Measure for Measure Religion Quotes

When the Duke sentences Angelo to death, he advocates for a kind of "eye for an eye" system of justice that comes from a passage in the bible: "For with that judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure you meet, it shall be measured unto you again" (Matthew 7:2).  In other words, the corrupt deputy who once sentenced Claudio to death for the crime of fornication (and then arranged to sleep with Isabella) is now headed for the chopping block. 

At the play's end, biblical justice is replaced by Christian mercy.  In the previous passage, we saw how the Duke sentences Angelo to death in an endorsement of measured justice.  Yet, here, the Duke pardons Angelo for his crimes.  This pardon dramatizes what often seems like a theological contradiction: the call for Christian mercy and the biblical demand for justice. 

When Angelo rigidly declares that Claudio will put to death for his crime, he resembles the sixteenth-century English Puritan Phillip Stubbes.

Unlike Vienna in Measure for Measure, fornication wasn't punishable by death in Shakespeare's England, but Stubbes wanted it to be. Stubbes once wrote that anyone guilty of prostitution, adultery, whoredom, or incest should be made to "taste of present death" or be branded "with a hot iron on the cheek, forehead, or some other part" so everyone would know how sinful they were (Anatomy of Abuses, 1583). Yikes!

Before Isabella takes her final vows, she discusses three kinds of privileges nuns have at the convent.  What's interesting about Isabella is that she wishes the convent was even more strict than it already is.  What's up with that?

Because Isabella is a virgin (and plans on staying that way permanently), Lucio thinks of her as a saint.  Interestingly enough, when Shakespeare wrote Measure for Measure, there weren't any convents (or monasteries) because Henry VIII (the king who broke from the Catholic Church and created the Protestant Church of England) began closing them down in 1538.  So, entering a convent wasn't even an option for women in Shakespeare's England.  

Is Shakespeare trying to tell us something about the dangers of religious devotion?   Literary critic Brian Gibbons thinks so.  Gibbons says the "play's emphasis on Vienna [a Catholic city and the 16th century seat of the Holy Roman Empire] is an emphasis on religious extremism."  

When the Duke disguises himself as a holy friar and spies on his subjects, he acts like an all-seeing, all-knowing, god figure.  At the same time, however, Duke Vincentio's behavior seems pretty sacrilegious, especially when he goes around taking peoples' confessions.

When Isabella offers to "bribe" Angelo, the corrupt judge is likely hoping she'll offer to sleep with him.  Yet Isabella does no such thing.  Instead, she promises to pray for Angelo and declares there's nothing more powerful than a virgin's prayers.  What are we to make of this?  Should we read Isabella's naivety with cynicism?  Or, are we meant to think that Isabella's sincerity and virtue are honorable?

Angelo sees his sexual desire for Isabella as sinful and corrupting. Here, Angelo confesses to the audience that, when he tries to pray, he can't stop thinking naughty thoughts about the wannabe nun. Earlier in the play, we heard Angelo say that his lust makes him like a piece of road kill rotting in the sun (2.2). Yuck.

Isabella not only wants to remain a virgin forever, but she also believes that having sex with Angelo would send her straight to hell. Is she right? Literary critic Katharine Eisaman Maus points out that "St. Augustine, the most influential Christian writer on sexual morality, insists that sin is a property of the will, not a physical state, [and] persons who are forced to perform sexual acts are blameless."

Still, that doesn't mean that Isabella should sleep with Angelo.