“All the Grace I Beg”: The Cruelty of Mercy in Measure for Measure

It is no secret that Shakespeare is interested in the triumph of mercy over judgment. One of Shakespeare’s most famous monologues, delivered by the character of Portia in The Merchant of Venice, is a beautiful meditation on the virtue of mercy: “The quality of mercy is not strained,” Portia says. “It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: / ‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes / the throned monarch better than his crown.” The attentive reader of Shakespeare’s works will quickly note that the topic of mercy, especially contextualized by the relationship between a monarch and his subjects, is a common thread. Like a good Elizabethan-era Christian, Shakespeare appears to favor mercy over judgment, depicting grace as the virtue that truly overcomes all evil.

But the harder one tries to squeeze Shakespeare into a box, the more vehemently he refuses to be pinned down on any single topic. Although the bard may wax eloquent on the virtues of mercy, he is nevertheless too astute a student of the human condition not to notice some of the most difficult questions arising from the tension between mercy and justice. What is the relationship between justice, mercy, and the duty of the civil authorities? Is mercy really a universal good? As we search for the answer to these questions, a fresh look at one of Shakespeare’s most mysterious plays, the notoriously problematic Measure for Measure, will reveal that Shakespeare’s opinions on justice and mercy are not so black and white after all.

A Rod More Mocked Than Feared

Typically classified as one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays,” Measure for Measure is set in the city of Vienna, which is ruled by Duke Vincentio, a ruler whose overly kind and forgiving nature has led to a civil crisis. Because the Duke is so quick to pardon criminals, the “rod” has become “more mocked than feared.” As the Duke himself recognizes, his “decrees, / dead to infliction to themselves are dead, / and liberty plucks justice by the nose.” Instead of resolving to enforce the laws himself, the Duke instead decides to entrust the rule of Vienna to his deputy, the stiff and strict Lord Angelo, while the Duke takes an extended vacation in the country.

In the Duke’s absence, Angelo ruthlessly begins to enforce the local laws. His first course of action is to arrest a young man named Claudio, whose fiancée is pregnant, for the crime of fornication. Condemned to execution, Claudio sends his friends to plead with his sister, a beautiful and chaste novice named Isabella, to beg Angelo to pardon Claudio. But when the virtuous Isabella makes her impassioned plea to Lord Angelo, he falls madly in love with her and offers her a deal: If she will sleep with him, then he will pardon Claudio.

Meanwhile, the Duke has secretly returned to Vienna to observe everything that happens in his “absence.” Disguised as a friar, the Duke helps Isabella to devise a plan to trap Angelo into sleeping with his ex-fiancée, whom he cruelly abandoned years ago, but who is still in love with him. As the Duke wanders behind-the-scenes, he also encounters Lucio, an irreverent playboy who constantly slanders the Duke, as well as several unsavory characters who populate the local brothels that Angelo is trying to shut down.

But even though Angelo sleeps with his ex-fiancée, believing her to be Isabella, he goes back on his word, sending a secret message to the Provost of the prison and ordering him to behead Claudio. Thinking quickly, the Duke works together with the Provost to take the head of one of the prisoners, who has coincidentally just died of a fever and also happens to look very much like Claudio, and send it to Angelo in place of Claudio’s head. In the process of executing this plan, the Duke keeps Claudio’s salvation a secret from everyone, including the distraught Isabella.

In the final act, the Duke slowly reveals his true identity and exposes the wicked deeds of Lord Angelo. In his efforts to restore order, he first orders Angelo to marry the ex-fiancée whom he had slept with unwittingly, and then commands the Provost to take Angelo away and execute him. Mariana, Angelo’s new wife, begs Isabella to help convince the Duke to pardon Angelo. In a moving act of mercy, Isabella asks the Duke to pardon the very man who had tried to exploit her. After pretending for a little longer that he still intends to execute Angelo, the Duke reveals that in fact, Claudio is still alive—and that because Claudio did not die for his crime, neither will Angelo. At this point, the audience may well get the feeling that the Duke never planned to execute Angelo at all—a hypothesis only strengthened when the Duke proceeds to pardon every other character as well, including the slanderous Lucio and the other prisoners, before proposing to Isabella and leading his subjects away as the final curtain falls.

Problematic Mercy and Desirable Justice

The relationship between justice and mercy in Measure for Measure is a hotly debated topic—and for good reason. Some argue that in this play, Shakespeare is simply indulging in one of his favorite themes: that mercy is sweeter than justice, and grace will always triumph over the law. Such a reading would compare Measure for Measure with other comedies like The Merchant of Venice, where the antagonist is ultimately pardoned by a magnanimous protagonist.

