Duke Vincentio

Play

Measure for Measure

Summary

The Duke of Vienna who, claiming to travel abroad, secretly disguises himself as a friar to observe and manipulate events in his city. He is the play's godlike orchestrator — staging the bed-trick, pronouncing judgments, and engineering outcomes — whose prolonged silence about his identity raises deep questions about power and accountability.

Notable Quotations

"Be absolute for death; either death or life / Shall thereby be the sweeter." *(III.i)*

"What's yet in this / That bears the name of life? Yet in this life / Lie hid more thousand deaths." *(III.i)*

"The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good." *(III.i)*

Cross-references

• Measure for Measure — the play
• Comedies
• character_angelo_mm — the deputy he places in charge
• character_isabella — the woman he ultimately proposes to
• character_lucio_mm — who slanders him unknowingly to his face