Nevada and most of the rest of the country went their separate ways decades ago when it comes to prostitution. And Shakespeare looks at the issue in Measure for Measure in a comic conversation between Escalus, an advisor to the Duke of Vienna, and Pompey, who is a pimp.  Shakespeare devotes the entire play to the question of how a society that has become sexually decadent can reform itself. Naturally, he chooses Vienna as the setting. What is it about Vienna? It was Freud’s city as well, after all, where just 300 years later he found quite a lot to write about, largely in an erotic vein, after treating the young middle class women of the city for a range of neurotic symptoms.

In Measure for Measure, Escalus, an eminent elder of the society, is questioning Pompey, a tapster, or bartender, who works in a bawdy house and who augments his income by soliciting trade for the women employed there:

Escalus: “So. What trade are you of, sir?”
Pompey: “Tapster; a poor widow’s tapster.”
Escalus: “Your mistress’ name?”
Pompey: “Mistress Overdone.”
Escalus: “Hath she had any more than one husband?”
Pompey: “Nine, sir; Overdone by the last.”

An irresistible joke, and as usual, Shakespeare does not resist, though there is no mention of whether she was overdone by any of the others. Certainly the bawdy house she managed was the source of more at least fictional mirth than the strip mall massage parlor that NFL coach Robert Kraft visited.

We would like a healthier culture where such things happen less often. But are criminal charges and punishments the answer? Let’s see what Shakespeare says.

Ah, but first we have another joke about Pompey to work through. We learn that he has a large behind, and we already know that he is named after a great Roman general, often called Pompey the Great, who attempted a rebellion and was defeated by Caesar. Let’s continue:

Escalus: “What’s your name, Master tapster?”
Pompey: “Pompey.”
Escalus: “What else?”
Pompey: “Bum, sir.”
Escalus: “Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you;
so that in the beastliest sense you are Pompey the
Great.”

Escalus goes on, drawing an admission from Pompey that he does in fact work as a bawd:

Escalus: “Pompey, you are partly a bawd, Pompey,
howsoever you color it in being a tapster, are you
not? come, tell me true: it shall be the better for you.”

Pompey: “Truly, sir, I am a poor fellow that would live.”

Escalus: “How would you live, Pompey? By being a bawd? What
do you think of the trade, Pompey? is it a lawful trade?”

Pompey: “If the law would allow it, sir.”

Escalus: “But the law will not allow it, Pompey; nor it shall
not be allowed in Vienna.”

Pompey gives voice to those who would treat the matter through the reformation of culture, rather than via law enforcement:

Pompey: “Does your worship mean to geld and splay all the
youth of the city?”

Escalus: “No, Pompey.”

Pompey: “Truly, sir, in my poor opinion, they will to’t then.
If your worship will take order for the drabs and
the knaves, you need not to fear the bawds….”

Escalus, and his current incarnation in our present-day district attorneys, so far are taking a different course.

Escalus: “Thank you, good Pompey… I advise you, let me not find
you before me again upon any complaint whatsoever;
no, not for dwelling where you do: if I do, Pompey,
I shall beat you to your tent, and prove a shrewd
Caesar to you; in plain dealing, Pompey, I shall
have you whipt: so, for this time, Pompey, fare you well.”

 

I write this blog because the classics, and Shakespeare chief among them, can keep us connected to the highest and best in Western culture, and because modern life can reveal richer meanings when it’s seen through a Shakespearean lens. Hope you enjoyed!