Measure for Measure

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1. ACT I.

   The Duke deputizes Angelo and goes into hiding as a friar; Angelo's revived law condemns Claudio; Isabella is fetched to plead.

   1. Scene 1 — An apartment in the DUKE'S Palace.

      In his palace the Duke unexpectedly delegates his full authority to the strict deputy Angelo, with the older Escalus as second, and departs in apparent haste — keeping his true plan secret.

   2. Scene 2 — A street.

      On a street, Lucio and two gentlemen trade bawdy jokes about disease and war; Mistress Overdone brings word that Claudio is arrested for getting Juliet with child, and Pompey reports Angelo's proclamation to pull down the suburb brothels.

   3. Scene 3 — The same.

      Claudio is paraded to prison by the Provost. He explains that he and Juliet are betrothed and lack only the public ceremony, and sends Lucio to fetch his sister Isabella from the nunnery to plead for him.

   4. Scene 4 — A Monastery.

      At a monastery the Duke confides his real intent to Friar Thomas: he will stay disguised as a friar to observe Angelo enforce the laws he himself let sleep, and to test the deputy's famously cold virtue.

   5. Scene 5 — A Nunnery.

      At the nunnery, as Isabella learns the strict rule of the order from the nun Francisca, Lucio arrives with news of Claudio's sentence and urges her to go and move Angelo to mercy.

2. ACT II.

   Isabella pleads with Angelo, who finds himself lusting after her and demands her chastity for Claudio's life.

   1. Scene 1 — A hall in ANGELO'S house.

      Angelo, deaf to Escalus's pleas for Claudio, condemns him to die tomorrow. The constable Elbow then drags in Pompey and Froth on a muddled charge, and the comic examination exposes how clumsy the law is at policing vice.

   2. Scene 2 — Another room in the same.

      Coached by Lucio, Isabella begs Angelo for mercy, arguing that the great should imagine themselves judged as they judge others. Angelo, unmoved in words, is secretly seized by desire for her and bids her return tomorrow.

   3. Scene 3 — A Room in a prison.

      In the prison the disguised Duke, as a friar, hears the penitence of the pregnant Juliet, who accepts her share of the offence as freely committed.

   4. Scene 4 — A Room in ANGELO'S house.

      Angelo, alone, confesses his lust, then makes his offer plain: Isabella may save Claudio only by surrendering her virginity. She refuses — 'more than our brother is our chastity' — and resolves to tell Claudio he must die rather than buy life with her shame.

3. ACT III.

   Claudio begs Isabella to yield; the disguised Duke proposes the bed-trick with Mariana.

   1. Scene 1 — A Room in the prison.

      The friar-Duke counsels Claudio to 'be absolute for death,' but the terror of dying ('Ay, but to die, and go we know not where') makes Claudio beg his sister to save him. Disgusted, Isabella rounds on him — until the disguised Duke proposes a plan: substitute Mariana, Angelo's forsaken betrothed, in her place.

   2. Scene 2 — The Street before the Prison.

      Outside the prison the friar-Duke watches Pompey arrested and Lucio slander the absent Duke to his very face. Left alone, the Duke reflects in rhymed verse that he who wields 'the sword of heaven' must himself be holy.

4. Act IV.

   The bed-trick is set; Barnardine refuses execution; a pirate's head saves Claudio; the Duke prepares his return.

   1. Scene 1 — A Room in Mariana's House.

      At the moated grange a boy sings 'Take, O take those lips away' to the forsaken Mariana. The disguised Duke brings Isabella, and the two women agree that Mariana will keep Isabella's midnight assignation with Angelo in the dark.

   2. Scene 2 — A Room in the prison.

      In the prison Pompey is pressed as the hangman Abhorson's assistant. Word comes that Angelo, breaking his bargain, has ordered Claudio executed early and his head sent as proof; the Duke awaits a reprieve that does not come.

   3. Scene 3 — Another Room in the same.

      The drunken prisoner Barnardine flatly refuses to be executed. By luck a pirate, Ragozine, has just died of a fever; his head is sent to Angelo in Claudio's place. The Duke, testing her, tells Isabella that Claudio is already dead.

   4. Scene 4 — A Room in ANGELO'S house.

      Angelo and Escalus, unsettled by letters announcing the Duke's sudden return and his odd command that petitions be made at the city gate, prepare to receive him. Angelo confesses his guilt and dread in soliloquy.

   5. Scene 5 — Fields without the town.

      The Duke, now out of disguise, gives Friar Peter letters and arranges the staging of his public return.

   6. Scene 6 — Street near the City Gate.

      Near the gate, Isabella and Mariana ready themselves to accuse Angelo publicly, on the friar's instruction to speak boldly however strange it seems.

5. ACT V.

   The public reckoning: Angelo exposed, the Duke unmasked, and a rush of pardons and marriages.

   1. Scene 1 — A public place near the city gate.

      At the city gate Isabella accuses Angelo, who denies all; Mariana reveals the bed-trick. The Duke withdraws and returns as the friar, then is unmasked. Angelo is condemned to marry Mariana and die, but is pardoned when Claudio is revealed alive; Lucio is sentenced to wed the woman he wronged; Barnardine is pardoned. The Duke proposes marriage to Isabella, who makes no reply.

Characters

• Duke Vincentio protagonist

  Vincentio, Duke of Vienna, who hands his power to the strict deputy Angelo and pretends to leave the city, but stays disguised as a friar ('Friar Lodowick' — a name spoken only in dialogue; his speeches keep the prefix DUKE.) to watch how Angelo rules. As the secret friar he counsels the condemned, engineers the bed-trick and the substitute head, and returns to judge in person. A manipulative, providence-like stage-manager whose motives readers still debate.

