Shakespeare & The Little Picture
“Could great men thunder…”
“Could great men thunder as Jove himself does, Jove would never be quiet, for every pelting, petty officer would use his heaven for thunder, nothing but thunder.” — Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene 2.
Shakespeare knew how to paint a picture, didn’t he? He crafted similes and metaphors like the one above to stretch language beyond individual words. In interacting with these lines, he invites you to not just understand what a word means, but to paint a picture in your mind and experience that vision. In the sentence above, he invites you to compare the mighty noise of thunder to the ineffectual raging of “great” men (insert sarcasm here). Pales in comparison, am I right?
But it isn’t just the juxtaposition of these two ideas — Jove (basically Roman Zeus), the most powerful of the gods who caused the heavens to thunder, and a man whose words are full of self-importance and threat (more on that below). It’s also the sounds that make up the words. Remember, the modern English language was still pretty new in Shakespeare’s day. In fact, part of the reason people went to the theater was to learn new words to use about town and sound all fancy (people really don’t change). Shakespeare, the inventor (or at least coiner) of many words, clearly chose each word in his plays with a purpose to add another layer to that mental picture he was drawing. Which is why the plays should be watched and heard as much as read.
So, I invite you to say the quote above aloud.
I’ll wait.
But seriously, do it!
Ok, cool. I’m going to trust that you obey instructions. You’re clearly a big nerd if you’re reading a Shakespeare blog. If you did say the words aloud, you’ll notice the alliteration of ‘pelting, petty officer.’ The ‘puh puh.’ Now layer that into the mental image of a storm, and perhaps it makes you think of soft rain tapping on windows. A far cry from rumbling thunder that shakes (or Shakespeare’s) the house, and evocative of ineffectual sputtering instead of powerful speech.
So, now that we’ve thought about the image and the sound, let’s talk a little context.
The Shake-Scene
The quote comes from the play Measure for Measure written in 1603 or 1604. Interestingly, it’s first recorded performance was for King James’s Christmas performances of 1604. Given James’s religious fervor — he was a protestant but son of the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots who commissioned the translation of the King James Bible — this play can take on a whole interesting level of meaning. But we’ll leave Shakespeare’s commentary on religion for another day when I’m in the mood to make many people angry.
Measure for Measure is based on an old morality tale (there are very few original Shakespeare plots — maybe none?). In the source material, a woman’s brother is sentenced to die, and the governor offers to spare him if the woman sleeps with the governor. She does and then the governor kills the brother anyway.
Yes, it’s a real bummer — and this play is called a comedy!1
Shakespeare took this old plot and made it even more nuanced and emotionally gut-wrenching. In Measure for Measure, Isabella is a young woman preparing to take her orders as a nun. She is so passionate in this desire that she says she wishes there were further restraints placed on nuns of that order. This is not a young woman sent to a nunnery against her will like Ophelia or Hermia, she wants this.
And her brother is sentenced to death, but not for some heinous crime. He’s sentenced to death for impregnating a woman out of wedlock, which seems a bit harsh. Even more so when you realize the woman (interestingly named Juliet) is his girlfriend that he wants to marry but cannot, because he cannot afford the dowry.
Isabella is persuaded to go argue for her brother’s life. Lord Angelo has been put in charge of the city by the Duke who claims to have left town, but we eventually find out that this whole affair was a scheme on the part of the Duke to reveal Angelo to be problematic. Angelo immediately lets the power go to his head and enacts all sorts of hyper-religious laws, including the one that calls for the death of Isabella’s brother.
Isabella goes before Angelo to plead for his mercy. At first she is meek and reserved in her request, but she finds her righteousness. Angelo uses religious law to justify violence and cruelty. She argues that Christianity is about mercy and grace. And then she drops this absolute banger of a quote — “O, it is excellent to have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.”
She accuses Angelo of misusing his “brief authority.” She calls out the double-standard people in power hold themselves to versus that they old their charges to. And it works on Angelo. A little too well. He tells her to come back the next day for her answer, and once alone, confesses to the audience that he lusts after poor Isabella.
But more on that later…
Measure for Measure is one of my favorite plays, and I’m sure I’ll write more on it later, but I want to leave you with the words. Shakespeare could have Isabella make rousing arguments about power and mercy — and he does — but the metaphors evoke so much more than the words can say. A picture is worth a thousand words, and Shakespeare’s metaphors are worth more than that. So next time you engage with a Shakespeare play, find one metaphor that speaks to you and really engage with it. Build it in your mind. Look at it from every angle. That’s where we the reader2 bring ourselves to Shakespeare, and that’s where we find the meaning and nuance that transcends time, space, and identity.
Speak the Speech, I Pray You
Bring Shakespeare’s words into your own life by:
Fussing at your representatives when they come to town for summer (find your reps here);
Complaining about your boss’s self-righteous Excel-related diatribe; and
Telling your alarm clock what you really think about her:
Additional Resources
Find a copy of the entire play here.
Watch a clip from the scene here.
Check out the RSC’s Learning Zone on Measure for Measure here.
All the best!
-LL
Scholars now consider it to be a tragi-comedy because it defies clear genre convention, but truthfully, genre is an ever-shifting construct.
By reader, I mean anyone engaging with the works through eye-ball reading, listening, or watching.
Thanks for a good read!
I love Measure for Measure, too--and for slightly different reasons, which is part of Shakespeare's genius for appealing to so many different people of different backgrounds.
The "hero" of M of M is Isabella, who dares to speak truth to power. But she is only one of many "everyday heroes" that Shakespeare uses to bring down the powerful. Emilia in Othello is another. In fact, approximately half the plays have such an everyday hero upon whom the plot turns: most are women.
You may be interested in "Psychology According to Shakespeare" (by Philip Zimbardo and me). Chapter 4 deals with the parallels between Measure for Measure and Dr. Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment.