Ang.

Nay, women are frail too. Isab. Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves, Which are as easy broke as they make forms. Women!-Help heaven! men their creation mar In profiting by them. 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

By all external warrants,) show it now,

By putting on the destin❜d livery.

Isab. I have no tongue but one: gentle my lord,
Let me intreat you speak the former language.
Ang. Plainly, conceive I love you.

Isab. My brother did love Juliet; and you tell me, That he shall die for't.

Ang. He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love. Isab. I know, your virtue hath a licence in't, Which seems a little fouler than it is,

To pluck on others.

Ang.

Believe me, on mine honour,

My words express my purpose.

Isab. Ha! little honour to be much believ'd,

And most pernicious purpose!-Seeming, seeming!— I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't:

Sign me a present pardon for my brother,

Or with an outstretch'd throat I'll tell the world
Aloud what man thou art.

Ang.

Who will believe thee, Isabel?

My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life,
My vouch against you, and my place i'the state,

Will so your accusation overweigh,

That you shall stifle in your own report,

And smell of calumny. I have begun,
And now I give my sensual race the rein:
Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;
Lay by all nicety, and prolixious blushes,

That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother
By yielding up thy body to my will,

Or else he must not only die the death,

But thy unkindness shall his death draw out
To lingering sufferance. Answer me to-morrow,
Or, by the affection that now guides me most,
I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,

Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true.

[Exit.
Isab. To whom should I complain?? Did I tell this,
Who would believe me? O perilous mouths!
That bear in them one and the self-same tongue,
Either of condemnation or approof,

Bidding the law make court'sy to their will,
Hooking both right and wrong to th' appetite,
To follow as it draws. I'll to my brother:
Though he hath fallen by prompture of the blood,
Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour,
That had he twenty heads to tender down
On twenty bloody blocks, he'd yield them up,
Before his sister should her body stoop
To such abhorr'd pollution.

Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:
More than our brother is our chastity.
I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,

And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest.

[Exit.

2 To whom SHOULD I complain ?] So the folio of 1623, and all the others. Why Malone and Steevens altered "should" to shall is no where stated. They did precisely the reverse in a former scene of this play, A. ii. sc. 1.

ACT III. SCENE I.

A Room in the Prison.

Enter DUKE, as a Friar, CLAUDIO, and Provost.

Duke. So then, you hope of pardon from lord Angelo? Claud. The miserable have

No other medicine, but only hope.

I have hope to live, and am prepar❜d to die.

Duke. Be absolute for death; either death, or life, Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyey influences,

That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st,
Hourly afflict. Merely, thou art death's fool;
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,
And yet run'st toward him still: thou art not noble;
For all th' accommodations that thou bear'st,

Are nurs❜d by baseness: thou art by no means valiant;
For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork

Of a poor worm: thy best of rest is sleep,
And that thou oft provok'st, yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;
For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains
That issue out of dust: happy thou art not;
For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get,
And what thou hast forget'st. Thou art not certain;
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
After the moon: if thou art rich, thou'rt poor;
For, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee: friend hast thou none;
For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire3,

3

which do call thee SIRE,] The old folios of 1623, 1632, 1664, and 1685 have fire for "sire," a misprint from taking the long s for an f. Lord Francis Egerton's folio of 1623 gives the true reading in old MS.

The mere effusion of thy proper loins,

Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,

For ending thee no sooner: thou hast nor youth, nor age,

But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,

Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth

Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms

Of palsied eld: and when thou art old and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
To make thy riches pleasant.

That bears the name of life?

What's yet in this,
Yet in this life

Lie hid more thousand deaths, yet death we fear,
That makes these odds all even.

Claud.

I humbly thank you.

To sue to live, I find, I seek to die,

And, seeking death, find life: let it come on.

3

Isab. [Without.] What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company!

Prov. Who's there? come in: the wish deserves a welcome.

Enter ISABELLA *.

Duke. Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again.

Claud. Most holy sir, I thank you.

Isab. My business is a word or two with Claudio.

Prov. And very welcome. Look, signior; here's

your sister.

Duke. Provost, a word with you.

Prov. As many as you please.

Duke. Bring me to hear them speak, where I may

be conceal'd".

[Exeunt DUKE and Provost.

Serpigo,] The first folio has sapego, the second sarpego: the "serpigo" is a kind of tetter, which has sometimes been misprinted fetter. See, for instances, Malone's Shakespeare by Boswell, viii. 303, and ix. 98.

Enter Isabella.] According to the modern editors, Isabella enters before the Provost asks, "Who's there?" and tells her to " come in."

Bring Me to hear THEM speak, where I may be conceal'd,] The first folio has the line,

"Bring them to hear me speak," &c.

which is obviously wrong: the second folio thus corrects the error :"Bring them to speak, where I may be conceal'd,"

VOL. II.

E

Claud. Now, sister, what's the comfort?

Isab.

Why, as all

Comforts are; most good, most good, indeed 6.

Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,

Intends you for his swift ambassador,

Where you shall be an everlasting leiger":

Therefore, your best appointment make with speed; To-morrow you set on.

Claud.

Is there no remedy?

Isab. None, but such remedy, as to save a head To cleave a heart in twain.

Claud.

But is there any?

Isab. Yes, brother, you may live:

There is a devilish mercy in the judge,

If you'll implore it, that will free your life,
But fetter you till death.

Claud.

Perpetual durance?

Isab. Ay, just; perpetual durance: a restraint, Though all the world's vastidity you had,

To a determin'd scope.

Claud.

8

But in what nature?

Isab. In such a one as, you consenting to't, Would bark your honour from that trunk

And leave you naked.

Claud.

you bear,

Let me know the point.

Isab. O! I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,

but the smallest change is the best, and the mere transposition of me and them is all that is required. The addition of the words, " Yet hear them," in the second folio, adopted by Malone, is thereby rendered unnecessary.

• Comforts are; most good, most good, indeed :] This line is not quite syllabically correct, but the emphatic repetition of “most good” makes up the time. Hitherto the commentators have omitted the second "most good," and regulated the metre thus :

Claud.

Now, sister, what's the comfort?

Isab. Why, as all comforts are; most good, indeed.

This mode of printing the passage neither preserves the text nor the measure. The words, "Why, as all," complete the previous imperfect line, put into the mouth of Claudio.

7 — an everlasting LEIGER:] A " leiger" was a permanently resident ambassador.

8 THOUGH all the world's-] The old copies read, "through all," &c.