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Or, if you show your face, you must not speak.
He calls again; I pray you, answer him.
[Exit FRANCISCA.
Isab. Peace and prosperity! Who is 't that calls?

Enter LUCIO.

Lucio. Hail, virgin, if you be; as those cheek-roses Proclaim you are no less! Can you so stead me, As bring me to the sight of Isabella,

A novice of this place, and the fair sister
To her unhappy brother Claudio?

Isab. Why her unhappy brother? let me ask;
The rather, for I now must make you know
I am that Isabella, and his sister.

Lucio. Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you:

Not to be weary with you, he's in prison.
Isab. Woe me! For what?

Lucio. For that, which, if myself might be his judge,
He should receive his punishment in thanks:
He hath got his friend with child.

Isab. Sir, mock me not:-your story 1.

Lucio. 'Tis true, I would not,-though 'tis my familiar sin

With maids to seem the lapwing2, and to jest,
Tongue far from heart,-play with all virgins so:
I hold you as a thing ensky'd, and sainted;
By your renouncement, an immortal spirit;

1 The old copy reads:

'Sir, make me not your story.'

The emendation is Mr. Malone's.

2 This bird is said to draw pursuers from her nest by crying in other places. This was formerly the subject of a proverb, The lapwing cries most, farthest from her nest,' i. e. tongue far from heart: So, in The Comedy of Errors:

Adr. Far from her nest the lapwing cries away;

My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse.'

And to be talked with in sincerity,

As with a saint.

Isab. You do blaspheme the good, in mocking me. Lucio. Do not believe it. Fewness and truth 3,

'tis thus:

Your brother and his lover4 have embrac'd:

As those that feed grow full; as blossoming time,
That from the seedness the bare fallow brings
To teeming foison5; even so her plenteous womb
Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.

Isab. Some one with child by him?-My cousin
Juliet?

Lucio. Is she your cousin?

Isab. Adoptedly; as school-maids change their

names,

By vain though apt affection.

Lucio.

Isab. O let him marry her!

She it is.

Lucio. This is the point. The duke is very strangely gone from hence; Bore many gentlemen, myself being one, In hand, and hope of action: but we do learn By those that know the very nerves of state, His givings out were of an infinite distance From his true-meant design. Upon his place, And with full line of his authority, Governs Lord Angelo; a man, whose blood Is very snow-broth; one who never feels The wanton stings and motions of the sense;

3 Fewness and truth, in few and true words.

4 i, e. his mistress.

5 Teeming foison is abundant produce.

6 Tilth is tillage. So in Shakspeare's third Sonnet:
For who is she so fair, whose unrear'd womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?'

7 Full line, extent.

8

But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
With profits of the mind, study and fast.
He (to give fear to use? and liberty,

Which have, for long, run by the hideous law,
As mice by lions), hath pick'd out an act,
Under whose heavy sense your brother's life
Falls into forfeit: he arrests him on it;
And follows close the rigour of the statute,
To make him an example: all hope is gone,
Unless you have the grace 10 by your fair
To soften Angelo: And that's my pith
Of business 'twixt you and your poor brother.

Isab. Doth he so seek his life?

Lucio.

prayer

Has censur'd 11 him Already; and, as I hear, the provost hath A warrant for his execution.

Isab. Alas! what poor ability's in me To do him good?

Lucio.

Assay the power you have.
Isab. My power! Alas! I doubt,-
Lucio.

Our doubts are traitors,

And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt: Go to Lord Angelo,
And let him learn to know, when maidens sue,
Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,
All their petitions are as freely theirs

As they themselves would owe

12 them.

8 To rebate is to make dull: Aciem ferri hebetare.-Baret. 9 i. e. to intimidate use, or practices long countenanced by

custom.

10 i. e. power of gaining favour.

11 To censure is to judge. This is the poet's general meaning for the word, but the editors have given him several others. Here they interpret it censured, sentenced. We have it again in the next

scene:

'When I that censure him do so offend,

Let mine own judgment pattern out my death.' 12 To owe is to have, to possess.

But speedily.

Isab. I'll see what I can do.
Lucio.

Isab. I will about it straight;
No longer staying but to give the mother 13
Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you:
Commend me to my brother: soon at night
I'll send him certain word of my success.
Lucio. I take my leave of you.

Isab.

Good sir, adieu.

[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I. A Hall in Angelo's House.

Enter ANGELO, ESCALUS, a Justice, Provost1, Officers, and other Attendants.

Ang. We must not make a scare-crow of the law, Setting it up to fear 2 the birds of prey,

And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch, and not their terror.

Escal.

Ay, but yet

Let us be keen, and rather cut a little,

Than fall3, and bruise to death: Alas! this gentleman, Whom I would save, had a most noble father,

Let but your honour know 4,

(Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue),
That, in the working of your own affections,
Had time coher❜d 5 with place, or place with wishing,.
Or that the resolute acting of your blood

13 i. e. the abbess.

1 A kind of sheriff or jailer, so called in foreign countries. 2 To fear is to affright.

3 i. e. throw down; to fall a tree is still used for to fell it. 4 i. e. examine.

5 i. e. suited.

Could have attain'd the effect of your own purpose,
Whether you had not sometime in your life
Err'd in this point which now you censure him,
And pull'd the law upon you.

Ang. Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
Another thing to fall. I not deny,

The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,
May, in the sworn twelve, have a thief or two
Guiltier than him they try: What's open made to
justice,

That justice seizes. What know the laws,

That thieves do pass7 on thieves? "Tis very pregnant,
The jewel that we find, we stoop and take it,
Because we see it; but what we do not see,
We tread upon, and never think of it.
You may not so extenuate his offence,
For 9 I have had such faults; but rather tell me,
When I, that censure him, do so offend,
Let mine own judgment pattern out my death,
And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.
Escal. Be it as your wisdom will.
Ang.

Where is the provost?

Prov. Here, if it like your honour.
Ang.

See that Claudio

Be executed by nine to-morrow morning:
Bring him his confessor, let him be prepared;
For that's the utmost of his pilgrimage.

[Exit Provost. Escal. Well,heaven forgive him; and forgive us all!

:

6 To complete the sense of this line for seems to be required :— ' which now you censure him for.' But Shakspeare frequently uses eliptical expressions.

7 An old forensic term, signifying to pass judgment, or sentence. 8 Full of force or conviction, or full of proof in itself. So, in Othello, Act ii. Sc. 1, As it is a most pregnant and unforc'd position.'

9 i. e. cause I have had such faults.

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