14

Such sense, that my sense breeds with it.14

[To her.] Fare you well.

Isab. Gentle my lord, turn back.

Isab. Hark, how I'll bribe you: Good my lord, turn back.

Ang. How! bribe me?

Isab. Ay, with such gifts, that Heaven shall share with you.

Lucio. [Aside.] You had marr'd all else.

Isab. Not with fond shekels of the tested gold, Or stones, whose rates are either rich or poor As fancy values them: but with true prayers, That shall be up at heaven, and enter there, Ere sunrise; prayers from preserved souls, From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate To nothing temporal.

Ang.

To-morrow.

Well: come to me

Lucio. [Aside to ISAB.] Go to; it is well: away. Isab. Heaven keep your honour safe!

Ang.

For I am that way going to temptation,

Where

Isab.

prayers cross.1

[Aside.] Amen; 15

16

At what hour to-morrow

Shall I attend your lordship?

14 That is, such sense as breeds a response in his mind. Malone thought that sense here meant sensual desire.

15 Isabella prays that his honour may be safe, meaning only to give him his title: his mind is caught by the word honour, he feels that it is in danger, and therefore says amen to her benediction.

16 The petition of the Lord's Prayer, "Lead us not into temptation," is here considered as crossing or intercepting the way in which Angelo was going: he was exposing himself to temptation by the appointment for the morrow's meeting.

Ang.

Isab. Save your honour!

At any time 'fore noon.

[Exeunt LUCIO, ISABELLA, and Provost.

Ang. From thee; even from thy virtue ! What's this? what's this? Is this her fault, or mine?

The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most? Ha!
Not she; nor doth she tempt: but it is I,
That, lying by the violet in the sun,
Do, as the carrion does, not as the flower,
Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be,
That modesty may more betray our sense

Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough,

Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,

And pitch our evils there?" O, fie, fie, fie!
What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo ?
Dost thou desire her foully, for those things
That make her good? O, let her brother live!
Thieves for their robbery have authority,

When judges steal themselves. What! do I love her,
That I desire to hear her speak again,

And feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on?
O! cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous
Is that temptation, that doth goad us on

To sin in loving virtue: Never could the strumpet,
With all her double vigour, art and nature,
Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
Subdues me quite. - Ever, till now,

When men were fond, I smil'd, and wonder'd how! [Exit.

17 No language could more forcibly express the aggravated profligacy of Angelo's passion, which the purity of Isabella but served the more to inflame. The desecration of edifices devoted to religion, by converting them to the most abject purposes of nature, was an eastern method of expressing contempt. See 2 Kings x. 27.

SCENE III. A Room in a Prison.

Enter Duke, habited like a Friar, and Provost.

Duke. Hail to you, provost ! so, I think, you are. Prov. I am the provost : What's your will, good friar?

Duke. Bound by my charity, and my bless'd order, I come to visit the afflicted spirits

Here in the prison: do me the common right

To let me see them, and to make me know

The nature of their crimes, that I may minister
To them accordingly.

Prov. I would do more than that, if more were

needful.

Enter JULIET.

Look, here comes one; a gentlewoman of mine,
Who, falling in the flames of her own youth,
Hath blister'd her report: She is with child;
And he that got it, sentenc'd; a young man
More fit to do another such offence

Than die for this.

Duke.

When must he die?

Prov. As I do think, to-morrow.

[To JULIET.] I have provided for you: stay a while, And you shall be conducted.

Duke. Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry ? Juliet. I do; and bear the shame most patiently. Duke. I'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,

And try your penitence, if it be sound,

Or hollowly put on.

Juliet.

I'll gladly learn.

Duke. Love you the man that wrong'd you? Juliet. Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him.

Duke. So then, it seems, your most offenceful act Was mutually committed?

Juliet.

Mutually.

Duke. Then was your sin of heavier kind than

his.

Juliet. I do confess it, and repent it, father.

Duke. 'Tis meet so, daughter: But lest you do

repent,

As that the sin hath brought you to this shame, Which sorrow is always towards ourselves, not

Heaven;

Showing, we would not spare' Heaven as we love it, But as we stand in fear,

Juliet. I do repent me, as it is an evil;

And take the shame with joy.

Duke.

There rest.2

Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,
And I am going with instruction to him.-

Grace go with you! Benedicite.

[Exit.

Juliet. Must die to-morrow! O, injurious love,3

That respites me a life, whose very comfort

Is still a dying horror!

Prov.

'Tis pity of him. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV. A Room in ANGELO's House.

Enter ANGELO.

Ang. When I would pray and think, I think and pray

To several subjects: Heaven hath my empty words;

1 That is, not spare to offend Heaven.

2 That is, keep yourself in this frame of mind.

3 Sir Thomas Hanmer proposed to read law instead of love; a reading that coheres well with the Provost's reply.

H.

Whilst my invention,' hearing not my tongue,
Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth,
As if I did but only chew His name;

And in my heart, the strong and swelling evil
Of my conception. The state, whereon I studied,
Is like a good thing, being often read,

Grown sear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity,
Wherein (let no man hear me) I take pride,
Could I, with boot,3 change for an idle plume,
Which the air beats for vain. O place! O form
How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
To thy false seeming!" Blood, thou art blood!
Let's write good angel on the devil's horn,
'Tis not the devil's crest."

1 Invention for imagination. So, in Henry V.:
"O for a muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention."

2 Respecting this word, which is usually given as fear'd, it is quite remarkable that of the first folio some copies read fear'd, and others sear'd, as if the correction were made while the edition was going through the press; though which way the change ran is not altogether certain. Such a use of either word is singular enough but on the whole we prefer sear'd, as it agrees very well with the Poet's use of that word in other places. Thus, in The Comedy of Errors, Act iv. sc. 2:

"He is deformed, crooked, old, and sere,

Ill-fac'd, worse-bodied, shapeless every where."
And again, in the well-known passage in Macbeth:
"I have liv'd long enough; my way of life
Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf."

So, also, in Spenser's Shepherd's Calender, January :
"All so my lustfull leafe is drie and sere,

My timely buds with wayling all are wasted."

3 Boot is profit.

H.

4 Shakespeare judiciously distinguishes the different operations of high place upon different minds. Fools are frighted and wise men allured. Those who cannot judge but by the eye are easily awed by splendour; those who consider men as well as conditions, are easily persuaded to love the appearance of virtue dignified with power.

5 The crest was often emblematic of something in the wearer,