Measure For Measure

Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses sexual coercion, which features in Measure for Measure.

“Let there be some more test made of my metal,

Before so noble and so great a figure

Be stamp’d upon it.”

When Duke Vincentio appoints Angelo as governor of Vienna while he is away, Angelo expresses concern that his own virtue and worthiness has never been tested before. Angelo uses a metaphor, comparing himself to metal that will be stamped, like a coin at a mint, with the image of a ruler’s head. Angelo’s desire to be tested foreshadows that Vincentio does actually intend to secretly remain in the city and observe him.

“There’s not a soldier of us all, that, in

the thanksgiving before meat, do relish the petition

well that prays for peace.”

When Lucio talks to some other gentlemen who serve as soldiers in Duke Vincentio’s army, the men bring up the point that people will always act in the interest of their own survival and their own livelihood, even when it goes against morality. While it might be common to pray for peace, soldiers would rather pray for war so that they can be paid for their services. This conversation sets up a central conflict in the play—the ways in which Christian morality does not align with human instincts.

“Nay, not as one would say, healthy; but so sound as

things that are hollow: thy bones are hollow;

impiety has made a feast of thee.”

Lucio jokes that the soldiers he is speaking with are not “sound” because they are infected with venereal diseases, using a