Ang. Nay, women are frail too. Isab. Ay, as the glasses where they view them selves; Which are as easy broke as they make forms. Women!-Help heaven! men their creation mar In profiting by them 19. Nay, call us ten times frail; For we are soft as our complexions are, And credulous to false prints 20. 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 entreat 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 it. 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 21. Ang. Believe me, on mine honour, My words express my purpose. Warburton says that the allusion is so fine that it deserves to be explained. The comparing mankind lying under the weight of original sin, to a feodary who owes suit and service to his lord, is not ill imagined.' 19 The meaning appears to be, that men debase their natures by taking advantage of women's weakness.' She therefore calls on Heaven to assist them. 20 i. e. impressions. 21 i. e. your virtue assumes an air of licentiousness, which is not natural to you, on purpose to try me.' Isab. Ha! little honour to be much believ'd, And most pernicious purpose!-Seeming, seeming 22! I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't: Or, with an outstretch'd throat, I'll tell the world Ang. Who will believe thee, Isabel? My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life, 23 My vouch 25 against you, and my place i'the state, That you shall stifle in your own report, Or else he must not only die the death 26, 22 Seeming is hypocrisy. 23 Vouch, assertion. 24 A metaphor from a lamp or candle extinguished in its own grease. 25 Prolixious blushes mean what Milton has elegantly called'Sweet reluctant delay.' 26 The death. This phrase seems originally to have been a mistaken translation of the French La mort. Chaucer uses it frequently, and it is common to all writers of Shakspeare's age. Bidding the law make court'sy to their will; Then Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die: And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest. [Exit. ACT III. SCENE I. A Room in the Prison. Enter Duke, 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 1 for death; either death or life, Shall thereby be the sweeter. life, Reason thus with If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That none but fools would keep2: a breath thou art, (Servile to all the skiey influences), 27 i. e. temptation, instigation. 1 i. e. determined. 2 Keep here means care for, a common acceptation of the word in Chaucer and later writers. That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st3, Are nurs'd by baseness: Thou art by no means valiant; For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork Of a poor worm 5: Thy best of rest is sleep, 3 i. e. dwellest. So, in Henry IV. Part i: 'Twas where the madcap duke his uncle kept.' 4 Shakspeare here meant to observe, that a minute analysis of life at once destroys that splendour which dazzles the imagination. Whatever grandeur can display, or luxury enjoy, is procured by baseness, by offices of which the mind shrinks from the contemplation. All the delicacies of the table may be traced back to the shambles and the dunghill, all magnificence of building was hewn from the quarry, and all the pomp of ornament from among the damps and darkness of the mine. 5 Worm is put for any creeping thing or serpent. Shakspeare adopts the vulgar error, that a serpent wounds with his tongue, and that his tongue is forked. In old tapestriea and paintings the tongues of serpents and dragons always appear barbed like the point of an arrow. 6 The old copy reads effects. fections, passions of the mind. VOL. II. We should read affects, i. e. afSee Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 4. F Do curse the gout, serpigo7, 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 Of palsied eld 9; and when thou art old, and rich, 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. Enter ISABElla. Isab. What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company! Prov. Who's there? come in; the wish deserves a welcome. Duke. Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again. 7 Serpigo, is a leprous eruption. 8 This is exquisitely imagined. When we are young, we busy ourselves in forming schemes for succeeding time, and miss the gratifications that are before us; when we are old, we amuse the languor of age with the recollection of youthful pleasures or performances; so that our life, of which no part is filled with the business of the present time, resembles our dreams after dinner, when the events of the morning are mingled with the designs of the evening. 9 Old age. In youth, which is or ought to be the happiest time, man commonly wants means to obtain what he could enjoy, he is dependent on palsied eld; must beg alms from the coffers of hoary avarice; and being very niggardly supplied, becomes as aged, looks like an old man on happiness beyond his reach. And when he is old and rich, when he has wealth enough for the purchase of all that formerly excited his desires, he has no longer the powers of enjoyment. |