Isaac Asimov - Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1

—Act III, scene ii, lines 202-5

St. Philip and St. James, two of the apostles, are together commemorated on May 1. The Hebrew name of James is Jacob. "Come Philip and Jacob" therefore means "next May 1."

The plot to deceive Angelo is completed. Mariana is introduced; it is explained to her what she must do and she agrees.

But Angelo, once he has slept with Mariana (thinking she was Isabella), fears the discovery of the sin. If he pardons Claudio, everyone will be astonished and ready to believe something unusual has happened. If Isabella talks, her tale would be accepted. If, however, Claudio is executed, who would then believe Isabella's story?

Therefore, even as the Duke/Friar waits for notice of Claudio's reprieve, a letter to the Provost (the keeper of the prison) arrives from Angelo, ordering the execution of Claudio and, in addition, of someone named Barnardine.

The Duke/Friar asks who Barnardine is and the Provost replies:

—Act IV, scene ii, lines 133-34

Bohemia (now part of modern Czechoslovakia) is the westernmost Slavic region of Europe. The fourteenth century was its golden age and its King, Charles I, was Holy Roman Emperor from 1347 to 1378. Bohemia declined after that, chiefly through internal religious strife.

After 1462 Bohemia was ruled by Hungary, and when the latter country was defeated by the Turks, Bohemia was taken over by the Austrian House of Habsburg. Bohemia remained Austrian through Shakespeare's life and for three centuries afterward.

Barnardine, it seems, has been in prison for nine years for murder and now, all reprieves having been exhausted and his crime thoroughly proved, is ready for death. The Duke/Friar considers having his head sent to Angelo in place of Claudio's. It turns out, though, that a prisoner has died that morning of fever and he happens to resemble Claudio. It is that head which will be sent to Angelo, and Barnardine as well as Claudio will remain unexecuted.

Yet when Isabella comes to receive her reprieved brother, the Duke/ Friar tells her that her brother has been executed. Her instant cry is for revenge as she shrieks:

—Act IV, scene iii, line 121

Some critics are appalled at the Duke's needless cruelty in hiding from Isabella the fact that her brother has been saved. The Duke's action seems reasonable to me, however. He was present when Isabella cruelly turned on her death-fearing brother and excoriated him, saying she would pray for his death. Well, now she had what she prayed for. That might teach her a little something about justice and mercy and she would later have an opportunity to learn a little more. (Besides, one is entitled to wonder whether she is more outraged at the death of her brother or at the fact that her sacrificed virtue-which Angelo thought he had-was so little valued by him.)

Now begins a charade arranged by the Duke. He returns to Vienna in his own guise and is so greeted. Isabella (following the instructions of the Friar, not knowing him to be the Duke) accuses Angelo of having insisted on her body as the price of her brother and then having had the brother executed anyway. Angelo denies everything and the Duke affects to believe him and orders Isabella punished.

Mariana joins in the accusation against Angelo and the whole story comes out, but still Angelo denies and still the Duke refuses to accept the accusation.

It turns out that a Friar has urged the women to make the accusation and the question turns to him. Lucio, out of sheer love of mischief, accuses the Friar of having slandered the Duke, putting his own words into the Friar's mouth.

The Duke retires, returns as Friar, and he too is ordered arrested. Lucio abuses him quite gratuitously and pulls off the Friar's hood. All freeze in astonishment as the Duke's face is revealed.

And now the Duke speaks in earnest for the first time since his return. It is his task to represent mercy and his first words are to pardon Escalus the harsh words he addressed to the Friar, not knowing that behind the cowl was the Duke.

Angelo has no choice now but to confess his guilt and ask for death. The Duke, however, is in no hurry for that. First there is a kind justice (not a cruel one) to be done Mariana. She must be given the social status that goes with marriage. Angelo and Mariana are therefore taken offstage to be married.

Isabella asks forgiveness for having, unknowingly, treated the Duke as less than a Duke and she receives pardon freely.

And then Angelo, returning as a married man, must hear sentence passed against him. The Duke offers him his own kind of justice and suggests that mercy itself would demand merciless justice, and would cry out:

—Act V, scene i, lines 412-14

It is the cry of rigid return of damage for damage and is usually recognized as among the primitive ethics of early religious development. It reminds one of the passage in the Old Testament which says: "And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him; Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth" (Leviticus 24:19-20). In a way, of course, this was an attempt at limitation of revenge. If one man knocked out another's tooth, revenge must not take the form of killing, but satisfy itself with no more than knocking out a tooth in return. Nevertheless, the doctrine of "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" sounds barbaric to those who make no such fetish of exact justice.

It is usually thought that the Old Testament doctrine quoted above was repudiated by the New Testament, for Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount: "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil" (Matthew 5:38-39).

But then later in the same sermon, Jesus says: "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again" (Matthew 7:1-2).

This latter passage may refer to divine judgment, but it can be applied to human judgments; and whether divine or human, it is eye for eye and tooth for tooth all over again.

It is the New Testament passage which the play counters, for it is the New Testament passage that gives the play its title.

Mariana pleads for Angelo's life, but he is her husband and she loves him. It is easy for her to want mercy for the man. What about Isabella?

To Isabella, Angelo is nothing but a villain. He tried to rob her of both her virginity and her brother, and as far as she knows, the brother is in deed lost. She has no reason to want mercy, every reason to want revenge. Mariana pleads with her and slowly Isabella kneels. She says to the Duke:

—Act V, scene i, lines 448-51

That is why it was necessary for the Duke not to reveal to Isabella that her brother lived. She had to forgive Angelo at the worst. She had to learn mercy at last.

Angelo is therefore pardoned and for this many critics (as savage as Angelo) condemn the play, because they want to see the man hanged. Yet is it only for those with whom we sympathize that mercy is to be sought? If that is so, then what credit is there in mercy and why should we have expected Shylock to show mercy for an Antonio with whom he did not sympathize, or for Angelo to show mercy for a Claudio with whom he did not sympathize? It is precisely to those whom we hate that we must show mercy if the word is to have meaning at all.