Better it were, a brother died at once, Ang. Were not you then as cruel as the sentence Isab. Ignomy in ransom,4 and free pardon, Are of two houses: lawful mercy is Nothing akin to foul redemption. Ang. You seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant ; And rather prov'd the sliding of your brother A merriment than a vice. Isab. O, pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out, To have what we'd have, we speak not what we mean: I something do excuse the thing I hate, For his advantage that I dearly love. Ang. We are all frail. Isab. Else let my brother die, If not a feodary, 5 but only he, Ang. Nay, women are frail too. Isab. Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves; Which are as easy broke as they make forms. Women!-Help heaven! men their creation mar In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail ; For we are as soft as our complexions are, And credulous to false prints. Ang. I think it well: And from this testimony of your own sex, (Since, I suppose, we are made to be no stronger Than faults may shake our frames) let me be bold ; I do arrest your words; Be that you are, That is, a woman; if you be more, you're none : REED. [4] Ignomy-So the word ignominy was formerly written. [5] This is so obscure, but the allusion so fine, that it deserves to be explained. A feodary was one that in the times of vassalage held lands of the chief lord, under the tenure of paying rent and service: which tenures were called feuda amongst the Goths. Now,' says Angelo, we are all frail ;' Yes,' replies Isabella, if all mankind were not feodaries, who owe what they are to this tenure of imbecility, and who succeed each other by the same tenure, as well as my brother, I would give him up.' The comparing mankind, lying under the weight of original sin, to a feodary, who owes suit and service to his lord, is, I think, not ill imagined. JOHNSON. [6] To owe is, in this place, to cwn, to hold, to have possession. JOHNS. [7] Her meaning is, that "men debase their nature by taking advantage of such weak pitiful creatures."-Edin. Mag. Nov. 1806. STEEV. By putting on the destin❜d livery. Isab. I have no tongue but one: gentle my lord, Let me intreat you speak the former language. Ang. Plainly conceive, I love you. tell me, Isab. My brother did love Juliet; and you That he shall die for it. Ang. He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love. Isab. I know, your virtue hath a licence in't, Which seems a little fouler than it is, To pluck on others. Ang. Believe me, on mine honour, My words express my purpose. Isab. Ha little honour to be much believ❜d, And most pernicious purpose!-Seeming, seeming !9- Or, with an outstretch'd throat, I'll tell the world Ang. Who will believe thee, Isabel; My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life, That you And now I give my sensual race the rein : That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother Or else he must not only die the death, But thy unkindness shall his death draw out I'll prove a tyrant to him: As for you, Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true. [Exit. [8] Alluding to the licences given by ministers to their spies, to go into Bidding the law make court'sy to their will; Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die : And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest. ACT III. SCENE I-A Room in the Prison. CLAUDIO, and Provost. Duke. [Exit. Enter Duke, SO, then you hope of pardon from lord Angelo ? But only hope : I have hope to live, and am prepar❜d to die. Duke. Be absolute for death; either death, or life, Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life,- If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That none but fools would keep a breath thou art, (Servile to all the skiey influences,) That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st, Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool; And yet runn'st toward him still: Thou art not noble ; Are nurs'd by baseness: Thou art by no means valiant; For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork [1] Dr. Warburton is undoubtedly mistaken in supposing that by baseness is meant self-love, here assigned as the motive of all human actions. Shakspeare only meant to observe, that a minute analysis of life at once destroys that splendour which dazzles the imagination. Whatever grandeur can display, or luxury enjoy, is procured by baseness, by offices of which the mind shrinks from the contemplation. All the delicacies of the table may be traced back to the shambles and the dunghill, all magnificence of building was hewn from the quarry, and all the pomp of ornament dug from among the damps and darkness of the mine. JOHNSON. Of a poor worm :2 Thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st That issue out of dust: Happy thou art not: After the moon :4 If thou art rich, thou art poor; And death unloads thee: Friend hast thou none; Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum, For ending thee no sooner: Thou hast nor youth,nor age; Of palsied eld: and when thou art old, and rich, Clau. I humbly thank you. To sue to live, I find, I seek to die ; And, seeking death, find life: Let it come on. [2] Worm is put for any creeping thing or serpent. Shakspeare supposes falsely, but according to the vulgar notion, that a serpent wounds with his tongue, and that his tongue is forked. He confounds reality and fiction; a serpent's tongue is soft, but not forked nor hurtful. If it could hurt, it could not be soft. JOHNSON.Shakspeare mentions the "adder's fork" in Macbeth; and might have caught this idea from old tapestries or paintings, in which the tongues of serpents and dragons always appear barbed like the point of an arrow. STEEVENS. [3] Thou art perpetually repaired and renovated by external assistance, thou subsistest upon foreign matter, and hast no power of producing or con. tinuing thy own being. JOHNSON. [4] For effects read affects; that is, affections, passions of mind, or disor. ders of body variously affected. JOHNSON. [5] This is exquisitely imagined. When we are young, we busy ourselves in forming schemes for succeeding time, and miss the gratifications that are before us; when we are old, we amuse the languor of age with the recollection of youthful pleasures or performances; so that our life, of which no part is filled with the business of the present time, resembles our dreams after dinner, when the events of the morning are mingled with the designs of the evening. JOHNSON. [6] Eld is generally used for old age, decrepitude. It is here put for old people, persons worn with years. STEVEENS. |