Measure for Measure

By William Shakespeare

Categories: Drama

Shakespeare's comedy, written around 1603 to 1604, is set in Vienna, where Duke Vincentio hands power to his strict deputy Angelo and remains in the city disguised as a friar. Angelo revives a neglected law against sex outside marriage and sentences young Claudio to death. When Claudio's sister Isabella, a novice nun, pleads for his life, Angelo offers to spare him in exchange for her virginity, and the Duke secretly intervenes. Its uneasy treatment of justice, mercy and hypocrisy places it among Shakespeare's problem plays.

Recommended by 1 person

• Richard Branson: “But I think my favourite line of Shakespeare comes from Measure For Measure, and seems particularly apt as we see in the new year by celebrating the benefits of failure, striving and trying again and again. "Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."”