As falcon doth the fowl,3-is yet a devil; Claud. The princely Angelo? Isab. O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell, The damned'st body to invest and cover In princely guards!5 Dost thou think, Claudio, 3 As falcon doth the fowl,] In whose presence the follies of youth are afraid to shew themselves, as the fowl is afraid to flutter while the falcon hovers over it. So, in the Third Part of King Henry VI: 66 not he that loves him best, "The proudest he that holds up Lancaster, "Dares stir a wing, if Warwick shakes his bells." To enmew is a term in falconry, also used by Beaumont and Fletcher, in The Knight of Malta: 66 I have seen him scale, "As if a falcon had run up a train, "Clashing his warlike pinions, his steel'd cuirass, "And, at his pitch, enmew the town below him." Steevens. 4 His filth within being cast,] To cast a pond is to empty it of mud. Mr. Upton reads: His pond within being cast, he would appear A filth as deep as hell. 5 The princely Angelo? Johnson. princely guards !] The stupid editors, mistaking guards for satellites, (whereas it here significs lace) altered priestly, in both places, to princely. Whereas Shakspeare wrote it priestly, as appears from the words themselves: 'Tis the cunning livery of hell, The damned'st body to invest and cover, In the first place we see that guards here signifies lace, as referring to livery, and as having no sense in the signification of satellites. Now priestly guards means sanctity, which is the sense required. But princely guards means nothing but rich lace, which is a sense the passage will not bear. Angelo, indeed, as deputy, might be called the princely Angelo: but not in this place, where the immediately preceding words of, This out-ward sainted deputy, demand the reading I have restored. Warburton. The first folio has, in both places, prenzie, from which the other folios made princely, and every editor may make what he can. Johnson. If I would yield him my virginity, Claud. O, heavens! it cannot be. Isab. Yes, he would give it thee, from this rank offence, So to offend him still: This night's the time That I should do what I abhor to name, Or else thou diest to-morrow. Claud. Isab. O, were it but my life, Thou shalt not do 't. I'd throw it down for your deliverance As frankly as a pin.7 Claud. Thanks, dear Isabel. Isab. Be ready, Claudio, for your death to-morrow. That thus can make him bite the law by the nose, Princely is the judicious correction of the second folio. Princely guards mean no more than the badges of royalty, (laced or bordered robes) which Angelo is supposed to assume during the absence of the Duke. The stupidity of the first editors is sometimes not more injurious to Shakspeare, than the ingenuity of those who succeeded them. In the old play of Cambyses I meet with the same expression. Sisamnes is left by Cambyses to distribute justice while he is absent; and in a soliloquy says: "Now may I wear the brodered garde, "And lye in downe-bed soft." Again, the queen of Cambyses says: "I do forsake these broder'd gardes, Steevens. A guard, in old language, meant a welt or border of a garment; "because (says Minshieu) it gards and keeps the garment from Bearing." These borders were sometimes of lace. So, in The Merchant of Venice: 6 Give him a livery "More guarded than his fellows:" Malone. from this rank offence,] I believe means, from the time of my committing this offence, you might persist in sinning with safety The advantages you would derive from my having such a secret of his in my keeping, would ensure you from further harm on account of the same fault, however frequently repeated. Steevens. 7 -as a pin.] So, in Hamlet: "I do not set my life at a pin's fee." Steevens, 8 Has he affections, &c.] Is he actuated by passions that imfel him to transgress the law, at the very moment that he is enforc Or of the deadly seven it is the least.9 Isab. Which is the least? Claud. If it were damnable,1 he, being so wise, Why, would he for the momentary trick Be perdurably fin'd?—() Isabe!! Isab. What says my brother? Death is a fearful thing. Isab. And shamed life a hateful. Claud. Ay, but to die, and go we know not where ; To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot: This sensible warm motion to become ing it against others? [I find, he is.] Surely then, since this is so general a propensity, since the judge is as criminal as he whom he condemns, it is no sin, or at least a venial one. So, in the next Act: "And by an eminent body that enforc'd "The law against it." Force is again used for enforce in King Henry VIII: "If you will now unite in your complaints, "And force them with a constancy." Again in Coriolanus: Why force you this?" Malone. 