FROTH. Here in Vienna, sir.

ESCAL. Are you of fourscore pounds a year?
FROTH. Yes, an't please you, sir.

ESCAL. So.-To POMPEY.] What trade are you of, sir?

POм. A tapster; a poor widow's tapster.
ESCAL. Your mistress' name?

POM. Mistress Overdone.

ESCAL. Hath she had any more than one husband?
Poм. Nine, sir; Overdone by the last.

ESCAL. Nine-Come hither to me, master Froth. Master Froth, I would not have you acquainted with tapsters: they will draw you, master Froth, and you will hang them: get you gone, and let me hear no more of you.

FROTH. I thank your worship. For mine own part, I never come into any room in a taphouse, but I am drawn in.

ESCAL. Well, no more of it, master Froth: farewell. [Exit FROTH.-Come you hither to me, master tapster. What's your name, master tapster?

POм. Pompey.

ESCAL. What else?

Pом. Вum, sir.

ESCAL. Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you; so that, in the beastliest sense, you are Pompey the Great. Pompey, you are partly a bawd, Pompey, howsoever you colour it in being a tapster: are you not? come, tell me true it shall be the better for you.

Poм. Truly, sir, I am a poor fellow that would live.

ESCAL. How would you live, Pompey? by being a bawd? What do you think of the trade, Pompey? is it a lawful trade?

POм. If the law would allow it, sir.

ESCAL. But the law will not allow it, Pompey; nor it shall not be allowed in Vienna.

Poм. Does your worship mean to geld and splay all the youth of the city?

ESCAL. No, Pompey.

POм. Truly, sir, in my poor opinion, they will to't then. If your worship will take order for the drabs and the knaves, you need not to fear the bawds. ESCAL. There are pretty orders beginning, I can tell you it is but heading and hanging.

POм. If you head and hang all that offend that way but for ten year together, you'll be glad to give out a commission for more heads: if this law hold in Vienna ten year, I'll rent the fairest house in it after threepence a bay: if you live to see this come to pass, say Pompey told you so. ESCAL. Thank you, good Pompey;

and, in

a Threepence a bay :] Pope and Mr. Collier's annotator read."threepence a day;" but "a bay of building," which Coles in his Dictionary explains-mensura viginti quatuor pedum-was a common expression in reference to the measurement of a building's

requital of your prophecy, hark you :—I advise you, let me not find you before me again upon any complaint whatsoever; no, not for dwelling where. you do if I do, Pompey, I shall beat you to your tent, and prove a shrewd Cæsar to you; in plain dealing, Pompey, I shall have you whipped: so, for this time, Pompey, fare you well.

POм. I thank your worship for your good counsel; [Aside.] but I shall follow it, as the flesh and fortune shall better determine. Whip me! No, no; let carman whip his jade; The valiant heart's not whipt out of his trade.

[Exit.

ESCAL. Come hither to me, master Elbow; come hither, master constable. How long have you been in this place of constable?

ELB. Seven year and a half, sir.

ESCAL. I thought, by your* readiness in the office, you had continued in it some time; you say, seven years together?

ELB. And a half, sir.

ESCAL. Alas, it hath been great pains to you! They do you wrong to put you so oft upon't: are there not men in your ward sufficient to serve it?

ELB. Faith, sir, few of any wit in such matters: as they are chosen, they are glad to choose me for them: I do it for some piece of money, and go through with all.

ESCAL. Look you bring me in the names of some six or seven, the most sufficient of your parish. ELB. To your worship's house, sir? ESCAL. TO house; fare my

What's o'clock, think you?

JUST. Eleven, sir.

you

well.

[Exit ELBOW.

ESCAL. I pray you home to dinner with me. JUST. I humbly thank you.

ESCAL. It grieves me for the death of Claudio;

But there's no remedy.

JUST. Lord Angelo is severe.

ESCAL.

It is but needful: Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so; Pardon is still the nurse of second woe: But yet,-poor Claudio !-There is no remedy.— Come, sir. [Exeunt.

But can you, if you would?

