C

Laf. Mine eyes smell onions; I shall weep

anon:

[To Parolles] Good Tom Drum, lend me a hand

kerchief: so,

I thank thee: wait on me home, I'll make sport
with thee:

Let thy courtesies alone, they are scurvy ones.

King. Let us from point to point this story know,

To make the even truth in pleasure flow.

[To Diana] If thou be'st yet a fresh uncropped
flower,

Choose thou thy husband, and I'll pay thy dower;
For I can guess that by thy honest aid
Thou kept'st a wife herself, thyself a maid.
Of that and all the progress, more and less,
Resolvedly more leisure shall express :

All yet seems well; and if it end so meet,
The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.

330

[Flourish.

EPILOGUE.

King. The king's a beggar, now the play is done :

All is well ended, if this suit be won,

That you express content; which we will pay,
With strife to please you, day exceeding day:
Ours be your patience then, and yours our parts;
Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.

335. a beggar, i. e. for applause.

[Exeunt.

340

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

DRAMATIS PERSONE

VINCENTIO, the Duke.

ANGELO, Deputy.

ESCALUS, an ancient Lord.
CLAUDIO, a young gentleman.
LUCIO, a fantastic.

Two other gentlemen.

ELBOW, a simple constable.

FROTH, a foolish gentleman.

POMPEY, servant to Mistress Overdone.

ABHORSON, an executioner.

BARNARDINE, a dissolute prisoner.

ISABELLA, sister to Claudio.

MARIANA, betrothed to Angelo.

JULIET, beloved of Claudio.
FRANCISCA, a nun.

MISTRESS OVERDONE, a bawd.

Lords, Officers, Citizens, Boy, and Attendants.

SCENE: Vienna.

DURATION OF TIME

The time (according to Mr. Daniel's Analysis, New Shakespeare Society, 1877-79) consists of four days:

Day 1. I. I.

A brief interval must be supposed to intervene. 2. II. 2.-IV. 2.

3. IV. 2.-4.
4. IV. 5.-6., V.

Dramatis Persona. This list is appended to the text in the First Folio, under the title, 'The

names of all the Actors'; a Justice and Varrius being, however, omitted.

INTRODUCTION

Measure for MEASURE was first published in the Folio of 1623, as the fourth in order of the Comedies. It was doubtless printed from the theatre-copy, and abounds in perplexed and corrupt passages, many of which no emendation has yet completely restored.

External evidence of the date of Measure for Measure is confined to a palpable reminiscence of certain lines of act ii. sc. 4, found in a poem of 1607. This was the Myrrha of W. Barksted, where these lines occur:

And like as when some sudden extasie

Seizeth the nature of a sicklie man ;

When he's discerned to swoon, straight by and by
Folke to his help confusedly have ran,

And seeking with their art to fetch him back,
So many throng, that he the ayre doth lacke.

An entry often quoted in the accounts of the Court Revels, mentioning a performance on 26th December 1604, is now known to be a forgery. But the date was well invented, for all indications point to 1603-4 as the year of its composition. Not to dwell upon possible allusions to the accession of James, noticed at i. 1. 68 and ii. 4. 27, the play is linked very closely both with All's Well That Ends Well and with Hamlet. And Hamlet was undoubtedly completed in 1602-3. The grave strenuousness of character which dis