I hold you as a thing ensky'd, and sainted By your renouncement, an immortal spirit, As with a saint. Isab. You do blaspheme the good in mocking me. thus: Your brother and his lover have embrac'd: As those that feed grow full; as blossoming time, To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb Isab. Some one with child by him?-My cousin 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, Governs lord Angelo; a man whose blood Which have, for long, run by the hideous law, And follows close the rigour of the statute, Of business 'twixt you and your poor brother. Isab. Doth he so seek his life? Lucio. Has censur'd him Already; and, as I hear, the provost hath Isab. Alas! what poor ability's in me Lucio. Assay the power you have. Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt. Go to lord Angelo, As they themselves would owe them. But speedily. Isab. I will about it straight, Isab. Good sir, adieu. [Exeunt. ACT II. SCENE I. A Hall in ANGELO'S House. Enter ANGELO, ESCALUS, a Justice, 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 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,) Could have attain'd th' effect of your own purpose, Ang. Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus, 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, That thieves do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant, For I have had such faults; but rather tell me, When I, that censure him, do so offend, Let mine own judgment pattern out my death, Where is the provost ? Enter Provost 2. See that Claudio Prov. Here, if it like your honour. Be executed by nine to-morrow morning. [Exit Provost. Escal. Well, heaven forgive him, and forgive us all! Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall: Some run from breaks of ice, and answer none 3, Enter ELBOW, FROTH, Clown, Officers, &c. Elb. Come, bring them away. If these be good people in a common-weal, that do nothing but use their abuses in common houses, I know no law: bring them away. Ang. How now, sir! What's your name, and what's the matter? Elb. If it please your honour, I am the poor duke's constable, and my name is Elbow: I do lean upon justice, sir; and do bring in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors. 2 Enter Provost.] The modern editors all represent the Provost, or Jailor, as on the stage from the beginning of the scene, which is evidently improper. In the old copies he comes in when he is called for," Where is the Provost ?" 3 Some run from breaks of ICE, and answer none,] Thus the text stands in the old copies, which seems right; the meaning being, that some escape without responsibility, even though the danger seem as imminent as when the ice breaks under them; but Malone and others would change the expression into "brakes of rice," and it would be an easy corruption, if there were any necessity for a change. It is certain, as Steevens shows at large, that an old instrument of torture was called "a brake," but not by any means certain that Shakespeare intended a reference to it. Ang. Benefactors! Well; what benefactors are they? are they not malefactors? Elb. If it please your honour, I know not well what they are; but precise villains they are, that I am sure of, and void of all profanation in the world, that good Christians ought to have. Escal. This comes off well: here's a wise officer. Ang. Go to: what quality are they of? Elbow is your name: why dost thou not speak, Elbow? Clo. He cannot, sir: he's out at elbow. Ang. What are you, sir? Elb. He, sir? a tapster, sir; parcel-bawd; one that serves a bad woman, whose house, sir, was, as they say, pluck'd down in the suburbs; and now she professes a hot-house, which, I think, is a very ill house too. Escal. How know you that? Ell. My wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour, Escal. How! thy wife? Elb. Ay, sir; whom, I thank heaven, is an honest woman, Escal. Dost thou detest her therefore? Elb. I say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as she, that this house, if it be not a bawd's house, it is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house. Escal. How dost thou know that, constable? Elb. Marry, sir, by my wife; who, if she had been a woman cardinally given, might have been accused in fornication, adultery, and all uncleanliness there. Escal. By the woman's means? Elb. Ay, sir, by mistress Over-done's means; but as she spit in his face, so she defied him. — and now she professes a HOT-HOUSE,] A "hot-house" and a bagnio formerly were synonymous: thus in the romance of "Apollonius of Tyre," on which Shakespeare founded "Pericles," at the end of Chap. II. we read, "the common shews and plaies surceased, baines and hot-houses were shut up." Shakespeare's Library,” Part v. p. 188. See the reprint of Rowley's "Search for Money," 4to, 1609, by the Percy Society, p. 45, for some curious particulars respecting the suppression of the stews in Southwark, &c. |