ANG. Look, what I will not, that I cannot do. ISAB. But might you do't, and do the world

no wrong,

If so your heart were touch'd with that remorse
As mine is to him?
ANG.
He's sentenc'd: 'tis too late.
LUCIO. [Aside to ISAB.] You are too cold.
ISAB. Too late! why, no; I, that do speak a word,
May call it back again. Well believe this,
No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,
Not the king's crown nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace
As mercy does. If he had been as you, and you

as he,

You would have slipp'd like him; but he, like you Would not have been so stern.

ANG.

Pray you, begone. ISAB. I would to heaven I had your potency, And you were Isabel! should it then be thus ? No; I would tell what 't were to be a judge, And what a prisoner.

LUCIO. [Aside to ISAB.] Ay, touch him; there's the vein.

ANG. Your brother is a forfeit of the law, And you but waste your words. ISAB. Alas! alas! Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once; And He that might the vantage best have took, Found out the remedy. How would you be,

(*) Old text, faults.

ANG. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept:

*

Those many had not dar'd to do that evil,
If the first that did the edíct infringe,
Had answer'd for his deed: now 'tis awake;
Takes note of what is done, and, like a prophet,
Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils
(Either new, or by remissness new-conceiv'd,
And so in progress to be hatch'd and born,)
Are now to have no successive degrees,
But ere they live to end.
ISAB.
Yet show some pity.
ANG. I show it most of all when I show justice;
For then I pity those I do not know,

Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall;

And do him right that, answering one foul wrong, Lives not to act another.

Be satisfied;

Your brother die to-morrow: be content;

ISAB. So you must be the first that gives this sentence,

And he that suffers. O, it is excellent
To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant!

LUCIO.

[Aside to ISAB.] That's well said. ISAB. Could great men thunder

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,
For every pelting, petty officer
Would use his heaven for thunder;
Nothing but thunder.-Merciful heaven!
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,
Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man!
Dress'd in a little brief authority,-
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
His glassy essence,-like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.

LUCIO. [Aside to ISAB.] O, to him, to him, wench! he will relent:

He's coming; I perceive't.

PROV. [Aside.] Pray heaven she win him!

ISAB. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself:" Great men may jest with saints; 'tis wit in them, But in the less foul profanation.

LUCIO. [Aside to ISAB.] Thou'rt i' the right, girl; more o' that.

ISAB. That in the captain's but a choleric word, Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

LUCIO. [Aside to ISAB.] Art avis'd o' that? more on't.

ANG. Why do you put these sayings upon me? ISAB. Because authority, though it err like others, Hath yet a kind of med'cine in itself,

That skins the vice o' the top. Go to your bosom ;
Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know
That's like my brother's fault: if it confess
A natural guiltiness such as is his,

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother's life.

ANG. [Aside.] She speaks, and 'tis such sense, That my sense breeds with it. [To ISAB.] Fare you well.

ISAB. Gentle my lord, turn back.

ANG. I will bethink me :-come again to[turn back.

morrow.

ISAB. Hark, how I'll bribe you: good my lord, ANG. How! bribe me!

We cannot weigh our brother with ourself:] Warburton, perhaps rightly, reads yourself.

b

For I am that way going to temptation,
Where prayers cross.]

The following is Henley's interpretation of this somewhat obscure passage:"The petition of the Lord's Prayer-lead us not into temptation is here considered as crossing or intercepting the onward way in which Angelo was going; this appointment of his for the morrow's meeting being a premeditated exposure of himself to temptation, which it was the general object of prayer to thwart."

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.
Well; come to me to-morrow.
LUCIO. [Aside to ISAB.] Go to; 't is well: away!
ISAB. Heaven keep your honour safe!
ANG.

[Aside.] Amen :

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.

с

(*) Old text, sickles.

Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,
And pitch our evils there?]

"The desecration of edifices devoted to religion, by converting them to the most abject purposes of nature, was an Eastern method of expressing contempt."-HENLEY. So in 2 Kings,

ch. x. v. 27-And they brake down the image of Baal, and brake down the house of Baal, and made it a draught house unto this day;" or, as the Douay version of 1609 reads, " and made a jakes in its place unto this day."