Lucio. I grant; as there may between the lists and the velvet: Thou art the list. 1 Gent. And thou the velvet thou art good velvet; thou art a three-pil'd piece, I warrant thee: I had as lief be a list of an English kersey, as be pil'd, as thou art pil'd, for a French velvet.3 Do I speak feelingly now? Lucio. I think thou dost; and, indeed, with most painful feeling of thy speech: I will, out of thine own confession, learn to begin thy health; but, whilst I live, forget to drink after thee. 1 Gent. I think I have done myself wrong, have 1 not? 2 Gent. Yes, that thou hast, whether thou art tainted or free. Lucio. Behold, behold, where madam Mitigation comes! I have purchas'd as many diseases under her roof as come to 2 Gent. To what, I Lucio. Judge. 2 Gent. To three thousand dollars a-year.* 1 Gent. Ay, and more. Lucio. A French crown more. 1 Gent. Thou art always figuring diseases in me: but thou art full of error; I am sound. Lucio. Nay, not as one would say, healthy; but so sound as things that are hollow thy bones are hollow; impiety has made a feast of thee. 3 A quibble upon piled and pilled. Velvet was esteemed according to the richness of the pile; three-pil'd was the richest. But Pil'd also means bald. The jest alludes to the loss of hair in the French disease. Lucio, finding the Gentleman understands the distemper so well, and mentions it so feelingly, promises to remember to drink his health, but to forget to drink after him. In old times the cup of an infected person was thought to be contagious. 4 A quibble upon dollar and dolour. It occurs again in The Tempest, Act ii. sc. 1. H. Enter Bawd. 1 Gent. How now? Which of your hips has the most profound sciatica? Bawd. Well, well; there's one yonder arrested, and carried to prison, was worth five thousand of you all. 1 Gent. Who's that, I pray thee? Bawd. Marry, sir, that's Claudio; signior Claudio. 1 Gent. Claudio to prison! 'tis not so. Bawd. Nay, but I know 'tis so: I saw him arrested; saw him carried away; and, which is more, within these three days his head's to be chopp'd off. Lucio. But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so: Art thou sure of this? Bawd. I am too sure of it; and it is for getting madam Julietta with child. Lucio. Believe me, this may be: he promis'd to meet me two hours since; and he was ever precise in promise-keeping. 2 Gent. Besides, you know, it draws something near to the speech we had to such a purpose. 1 Gent. But, most of all, agreeing with the proclamation. Lucio. Away: let's go learn the truth of it. [Exeunt LUCIO and Gentlemen. Bawd. Thus, what with the war, what with the 5 sweat, what with the gallows, and what with poverty, I am custom-shrunk. How now? what's the news with you? 5 The sweat; the consequences of the curative process then used for a certain disease. Enter Clown. Clo. Yonder man is carried to prison. Bawd. Well: what has he done? Clo. A woman. Bawd. But what's his offence? Clo. Groping for trouts in a peculiar river. Bawd. What! is there a maid with child by him? Clo. No; but there's a woman with maid by him: You have not heard of the proclamation, have you? Bawd. What proclamation, man? Clo. All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be pluck'd down. Bawd. And what shall become of those in the city? Clo. They shall stand for seed: they had gone down too, but that a wise burgher put in for them. Bawd. But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be pull'd down? Clo. To the ground, mistress. Bawd. Why, here's a change, indeed, in the commonwealth! What shall become of me? Clo. Come, fear not you; good counsellors lack no clients though you change your place, you need not change your trade; I'll be your tapster still. Courage! there will be pity taken on you: you that have worn your eyes almost out in the service, you will be considered. Bawd. What's to do here, Thomas Tapster? Let's withdraw. 6 In one of the Scotch Laws of James it is ordered, "that common women be put at the utmost endes of townes, queire least peril of fire is."— It is remarkable that the licensed houses of resort at Vienna are at this time all in the suburbs, under the permission of the Committee of Chastity. Clo. Here comes signior Claudio, led by the provost to prison; and there's madam Juliet. SCENE III. The Same. [Exeunt. Enter Provost,' CLAUDIO, JULIET, and Officers; LUCIO, and two Gentlemen. Claud. Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to the world? Bear me to prison where I am committed. Claud. Thus can the demi-god, Authority, Make us pay down for our offence by weight. The words of Heaven;- on whom it will, it will; On whom it will not, so; yet still 'tis just.2 Lucio. Why, how now, Claudio? whence comes this restraint? Claud. From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty: As surfeit is the father of much fast, So every scope by the immoderate use 1 Provost was anciently used for principal or president of any establishment. Here it means jailer. H. 2 Authority, being absolute in Angelo, is finely styled by Claudio the demigod, whose decrees are as little to be questioned as the words of Heaven. The poet alludes to a passage in St. Paul's Epist. to the Romans, ch. ix. v. 15-18: "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." 3 To ravin is to devour voraciously. from the same original. Ravenous is still in use, 4 So, in Chapman's Revenge for Honour : "Like poison'd rats, which, when they've swallowed The pleasing bane, rest not until they drink, And can rest then much less, until they burst." н. Lucio. If I could speak so wisely under an arrest, I would send for certain of my creditors: And yet, to say the truth, I had as lief have the foppery of freedom, as the morality of imprisonment. - What's thy offence, Claudio? Claud. What but to speak of would offend again. Lucio. What is it? murder? Claud. No. Lucio. Lechery? Claud. Call it so. Prov. Away, sir: you must go. with you. - Lucio, a word [Takes him aside. Lucio. A hundred, if they'll do you any good. Is lechery so look'd after? Claud. Thus stands it with me: contract, Upon a true I got possession of Julietta's bed: 5 Of outward order: this we came not to, 6 5 To denounce was sometimes used in the sense of to publish, proclaim, or announce, a thing. Thus in Holinshed and others we have the phrase, "denouncing of war." So, also, in Raleigh's History of the World: "But Gracchus's soldiers, which were all, in a manner, the late armed slaves, had received from their general a peremptory denunciation, that, this day, or never, they must purchase their liberty, bringing every man, for price thereof, an enemy's head." H. 6 A very singular and obscure use of propagation. The word, however, is derived from the Greek mayw, пnyvvμi, to fix; and Richardson says, that "in the methods of propagating trees described by Pliny, one is, when the twigs or branches are fixed in the earth; these branches, when rooted, are severed from the parent stock, and thus the tree multiplied." So that the sense of propagation in the text may be the fixing or securing of a dower. Or the word may be used in the more common sense of to continue, to prolong, or extend the duration of; as in Chapman's |