Do, as the carrion does, not as the flower,
Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be,
That modesty may more betray our sense 20
Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground
enough,

Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,

And pitch our evils there 21? O, fy, fy, fy!
What dost thou? or, what art thou, Angelo?
Dost thou desire her foully, for those things
That make her good? 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: never.could the strumpet,
With all her double vigour, art and nature,
Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
Subdues me quite;-Ever, till now,

When men were fond, I smil'd, and wonder'd how !22

SCENE III. A Room in a Prison.

Exit.

Enter Duke, habited like a Friar, and Provost. Duke. Hail to you, Provost! so, I think you are. Prov. I am the provost: What's your will, good friar?

Duke. Bound by my charity, and my bless'd order, I come to visit the afflicted spirits

Here in the prison: do me the common right
To let me see them; and to make me know

20 Sense for sensual appetite.

21 No language could more forcibly express the aggravated profligacy of Angelo's passion, which the purity of Isabella but served the more to inflame. The desecration of edifices devoted to religion, by converting them to the most abject purposes of nature, was an eastern method of expressing contempt. See 2 Kings, x. 27. 22 Dr. Johnson thinks the second act should end here.

The nature of their crimes, that I may minister To them accordingly.

Prov. I would do more than that, if more were needful.

Enter JULIET.

Look, here comes one; a gentlewoman of mine, Who falling in the flames of her own youth, Hath blister'd her report: She is with child: And he that got it, sentenc'd; a young man More fit to do another such offence,

Than die for this.

Duke.

When must he die?

Prov. As I do think, to-morrow.

I have provided for you; stay a while, [To JULIET. And you shall be conducted.

Duke. Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry? Juliet. I do; and bear the shame most patiently. Duke. I'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,

And try your penitence, if it be sound,

Or hollowly put on.

Juliet.

I'll gladly learn. Duke. Love you the man that wrongd you? Juliet. Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him. Duke. So then, it seems, your most offenceful act Was mutually committed?

Juliet.

Mutually.

Duke. Then was your sin of heavier kind than his. Juliet. I do confess it, and repent it, father. Duke. 'Tis meet so, daughter: But lest you do

repent,

As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,Which sorrow is always towards ourselves, not heaven;

Showing, we'd not spare2 heaven as we love it, But as we stand in fear,

1 The folio reads flawes.
2 i. e. not spare to offend heaven.

Juliet. I do repent me, as it is an evil; And take the shame with joy.

Duke.

There rest 3.

Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,
And I am going with instruction to him. -
Grace go with you! Benedicite!

[Exit. Juliet. Must die to-morrow! O, injurious love 4, That respites me a life, whose very comfort Is still a dying horror!

Prov.

'Tis pity of him.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. A Room in Angelo's House.

Enter ANGELO.

Ang. When I would pray and think, I think and pray To several subjects: heaven hath my empty words; Whilst my invention 1, hearing not my tongue, Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth, As if I did but only chew his name; And in my heart, the strong and swelling evil Of my conception: The state, whereon I studied, Is like a good thing, being often read, Grown fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity, Wherein (let no man hear me) I take pride, Could I, with boot2, change for an idle plume, Which the air beats for vain. O place! O form! How often dost thou with thy case 3, thy habit, Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls To thy false seeming 4? Blood, thou still art blood!

3 i. e. keep yourself in this frame of mind.

40 injurious love.'

law instead of love,

Sir Thomas Hanmer proposed to read

1 Invention for imagination. So, in Shakspeare's 103d Sonnet:

a face,

That overgoes my blunt invention quite.

And in K. Henry V.

O for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention.'

2 Boot is profit,

3 i. e. outside,

4 Shakspeare judiciously distinguishes the different operations of high place upon different minds. Fools are frighted and wise men allured. Those who cannot judge but by the eye are easily

Let's write good angel on the devil's horn, "Tis not the devil's crest 5.

Enter Servant.

One Isabel, a sister,

How now, who's there?

Serv.

Desires access to you.
Ang.

O heavens!

Teach her the way. [Exit Sery.

Why does my blood thus muster to my heart;
Making both it unable for itself,

And dispossessing all the other parts

Of necessary fitness?

So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;
Come all to help him, and so stop the air
By which he should revive: and even so

The general, subject to a well-wish'd king,
Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence.

Enter ISABELLA.

How now, fair maid?

Isab.

I am come to know your pleasure. Ang. That you might know it, would much better please me,

Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot

live.

awed by splendour; those who consider men as well as conditions, are easily persuaded to love the appearance of virtue dignified with power.

"Though we should write good angel on the Devil's horn, it will not change his nature, so as to give him a right to wear that crest.' This explanation of Malone's is confirmed by a passage in Lyly's Midas, 'Melancholy! is melancholy a word for barber's mouth? Thou shouldst say heavy, dull, and doltish; melancholy is the crest of courtiers."

6i. e. the people or multitude subject to a king. So, in Hamlet: 'the play pleased not the million; 'twas caviare to the general. It is supposed that Shakspeare, in this passage, and in one before (Act i. Sc. 2), intended to flatter the unkingly weakness of James I. which made him so impatient of the crowds which flocked to see him, at his first coming, that he restrained them by a proclamation.

Isab. Even so?-Heaven keep your honour!

[Retiring. Ang. Yet may he live awhile; and it may be, As long as you, or 1: Yet he must die. Isab. Under your sentence?

Ang. Yea.

Isab. When, I beseech you? that in his reprieve, Longer, or shorter, he may be so fitted, That his soul sicken not.

Ang. Ha! Fye, these filthy vices! It were as good

To pardon him, that hath from nature stolen
A man already made, as to remit

Their saucy sweetness 8, that do coin heaven's image
In stamps that are forbid: 'tis all as easy
Falsely to take away a life true made,

As to put mettle in restrained means,
To make a false one 9.

Isab. "Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.
Ang. Say you so? then I shall pose you quickly.
Which had you rather, That the most just law
Now took your brother's life; or, to redeem him,
Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness,
As she that he hath stain'd?

Isab. Sir, believe this, I had rather give my body than my soul 10. Ang. I talk not of your soul: Our compell'd sins Stand more for number than accompt 11.

Isab:

How say you? Ang. Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak Against the thing I say. Answer to this;

I, now the voice of the recorded law,

i. e. that hath killed a man.

8 Sweetness has here probably the sense of lickerishness.

The thought is simply. that murder is as easy as fornication; and the inference which Angelo would draw is, that it is as improper to pardon the latter as the former.

10 Isabel appears to use the words 'give my body, in a different sense to Angelo. Her meaning appears to be, I had rather die than forfeit my eternal happiness by the prostitution of my person.

11 i. e. actions that we are compelled to, however numerous, are not imputed to us by heaven as crimes.