SOURCE: Hunt, Maurice. “Comfort in Measure for Measure.” Studies in English Literature: 1500-1900 27, no. 2 (Spring 1987): 213-32.

In the following essay, Hunt investigates the theme of spiritual comfort and its complex relationship to the human capacity for love, primarily represented through the figures of Isabella, the Duke, and Mariana in Measure for Measure.

“Pax vobiscum”—versions of the time-honored words of spiritual comfort repeatedly echo in Measure for Measure, especially in the language of Vincentio and Isabella, the disguised Friar Lodowick and the aspiring nun. “Peace be with you” Vincentio exclaims at the end of Act III, when Escalus announces that he will visit condemned Claudio, whom Vincentio has attempted to comfort through a vision of the hollowness of earthly life. Earlier in the play, Lucio travesties the familiar blessing when, upon entering the nunnery of Saint Clare, he presumptuously shouts, “Hoa! Peace be in this place!” (I.iv...