusts Escalus,the person we first meet in this scene, and Angelo who we constantly hear is a very hardcore morality man, etc. etc. The duke has not even announced his departure to the people, and why?
I love the people,
But do not like to stage me to their eyes:
Through it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause and Aves vehement;
hmmmm... so you love the people you just don't want to see them or deal with them... right... It's also worth noting that right away we get to the Catholic imagery in this play. the Aves ring out with the applause. So the duke says he'll sneak out and escalus and angelo leave together to begin their new charge of overseeing the duke's justice.
1.2
We move to the "common people" in the streets including ruffians and whores. But we keep the religious language up. This scene also introduces us to the character I find most intriguing/would most like to play in this piece- Lucio (come on cross gender casting!!):
Second Gentleman
Amen.LUCIO
Thou concludest like the sanctimonious pirate, that went to sea with the Ten Commandments, but scraped one out of the table.Second Gentleman
'Thou shalt not steal'?LUCIO
Ay, that he razed.
The thing about Lucio is while he is obviously a scoundrel and frequents the dodgy establishments in town, he is also fantastically witty and has a tendency to speak the truth in astoundingly beautiful or disturbing ways:
Grace is grace, despite of all controversy: as, for example, thou thyself art a wicked villain, despite of all grace.
See what I mean? His rhetoric is stunning. Clearly such a SMART character. Of course after this begins the syphilis jokes. STDS! hahahaha... there will be plenty of those throughout the play. The main bawd of the city then enters the scene and updates Lucio on some major plot points- explaining that his good friend Claudio has been taken away to prison:
MISTRESS OVERDONE Nay, but I know 'tis so: I saw him arrested, saw him carried away; and, which is more, within these three days his head to be chopped off.
LUCIO But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so. Art thou sure of this?
MISTRESS OVERDONE I am too sure of it: and it is for getting Madam Julietta with child.
Pompey, Mistress Overdone's companion aka the pimp comes on the scene and they have this little exchange together which seems to take place almost entirely for the joke since Mistress overdone JUST TOLD US what Claudio did and now she sets up the joke asking what he's done:
POMPEY Yonder man is carried to prison.
MISTRESS OVERDONE Well; what has he done?
POMPEY A woman.
MISTRESS OVERDONE But what's his offence?
POMPEY Groping for trout in a peculiar river.
OK, the joke is worth the obvious set up for one of the most strange and delightful sexual innuendos ever. Let's add this to the list of phrases we should bring back to daily life. groping for trout in a peculiar river... you don't even have to add if you know what i mean if you say it correctly. Perfection.
Claudio & Juliet come onstage, en route to prison, and Claudio has this disturbing imagery about sex and lust:
So every scope by the immoderate use
Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue,
Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,
A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die.
Yes. He just compared sex to rat poison. All the sexual talk and descriptions in this play are totally distorted and messed up. There's not one healthy sexual relationship. And ironically, Claudio & Juliet's is the one that comes closest to what would be seen by the early modern period as appropriate- committed, practically married, bringing forth new life- is the one that leads to death and rat poison imagery.
Thus stands it with me: upon a true contract
I got possession of Julietta's bed:
You know the lady; she is fast my wife,
Save that we do the denunciation lack
Of outward order: this we came not to,
Only for propagation of a dower
Remaining in the coffer of her friends,
From whom we thought it meet to hide our love
Till time had made them for us. But it chances
The stealth of our most mutual entertainment
With character too gross is writ on Juliet.
Here we have a couple issues: 1. you should know that during the early modern times there was a slippage between engagement and marriage and the rules about when you could have sex were a bit more hazy. around the time this play was written this was becoming a concerning thing as they moved more towards public and official marriage ceremonies instead of just 2 people privately pledging to marry and a witness making it more or less legal if not religiously set. I have LOTS of resources for this kind of subject if anyone is interested in learning more, including a few of my colleague's theses.
2. we have the age old great the woman is pregnant so our shame is written on her body and because of her body we are caught situation at work. I wish I had to explain this concept the way I did the marriage/engagement situation, but it is all too alive and well nowadays.
Luckily, Claudio has a plan:
This day my sister should the cloister enter
And there receive her approbation:
Acquaint her with the danger of my state:
Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends
To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him:
I have great hope in that; for in her youth
There is a prone and speechless dialect,
Such as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art
When she will play with reason and discourse,
And well she can persuade.
OK, so Lucio is off to the nunnery. But instead of going to the nunnery the next scene we get...
1.3
a priest at the beginning of this next scene- a short and incredibly STRANGE scene. The duke is with the priest and tells him:
Why I desire thee
To give me secret harbour, hath a purpose
OK, so we find out the Duke did not actually leave the country but wants the priest to harbor him in secret. a little strange but maybe the dude needs some retreat times to recenter his ruling abilities. especially considering the duke reveals he has not been a very good disciplinarian and now he doesn't' want to seem like a hypocrite so he's leaving Angelo and Escalus to clean up his mess and enforce the laws he let slip before he comes to power again. A little cowardly perhaps, but i feel for the guy. I'm willing to give him a break... until he says:
I will, as 'twere a brother of your order,
Visit both prince and people: therefore, I prithee,
Supply me with the habit and instruct me
How I may formally in person bear me
Like a true friar.
Wait... WHAT?! so now you don't just want to hide with the priests, you want to be given the robe and allowed to act like one who has taken holy orders? WHAT? that is WAY MORE SKETCHY. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?! I think this line is a MONEY moment for whoever is playing the priest in this scene to react in just this way but know that he is screwed if he denies the duke. The duke finishes the scene by explaining its all for a reason:
hence shall we see,If power change purpose,
right.... this is obviously going to go very well...
1.4
Now we get to the nunnery. Isabel is looking for a life as strict and religious as possible and is being shown the customs of the convent when Lucio knocks and Isabel must answer since she has not officially taken her vows which disallows the other nun to speak with a gentleman. Here we get a taste of Shakespeare's excellent comedic use of poetic language vs. directness in the following first line vs. the second.
Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you:
Not to be weary with you, he's in prison.
Lucio goes on to describe that even though claudio is willing to marry Juliet, a fix which we assume would have been more than enough under the duke's reign, Angelo is very different on his interpretation of the law:
a man whose blood
Is very snow-broth; one who never feels
The wanton stings and motions of the sense,
But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
With profits of the mind, study and fast.
Can you get a better description that his blood being snow-broth? AH! such a wonderful line. Then we get my favorite line in the whole play once Lucio tells' Isabella to do what she can:
LUCIO
Assay the power you have.ISABELLA
My power? Alas, I doubt--LUCIO
Our doubts are traitors
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
THAT should be a sign hanging up in every theatre classroom. Our doubts are traitors is my mantra for the week.
Lucio puts a lot of stock in womanly wiles and tells Isabella she has the chance to have a greater impact than she believes:
LUCIO
when maidens sue,
Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,
All their petitions are as freely theirs
As they themselves would owe them.
ISABELLA
I'll see what I can do.That little response is another example of the directness that is just so wry after such a poetic image that it never fails to just tickle my funny bone!
And that's act I.
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