Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,
Making both it unable for itself,

And dispossessing all the other parts

Of necessary fitness ?

So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;
Come all to help him, and so stop the air

By which he should revive and even so
The general, subject to a well-wish'd king,
Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence.

Enter ISABELLA.

How now, fair maid ?

Isab.

Ang. That

I am come to know your pleasure. you might know it, would much better please me,

Than to demand what 'tis.

Your brother cannot

live.

such, for example, as his ancestral name. "The devil's horn" is "the devil's crest; " but if we write "good angel" on it, the emblem is overlooked in the "false seeming; "" we think it is not the devil's horn, because itself tells us otherwise.

H.

6 That is, the people or multitude subject to a king. So, in Hamlet: "The play pleased not the million; 'twas caviare to the general." It is supposed that Shakespeare, in this passage, and in one before, Act i. sc. 2, intended to flatter the unkingly weakness of James I., which made him so impatient of the crowds which flocked to see him, at his first coming, that he restrained them by a proclamation.

Isab. Even so?-Heaven keep your honour!

[Retiring. Ang. Yet he live awhile; and it may be, As long as you, or I: Yet he must die.

may

Isab. Under your sentence?

Ang. Yea.

Isab. When, I beseech you? that in his reprieve, Longer, or shorter, he may be so fitted,

That his soul sicken not.

Ang. Ha! Fie, these filthy vices!

good

It were as

To pardon him, that hath from nature stolen

A man already made,' as to remit

Their saucy sweetness, that do coin Heaven's image
In stamps that are forbid: 'tis all as easy
Falsely to take away a life true made,
As to put mettle in restrained means,
To make a false one.

Isab. 'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.
Ang. Say you so? then I shall pose you quickly.
Which had you rather, that the most just law
Now took your brother's life; or, to redeem him,
Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness,
As she that he hath stain'd?

Isab.

Sir, believe this,

I had rather give my body than my soul.9

Ang. I talk not of your soul: Our compell'd sins Stand more for number than accompt.'

7 That is, that hath killed a man.

10

The thought is simply, that murder is as easy as fornication; and the inference which Angelo would draw is, that it is as improper to pardon the latter as the former.

9 Isabel appears to use the words "give my body" in a different sense than Angelo. Her meaning appears to be, "I had rather die than forfeit my eternal happiness by the prostitution of my person."

10 That is, actions that we are compelled to, however numer. ous, are not imputed to us by Heaven as crimes.

Isab.

How say you?

Ang. Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak Against the thing I say. Answer to this:

I, now the voice of the recorded law,
Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life:
Might there not be a charity in sin,

To save this brother's life?

Isab.

Please you to do't,

I'll take it as a peril to my soul:

It is no sin at all, but charity.

Ang. Pleas'd you to do't, at peril of your soul, Were equal poise of sin and charity.

Isab. That I do beg his life, if it be sin, Heaven, let me bear it! you granting of my suit, If that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer

To have it added to the faults of mine,

And nothing of your answer.

Ang.

Nay, but hear me:

Your sense pursues not mine: either you are igno

rant,

Or seem so, craftily; and that's not good.

Isab. Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, But graciously to know I am no better.

11

Ang. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright, When it doth tax itself: as these black masks Proclaim an enshield 12 beauty ten times louder Than beauty could displayed. — But mark me: To be received plain, I'll speak more gross: Your brother is to die.

Isab. So.

11 The masks worn by female spectators of the play are here probably meant. At the beginning of Romeo and Juliet, we have a passage of similar import :

"These happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows,

Being black, put us in mind they hide the fair."

12 That is, enshielded, covered.

Ang. And his offence is so, as it appears
Accountant to the law upon that pain.
Isab. True.

Ang. Admit no other way to save his life, (As I subscribe not that, nor any other,

But in the loss of question,13) that you, his sister,
Finding yourself desir'd of such a person,
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 suppos'd, or else to 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 long I have been sick for, ere I'd yield
My body up to shame.

Then must your brother die.

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

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 your brother

A merriment than a vice.

13 That is, conversation that tends to nothing.
14 Ignomy, ignominy.

Isab. O pardon me, my lord! it oft falls out, To have what we would 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. 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.16 Nay, call us ten times frail; For we are soft as our complexions are,

And credulous to false prints."

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

15 A very obscure passage. The original reads, thy weakness, which fairly defies explanation. The word this adopted by Mr. Collier from an old manuscript note in a copy of the first folio belonging to Lord Francis Egerton. With this change, the pas. sage, though still obscure, makes good sense enough: "If we are not all frail,- if my brother have no feodary, that is, no companion, one holding by the same tenure of frailty,- if he alone be found to own and succeed to this weakness, then let him die."

H.

16 The meaning appears to be, that men debase their natures by taking advantage of women's weakness. She therefore calls on Heaven to assist them.

17 That is, impressions,