Shall thereby be the sweeter.

Reason thus with life,

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

That none but fools would keep3: 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,

6

And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;
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 certain :
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,7
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,

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

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 Shakspeare 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 strange effects,] read affects or affections.

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,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this,
That bears the name of life? Yet in this life
Lie hid more thousand deaths: yet death we fear,
That makes these odds all even.

Claud.

I humbly thank you.

To sue to live, I find, I seek to die;

And, seeking death, find life: Let it come on.

8

9

Enter ISABELLA.

Isab. 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.

Claud. Most holy sir, I thank you.

Isab. My business is a word or two with Claudio. Prov. And very welcome. Look, signior, here's your sister.

serpigo,] The serpigo is a kind of tetter.

palsied eld;] Eld is here put for old people. Shakspeare 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 dependent on palsied eld; must beg alms from the coffers of hoary avarice; and being very niggardly supplied, becomes as aged, looks, like an old man, on happiness which is beyond his reach. And, when he is old and rich, when he has wealth enough for the purchase of all that formerly excited his desires, he has no longer the powers of enjoy

ment.

has neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty, To make his riches pleasant.

Duke. Provost, a word with you.

Prov.

As many as you please.

Duke. Bring them to speak+; where I may be con

ceal'd,

Yet hear them.

Claud.

[Exeunt Duke and Provost.

Now, sister, what's the comfort?

Isab. Why, as all comforts are; most good in deed:1 Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,

Intends you for his swift embassador,

Where you shall be an everlasting leiger:

2

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

Claud.

Is there no remedy?

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

Claud.

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.

Claud.

Perpetual durance?

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

To a determin'd scope. 3

Claud.

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.

+ "Bring me to hear them speak.”

1

2

most good in deed:] ie. truly.

an everlasting leiger:

MALONE.

Therefore your best appointment] Leiger is the same with resident. Appointment; preparation; act of fitting, or state of being fitted for any thing.

To a determin'd scope.] A confinement of your mind to one painful idea; to ignominy, of which the remembrance can neither be suppressed nor escaped. JOHNSON.

Claud.

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
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.

Claud.

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 is yet a devil;

5

His filth within being cast, he would appear
A pond as deep as hell.

Claud.

The princely Angelo? Isab. O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell,

The damned'st body to invest and cover

In princely guards!7 Dost thou think, Claudio,
If I would yield him my virginity,

Thou might'st be freed?

4

Claud.

O, heavens! it cannot be.

-follies doth enmew,] Forces follies to lie in cover, without daring to show themselves.

5 As falcon doth the fowl-] as the fowl is afraid to flutter while the falcon hovers over it.

6 His filth within being cast,] To cast a pond is to empty it of mud. 7 - princely guards!] i. e. badges of royalty, or outward appearances. Some would read priestly guards, or sanctity.

Isab. Yes, he would give it thee, from this rank offence, 8

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.

Isab. Be ready, Claudio, for your death to-morrow. Claud. 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.

Isab. Which is the least?

Claud. If it were damnable, he, being so wise, Why, would he for the momentary trick

Be perdurably fin'd?? — O Isabel!

Isab. What says my brother?
Claud.

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

A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit 1
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, 2
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst-
Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts

8 from this rank offence,] from the time of my committing this offence, you might persist in sinning with safety.

9 Be perdurably fin'd?] Perdurably is lastingly.

1

· delighted spirit —] i. e. the spirit accustomed here to ease and delights.