"Mistress Overdone" is the name Shakespeare gives to the bawd in Measure for Measure. The various occurrences of the name illustrate the obvious aspects of this speaking name (MeM 2.1.83, MeM 2.1.200-2-2, Mem 4.3.3). The verb 'overdo' and its participial form 'overdone' appear only in Hamlet's advice to the players not to overdo it:
O, it offends me to the soul to
9 hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to
10 totters, to very rags,...
. . . . .
I would
13 have such a fellow whipt for o'erdoing Termagant, it
14 out-Herods Herod, pray you avoid it.
. . . ..
. . . . Suit the action to the word,
18 the word to the action, with this special observance,
19 that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any
20 thing so o'erdone is from the purpose of playing,
21 whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to
22 hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature: to show virtue
23 her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and
24 body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone,
25 or come tardy off, though it makes the unskillful
26 laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the
27 censure of which one must in your allowance o'erweigh
28 a whole theatre of others. : . O, there be players
. . . . . . .
29 that have so strutted and
33 bellow'd that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen
34 had made men, and not made them well, they
35 imitated humanity so abominably. (Ham. 3.2.8-35)
The triple repetition of this rare word in a space of 27 lines is quite emphatic, and the implicit identification of prostitution and bad theater as an abominable imitation of humanity is equally striking.
The association established by 'overdone' is reinforced by 'overweigh'. Hamlet believes (as Shakespeare probably didn't -- or at any rate could not afford to believe--) that the censure of one man of taste will "o'erweigh a whole theater of others". But exactly the same argument is made by Angelo in his chilling response to Isabella's threat to expose his blackmail:
Ang.
154 Who will believe thee, Isabel?
155 My unsoil'd name, th' austereness of my life,
156 My vouch against you, and my place i' th' state,
157 Will so your accusation overweigh,
158 That you shall stifle in your own report,
159 And smell of calumny. . . . .
. . . . .
167 . . . . . . . . . ..Answer me to-morrow,
168 Or by the affection that now guides me most,
169 I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,
170 Say what you can: my false o'erweighs your true. (MeM
2.4.154-170)
Once again sordid sexuality and the theatre are oddly linked in a context that pits a man of distinction against the masses. The only other occurrence of overweigh (TNK 5.4.19) does not bear on these scenes.
The juxtaposition of Hamlet and Angelo implicit in these verbal echoes is strengthened by another set of echoes that relate to of their soliloquies. When the Duke gives written instructions for his imminent return, Angelo and Escalus talk about the apparent contradictions between various letters. Angelo doubts the Duke's sanity and describes his
... most uneven and distracted manner. His
4 actions show much like to madness, pray heaven his
5 wisdom be not tainted! (MeM 4.4.3-5)
In the following soliloquy Angelo gives expression to his anguished conscience:
20 This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant
21 And dull to all proceedings. A deflow'red maid!
22 And by an eminent body that enforc'd
23 The law against it! But that her tender shame
24 Will not proclaim against her maiden loss,
25 How might she tongue me! ( MeM 4.4.20-25)
The collocation of 'unpregnant' and 'dull' echoes Hamlet's soliloquy:
Yet I,
567 A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak
568 Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
569 And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
570 Upon whose property and most dear life
571 A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward? (Ham.2.2.566-571)
'Unpregnant' does not occur elsewhere. The adjective 'dull' occurs 103 times in 36 plays. The collocation of 'dull' and 'unpregnant' in the context of a soliloquy is clearly a striking event. But there is a further echo. The only other occurrence of 'unshape' is part of the description of the mad Ophelia:
4 She speaks much of her father, says she hears
5 There's tricks i' th' world, and hems, and beats her heart,
6 Spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt
7 That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,
8 Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
9 The hearers to collection; they yawn at it,
10 And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts,
(Ham.4.5.4-10)
The practical Horatio suggests that it will be politically expedient to speak with her since "she may strew / Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds (Ham. 4.5.14-15).The dramatic context in Hamlet involves madness, the inability of a woman to speak about the cause of her grief and injury, the fear that somehow she might be understood, and the arrival of a brother bent on revenge. This is precisely the context in which Angelo uses 'unshapes'.
In looking at these correspondence between Hamlet and Measure for Measure the philologist notes that the words are semantically and morphologically similar and denote excess or deficiency. They point to the loss of balance that is a cardinal theme of both plays and expressed in two haunting couplets by Hamlet and Angelo:
188 The time is out of joint -- O cursed spite,
189 That ever I was born to set it right!
(Ham.1.5.188-189)
33 Alack, when once our grace we have forgot,
34 Nothing goes right -- we would, and we would not.
(MeM 4.4.33-34)
23 September 1999