Others, however, point out that the tensions in the play are much more complicated than that. After all, none of the events of the play would ever happen if not for a problem that begins long before the curtain rises. At the beginning of the play, the city of Vienna is suffering under the rule of a Duke who is too inclined to show mercy. As a monarch, it is the Duke’s duty to enforce the laws, and not just because victims deserve justice and criminals deserve punishment. Civil justice must also ensure that criminals will not repeat their crimes, and consistent punishment serves to deter future criminals from engaging in unlawful behavior. Lax enforcement of the laws leads to an anarchical society where innocent citizens suffer, as it has in Vienna. Duke Vincentio, then, is not an uncomplicated, magnanimous protagonist, but rather a ruler who has created a civil crisis by neglecting his duty.

Of course, Angelo’s behavior is just as problematic. First, he condemns Claudio based on a technicality of the law, rather than honoring the law’s spirit. His intentions in enforcing the laws may be good—and, indeed, exactly what the Duke commissioned him to do—but in establishing a merciless government, he too causes the innocent (or mostly innocent) to suffer. But his worst offense is propositioning the chaste Isabella, using his position of power to blackmail her into breaking her religious vows and the civil laws by sleeping with him. With this act, Lord Angelo erases any sympathy the audience may have previously felt for him while introducing the question of hypocrisy into the play’s depiction of civil justice. Can it possibly be just for rulers to enforce the laws that they themselves break?

At this point in the play, it is obvious that showing too much mercy and enforcing laws mercilessly are both highly problematic courses of action, especially for civil authorities. At the play’s halfway point, one might assume that the finale will resolve this tension by introducing some kind of middle ground—a scenario in which the Duke learns his lesson and tempers judgment with mercy, but without losing his grip on the requirements of justice.

But any audience member with this expectation will find himself surprised by the play’s final act. The Duke learns no lessons at all. He pardons everyone, punishing only two characters: Lucio and Angelo. These punishments, however, are barely punishments at all. Both Lucio and Angelo receive the same sentence: to marry the women they have slept with unlawfully. But given the fact that neither Lucio nor Angelo have exhibited any kind of character growth, the audience may rightfully be concerned for the future wellbeing of their wives, both of whom are now bound to love and serve men who have demonstrated a total lack of respect for the women in their lives. Is it really merciful to pardon Angelo, thereby leaving his new wife at his mercy?

Measure for Measure presents two extremes: one where mercy strangles justice until it dies, and one where justice leaves no room for the sweetness of mercy. What the play does not present is an obvious solution to the problem. If mercy and justice are both desirable goods, but mutually exclusive, then how can we ever hope to uphold both?

With the Measure You Use

When we turn to Shakespeare’s source texts, the problem only becomes more complicated. Many critics have pointed out that the play’s title is a clear reference to the gospels, both literally and thematically. In his gospel, Matthew writes, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” Measure for Measure incorporates this teaching in such obvious ways that it may be tempting to read the plot too simplistically. Angelo judges Claudio for the same crime that he himself attempts to commit, thereby violating the teachings of the gospels. The Duke, on the other hand, shows mercy, thereby ensuring that mercy will be shown to him. One character acts incorrectly, the other correctly. Even a cursory glance at the popular scholarship surrounding Measure for Measure will reveal that many readers have interpreted the play in exactly this way.

But for the aforementioned reasons, such a reading fails to explain all the ways in which the Duke’s mercy is problematic. Indeed, the play’s moral complexities invite the audience to ask questions about justice and mercy on a much broader scale than the city of Vienna. According to the Gospel of Matthew, we ought to show mercy so that our God will also show us mercy. If we take the prophet Hosea at his word, then we must act as if God really does desire mercy, and not sacrifice. But when we apply those teachings on a societal level, we run into some difficulties. We do not want the government to pardon all criminals—or, indeed, any criminals. We want our civil authorities to enforce the laws. Even on a personal level, we may want God to show us mercy—but like the Psalmist, we also cry out to God to enforce his justice against the wicked. The desire for justice is clearly good, just as the desire for mercy is good. How, then, can we reconcile the beauty of justice with Christ’s call for mercy?

It is self-evident that if we want God to be merciful to us, then we must be merciful to others. But what does it mean to be merciful? To re-word this question in the context of Measure for Measure: Is showing mercy really equivalent to granting pardon, like the Duke does in the play’s final act? If the answer is no, then we are able to draw an important distinction. If Christ’s command is not necessarily to withhold punishment by granting pardon, but instead to treat humanity with an attitude of mercy—in other words, to look at your fellow man in the same way that God does—then perhaps the line between justice and mercy is not as stark as it initially seems.

