"Measure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, written around 1603 or 1604, and first published in 1623, in the First Folio. It was originally classified as a comedy, but is now also classified as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. The main source of the play is George Whetstone's 1578 lengthy two-part closet drama Promos and Cassandra. Whetstone took the story from Cinthio's Hecatommithi, and Shakespeare seems to have consulted the Cinthio story as well as a dramatization of the story by Cinthio. It was in Cinthio that Shakespeare discovered the story he would adapt for his next play, Othello."