9 Or of the deadly seven, &c.] It may be useful to know which they are; the reader is therefore presented with the following catalogue of them, viz. Pride, Envy Wrath, Sloth, Covetousness, Gluttony, and Lechery. To recapitulate the punishments hereafter for these sins, might have too powerful an effect upon the weak nerves of the present generation; but whoever is desirous of being particularly acquainted with them, may find information in some of the old monkish systems of divinity, and especially in a curious book entitled Le Kalendrier des Bergiers, 1500, folio, of which there is an English translation. Douce. If it were damnable, &c.] Shakspeare shows his knowledge of human nature in the conduct of Claudio. When Isabella first tells him of Angelo's proposal, he answers, with honest indignation, agreeably to his settled principles, Thou shalt not dot. But the love of life being permitted to operate, soon furnishes him with sophistical arguments; he believes it cannot be very dangerous to the soul, since Angelo, who is so wise, will venture it. Johnson. 2 Be perdurably fin'd?] Perdurably is lastingly. So, in Othello: -cables of perdurable toughness." Steevens. 66 delighted spirit-] i. e. the spirit accustomed here to ease and delights. This was properly urged as an aggravation To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside The weariest and most loathed worldly life, To what we fear of death." to the sharpness of the torments spoken of. The Oxford edi tor not apprehending this, alters it to dilated. As if, because the spirit in the body is said to be imprisoned, it was crowded together likewise; and so by death not only set free, but expanded too; which, if true, would make it the less sensible of pain. Warburton. This reading may perhaps stand, but many attempts have been made to correct it. The most plausible is that which substiutes the benighted spirit, alluding to the darkness always supposed in the place of future punishment. Perhaps we may read: the delinquent spirit, a word easily changed to delighted by a bad copier, or unskilful reader. Delinquent is proposed by Thirlby in his manuscript. Johnson. I think with Dr. Warburton, that by the delighted spirit is meant, the soul once accustomed to delight, which of course must render the sufferings, afterwards described, less tolerable. Thus our author calls youth, blessed, in a former scene, before he proceeds to show its wants and inconveniences. Mr. Ritson has furnished me with a passage which I leave to those who can use it for the illustration of the foregoing epithet. "Sir Thomas Herbert, speaking of the death of Mirza, son to • Shah Abbas, says that he gave a period to his miseries in this world, by supping a delighted cup of extreame poyson.” Travels, 1634, p. 104. Steevens. 4 lawless and incertain thoughts-] Conjecture sent out to wander without any certain direction, and ranging through possibilities of pain. Johnson. 5 penury,] The old copy has-perjury. Corrected by the editor of the second folio. Malone. To what we fear of death.] Most certainly the idea of the "spirit bathing in fiery floods," or of residing "in thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice," is not original to our poet; but I Isab. Alas! alas! Claud. Sweet sister, let me live: What sin you do to save a brother's life, Isab. O, you beast! O, faithless coward! O, dishonest wretch! Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice? Is 't not a kind of incest, to take life From thine own sister's shame? What should I think? am not sure that they came from the Platonick hell of Virgil. The monks also had their hot and their cold hell; "the fyrste is fyre that ever brenneth, and never gyveth lighte,” says an old homily:—“The seconde is passying cold, that yf a greate hylle of fyre were cast therin, it shold torne to yce." One of their legends, well remembered in the time of Shakspeare, gives us a dialogue between a bishop and a soul tormented in a piece of ice which was brought to cure a brenning beate in his foot; take care, that you do not interpret this the gout, for I remember Menage quotes a canon upon us : "Si quis dixeret episcopum podagrâ laborare, anathema sit.” Another tells us of the soul of a monk fastened to a rock, which the winds were to blow about for a twelvemonth, and purge of its enormities. Indeed, this doctrine was before now introduced into poetic fiction, as you may see in a poem, "where the lover declareth his pains to exceed far the pains of hell," among the many miscellaneous ones subjoined to the works of Surrey: of which you will soon have a beautiful edition from the able hand of my friend Dr. Percy. Nay, a very learned and inquisitive brother-antiquary hath observed to me, on the authority of Blefkenius, that this was the ancient opinion of the inhabitants of Iceland, who were certainly very little read either in the poet or philosopher. Farmer. Lazarus, in The Shepherd's Calendar, is represented to have seen these particular modes of punishment in the infernal regions: 86 Secondly, I have seen in hell a floud frozen as ice, wherein the envious men and women were plunged unto the navel, and then suddainly came over them a right cold and great wind that grieved and pained them right sore," &c. Steevens. ↑ Is 't not a kind of incest,] In Isabella's declamation there is something harsh, and something forced and far-fetched. But her indignation cannot be thought violent, when we consider ber not only as a virgin, but as a nun. Johnson. |