SCENE II. Another Room in the same.

Enter Provost and a Servant.

Serv. He's hearing of a cause; he will come straight. I'll tell him of you.

Prov. Pray you, do. [Exit Servant.] I'll know
His pleasure: may be, he will relent: Alas,
He hath but as offended in a dream!

All sects, all ages smack of this vice; and he
To die for it!-

Ang.

Enter ANGElo.

Now, what's the matter, provost? Prov. Is it your will Claudio shall die to-morrow? Ang. Did I not tell thee, yea? hadst thou not order? Why dost thou ask again?

Lest I might be too rash:

Prov.
Under your good correction, I have seen,
When, after execution, judgment hath
Repented o'er his doom.

Ang.

Do you your office, or give up your place,

Go to; let that be mine:

I crave your honour's pardon.

And you shall well be spar'd.

Prov.

What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet? She's very near her hour.

Ang.

Dispose of her

To some more fitter place; and that with speed.

Re-enter Servant.

Serv. Here is the sister of the man condemn'd, Desires access to you.

Ang.

Hath he a sister?

Prov. Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid, And to be shortly of a sisterhood,

If not already.

Let her have needful, but not lavish, means;

There shall be order for it.

Enter LUCIO and ISABELLA.

Prov. Save your honour!

[Offering to retire.

Ang. Stay a little while.-[To ISAB.] You are welcome: What's your will?

Isab. I am a woful suitor to your honour,

Please but your honour hear me.

Well; what's

Ang. 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?

Isab. I have a brother is condemn'd to die:

I do beseech you, let it be his fault,

And not my brother 1.

Prov.

Heaven give thee moving graces! Ang. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it! Why, every fault's condemn'd, ere it be done: Mine were the

very cipher of a function, To fine the faults, whose fine stands in record, And let go by the actor.

Isab. O just, but severe law! I had a brother then.-Heaven keep your honour!

[Retiring. Lucio. [To ISAB.] Give't not o'er so: to him

again, intreat him:

1 i. e. let my brother's fault die or be extirpated, but let not him suffer.

2 i. e. to pronounce the fine or sentence of the law upon the crime, and let the delinquent escape.'

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. 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.

But can you,

Isab.
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 touch'd with that remorse

As mine is to him?

Ang.

He's sentenc'd; 'tis too late.

Lucio. You are too cold.

[To ISABELLA. Isab. Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word, May call it back again: Well, believe this, No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,

3

Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one 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.

Lucio. Ay, touch him: there's the vein. [Aside,
Ang. Your brother is a forfeit of the law,

And you but waste your words.

Isab.

Alas! alas!

3 i. e. be assured of it.

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, which 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 4.

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 prepar❜d for death! Even for our kitchens
We kill the fowl of season 5: 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.

Lucio.

Ay, well said.

Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath

slept 6:

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,
(Either now, or by remissness new-conceiv'd,
And so in progress to be hatch'd and born),

4You will then be as tender hearted and merciful as the first man was in his days of innocence.'

5 i. e. when in season.

6Dormiunt aliquando leges, moriuntur nunquam,' is a maxim of our law.

7 This alludes to the deceptions of the fortune-tellers, who pretended to see future events in a beryl, or crystal glass.

4

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 dismiss'd 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 sen

tence:

And he, that suffers: O, it is excellent

To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.

Lucio.

That's well said.

Isab. Could great men thunder

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet, For every pelting 9, 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 10 oak,
Than the soft myrtle 11:-But man, proud man!
Drest in a little brief authority:

Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
His glassy essence,-like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastick tricks before high heaven,

One of Judge Hale's 'Memorials' is of the same tendency:'When I find myself swayed to mercy, let me remember that there is a mercy likewise due to the country.'

9 Pelting for paltry.

10 Gnarled, knotted.

11 Mr. Douce has remarked the close affinity between this passage and one in the second satire of Persius. Yet we have no translation of that poet of Shakspeare's age.

'Ignovisse putas, quia, cum tonat, ocyus ilex

Sulfure discutitur sacro, quam tuque domusque?'