Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,

Enter ISABELLA.
And I am going with instruction to him.
Grace go with you !“ Benedicite !

[Exit.

How now, fair maid ? Juliet. Must die to-morrow ! O, injurious love, ISAB. I am come to know your pleasure. That respites me a life, whose very comfort

Ang. That you might know it, would much Is still a dying horror!

better please me, PROV.

'Tis pity of him. [Exeunt. | Than to demand what 't is. Your brother cannot

live.

ISAB. Even so.—Heaven keep your honour!

[Retiring. SCENE IV.-A Room in Angelo's House. Ang. Yet may he live a while ; and, it may be,

As long as you or I: yet he must die.
Enter ANGELO.

Isab. Under your sentence ?

ANG. Yea. Ang. When I would pray and think, I think ISAB. When, I beseech you? that in his reand pray

prieve, To several subjects: heayen hath my empty words, | Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted, Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,

| That his soul sicken not. Anchors on Isabel. Heaven in my mouth,

Ang. Ha! fie, these filthy vices ! It were als As if I did but only chew his name,

good
And in my heart the strong and swelling evil To pardon him that hath from nature stoln
Of my conception. The state, whereon I studied, A man already made, as to remit
Is like a good thing, being often read,

Their saucy sweetness, that do coin heaven's image Grown sear’d* and tedious; yea, my gravity,

In stamps that are forbid : 'tis all as easy Whereinlet no man hear me-I take pride,

Falsely to take away a life true made, Could I, with boot, change for an idle plume, As to put metal in restrained means, Which the air beats for vain. O place ! O form!

To make a false one. How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,

ISAB. 'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls

earth. To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood : Ang. Say you so ? then I shall pose you quickly. Let's write good angel on the devil's horn,

Which had you rather,—that the most just law 'Tis not the devil's crest.

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?
Enter Servant.

IsaB.

Sir, believe this,

I had rather give my body than my soul. How now! who's there?

Ang. I talk not of your soul: our compell’d Serv. One Isabel, a sister,

sins Desires access to you.

Stand more for number than for accompt. Ang. Teach her the way. [Exit Serv.] O ISAB.

How say you ? heavens !

Ang. Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak Why does my blood thus muster to my heart, Against the thing I say. Answer to this :Making both it unable for itself,

I, now the voice of the recorded law, And dispossessing all my other parts

Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life: Of necessary fitness ?

Might there not be a charity in sin,
So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons ; To save this brother's life?
Come all to help him, and so stop the air

ISAB.

Please you to do't, By which he should revive : and even so

I'll take it as a peril to my soul, The general,' subject to a well-wish'd king, It is no sin at all, but charity. Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness Ang. Pleas'd you to do’t, at peril of your soul, Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love | Were equal poise of sin and charity. Must needs appear offence.

Isab. That I do bey his life, if it be sin,

(*) Old text, eard.
a Grace go with you!) A benediction Ritson proposed to give
to Juliet ; regulating the dialogue thus, -

" Jul. Grace go with you!
DUXL.

b0, injurious love,- Hanmer reads, " injurious law," but love in this place appears to mean, kindness, or mercy, and need not be changed.

Heaven, let me bear it ! you granting of my suit, / Ang. You seemd of late to make the law a If that be-sin, I'll make it my morn-prayer

tyrant; To have it added to the faults of mine,

And rather prov'd the sliding of your brother And nothing of your answer.

A merriment than a vice. Ang.

Nay, but hear me. Isab. O, pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out, Your sense pursues not mine: either you are | To have what we would have, we speak not what ignorant,

we mean : Or seem so, crafty ;a and that is not good.

I something do excuse the thing I hate, ISAB. Let me* be ignorant and in nothing For his advantage that I dearly love. good,

| Ang. We are all frail. But graciously to know I am no better.

ISAB.

Else let my brother die, Ang. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright, If not a feodary, but only he, When it doth tax itself; as these black masks Owe, and succeed thy weakness. Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder

ANG.

