Enter ISABELLA.

Isa. What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company! Prov. Who's there? Come in the wish deserves a

welcome.

Duke. Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again.
Clau. Most holy sir, I thank you.

Isab. My business is a word or two with Claudio.
Prov. And very welcome.-Look,

sister.

Duke. Provost, a word with you.
Prov. As many as you please.

signior, here's your

Duke. Bring them to speak, where I may be conceal'd,

Yet hear them.

[Exeunt Duke and Provost.

Clau. Now, sister, what's the comfort?

Isab. Why, as all comforts are; most good indeed : Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,

Intends you for his swift embassador,

Where you shall be an everlasting leiger:

Therefore your best appointment? make with speed: To-morrow you set on.

Clau. Is there no remedy?

Isab. None, but such remedy, as, to save a head, To cleave a heart in twain.

Clau. But is there any?

Isab. Yes, brother, you may live; There is a devilish mercy in the judge,

If you'll implore it, that will free your life,

But fetter you till death.

Clau. Perpetual durance?

Isab. Ay, just, perpetual durance; a restraint, Though all the world's vastidity you had,

To a determin'd scope.

Clau. But in what nature?

Isab. In such a one as (you consenting to't) Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear, And leave you naked.

Clau. Let me know the point.

Isab. O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake, Lest thou a feverous life should'st entertain,

And six or seven winters more respect

[7] The word appointment, on this occasion, should seem to comprehend confession, communion, and absolution.

STEEVENS.

[8] A confinement of your mind to one painful idea; to ignominy, of which the remembrance can heither be suppressed nor escaped. JOHNS.

Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die?
The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.

Clau. Why give you me this shame ?
Think you I can a resolution fetch
From flowery tenderness? If I must die,

I will encounter darkness as a bride,

And hug it in mine arms.

Isab. There spake my brother; there my father's grave Did utter forth a voice! Yes, thou must die :

Thou art too noble to conserve a life

In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,—
Whose settled visage and deliberate word

Nips youth i' the head, and follies doth enmew,
As falcon doth the fowl, 9-is yet a devil;
His filth within being cast, he would appear
A pond as deep as hell.

Clau. The princely Angelo?

Isab. O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell,
The damned'st body to invest and cover
In princely guards! Dost thou think, Claudio,
If I would yield him my virginity,

Thou might'st be freed?

Clau. 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.

Clau. Thou shalt not do't.
Isab. O, were it but my life,

I'd throw it down for your deliverance

As frankly as a pin.

Clau. Thanks, dear Isabel.

Isab. Be ready, Claudio, for your death to-morrow.
Clau. Yes. Has he affections in him,

That thus can make him bite the law by the nose,
When he would force it? Sure it is no sin;

Or of the deadly seven it is the least. 1

[9] In whose presence the follies of youth are afraid to show themselves, as the fowl is afraid to flutter while the falcon hovers over it. To enmew is a term in falconry. STEEV.

[1] It may be useful to know which they are; the reader is, there fore, presented with the following catalogue of them, viz. Pride, Envy, Wrath,

Isab. Which is the least?

Clau. If it were damnable, he, being so wise,
Why, would he for a momentary trick

Be perdurably fin'd ?2-O Isabel !3
Isab. What says my brother?

Clau. Death is a fearful thing.

Isab. And shamed life a hateful.

Clau. Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;

To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;

This sensible warm motion to become

A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts
Imagine howling 'tis too horrible !

The weariest and most loathed worldly life,
That age, ach, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise

To what we fear of death.4

İsab. Alas! alas !

Clau. Sweet sister, let me live : What sin you do to save a brother's life, Nature dispenses with the deed so far, That it becomes a virtue.

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. [2] Perdurably is lastingly. STEEVENS.

[3] 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 do't. 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.

[4] 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 am not sure that they came from the Platonic hell of Virgil. The monks also had their hot and cold hell; "the fyrste is fyre that ever bren"neth, 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 heate in his foot; take care, that you do not interpret this the gout, for I remember Menage quotes a canon upon us "Si quis dixerit episcopum podagra laborare, anathema sit." FARMER,

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?
Heaven shield my mother play'd my father fair!
For such a warped slip of wilderness

Ne'er issu'd from his blood. Take my defiance:
Die; perish! might but my bending down
Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed :
I'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,
No word to save thee.

Clau. Nay, hear me, Isabel.

Isab. O, fie, fie, fie!

Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade:

Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd:

'Tis best that thou diest quickly.

Clau. O hear me, Isabella.

Re-enter Duke.

[Going.

Duke. Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word. Isab. What is your will?

Duke. Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and by have some speech with you: the satisfaction I would require, is likewise your own benefit.

Isab. I have no superfluous leisure: my stay, must be stolen out of other affairs; but I will attend you a-while. Duke. [To CLAUDIO, aside.] Son, I have overheard what hath past between you and your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her; only he hath made an essay of her virtue, to practice his judgment with the disposition of natures: she, having the truth of honour in her, hath made him that gracious denial which he is most glad to receive: I am confessor to Angelo, and I know this to be true; therefore prepare yourself to death; Do not satisfy your resolution with hopes that are fallible: to-morrow you must die; go to your knees, and make ready.

Clau. Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love with life, that I will sue to be rid of it.

Duke. Hold you there: Farewell.

Re-enter Provost.

Provost, a word with you.

[Exit CLAU.

[5] Wilderness is here used for wildness, the state of being disorderly. STE.

Prov. What's your will, father?

Duke. That now you are come, you will be gone :Leave me a while with the maid; my mind promises with my habit, no loss shall touch her by my company. Prov. In good time. [Exit Prov.

Duke. The hand, that hath made you fair, hath made you good the goodness, that is cheap in beauty, makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of your complexion, should keep the body of it ever fair. The assault, that Angelo hath made to you, fortune hath conveyed to my understanding; and, but that frailty hath examples for his falling, I should wonder at Angelo. How would you do to content this substitute, and to save your brother?

Isab. I am now going to resolve him: I had rather my brother die by the law, than my son should be unlawfully born. But O, how much is the good duke deceived in Angelo! If ever he return, and I can speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or discover his government.

Duke. That shall not be much amiss: Yet, as the matter now stands, he will avoid your accusation; he made trial of you only.-Therefore, fasten your ear on my advisings; to the love I have in doing good, a remedy presents itself. I do make myself believe, that you may most uprighteously do a poor wronged lady a merited benefit ; redeem your brother from the angry law; do no stain to your own gracious person; and much please the absent duke, if, peradventure, he shall ever return to have hearing of this business.

Isa. Let me hear you speak further; Ihave spirit to do any thing that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit. Duke. Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have you not heard speak of Mariana, the sister of Frederick, the great soldier, who miscarried at sea?

Isab. I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.

Duke. Her should this Angelo have married; was affianced to her by cath, and the nuptial appointed: between which time of the contract, and limit of the solemnity,her brotherFrederick was wrecked at sea,having in that perish'd vessel the dowry of his sister. But mark, how heavily this befel to the poor gentlewoman: there she lost a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward her ever most kind and natural; with him the