To yond generation, you shall find Your safety manifested 3. Prov. I am your free dependant. Duke. Quick, despatch, and send the head to Angelo. Now will I write letters to Angelo, [Exit Provost. (The provost, he shall bear them) whose contents Shall witness to him, I am near at home, And that by great injunctions I am bound To meet me at the consecrated fount, Re-enter Provost. Prov. Here is the head; I'll carry it myself. Duke. Convenient is it. Make a swift return, For I would commune with you of such things, That want no ear but yours. Prov. I'll make all speed. [Exit. Isab. [Within.] Peace, ho, be here ! Duke. The tongue of Isabel.-She's come to know, If yet her brother's pardon be come hither; But I will keep her ignorant of her good, Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting TO YOND generation, you shall find Your safety manifested.] This is the regulation of the measure in the old copies, which was altered by Malone and Steevens thus :-- "Ere twice The sun hath made his journal greeting to The under generation, you shall find Your safety manifested." The text and the metre are here corrupted. The old copies are right in both respects; for "generation" is a word of five syllables, and it is not necessary even to alter "yond" to yonder. This line is only one out of many instances in which the termination tion is to be read as two syllables, according to the common practice of our old poets. and WEAL-balanc'd form,] Well-balanced seems the more proper reading. Weal-balanc'd may, however, refer to the State. VOL. II. G To make her heavenly comforts of despair, When it is least expected. Enter ISABELLA. Isab. Ho! by your leave. Duke. Good morning to you, fair and gracious daughter. Isab. The better, given me by so holy a man. Hath yet the deputy sent my brother's pardon? Duke. He hath releas'd him, Isabel, from the world. His head is off, and sent to Angelo. Isab. Nay, but it is not so. Duke. It is no other. Show your wisdom, daughter, in your close patience. Isab. O, I will to him, and pluck out his eyes! Duke. You shall not be admitted to his sight. Isab. Unhappy Claudio! Wretched Isabel! Injurious world! Most damned Angelo! Duke. This nor hurts him, nor profits you a jot: Forbear it therefore; give your cause to heaven. Mark what I say, which you shall find By every syllable a faithful verity. The duke comes home to-morrow;-nay, dry your eyes: One of our convent, and his confessor, Gives me this instance. Already he hath carried Notice to Escalus and Angelo, Who do prepare to meet him at the gates, There to give up their power. If you can, pace your wisdom In that good path that I would wish it go; 7 And you shall have your bosom on this wretch, And general honour. Isab. I am directed by you. Duke. This letter, then, to friar Peter give; 7 your BOSOM on this wretch,] i. e., as the Duke just afterwards expresses it," revenges to your heart." "Tis that he sent me of the duke's return: And shall be absent. Wend you with this letter. Lucio. O, pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart, to see thine eyes so red: thou must be patient. I am fain to dine and sup with water and bran; I dare not for my head fill my belly: one fruitful meal would set me to't. But, they say, the duke will be here to-morrow. By my troth, Isabel, I loved thy brother: if the old fantastical duke of dark corners had been at home, he had lived. [Exit ISABELLA. Duke. Sir, the duke is marvellous little beholding to your reports; but the best is, he lives not in them. 9 Lucio. Friar, thou knowest not the duke so well as I do: he's a better woodman than thou takest him for. Duke. Well, you'll answer this one day. Fare ye well. * Sir, the Duke is marvellous little BEHOLDING to your reports ;] The active instead of the passive participle was in general use at the time, and there is no reason for altering it. It is what Shakespeare wrote. - he's a better WOODMAN than thou takest him for.] "Woodman” (from a passage cited by Reed from The Chances, A. 1. sc. 9) was applied to men who hunted after women as the woodman hunts after deer; the origin of the saying being probably the double-meaning of deer, and dear :— "Well, well, son John, I see you are a woodman, and can choose Lucio. Nay, tarry; I'll go along with thee. I can tell thee pretty tales of the duke. Duke. You have told me too many of him already, sir, if they be true; if not true, none were enough. Lucio. I was once before him for getting a wench with child. Duke. Did you such a thing? Lucio. Yes, marry, did I; but I was fain to forswear it: they would else have married me to the rotten medlar. Duke. Sir, your company is fairer than honest. Rest you well. Lucio. By my troth, I'll go with thee to the lane's end. If bawdy talk offend you, we'll have very little of it. Nay, friar, I am a kind of burr; I shall stick. SCENE IV. A Room in ANGELO'S House. Enter ANGELO and ESCALUS. [Exeunt. Escal. Every letter he hath writ hath disvouch'd other. Ang. In most uneven and distracted manner 10. And why meet him at the gates, and re-deliver Escal. I guess not. 10 In most uneven and distracted manner.] This is a complete line, and although not so printed, it seems clear that the author meant this brief interview between two such principal personages to be rythmical. Some of the lines are rugged and irregular; but it is to be observed of such as- 66 They should exhibit their petitions," that the last word is to be read as four syllables, for the same reason that on a preceding page, 81, "generation" is to be read as five syllables. After the exit of Escalus the old copies give the soliloquy of Angelo as verse, though the lines are far from regular. Ang. And why should we Proclaim it in an hour before his ent'ring, They should exhibit their petitions In the street? Escal. He shows his reason for that: to have a despatch of complaints, and to deliver us from devices hereafter, Which shall then have no power to stand against us'. house. Ang. Well, I beseech you, let it be proclaim'd: As are to meet him. Escal. Ang. Good night.— I shall, sir: fare you well. [Exit. This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant 2, The law against it!-But that her tender shame How might she tongue me! no 3: Yet reason dares her?— For my authority bears of a credent bulk That no particular scandal once can touch, But it confounds the breather. He should have liv'd, 1 Which shall then have no power to stand against us.] Excepting this line, it seems impossible to make the speech run in any measured verse. 2 — makes me UNPREGNANT,] Steevens remarks that in the first scene the Duke says that Escalus is pregnant, i. e. ready in the forms of law. Unpregnant, therefore, in the instance before us, is unready, unprepared. Yet reason dares her? no :] Warburton tells us that the old folios read, "Yet reason dares her No ;" printing "no" with a capital letter; and it has been taken for granted that it is so, without reference to the originals, where in fact it stands merely, "Yet reason dares her no," The true reading seems to be as it stands in our text: Angelo asks himself, "Yet reason dares her?" or "Does reason dare her?" and he replies, "no: for my authority," &c. Some of the commentators would have note, or not, instead of "no," but all the change really required is to put a mark of interrogation after "her." This was done by Malone. |