At our more leisure shall I render you;
Only, this one:-Lord Angelo is precise;
Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses
That his blood flows, or that his appetite

Is more to bread than stone: Hence shall we see, If power change purpose, what our seemers be.

SCENE V.

A Nunnery.

Enter ISABELLA and FRANCISCA.

[Exeunt,

Isab. And have you nuns no further privileges? Fran. Are not these large enough?

Isab. Yes, truly: I speak not as desiring more; But rather wishing a more strict restraint

Upon the sister-hood, the votarists of saint Clare. Lucio. Ho! Peace be in this place! [Within.

Isab.

Who's that which calls? Fran. It is a man's voice: Gentle Isabella, Turn you the key, and know his business of him; You may, I may not; you are yet unsworn: When you have vow'd, you must not speak with

men,

But in the presence of the prioress:

Then, if you speak, you must not show your face;
Or, if you show your face, you must not speak.
He calls again; I pray you answer him.

[Exit FRANCISCA. Isab. Peace and prosperity! Who is't that calls?

Enter LUCIO.

Lucio. Hail, virgin, if you be; as those cheek

roses

* Stands at a guard-] Stands on his defence.

Proclaim you are no less! Can you so stead me,
As bring me to the sight of Isabella,

A novice of this place, and the fair sister
To her unhappy brother Claudio?

Isab. Why her unhappy brother? let me ask;
The rather, for I now must make you know
I am that Isabella, and his sister.

Lucio. Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you:

Not to be weary with you, he's in prison.

Isab. Woe me! For what?

Lucio. For that, which if myself might be his judge,

He should receive his punishment in thanks:
He hath got his friend with child.

Isab. Sir, make me not your story.
Lucio.

It is true.

I would not-though 'tis my familiar sin
With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest,
Tongue far from heart,-play with all virgins so:
I hold you as a thing ensky'd, and sainted;
By your renouncement, an immortal spirit;
And to be talk'd with in sincerity,

As with a saint.

Isab. You do blaspheme the good, in mocking

me.

Lucio. Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, 'tis thus:

5

make me not your story.] Perhaps, Do not divert yourself with me, as you would with a story; but Mr. MALONE thinks we ought to read,-Sir, mock me not:-your story.

6

'tis my familiar sin

With maids to seem the lapwing,] The modern editors have not taken in the whole similitude here: they have taken notice of the lightness of a spark's behaviour to his mistress, and compared it to the lapwing's hovering and fluttering as it flies. But the chief, of which no notice is taken, is,-" —and to jest." [See Ray's Proverbs.] "The lapwing cries, tongue far from heart;" i.e. most farthest from the nest.

Your brother and his lover have embrac'd:
As those that feed grow full; as blossoming time,
That from the seedness the bare fallow brings
To teeming foison; even so her plenteous womb
Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.

İsab. Some one with child by him?-My cousin
Juliet?

Lucio. Is she your cousin?

Isab. Adoptedly; as school-maids change their

names,

By vain though apt affection.

Lucio.

Isab. O, let him marry her!
Lucio.

She it is.

This is the point. The duke is very strangely gone from hence; Bore many gentlemen, myself being one, In hand, and hope of action: but we do learn By those that know the very nerves of state, His givings out were of an infinite distance From his true-meant design. Upon his place, And with full line of his authority, Governs lord Angelo: a man, whose blood very snow-broth; one who never feels The wanton stings and motions of the sense; But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge With profits of the mind, study and fast. He (to give fear to use' and liberty,

Is

Which have, for long, run by the hideous law,
As mice by lions,) hath pick'd out an act,

To teeming foison;] Foison is plenty.

Tilth.] Tilth is tillage.

• Bore many gentlemen,

In hand and hope of action:] To bear in hand is a common phrase for to keep in expectation and dependance; but we should read:

with hope of action. JOHNSON.

to give fear to use-] To intimidate use, that is, practices long countenanced by custom.

Under whose heavy sense your brother's life
Falls into forfeit: he arrests him on it;
And follows close the rigour of the statute,
To make him an example; all hope is gone,
Unless you have the grace by your fair
To soften Angelo: And that's my pith
Of business 'twixt
your poor brother.
Isab. Doth he so seek his life?

Lucio.

you and

prayer

Has censur'd him2

Already; and, as I hear, the provost hath
A warrant for his execution.

Isab. Alas! what poor ability's in me
To do him good?

Lucio.

Our doubts are traitors,

Assay the power you have.
Isab. My power! Alas! I doubt,-
Lucio.
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt: Go to lord Angelo,

And let him learn to know, when maidens sue,
Men give like gods; but when they weep and

kneel,

All their petitions are as freely theirs

As they themselves would owe3 them.
Isab. I'll see what I can do.

Lucio.

Isav. I will about it straight;

But, speedily.

No longer staying but to give the mother
Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you:
Commend me to my brother: soon at night
I'll send him certain word of

my success. leave of you.

Good sir, adieu. [Exeunt.

3

Has censur'd him -] i. e. sentenced him.

would owe-] To owe, in this place, is to have.

ACT II.

SCENE I. A Hall in Angelo's House.

Enter ANGELO, ESCALUS, a Justice, Provost," Officers, and other Attendants.

Ang. We must not make a scare-crow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,

And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch, and not their terror.

Escal.

Ay, but yet

Let us be keen, and rather cut a little,

Than fall, and bruise to death: Alas! this gentleman, Whom I would save, had a most noble father.

Let but your honour know,

(Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue,)
That, in the working of your own affections,
Had time coher'd with place, or place with wishing,
Or that the resolute acting of your blood

Could have attain'd the effect of your own purpose,
Whether you had not sometime in your life
Err'd in this point which now you censure him,
And pull'd the law upon you.

Ang. "Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
Another thing to fall. I not deny,

The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,

May, in the sworn twelve, have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try: What's open made to

justice,

That justice seizes. What know the laws,

Provost,] The Provost here, is not a military officer, but a kind of sheriff or gaoler.