to go against them, and in 1573 the Venetians yielded and ceded Cyprus to the Turks, who were to keep it for three centuries.
And so, just as Othello's coming to Cyprus may be compared to the victory at Lepanto, so his death seems to signify the valuelessness of that victory and the ultimate loss of Cyprus to the enemy.
Part II. Roman 24. Measure For Measure
In this play, written in 1604, Shakespeare takes the opportunity to study the relationship of justice and mercy. He had done so in The Merchant of Venice, but there he had not been consistent. Portia had demanded mercy of Shylock, but when the tables were turned she did not show it (see page I-539).
We all favor mercy for those with whom we sympathize, but are not nearly as keen when mercy is sought for those we hate. In this play Shakespeare carries through the notion of mercy to ultimate consistency, and in offering mercy to the villain makes many critics unhappy. In presenting an unpleasant situation so that the offering of mercy becomes hard indeed, more critics are made unhappy. The result is that Shakespeare's great play of mercy is usually considered one of his unpleasant comedies, like All's Well That Ends Well.
.. any in Vienna...
The setting of the play is in Austria. This setting Shakespeare takes over from a tale by Cynthius; a tale from the same collection, in fact, from which he had a year earlier or less taken the plot for Othello (see page I-609).
Cynthius' tale begins with the Emperor Maximian appointing a new judge over the city of Innsbruck. There was a real Emperor Maximian who ruled over the Roman Empire, along with Diocletian, from 286 to 305, but there is no indication that the play takes place in Roman tunes.
The name may have been inspired to Cynthius by the fact that two Holy Roman emperors named Maximilian ruled in the sixteenth century. The first, Maximilian I, ruled from 1493 to 1519, and the second, Maximilian II, became Emperor in 1564. He was on the throne when Cynthius' collection was published in 1565.
The two Maximilians, like all the emperors after 1438, were members of the House of Habsburg, who ruled, specifically, as archdukes of Austria.
Shakespeare shifts the scene from Innsbruck, a provincial town in western Austria, to Vienna, the capital, but he is writing a Renaissance romance, and all the characters have Italian names. Thus, the Archduke of Austria and presumably Holy Roman Emperor (but referred to only as "Duke" in the play) is Vincentio.
The Duke is planning to retire for a while from the tasks of government and intends to appoint a deputy to wield his powers. He suggests his candidate to an aged lord, Escalus, who approves and says:
// any in Vienna be of worth
To undergo such ample grace and honor
It is Lord Angela.
- Act I, scene i, lines 22-24
Angela is given the post, though he is reluctant, and the Duke then leaves in great haste.
... the King of Hungary ...
The scene then shifts to a Viennese street, where we are introduced to Lucio, who is listed in the cast of characters as "a fantastic." He is fantastic in costume and conversation, in other words; he is avant-garde, ahead of the fashion, a gay man about town.
He is talking to two unnamed Gentlemen and says:
// the Duke, with the other dukes,
come not to composition with the King of Hungary,
why then all the dukes fall upon the King.
- Act I, scene ii, lines 1-3
Nothing further is mentioned of this, of any threat of war, of the King of Hungary; nor is there any hint as to who "the other dukes" might be.
Hungary is Austria's eastern neighbor. Through the Middle Ages it was an extensive and often powerful kingdom which was, however, weakened by the existence of a turbulent aristocracy whose quarrels among themselves worked to the ruin of all.
Hungary had reached its height a little over a century before Measure for Measure was written, when, from 1458 to 1490, Mathias Corvinus ruled. He temporarily broke the power of the Hungarian nobility, spread his power northward over Slovakia and Silesia, and in 1485 even conquered Vienna. He made Vienna his capital and ruled over Austria.
Corvinus died in 1490 and his weak successor gave up the earlier conquests and let the nobility gradually regain their power. The real disaster, however, came in 1526, when the Ottoman Turks (see page I-520) invaded Hungary and destroyed the Hungarian army at the Battle of Mohacs.