From Mistress to Master: Political Transition and Formal Conflict in Measure for Measure - Critical Essay

Criticism, Fall, 1999 by Stephen Cohen

Equity's significance in Measure for Measure's conflict between Angelo and Isabella is quickly established. In deputizing Angelo, the Duke does not assign him the narrow task of enforcing Vienna's "strict statutes and most biting laws" (I.iii. 19),(30) but instead pointedly gives him the power either to enforce or mitigate the law, making him a proxy for the royal conscience as well as the royal will:

   Hold therefore, Angelo:
   In our remove be thou at full ourself.
   Mortality and mercy in Vienna
   Live in thy tongue and heart
   Your scope is as mine own,
   So to enforce or qualify the laws
   As to your soul seems good.

  (I.ii.42-45, 64-66)(31)

But while the terms of Angelo's commission emphasize his equitable authority, his treatment of Claudio and Juliet quickly makes clear the Deputy's own quite different jurisprudential philosophy. The couple is united by "a true contract" (I.ii.145) or, in the language of English marriage law, a sponsalia per verba de praesenti: a betrothal creating the same legal commitment as a marriage, but still requiring the ecclesiastical benediction of a public ceremony. In order to encourage the fulfillment of this final obligation, consummation of a de praesenti contract prior to the wedding itself was considered fornication, which was both sinful and illegal. Consequently, because they "do the denunciation lack / Of outward order" (I.ii. 148-49), Claudio and Juliet have technically violated the law against fornication that Angelo has revivified. Angelo invokes this "heavy sense" (I.iv. 65) of the law in arresting and sentencing Claudio; like Shylock, he "follows close the rigor of the statute" (I.iv. 67), enforcing the letter of the law strictly and impartially.(32)

Claudio, however, is no Lucio, and Juliet no Kate Keepdown; in light of the disputed dowry, the precontract, and the obvious remedy of marriage (even the stringent Isabella immediately suggests "O, let him marry her" [I.iv.49]), the application of the strict letter of the law to their situation is clearly as unjust as it is legal. Claudio's predicament, like Antonio's in The Merchant of Venice, would seem designed to affirm precisely what Angelo's interpretation of his commission would deny: the necessity of equity power to qualify the strict impartiality of the common law upon consideration of specific mitigating circumstances. The case for equity is presented initially by Escalus, who argues that Claudio's good family (he "had a most noble father" [II.i. 7]), his otherwise blameless character, and the inequity of the law's inability to distinguish between an overeager bridegroom and a habitual felon ("Some run from brakes of ice and answer none, / And some condemned for a fault alone" [II.i.39-40]) require Angelo to exercise the equitable power given him by the Duke. By refusing to do so, Angelo becomes a figure of the inflexibility of the common law.(33)

Measure for Measure's ideological advocacy of equity and its generic movement towards marriage are connected thematically by the concept of empathy, or putting oneself in the place of another, which is crucial both to the romantic conversion of Isabella and Angelo and to the recognition of the special mitigating circumstances that are the basis of equity. The importance of empathy to the play, and especially to its theory of judgment, is suggested by the Biblical source of the play's title: "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye judge, ye shal be judged, and with what measure ye mette, it shal be measured to you againe" (Geneva Bible, Matthew 7:1-2). As the other characters see it, Angelo's legal intransigence and his romantic unresponsiveness are linked by his lack of empathy. The connection is first suggested by Lucio when, in explaining Angelo's strict application of the law against fornication, he characterizes the Deputy as "a man whose blood / Is very snowbroth; one who never feels / The wanton stings and motions of the sense" (I.iv. 57-59). The importance of empathy to a good judge's ability to offer discretionary mitigation is at the heart of Escalus' argument for equity, as he entreats Angelo to