Spiders' Strings and Ponderous Things: Solving a Crux in Measure for Measure

eorge T. Wright notes that "The fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the witches in Macbeth, the caskets in The Merchant of Venice, and several speakers of Epilogues and Prologues sig nal their peculiar status (at least part of the time) through tetrameter couplets."1 Missing from this catalog is the Duke's final speech in act 3 of Measure for Measure. Wfhether one considers it a "sententious" speech as Edward Capell would have it, a "chorus summarising the drama's import" as Alfred Thiselton writes, or a "finale to an act full of sur prises" according to J. W. Lever,2 it is in keeping with the marking of the Duke's special status in the play. In addition to the rhyming tetrameters, Brindsley Nicholson notes "the close connection of each thought with that which precedes it"; he also notes "the shortness of each clause? each, with one exception, ending with the couplet."3 This adds to the sententiousness of verse, as if we are being treated to a stream of adages by the Duke. The exception that Nicholson refers to occurs at the same point as a celebrated crux. Nicholson believes this is no accident and posits a missing couplet, which ushers in two clauses of three lines each in contrast to the preceding two-line clauses. I agree with Nicholson that the change in clause length and the crux are related, but I believe there is an easier explanation. Let us examine the speech as it reads in the First Folio (3.2.243-64, by Carl D. Atkins