The measure for measure garden
Video guide transcript
[Shakespeare]: Here is the Measure for Measure Garden.
[Interlocutor]: What plants did you, Will Shakespeare, include in the Measure for Measure play?
[Shakespeare]: Vines and Grapes, Birch and Oak, Myrtle and Burrs, Garlick and Corn; Medlars, Peaches, and Prunes; and Violets.
[Interlocutor]: It seems that Measure for Measure delves into governance and corruption.
[Shakespeare]: Yes, and whether what is judged as evil or good is to be repaid “measure for measure”. The story begins when the good Duke Vincentio comes to understand that his city has fallen into corrupt ways, in large part because he has neglected to impose the laws: “the needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds”. He says:
fond fathers,
Having bound up the threatening twigs of Birch,
Only to stick it in their children’s sight
For terror, not to use, in time the rod
Becomes more mock’d than fear’d.
The Duke deputes Lord Angelo, well known for his strict virtue, to govern in his place while he leaves town for a little, and leaves to him the task of putting an end to the corrupt ways of the city.
[Interlocutor]: But the Duke does not leave. He disguises himself as a friar and observes what happens.
[Shakespeare]: And a great deal he sees. The coldly upright Lord Angelo begins with harsh judgments against the behavior in the city. He arrests a well-respected young man, Claudio, for coming together with his betrothed while her dowry is still unsettled, and condemns him to death. Claudio’s sister, Isabella, is at the point of taking her vows in a nunnery. She goes to Angelo to beg for her brother’s life.
[Interlocutor]: Oh, yes. She pleads with him that:
it is excellent
To have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant. … Merciful Heaven,
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
Split’st the unwedgeable and gnarléd Oak
Than the soft Myrtle; but man, proud man,…
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep.
[Shakespeare]: Angelo has thought himself invulnerable to the vice he condemns in others, but he instantly falls in love with Isabella and he determines that he must have her. Angelo acknowledges that his overmastering desire is not Isabella’s fault:
The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?
Ha!
Not she; nor doth she tempt: but it is I
That, lying by the violet in the sun,
Do as the carrion does, not as the flower…
O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook!
Angelo falls into the same crime for which he condemned Claudio, and worse. He tells Isabella that she can save her brother’s life only by giving herself to Angelo.
Meanwhile, in his guise as a friar, the Duke encounters not only Claudio and Isabella, but also Lucio, the type of man who partakes in corruption casually. It is the light talk of Lucio and those he consorts with that brings the touch of laughter to this play and its serious themes. An example is when the Duke as Friar attempts to leave Lucio behind, Lucio replies:
“Nay, friar, I am a kind of Bur; I shall stick.”
[Interlocutor]: The Duke further learns not only of the corrupt bargain that Angelo attempts to impose on Isabella, but also that Angelo once took oath to marry another woman, Mariana.
[Shakespeare]: And when her dowry was lost, he broke with her, falsely accusing her of dishonor and corruption. Knowing all this, the Duke devises means to save Claudio’s life, Isabella’s purity, and Mariana’s marriage, all at once. He says to Mariana:
Come, let us go:
Our Corn’s to reap, for yet our tithe’s to sow.
The Duke comes to see that he cannot leave this matter to another. He must himself find the measure needed to stem the corruption in his city.
[Interlocutor]: We could say that he measures out the same sentence in every case. He requires Lucio, Claudio, and Angelo each to marry the woman to whom he is bound.
[Shakespeare]: In truth, each of these men is the maker of his own measure: Lucio must be husband to a woman as casually corrupt as he is; Angelo is wed to the woman whom he maligned and abandoned, restoring her virtue; Claudio is united with his beloved and betrothed; and, seeking a wife to match his own measure, the Duke offers marriage to Isabella.