Measure for Measure Quotes

Yikes! In Vienna, fornication is a sin and also a capital crime, which is why Claudio the fornicator has been hauled off to prison and sentenced to death.

Isabella insists that her chastity is much more valuable than her brother's life, because having sex with Angelo would condemn her to an eternal death (hell).  Is she right? 

Once again, Claudio associates sex (and marriage) with death.  (If we didn't know better, we might think we were reading Romeo and Juliet when we encounter this passage.  In that play, sex and death go hand and hand for the "star-crossed" lovers.)  Here, Claudio compares dying to a woman losing her virginity on her wedding night, which turns death into a kind of erotic state.  This doesn't surprise us much, especially given the fact that, in Elizabethan slang, "to die" means to have an orgasm.  The comparison works.

Isabella declares that she would give her life to save her brothers but we wonder if this is really true. Some literary critics think Isabella is full of it when she says this.  What do you think?

Earlier, we saw Claudio try to convince himself that he was ready to face his own mortality.  Here, however, he expresses his fear and uncertainty in a speech that seems to anticipate Hamlet's great "To be, or not to be speech," where Hamlet calls death "the undiscover'd country from whose bourn / No traveller returns" (Hamlet, 3.1). 

P.S. Literary critic Walter Pater thought this passage was one of the most "eloquent" speeches in all of Shakespeare.  We have to agree that it's pretty stunning, but we think Hamlet's speech is awesome too.

Hmm. Pompey makes a very interesting point here.  It's illegal for him to work in the sex industry, but it's perfectly "lawful" for him to work as an executioner.  What's Shakespeare up to when he puts these words in Pompey's mouth? 

When Barnardine, a drunken prisoner sentenced to die, informs the officials that he is simply too hungover to be executed that day, we're pretty astonished (and amused).  But, why does Shakespeare write this scene into the play?  How does Barnardine's behavior create meaning in Measure for Measure?  It seems like the nineteenth-century literary critic William Hazlitt said it best when he wrote that "Barnardine is a fine antithesis to the morality and the hypocrisy of the other characters in the play."  

If you thought Barnardine's line about being too hungover to die was astonishing, get a load of Pompey, who says the best cure for a hangover is a good hanging.  In other words, if Barnardine is executed, he'll be able to "sleep it off" (so to speak) forever.

Although Claudio insists that his relationship with Juliet is legit, his view of sexuality is pretty disturbing.  Here, he compares having sex to drinking rat poison – the idea is that both acts lead to a painful, gut-wrenching death. 

The Duke has given Angelo the authority to implement the death penalty or to be merciful, depending on Angelo's good judgment.  So, why does Angelo choose to execute Claudio (for the crime of fornication) when he's authorized to be lenient?