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Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,
Could fetch your brother from the manacles
Of the all-binding law; and that there were
No earthly mean to save him, but that either
You must lay down the treasures of your body
To this supposed, or else let him suffer;
What would you do?

Isab. As much for my poor brother, as myself:
That is, Were I under the terms of death,
The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death, as to a bed

That longing I have been sick for, ere I'd yield
My body up to shame.

Ang.

Then must your brother die.

Isab. And 'twere the cheaper way: Better it were, a brother died at once, Than that a sister, by redeeming him,

Should die for ever.

Ang. Were not you then as cruel as the sentence That you have slander'd so?

Isab. Ignomy in ransom,' 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

A merriment than a vice.

your brother

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,

8

If not a feodary, but only he,

7 Ignomy in ransom,] So ignominy was formerly written.

8

If not a feodary, but only he, &c.] The meaning should seem

Owe, and succeed by weakness.

Ang.

Nay, women are frail too. Isab. Ay, as the glasses where they view them

selves;

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 soft as our complexions are,

And credulous to false prints.1

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;

If

you be one, (as you are well express'd

By all external warrants,) show it now,

By putting on the destin❜d livery.

İsal. I have no tongue but one: gentle my lord, Let me intreat you speak the former language. Ang. Plainly conceive, I love you.

Isal. My brother did love Juliet; and

That he shall die for it.

you

tell me,

Ang. He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love. Isab. I know, your virtue hath a licence in't,2

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,

to be this :-We are all frail, says Angelo. Yes, replies Isabella; if he has not one associate in his crime, if no other person own and follow the same criminal courses which you are now pursuing, let my brother suffer death. MALONE.

9 In profiting by them.] In taking advantage of them.

1

false prints.] i. e. take any impression.

hath a licence in't,] an appearance of licentiousness.

And most pernicious purpose!-Seeming, seem

ing!3

I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't:
Sign me a present pardon for my brother,

Or, with an outstretch'd throat, I'll tell the world
Aloud, what man thou art.

Ang. Who will believe thee, Isabel? My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life, My vouch against you, and my place i'the state, Will so your accusation overweigh,

That shall stifle in your own report,

you

And smell of calumny. I have begun;

And now I give my sensual race the rein:
Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;
Lay by all nicety, and prolixious blushes,

That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother
By yielding up thy body to my will;

Or else he must not only die the death,

But thy unkindness shall his death draw out
To lingering sufferance: answer me to-morrow,
Or, by the affection that now guides me most,
I'll prove a tyrant to him: As for you,

Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true.
[Exit.
Isab. To whom shall I complain? Did I tell this,
Who would believe me? O perilous mouths,
That bear in them one and the self-same tongue,
Either of condemnation or approof!

Bidding the law make court'sy to their will;
Hooking both right and wrong to the appetite,
To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother:

Though he hath fallen by prompture of the blood,
Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour,

That had he twenty heads to tender down

3

Seeming, seeming!] Hypocrisy, hypocrisy.

prompture-] Suggestion, temptation, instigation.

On twenty bloody blocks, he'd yield them up,
Before his sister should her body stoop

To such abhorr'd pollution.

Then Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:
More than our brother is our chastity.

I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,

And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest. [Exit.

ACT II.

SCENE I. A Room in the Prison.

Enter Duke, CLAUDIO, and Provost.

Duke. So, then you hope of pardon from lord Angelo?

Claud. The miserable have no other medicine, 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.

life,

Reason thus with

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;
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,

And yet run'st toward him still: Thou art not noble;
For all the accommodations that thou bear'st,

Are nurs'd by baseness: Thou art by no means valiant;

For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork
Of a poor worm: Thy best of rest is sleep,

› That none but fools would keep:] i. e. care for.

And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thy-
self;

For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains
That issue out of dust: Happy thou art not:
For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get;
And what thou hast, forget'st: Thou art not cer-
tain;

For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,"
After the moon: If thou art rich, thou art poor;
For, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee: Friend hast thou none;
For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,

8

Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,
For ending thee no sooner: Thou hast nor youth,
nor age;

But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,
Dreaming on both: for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms

Of palsied eld; and when thou art old, and rich,

6 Thy best of rest is sleep,

And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st

Thy death, which is no more.] I cannot without indignation find Skakspeare saying, that death is only sleep, lengthening out his exhortation by a sentence which in the Friar is impious, in the reasoner is foolish, and in the poet trite and vulgar. JOHNSON.

This was an oversight in Shakspeare; for in the second scene of the fourth Act, the Provost speaks of the desperate Barnardine, as one who regards death only as a drunken sleep. STEEVENS.

I apprehend Shakspeare means to say no more, than that the passage from this life to another is as easy as sleep; a position in which there is surely neither folly nor impiety. MALONE.

7

8

9

strange effects,] read affects or affections.
serpigo,] The serpigo is a kind of tetter.

· palsied eld;] Eld is here put for old people. Skakspeare declares that man has neither youth nor age; for in youth, which is the happiest time, or which might be the happiest, he commonly wants means to obtain what he could enjoy; he is depen

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