Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Most execrably, Pythias. But you are come
To be a husband, are you not?

Pyth. To-morrow, I call the fair Calanthe wife.
Da. Then, Pythias,

I will not shade the prospect of your joys
With any griefs of mine. I cry you mercy—
These are experiments too over-nice

For one that has a mistress, and would wed her
With an uncut throat. I have wished myself,
That to the blessed retreats of private life
My lot had been awarded; every hour
Makes one more sick and weary with the sense
Of this same hopeless service of a State,
Where there is not of virtue left

To feed the flarings of our liberty.
But, my soldier,

I will not make thee a participant
In my most sad forebodings. Pythias,
I say 'twere better to be the Persian's slave,
And let him tread upon thee when he would
Ascend his horse's back, than- -yet not so,
I am too much galled and fretted to pronounce
A sober judgment, and the very mask

Of freedom is yet better than the bold,
Uncover'd front of tyranny.-Farewell!

Dionysius, king of Sicily, was a tyrant. He reigned over the island of Sicily forty years, and died 336 years before Christ. One great reason why he was unhappy in the midst of all the treasures and honors, with which royalty furnished him, arises from the consideration, that he was a stranger to that purity of motive, which created the disinterested and undying friendship, that subsisted between Damon and Pythias. The tyrant believed that self-interest is the sole mover of human actions, until he was taught better, by witnessing this example of sacred and immortal friendship.

94. ISABELLA, PLEADING BEFORE ANGELO.-Shakspeare.

ANGELO, ISABELLA and LUCIO.

Isabella. I am a woful suitor to your honor;

Please but your honor hear me.

Angelo. Well; what's your suit?

Isab. There is a vice, that most I do abhor,
And most desire should meet the blow of justice,
For which I would not plead, but that I must;
For which I must not plead, but that I am
At war, 'twixt will, and will not.

Ang Well, the matter, the matter?

Isab. I have a brother is condemn'd to die; I do beseech you, let it be his fault,

And not my brother.

Ang. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it!
Why, every fault's condemned, ere it be done;
Mine were the very cipher of a fraction,

To find the faults, whose fine stands in record,
And let go by the actor.

Isab. O just, but severe law!

I had a brother then.

Lucio. [To Isabella.]

entreat him;

Heaven keep your honor! [Retiring.
Give't not o'er so; to him again,

Kneel down before him; hang upon his gown;
You are too cold; if you should need a pin,
You could not with more tame a tongue desire it;
To him, I say.

Isab. [To Angelo.] Must he needs die?

Ang. Maiden, no remedy.

Isab. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him, And neither heaven nor man, grieve at the mercy. Ang. I will not do't.

Isab.

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 touched with that remorse

As mine is to him?

Ang. He's sentenced; 'tis too late.

Isab. Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word, May call it back again. Well, believe this,

No ceremony that to great one 'longs,

Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheons, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with half so good a grace,
As mercy does. If he had been as you,
And you as he, you would have slipt 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 'twere to be a judge, And what a prisoner.

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,
If He who is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? O, think on that;
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made.

Ang. Be you content, fair maid;

It is the law, not I, condemns your brother;
Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,

It should be thus with him. He must die to-morrow.

Isab. To-morrow? O, that's sudden? Spare him, spare him : He's not prepared for death! Even for our kitchens

We kill the fowl of season; shall we serve heaven

With less respect than we do minister

To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you,
Who is it that hath died for this offence?

There's many have committed it.

Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept; Those many had not dar'd to do that evil,

If the first man that did the edict 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
Are now to have no successive degrees;

But, where 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 dismissed offence would after gall;

And do him right, that, answering one foul wrong,

Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;

Your brother dies 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.

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,

Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,

Than the soft myrtle: O, but man, proud man!
Drest in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he's most assured,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,

As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.

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

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

Ang. Why do you put these sayings upon me?
Isab. Because authority, though it err like others,

Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,

That skims 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. She speaks, and 'tis

Such sense, that my sense breeds with it.-Fare

you

well.

Isab. Gentle, my lord, turn back.

Ang. I will bethink me. Come again to-morrow.

Isab. Hark, how I'll bribe you! Good, my lord, turn

back.

How! bribe me?

Ang.
Isab. Ay, with such gifts, that heaven shall share with you,
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 in 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

[blocks in formation]

Ang.

[Aside.

[Exit Isabella and Lucio.

From thee! even from thy virtue !—

What's this? what's this? Is this her fault or mine?

The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most?
Not she; nor doth she tempt; but it is I.
Can it be,

Ha!

Having waste ground enough, sanctuary,

That modesty may more betray our sense
Than woman's lightness?
Shall we desire to raze the
And pitch our evils there?

O, fie! fie! fie!

What dost thou? or what art thou, Angelo?
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. This virtuous maid
Subdues me quite. Ever, till now,

When men were fond, I smil'd and wondered how.

[ocr errors]

"Remorse," in the phrase, "If so, your heart were touched with that remorse," means pity or compassion. Where Isabella says, "We kill the fowl of season," she means, not before it is in season, not prematurely, as Angelo would kill her brother. Preserved," in the phrase, "" prayers from preserved souls," means pure. Where Angelo exclaims, "O cunning enemy," he means Satan. Angelo was lord deputy of Vienna, and Isabella plead before him, for the life of her condemned brother, Claudio

« AnteriorContinuar »