Measure for Measure is known to have been performed by Shakespeare's company at the Court of James I on December 26, 1604. It is generally presumed to have been written in the same year. The earliest printed text appeared in the First Folio, published in 1623. Confusions and imperfections in that text suggest that errors may have been made in transcription, and further, that the play may have undergone revision at some time prior to its first printing.
The basic plot which Shakespeare employed in Measure for Measure was not new to that play. Its ultimate source was a historical incident supposed to have occurred near Milan in 1547. A young wife prostituted herself to save her condemned husband. The magistrate who had forced the woman to yield to him proceeded to execute her husband. He was eventually made to marry the widow and was then put to death himself for his crime against her.
This incident was probably the basis of a story by Giraldi Cinthio, published in 1565 as the eighty-fifth novel in his Hecatommithi. The same plot was also put to use in Cinthio's Epitia, a dramatic version which appeared in 1583, some ten years after the death of its author. In 1578, after Cinthio's death, but before the publication of his dramatic version, George Whetstone, an English dramatist, wrote his Promos and Cassandra, using Cinthio as his source. The play was never performed, but a story based on it was included in 1582, as a tale in Whetstone's Heptameron of Civill Discourses.
Shakespeare probably was aware of all four of Cinthio's and Whetstone's versions of the basic plot. He may also have known of the original true incident and of other similar, supposed historic situations on record. However, Shakespeare departed from his sources in several areas. In considering Measure for Measure, it is important to be aware of the source versions and the changes Shakespeare made in adapting the plot for his own purposes.