• Isabella deuteragonist

  Claudio's sister, a novice about to enter the strict order of Saint Clare, who pleads with Angelo for her condemned brother's life. When Angelo offers to spare Claudio only if she yields her virginity to him, she refuses — 'more than our brother is our chastity' — and exposes him. Eloquent, fierce in her purity, and morally severe, she is guided by the disguised Duke into the bed-trick that saves both her honour and her brother.

• Angelo antagonist

  The Duke's deputy, a man of cold, 'precise' reputation who enforces the long-dormant law against fornication by condemning Claudio to death. Tempted by the novice Isabella, he abuses his authority to demand her chastity as the price of her brother's life, then orders the execution anyway — exposing the hypocrisy beneath his austerity. He is unmasked, made to marry the wronged Mariana, and pardoned.

• Claudio major

  A young gentleman sentenced to death under the revived law for getting his betrothed, Juliet, with child before their marriage was made public. He accepts his fate nobly until, in the great prison scene, the fear of death overwhelms him ('Ay, but to die, and go we know not where') and he begs his sister Isabella to save him at the cost of her honour.

• Lucio supporting

  A 'fantastic,' a foppish, free-living Viennese gallant and Claudio's friend, who fetches Isabella to plead for her brother and keeps up a stream of bawdy jest. Not knowing the friar is the Duke, he slanders the Duke to his face; at the end he is sentenced to marry the prostitute he got with child. A cynical, comic chorus to the play's darker action.

• Escalus supporting

  An ancient, just lord, appointed as Angelo's secondary in governing Vienna. More merciful and humane than Angelo, he pleads (in vain) for Claudio, deals patiently with the comic constable Elbow, and stands by the order even as he doubts its severity.

• Provost supporting

  The humane keeper of the Vienna prison, charged with Claudio's execution, who pities his prisoners and reluctantly serves Angelo's harsh orders. Won over by the disguised Duke, he hides Claudio and substitutes the head of a dead pirate to foil Angelo's command.

• Pompey supporting

  Pompey Bum, a tapster and bawd who works for Mistress Overdone — the play's clown (his speeches are prefixed CLOWN.). Arrested for his trade, he reasons comically that the law cannot stop lechery, and in prison cheerfully turns assistant to the hangman Abhorson. His low wit keeps the brothel world and its absurdities before the audience.

• Elbow supporting

  A simple, well-meaning constable who arrests Pompey and Froth and muddles every word he uses ('benefactors' for malefactors), a malapropping forerunner of Dogberry. His confused depositions before Angelo and Escalus turn the law's machinery into farce.

• Mariana major

  A gentlewoman betrothed to Angelo, who cast her off when her dowry was lost at sea, leaving her to mourn at a moated grange. The disguised Duke recruits her for the 'bed-trick': she takes Isabella's place in the dark to keep the assignation with Angelo, fulfilling their old betrothal. At the end she begs for her husband's life and is granted it.

• Mistress Overdone minor

  A bawd who keeps a brothel in the Vienna suburbs (her speeches are prefixed BAWD.), nine times married and now threatened with ruin as Angelo orders the suburb stews pulled down. She first brings word of Claudio's arrest and is herself hauled off to prison.

• Juliet minor

  Claudio's beloved, pregnant by him, whose visible condition is the evidence of the 'crime' for which he is condemned. She appears chiefly in the prison, where the disguised Duke hears her penitence. (A different character from the Juliet of Romeo and Juliet.)

• Barnardine minor

  A dissolute, long-imprisoned murderer who flatly refuses to be executed — 'I will not consent to die this day, that's certain' — too drunk and unrepentant to hang. His comic obstinacy forces the substitution of a dead pirate's head; at the close the Duke pardons even him.

• Abhorson minor

  The prison's executioner, proud of his 'mystery' (trade), who grudgingly takes the bawd Pompey as his assistant. His grim trade-jokes darken the prison's gallows humour.

• Froth minor

  A foolish young gentleman of means, hauled before Escalus with Pompey on Elbow's muddled charge involving the constable's wife. Harmless and dim, he is warned off the taverns and dismissed.

• Friar Thomas minor

  The friar to whom, in 1.3, the Duke confides his real plan — to leave Angelo in charge and stay behind disguised as a friar — and from whom he borrows the habit and the cover of holy orders.

• Friar Peter minor

  A friar who assists the Duke in the public unmasking of the final scene, bringing Mariana forward and marshalling the witnesses against Angelo before the returned Duke.

• Justice minor

  A justice who attends Escalus and, after the long comic examination of Elbow's case, briefly laments the severity of Claudio's sentence: 'Lord Angelo is severe.'

• First Gentleman minor

  One of two loose Viennese gentlemen who trade bawdy quips with Lucio in the street and at Mistress Overdone's, bantering about disease and the wars before the news of Claudio's arrest sobers them.

• Second Gentleman minor

  The second of Lucio's bawdy companions, who matches him jest for jest in the play's opening street scene.

• Francisca minor

  A nun of the sisterhood of Saint Clare who, in 1.4, explains to the novice Isabella the strict rule of the order just before Lucio arrives with news of Claudio.

• Servant minor

  A servant of Angelo's who announces Isabella's suit to his master.

• Messenger minor

  A messenger who brings Angelo the Duke's letters near the close, including the order Angelo reads as Claudio's death warrant.

• Boy minor

  A page-boy who opens Act 4 at Mariana's moated grange by singing 'Take, O take those lips away' — the song that voices Mariana's grief over the lover who forsook her.

Cross-references

• Folger Shakespeare
• MIT plain text
• Wikipedia