ABSTRACT
The indistinction is the necessary precondition to savagery. As it happens, the perils of being rendered indistinct are actually of ancient provenance. With the fate of Pentheus this chapter focuses on the disruptive potential of indistinction as it figures in two Renaissance plays, William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure and John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. Both Measure for Measure and 'Tis Pity She's a Whore anticipate a type of suppressive governmental authority. Civilization and Its Discontents proves especially relevant to understanding the Renaissance because it evinces the ecophobic tendencies that Simon C. Estok has mapped out with precision in various Renaissance texts. The biblical connotations of "measure for measure" have been cogently outlined by Paul N. Siegel, and G. Wilson Knight also discerns in the play the "ethical standards of the Gospels". The retaliatory theme in Measure for Measure is activated by the disguise motif, as the Duke anonymously moves among his subjects in order best to monitor them.
