1 - Our City's Institutions

Summary

In the first scene of Measure for Measure, the Duke's opening speech foregrounds concepts crucial to the play: ‘government’ (1.1.3.), ‘the nature of our people’ (1.1.10), ‘Our city's institutions, and the terms/For common justice’ (1.1.10-11). As he compliments Escalus on his wisdom and competence in matters relating to the government of Vienna, he gestures towards these key political concepts in a manner that assumes that he and Escalus - and, implicitly, the audience too - share a common understanding and evaluation of what they mean. But this is precisely what the events of the play will call into question. In this chapter, I examine Shakespeare's depiction of those institutions that are most closely associated with the exercise of power and the maintenance of social order in Vienna; the Ducal court, the court of law, and the prison.

Modern editions of Measure for Measure are all based on the text printed in the First Folio, the collected volume published in 1623 that forms the basis of the Shakespeare canon. Editors often choose to open the play with a stage direction - in the Oxford edition I am using, ‘Enter Duke, Escalus, and other Lords’, implying a formal, ceremonial entrance in which the Duke is attended by numbers of courtiers. However, the First Folio text has very few stage directions, and simply launches straight into the exchange between the Duke and Escalus. At least one attendant needs to be present in order to go and summon Angelo on the duke's instruction at line 15: but need it be assumed that he is part of a substantial courtly retinue? The question of whether this opening scene involves a low-key transaction of business in the Duke's private closet, or a public ceremonial for the ostentatious handover of power, is not just relevant to deciding how the scene should be staged, but has implications for the whole question of how power is exercised in Vienna. The idea that monarchy and the exercise of royal authority in this period were theatrical and spectacular by nature has been widely discussed, drawing support from two comments on this subject made by Elizabeth I and James VI and I.