Mercy and grace and gravity

[Mark Kohut]

We know Shakey's Measure for Measure went deep enough into young Pynchon
that he used a famous line from it for a story influenced/inspired? by it.
What a play, as I reread and it was a youthful fave of mine too. What it
means to be human, argues one reader. A study of evil, says another.
Nihilistic, says Harold Bloom.
A parable of Jesus' mysterious teachings, says another. So many readings of
ambiguity that a famous passage is IN Empson's *Seven Types of Ambiguity. *

And there is this: a linking of mercy and grace early. Act 2 scene 2.
Isabella
"Become them with one half so good a grace/ as mercy does", in her first
pleading for her brother's life. I might argue P's grace resonates in these
lines

Angelo, whose blood is snow-broth until he desires the forbidden, who can
spare her brother's life: Act 2 scene 4:
..."Yea, my gravity/ Wherein--let no man hear me--I take pride, "

That is all.