Measure For Measure, Act 5, Dec 18

[Candy]

Ah here we are at the last act of the play Measure For Measure...discussions for Act 5 can happen here....

[John]

You must marry, Angelo.
You must marry Mariana.
You must look more kindly on her
than you did those years ago.

You have failed, Angelo.
You have failed in your duty.
A predator devouring truth
As you did so long ago.

You must die, Angelo.
You must leave your Mariana.
You again must leave her weeping
As you left her years ago.

Hear her pleading, Angelo.
Hear her pleading for your life.
She would have been a faithful wife
All those many years ago.

Can you accept exculpation
When you begged for equity?
Will not your twisted virtue crave
Resolution of hypocrisy?

[Martin]

Thank you for the nice poem, John. I see it as a kind Christman gift to the group!

The read was scheduled to end weeks ago, but I am hopeful that opinions on Act 5 will get some posts here soon. (Albeit from a very small number of readers.)

[John]

Martin wrote: "Thank you for the nice poem, John. I see it as a kind Christman gift to the group!

The read was scheduled to end weeks ago, but I am hopeful that opinions on Act 5 will get some posts here soon. (..."

Thank you for your kind comment, Martin. I will adopt your suggestion in retrospect. Happy Christmas, Group.

Shakespeare was not a reformer. He seems to prefer reconciliation and forgiveness to justification and vindication, even taking it to extreme as in the Two Gentlemen of Verona wherein Valentine "offers" Silvia to a repentant Proteus who had just tried to rape her. We are not told what Silvia thought of this. From the time of the attempted rape, Silva does not speak a word; no doubt in total shock.

[Martin]

Amazing that in the first half of act 5, before the Duke's disguise is revealed, everything thrown at Isabella and Mariana are things I've read about women having to endure in the #metoo movement.

First the things said against Isabella:

She has a grudge against the man she is accusing.

She is not in her right mind.

The man she's accusing is a pillar of the community and of high moral standing. He could never have done these things.

It makes no sense that he would have behaved in the way she says. It is completely irrational. (I used to believe Clinton's innocence under Lewinski's accusation for this reason.)

Clearly she is a slanderer, and must herself be punished.

Then Mariana's evidence:

Her statement does not quite match isabella's. So there is no truth in either of them.

There is a conspiracy here: Isabella and Mariana are "instruments of some mightier member that sets them on".

It is actually impossible to read this scene without thinking of contemporary events.

[Martin]

The vox article that Candy gave us earlier,

https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/11/1...

(spoilers and all) is very good in linking "timeless" Shakespeare to today's timely #MeToo, and remarkable in echoing what we've found in S Fans. The author does slip into a couple of traditional assumptions about the play which I think can be challenged though:

"In Shakespeare’s Vienna, laws against premarital sex were technically on the books, but nobody enforced them. That is, until the duke decides that somebody should crack down. Not wanting to take the heat of being that somebody, he puts his morally upright deputy, Angelo, in charge."

This is what the duke tells the friar who will assist him with his disguise. But there is no reason to suppose this is the duke's real motive, as almost all his statements are fictions.

She also repeats the often heard complaint of the ending,

"It’s not a particularly satisfying ending. Isabella doesn’t get revenge."

But surely the whole play hinges on her final act. Everything in Isabella's character leads us to suppose that she won't support Mariana's plea, and the duke himself invites her rejection of it,

"Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact,
Her brother's ghost his paved bed would break,
And take her hence in horror."

But she takes Mariana's part. The way I read the play now is to see Isabella and Mariana controlled mentally by the duke, until this final moment, when Isabella is suddenly fully herself and has to make her own decision. Earlier the two women are separate witnesses, now they are side-by-side. With the Christian-allegory interpretation we could see them as Mary with Mary Magdalen. And the focus of the play switches. It isn't after all Angelo who is being tested, it is Isabella.

In the 1950 Peter Brook production of M4M, Isabella, played by Barbara Jefford, judged each night how long the audience could stand the suspense of her making her decision. Sometimes she would be silent on stage for two minutes or more before making her plea.

[John]

If Isabella is being tested, then she fails the Duke's test. Contrary to his belief she supports Marianna's plea for the sparing of Angelo. she opts for the Christian conviction that forgiveness is more important than revenge or punishment. Having forgiven Angelo, one can only imagine she would also forgive Claudio and perhaps even the Duke.
The audience is also warned against judging other people lest God judge these others themselves

[Martin]

John, I think you are supposing that what the duke says is what he believes. Isabella gives the answer the duke was hoping for. The duke's,

"Her brother's ghost his paved bed would break,
And take her hence in horror."

he says with full knowledge that Claudio is alive.

[John]

As the Duke tells a lot of lies it is difficult to be sure of what he believes. He has taken to Isabella and appears to wish her for himself. However, his proposal to her at the end is a little too abrupt too lacking in warmth to much a matter of expedience to be readily accepted, by the onlookers if not the young lady herself.