THE date most generally agreed on for the composition of Measure for Measure is 1603-4, and though external evidence is even more scanty than usual, internal evidence tends to corroborate this conjecture. The entry in the Revels accounts of a performance on December 26, 1604. Įis a forgery, but is founded on a good guess. Barksted's Myrrha (1607) contains an apparent reminiscence of the simile in II. iv. 24-26, and thus affords a later limit. The lines in L. i. 68-73 and II. iv. 27-30 may have been written in allusion to James I's attitude towards the populace, and, if so, place the play soon after his accession in 1603. Similarities in tone, in metre, and in details of thought, to All's Well and Hamlet all tend in the same direction.

There is no trace of the play's having been printed before 1623, and the present text is based on the far from perfect version in the First Folio.

Stories containing the central situation of Measure for Measure, the perfidy of Angelo, are com mon in European literature. The direct source, however, of Shakespeare's play is clearly to be found in the double drama of Promos and Cassandra, written by George Whetstone before he left England in 1578, the plot of which he later threw into narrative form in his Heptameron of Civil Discourses (1582). Whetstone's source seems to have been the fifth novel of the tenth day in the Hecatommithi of Giraldi Cinthio, who dramatized the same story in his Epitia. There is no evidence of Shakespeare's having used any version of the story but Whetstone's drama, except that in the Heptameron the narrator of the tale is a Madam Isabella, the identity of whose name with that of Shakespeare's heroine may point to his having seen the book.

The scene of Whetstone's comedy is Julio in Hungary, governed by Promos as representative of Corvinus, King of Bohemia. The society of this city is described as seething with moral corruption, a picture transferred by Shakespeare to Vienna. But the typical characters chosen to represent this society are all re-created in Measure for Measure, Pompey alone bearing some resemblance to a prototype, the Rosko of Whetstone. The function of the King in the older play is practically confined to the redressing of wrongs in the last act, so that the Duke's disguise as a monk, all his activity in the intrigue, and his final offer of marriage to Isabella, are Shakespeare's. The Deputy in Whetstone is honest in his severity before he sees Isabella, but the subtle portrayal of his austere Puritanism, so carefully made in the earlier scenes of the present play, is altogether absent. Shakespeare spares him the additional villainy of a false promise of marriage in his attempt to seduce the heroine, and also the cruelty of ordering the head of her brother to be sent to her.

The most profound change is in the creation of the rôle of Mariana. In the older forms of the story, the main heroine yields to the Deputy, who is forced to marry her at the end. But for such an Isabella as Shakespeare conceived, this fate was clearly impossible. So the device of substitution, which Shakespeare had used in All's Well, was again employed, and a much loftier type of character made possible for the heroine. This elevation appears in all the great scenes. in her argument on mercy and justice, in her immediate rejection of Angelo's proposal, and in her scorn for her brother's weakness, all of which are found in Whetstone in a crude form It is suggestive of the level of Whetstone's Cassandra that considerations of reputation play a great part in the discussion between brother and sister. The first appearance of Isabella in Shakespeare is as a novice about to enter a sisterhood; the last is as the prospective bride of the Duke. Neither of these is in Whetstone; and the first may be regarded as indicating Shakespeare's view of the essential ideal quality in Isabella's character, the second as a concession to the convention of the happy ending. It is perhaps significant that she does not explicitly accept the Duke's proposal.

The increased delicacy of characterization is seen again in the brother. His first sound reaction in horror against Angelo's infamous proposal is wholly Shakespearean, and serves to place him on a plane which, in spite of his later cowardice, makes it possible to conceive him as Isabella's brother. The Provost is a development of Whetstone's gaoler; but Escalus is a creation of Shakespeare's, serving as a foil to the severity of Angelo.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

VINCENTIO, the Duke.
ANGELO, the Deputy.
ESCALUS, an ancient Lord.
CLAUDIO, a young gentleman.
Lucro, a fantastic.

Two other like gentlemen.

Provost.

[DRAMATIS PERSONÆ]

ELBOW, a simple constable.
FROTH, a foolish gentleman.

[POMPEY,] Clown [servant to Mistress Overdone].
ABHORSON, an executioner.

BARNARDINE, a dissolute prisoner.

ISABELLA, sister to Claudio.

MARIANA, betrothed to Angelo.

JULIET, beloved of Claudio.
FRANCISCA, a nun.

MISTRESS OVERDONE, a bawd.

[Lords, Officers, Citizens, Boy, and Attendants.]
SCENE: Vienna.

We have with a leaven'd and prepared choice
Proceeded to you; therefore take your honours.
Our haste from hence is of so quick condition
That it prefers itself and leaves unquestion'd 55
Matters of needful value. We shall write to

you,

60

As time and our concernings shall importune,
How it goes with us, and do look to know
What doth befall you here. So, fare you well.
To the hopeful execution do I leave you
Of your commissions.
Ång.
Yet give leave, my lord,
That we may bring you something on the way.
Duke. My haste may not admit it;

Nor need you, on mine honour, have to do
With any scruple. Your scope is as mine own, es
So to enforce or qualify the laws