“O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!” (Measure For Measure, act 3, sc. 2)
Tips for use. A pointed comment on hypocrisy and hypocrites and generally on deceptive or false appearances. The word hypocrisy is of Greek derivation, hypokrisis, “acting on the stage, pretense”. Describing a European country in 1938 a French writer wrote, “Hypocrisy is the art of affecting qualities for the purpose of pretending to an undeserved virtue. Because individuals and institutions and societies most often live down to the suspicions about them, hypocrisy and its accompanying equivocations underpin the conduct of life. Imagine how frightful truth unvarnished would be.” Jump ahead 75 years. The weapons of mass destructions in Iraq? The AlQaeda in Afghanistan who hatched 9/11 whereas today the same AlQaeda fights for the Americans (read Wall Street and the Military-Industrial complex)? The “humanitarian” interventions in Lybia, Serbia, Granada, Vietnam etc. etc. Millions of dead “to save democracy”. “Imagine how frightful truth unvarnished would be” – a hint of how frightful it appears can be observed in the obsessive pursuit of Julian Assange, of Wikileaks and of whoever dares poke holes into the fabric of evil. Just like Isabella saw through the wiles of the ‘exemplary’ Angelo in Measure for Measure.
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In the play. The Duke makes some general considerations about power, corruption and hypocrisy, arising from the behavior of Angelo.
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