Incest in Pardon and Marriage - People Fas Harvard

BY DISGUISE and pardon, the ex-
change of "death for death" (Angelo for Claudio), which otherwise
would be the inevitable end of Measure for Measure, is transformed
into "life for life" (Claudio for Angelo), thus ending a cycle of pur-
chase and sale and solving the special dilemma of the play. The soul of
the plot-what Aristotle calls its telos-is still not fully revealed, how-
ever. To seek that surprising soul, we must reinterpret at another level
the process of Claudio's salvation and investigate the problems of mar-
riage raised in the play.
Two essential exchanges of life for life in Measure for Measure sup-
plement the exchanges already outlined. In the first, Claudio is saved,
not only by the literal substitutions of disguise and by Isabella's par-
don of Angelo, but also, and essentially, in a figurative resurrection
through "a kind of incest" between him and Isabella, which is also his
pardon by Isabella. This incest is necessary to the movement whereby
Claudio is born again, both as a "child of adoption" and as his own
newborn son. The first exchange is thus Claudio for Claudio's son.
The second, and consequential, supplemental exchange of life for life
is marriage (in particular the marriage ultimately proposed by Vin-
centio), both as a reciprocal giving and taking and also as "a kind of
incest." Taken together these two interrelated exchanges-an incestu-
ous pardon and an incestuous marriage-account for the incorpora-
tion and apparent transcendence of the lex talionis, or the rule of
"measure for measure."
The hint of this incestuous transcendence is the intent or use (sup-
plement) of the plot of Measure for Measure. Unless we understand
these supplemental exchanges, two disturbing and far-reaching ques-
tions remain obscure: Does Isabella pardon Claudio? and, Does Isa-
bella marry the Duke?