MEASURE FOR MEASURE

The time (according to Mr. Daniel's Analysis, New Shakespeare Society, 1877-79) consists of four days:

Day 1. I. 1.

A brief interval must be supposed to intervene. 2. II. 2.-IV. 2.

Dramatis Persona. This list is appended to the text in the First Folio, under the title, The

names of all the Actors; a Justice and Varrius being, however, omitted.

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INTRODUCTION

Edition.

Measure for MEASURE was first published in the The earliest Folio of 1623, as the fourth in order of the Comedies. It was doubtless printed from the theatre-copy, and abounds in perplexed and corrupt passages, many of which no emendation has yet completely restored.

External evidence of the date of Measure for Date of ComposiMeasure is confined to a palpable reminiscence of tion. certain lines of act ii. sc. 4, found in a poem of 1607. This was the Myrrha of W. Barksted, where these lines occur:

And like as when some sudden extasie

Seizeth the nature of a sicklie man ;

When he's discerned to swoon, straight by and by
Folke to his help confusedly have ran,

And seeking with their art to fetch him back,
So many throng, that he the ayre doth lacke.

An entry often quoted in the accounts of the Court
Revels, mentioning a performance on 26th December
1604, is now known to be a forgery. But the date
was well invented, for all indications point to 1603-4
as the year of its composition. Not to dwell upon
possible allusions to the accession of James, noticed
at i. 1. 68 and ii. 4. 27, the play is linked very closely
both with All's Well That Ends Well and with Hamlet.
And Hamlet was undoubtedly completed in 1602-3.
The grave strenuousness of character which dis-

Source of the Plot.

tinguishes Helena from the Rosalinds and Beatrices
of the preceding group of Comedies is carried a step
further in the passionate intensity of Isabel. In both,
an immense inner force is normally concealed by a
reserve not at all characteristic of Shakespearean
womanhood; in both it breaks out at moments in
splendours of poetry such as Portia alone among the
women of the Comedies approaches. The device of
Mariana is clearly adapted from the story of Helena.
The affinities with Hamlet lie less in the characters
than in the moral atmosphere.1 Both plays are per-
vaded by an oppressive consciousness, new in Shake-
speare, of the might of evil; the state of the world is
something rotten, and those who would better it are
paralysed by inner flaws of mind or will. Denmark
is out of joint, and Vienna a sink of vice; the duke
and Hamlet alike recognise, and alike seek to evade,
the reformer's task. Hamlet groans and procrasti-
nates; the duke quietly appoints a deputy, and the
deputy, a saint among sinners, is made a sinner by
a saint.
In both Hamlet and the duke, it may be
added, different critics have discovered resemblances
to the bustling Solomon who had, perhaps, just taken
his seat upon the English throne.

Measure for Measure closely follows in outline the plot of George Whetstone's Promos and Cassandra, published in 1578. The title of this performance is as follows: The right excellent and famous Historye Promos and Cassandra: divided into two commical Discourses. | In the first Part is shewn, | The unsufferable Abuse of a lewd MAGISTRATE; | The

of

1 Among many interesting let's dread of the 'something detailed parallels we may note: after death.' And Isabel, like Isabel's indictment of man Hamlet, has to 'repel the in'dressed in authority,' and sinuation that her righteous Hamlet's 'the insolence of anger is the voice of madness' office'; Claudio's and Ham- (v. I. 50).