A strange play. To my mind mostly about ambition and our moral standards and what we actually do. The mystery that there are logical and moral standards. There are plenty of big speeches about wiling to die, chastity, moral standards. Yet there is life.
Not base life, but life bigger than all these concepts and without life all these concepts would be nought.
So why impose these concepts upon life while they do not enable to life but only failure.
Yet still we do.
“Escalus: (…)
Whether you had not sometime in your life
Err’d in this point which now you censure him,
And pull’d the law upon you.
Angelo:
‘Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
Another thing to fall.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.791).
“Angelo:
But rather tell me,
When I, that censure him, do so offend,
Let mine own judgement pattern out my death,
And nothing come in partial.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.791).
“Escalus:
Pardon is still the nurse of second woe.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.794).
“Isabella:
O, it is excellent
To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.795).
“Angelo:
When I would pray and think, I think and pray.
To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words;
Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth,
As if I did but only chew his name.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.797).
“Claudio:
The miserable have no other medicine but only hope.
I have hope to live, and am prepared to die.
Duke:
(…) merely, thou art death’s fool;
For him thou labour’st by thy flight to shun,
And yet runn’st toward him still. Thou art not noble;
For all the accommodations that thou bear’st
Are nursed by baseness. Thou’rt by no means valiant;
For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork
Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep
And that thou oft provokes; yet grossly fear’st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself:
(…) If thou art rich, thou’rt poor;
For like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear’st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee. (…)
What’s yet in this
That bears the name of life? Yet in this life
Lie hid more thousand deaths; yet death we fear,
That makes these odds all even.
Claudio: I humbly thank you.
To sue to live, I find I seek to die;
And seeking death, find life: let it come on.” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.799).
“Claudio:
Death is a fearful thin.
Isabella:
And shamed life a hateful.
Claudio:
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods,” (Shakespeare, 1996, p.800).