Nay, women are frail too. Than beauty could, displayed.-But mark me: ISAB. Ay, as the glasses where they view thenTo be received plain, I'll speak. more gross :

selves; Your brother is to die.

Which are as easy broke as they make forms. ISAB, So.

Women !-Help heaven! men their creation mar Ang. And his offence is so, as it appears, In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times Accountant to the law upon that pain.

frail, ISAB, True.

For we are soft as our complexions are,
Ang. Admit no other way to save his life, And credulous to false prints.
As I subscribe not that, nor any other,

Ang.

I think it well ; But in the loss of question—that you, his sister, And from this testimony of your own sex, Finding yourself desir'd of such a person,

Since, I suppose, we are made to be no stronger Whose credit with the judge, or own great place, Than faults may shake our frames,-let me be Could fetch your brother from the manacles

bold;— Of the all-bindingt law; and that there were I do arrest your words. Be that you are, No earthly mean to save him, but that either That is, a woman; if you be more, you're You must lay down the treasures of your body

none; To this supposed, or else to let him suffer;

If you be one,-as you are well express'd
What would you do?

By all external warrants, show it now,
ISAB. As much for my poor brother as myself: | By putting on the destin'd livery.
That is, were I under the terms of death,

IsaB. I have no tongue but one: gentle my The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,

lord, And strip myself to death, as to a bed

Let me intreat you speak the former language. That longing have been sick for ere I'd yield I Ang. Plainly conceive, I love you. My body up to shame.

Isab. My brother did love Juliet; ANG.

Then must your brother die. And you tell me that he shall die for it. IsaB. And 't were the cheaper way :

Ang. He shall not, Isabel, if you give me Better it were a brother died at once,

love. Than that a sister, by redeeming him,

ISAB. I know your virtue hath a licence in 't, Should die for ever.

Which seems a little fouler than it is, Ang. Were not you, then, as cruel, as the | To pluck on others. sentence

ANG.

Believe me, on mine honour, That you have slander'd so ?

My words express my purpose. Isab. Ignomy in ransom, and free pardon,

Isab. Ha! little honour to be much believ'd, Are of two houses : lawful mercy is

And most pernicious purpose ! - Seeming, Nothing akin I to foul redemption.

seeming !

(*) First folio omits, me. (+) Old text, all-building.

I will proclaim thee, Angelo ; look for 't: Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true. Sign me a present pardon for my brother,

Exit. Or with an outstretch'd throat I'll tell the world Isab. To whom should I complain? did I tell aloud

this, What man thou art.

Who would believe me? O perilous mouths, Ang.

Who will believe thee, Isabel ? That bear in them one and the self-same tongue, My unsoild name, the austereness of my life, Either of condemnation or approof; My vouch against you, and my place i' the state, Bidding the law make court'sy to their will ; Will so your accusation overweigh,

Hooking both right and wrong to the appetite, That you shall stifle in your own report,

To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother : And smell of calumny. I have begun,

Though be hath fall’n by prompture of the blood, And now I give my sensual race the rein :

Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour, Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite ;

That had he twenty heads to tender down Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes,

On twenty bloody blocks, he'd yield them up, That banish what they sue for; redeem thy Before his sister should her body stoop brother

To such abhorr’d pollution. By yielding up thy body to my will,

Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die : Or else he must not only die the death,

More than our brother is our chastity. But thy unkindness shall his death draw out I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request, To ling’ring sufferance. Answer me to-morrow, And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest. Or, by the affection that now guides me most,

[Exit. I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,

That do* this habitation, where thou keep'st, Enter, to Claudio, the Duke, disguised as before, Hourly afflict : merely, thou art death's fool ;(1) and Provost.

For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,
And yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not

noble ;
Angelo ?