The Mercy of Suffering

To love someone is to seek that person’s highest good; to show someone mercy is to act toward that person with compassion. Although it is impossible to show compassion without desiring the best possible outcome for someone, the Latin roots of the word “compassion” mean literally “to suffer with.” Compassion, then, does not always consist of empathy that leads to the relief of suffering. Sometimes, compassion is the act of stepping into and participating in the suffering of another. For this reason, mercy and suffering are not like oil and water; mercy does not always seek to relieve suffering.

But what does this have to do with justice? When a sinner endures the consequences of his actions, that sinner undergoes real pain. Therefore, punishment in the name of justice requires the infliction of suffering. But while pain and suffering are not intrinsic goods that should be sought for their own sake, they are certainly extrinsic goods that aim at something nobler and better than themselves. When undertaken with the right attitude, suffering is an experience that changes the sufferer for the better. In other words, suffering is the path to salvation. There is no other way that leads to life.

But if this is true, then it necessarily changes the way we think about justice. The purpose of justice is not merely to punish a person’s wrongdoing or to equalize the scales on some cosmic level. That is because it is literally impossible to balance those cosmic scales in any way that truly settles the score. If a sinner gouges out an innocent person’s eye, you can take an eye for an eye, but you cannot undo any suffering in the process. You cannot give the innocent person his eye back. By taking the sinner’s eye, you have actually multiplied the suffering in the world rather than decreasing it. So why take the sinner’s eye at all?

Because the sinner deserves punishment, one might say, and that would be true. As a deterrent to others who might be tempted to commit the same crime, one might also say, and that would also be correct. But there is a third reason to punish an evildoer, and it has more to do with the well-being of the evildoer than that of the victim. Although it may be counterintuitive, the purpose of punishment is also to save the sinner. Ultimately, we do not punish a criminal because we hate the criminal, but because in some mystical way, we love him. We love him enough to want him to change, enough to hope for his salvation—a salvation that can only come through the suffering that leads to reform. In this light, it becomes clear that the choice between justice and mercy is not binary. They are not mutually exclusive.

It is true, of course, that not all punishments are created equal, and not every criminal is saved by his sentence. But in the final act of Measure for Measure, Angelo makes it clear that in this circumstance, he recognizes the value of justice:

O my dread lord,
I should be guiltier than my guiltiness
To think I can be undiscernible,
When I perceive your Grace, like power divine,
Hath looked upon my passes. Then, good prince,
No longer session hold upon my shame,
But let my trial be mine own confession.
Immediate sentence then and sequent death
Is all the grace I beg.

Given the Duke’s eagerness to pardon everyone who asks for mercy, it is conspicuous that in this short speech, Angelo does not beg for forgiveness. In fact, he intentionally asks for the penalty of his crimes: to be sentenced and executed. He craves the same justice that he enforced against the people under his command, and he expects the Duke to offer him the “grace” of allowing him to undergo the purgative suffering that might cleanse him of his guilt. However, the Duke does not take Angelo’s request seriously. He cannot even imagine why someone might not want to be pardoned—why someone might rather suffer and die than live with his guilt, unjustly forgiven by the civil authorities. Indeed, given Angelo’s apparently sincere desire to undergo the punishment that justice demands, real mercy would mean granting Angelo the only grace he asks for: a chance to pay the price for his sins.

The Duke’s fatal flaw is his inability to grasp the mercy of justice. Willfully or not, he fails to understand that compassion is not the antithesis of suffering, and so he enforces a cheap mercy upon his subjects. In the end, the Duke’s mercy has no real weight or power because he himself cannot appreciate either the compassion in justice rightly administered or the cruelty in mercy haphazardly granted. Indeed, his reckless leniency may be a symptom of an even more sinister character flaw. When the Duke leaves Vienna in the hands of Lord Angelo, he does so because even though his subjects are suffering from the consequences of a lawless society, he still cannot bring himself to enforce the laws. He may pretend that he loves his people too much to punish them, but the reality is that he loves them too little. He is so concerned about his own self-image, so hell-bent on being loved rather than feared, that in the end, his so-called mercy is nothing more than a façade to cover up the fact that the Duke loves himself more than he will ever love his subjects.

But because the Duke is both the protagonist and the central authority figure in the play, he manages to get away with it—and perhaps that is why Measure for Measure is such a problem play. Nobody steps forward to challenge the Duke, and so the play leaves its audience with no resolution to the problems of mercy and justice—only a sickly sweet ending where everyone is pardoned, and because nobody deserves it, nobody will change. As the curtain falls, we are haunted by the sensation that every character is the same as they were when the curtain rose three hours ago. No one has learned anything. No one has grown. By showering a cruel mercy upon his subjects, the Duke thinks he has saved them—never once pausing to consider that perhaps he has damned them instead.

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