Angelo (Measure for Measure)

Play

Measure for Measure

Summary

The Duke's appointed deputy, renowned for his cold virtue and rigid enforcement of the law, whose hidden hypocrisy is catastrophically exposed when he proposes that the novice Isabella sleep with him to save her condemned brother Claudio. His fall from apparent righteousness into corrupt bargaining makes him one of Shakespeare's most searching portraits of self-deception.

Notable Quotations

"O, what may man within him hide, / Though angel on the outward side!" *(III.ii)*

"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." *(II.iv)*

Cross-references

• Measure for Measure — the play
• Comedies
• character_duke_vincentio — the Duke who appoints and ultimately judges him
• character_isabella — the woman whose virtue he attempts to corrupt
• character_claudio_mm — whose death sentence Angelo enforces