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It has been said that men have two heads, but only enough blood to use one at a time. While it’s merely meant as a joke, the phrase holds truth in William Shakespeare’s play “Measure for Measure”. It takes place in Vienna where whorehouses are everywhere and the Duke will do nothing to stop the massive fornication. To save face, and to make sure the town is set on the right track, the Duke puts Angelo in charge. Angelo decrees that anyone caught fornicating will be executed and Claudio is the first one caught. These characters, plus a few others, are driven by sex. They all either want it or are repelled by it, but no one is safe from it.
Shakespeare establishes early on that Vienna has become a red district all over. When Pompey, a pimp, is told that hanging is the punishment for sex he tells Escalus “If you head and hang all that offend that / way but for ten year together, you’ll be glad to give / out a commission for more heads” (2.1.238-40). Pompey is making the point that sex is everywhere. Every man has a mistress, and more go to the whorehouses. If Angelo plans to behead every man who sleeps around, then there will be no one left. The point is made again later when Pompey visits the jail. He says “I am as well acquainted here as I was in our / house of profession: one would think it were Mis- / tress Overdone’s own house, for here be many of / her old customers” (4.3.1-4). It is now incredibly obvious just how much sex and prostitution was playing a role in Vienna. When the pimp knows every man in the prison as a customer, it stands to reason that every low life in town involves themselves with prostitutes, but they are not the only ones involved.
When the Duke realizes that Vienna has gone to the bawds, he gives power over to Angelo, telling him: “In our remove be thou at full ourself” (1.1.43). Angelo, according to the Duke is “A man of stricture and firm abstinence” (1.3.12). Logically, he is the best man to take over and fix the...