For all the accommodations that thou bear'st CLAUD. The miserable have no other medicine, | Are nurs'd by baseness. Thou art by no means But only hope :

valiant, I have hope to live, and am prepar'd to die. For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork Duke. Be absolute for death ; either death or Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep, life

And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with Thy death, which is no more. Thou’rt not thylife:

self; If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains That none but fools would keep: a breath thou That issue out of dust. IIappy thou art not ;

art, Servile to all the skyey influences

(*) Old text, dost.

For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get | CLAUD. Now, sister, what's the comfort ? And what thou hast, forgett'st. Thou art not IsaB. Why, as all comforts are; most good, certain ;

most good indeed. For thy complexion shifts to strange effects, a Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven, After the moon. If thou art rich, thou’rt poor; Intends you for his swift ambassador, For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows, Where you shall be an everlasting lieger : Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey, Therefore your best appointment make with speed; And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none; To-morrow you set on. For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,* CLAUD.

Is there no remedy ? The mere effusion of thy proper loins,

Isab. None :—but such remedy as, to save a Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,

head, For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth | To cleave a heart in twain. nor age,

CLAUD.

But is there any? But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,

ISAB. Yes, brother, you may live:
Dreaming on both ; for all thy blessed youth There is a devilish mercy in the judge,
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms

If you'll implore it, that will free your life,
Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich, But fetter you till death.
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor | CLAUD.

Perpetual durance ? beauty,

ISAB. Ay, just; perpetual durance,-a reTo make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this

straint,
That bears the name of life? Yet in this life Though* all the world's vastidity you had,
Lie hid more thousand deaths : yet death we fear, To a determin'd scope.
That makes these odds all even.

CLAUD.

But in what nature ? CLAUD.

I humbly thank you. Isab. In such a one as, you consenting to't, To sue to live, I find I seek to die;

Would bark your honour from that trunk you And, seeking death, find life: let it come on.

bear, ISAB. (Without.] What, ho! Peace here; grace And leave you naked. and good company!

CLAUD.

Let me know the point. Prov. Who's there? come in: the wish de ISAB. O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake, serves a welcome.

Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain,
DUKE. Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again. And six or seven winters more respect
CLAUD. Most holy sir, I thank you.

Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die ?
The sense of death is most in apprehension ;

And the poor beetle that we tread upon,
Enter ISABELLA.

In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great

As when a giant dies. IsaB. My business is a word or two with Claudio. CLAUD. Why give you me this shame ? Prov. And very welcome. — Look, signior, | Think you I can a resolution fetch here's your sister.

From flowery tenderness? If I must die, DUKE. Provost, a word with you.

I will encounter darkness as a bride, PROV.

As many as you please. | And hug it in mine arms. DUKE. Bring me to hear them speak, where I ISAB. There spake my brother! there my may be conceal’d.

father's grave [Exeunt Duke and Provost. | Did utter forth a voice! Yes, thou must die :

& Strange effects,-) Johnson proposed to read, affects, that is,
affections, passions of mind, perhaps rightly; but effects, in the
ser se of results, consequences, conclusions, affords a reasonable
meaning.
b Serpigo,-) Leprosy. The folios read, Sapego and Sarpego.

for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms

of palsied eld ;)
With all respect for Johnson's defence of the old text, we must
confess there appears much force in Warburton's objection to the
logic of this passage ; but his remedy, which is to read,

" - for pall'd, thy blazed youth

Becomes assuaged, and both beg," &c. is not admissible. With much less violence to the original, and with advantage, perhaps, to the reasoning, we might read,

- for all thy blessed youth
Becomes engaged, and doth beg the alms

of palsied eld;".
taking engaged in the sense of enthralled by debt and lack of
means; a sense it bears in the following passage,

“ I have engag'd myself to a dear friend,

Engag'd my friend to his mere enemy,
To feed my means."

Merchant of Venice, Act III. Sc. 2. d Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be conceal'd.) The first folio reads,-“ Bring ham to heare me speak, where I may be conceald ; " and the second, -" Bring them to speake, where I may be conceal'd, yet heare them."

e An everlasting lieger: A lieger meant an ambassador permanently resident at a foreign court.

RR 2