Angelo
Notes on Angelo
Shakespeare and the Casting Couch
Read the NoteStories about women summoned as supplicants to the portals of men with the power to grant their wishes, for a price, are common across professions, across countries, across millennia. Shakespeare dramatized the dilemmas some of these women faced in more than one of his plays.
In both Henry VI Part 3 and Measure for Measure, for example,
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Tempter or Tempted?
Read the NoteIn Measure for Measure (2.2.197), Angelo confronts, possibly for the first time in his life, the temptation of lust. And since this is new to him and because he is highly moralistic, he is troubled and confused. He reacts by asking himself a series of questions for which he has no answers.
What’s this? What’s this? Is this her fault,
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Seduction or Harassment?
Read the NoteShakespeare delights in the seduction ceremonies of bright men with even brighter women. These dialogues, whether between adolescents like Romeo and Juliet, more mature characters like Henry V and Princess Katherine, or seasoned adults like the widow Lady Grey and the sexual harasser King Edward, in this scene (3HenryVI 3.2.36), give Shakespeare opportunities to employ dazzling webworks of rhetorical exchanges.
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Sexual Extortion
Read the NoteIn Measure for Measure (2.4.95), Angelo, the classic sexual harasser, adopts a method of sexual extortion similar to King Edward’s in Henry VI Part 3 (3.2.36). Both men begin with oblique insinuations about their desires, which can be innocently misread. When the women, Isabella in Measure for Measure and Lady Grey in Henry VI,
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Quotes spoken by the character Angelo
We must not make a scarecrow of the law
Read the QuoteAngelo
We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape till custom make it
AntithesisTheir perch and not their terror.Metaphor
Well, heaven forgive him and forgive us all.
Some rise by sin and some by virtue fall.
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Must he needs die?
Read the QuoteIsabella, to Angelo
Must he needs die?
Angelo
Maiden, no remedy.
Isabella
Yes, I do think that you might pardon him,
And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.
Not the king’s crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe
Become them with one half so good a grace
As mercy does.
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It is the law, not I, condemn your brother
Read the QuoteAngelo
It is the law, not I, condemn your brother.
Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,
It should be thus with him. He must die tomorrow.
Isabella
Tomorrow? O, that’s sudden! Spare him, spare him.
He’s not prepared for death.Epizeuxis Even for our kitchens
We kill the fowl of season.
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At what hour tomorrow Shall I attend your Lordship?
Read the QuoteIsabella
At what hour tomorrow
Shall I attend your Lordship?
Angelo
At any time ‘fore noon.
Isabella
Save your honor.
She exits, with Lucio and Provost.
O cunning enemy that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook.
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When I would pray and think, I think and pray
Read the QuoteAngelo
When I would pray and think, I think and prayChiasmus
To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words,Transferred Epithet
Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,Synecdoche
Anchors on Isabel.Metaphor
Blood, thou art blood.
Let’s write “good angel” on the devil’s horn
God in my mouth,
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Which had you rather, that the most just law Now took your brother’s life
Read the QuoteAngelo
Which had you rather, that the most just law
Now took your brother’s life, or, to redeem him,
Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness
As she that he hath stained?Metonymy & Oxymoron
Isabella
Sir, believe this:
I had rather give my body than my soul.
Angelo
I talk not of your soul.
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Admit no other way to save his life
Read the QuoteAngelo
Admit no other way to save his life—
As I subscribe not that, nor any other—
But, in the loss of question, that you, his sister,
Finding yourself desired of such a person
Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,
Could fetch your brother from Metonymythe manacles
Of the binding law,
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This deed unshapes me quite
Read the QuoteAngelo
This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant
And dull to all proceedings. A deflowered maid,
And by an eminent body that enforced
The law against it. But that her tender shame
Will not proclaim against her maiden loss,
How might she tongue me!
Alack, when once our grace we have forgot,
Nothing goes right.
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Justice, O royal duke
Read the QuoteIsabella, kneeling
Justice, O royal duke.Anapodoton Vail your regard
Upon a wronged—I would fain have said, a maid.
O worthy prince, dishonor not your eye
By throwing it on any other objectSynecdoche
Till you have heard me in my true complaint
And given me justice,
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Come, cousin Angelo, In this I’ll be impartial
Read the QuoteDuke
Come, cousin Angelo,
In this I’ll be impartial. Be you judge
Of your own cause. Duke and Angelo are seated.
Enter Mariana, veiled.
Is this the witness, friar?
First, let her show her face, and after speak.
Mariana
Pardon, my lord, I will not show my face
Until my husband bid me.
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