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Believe not that the dribbling' dart of love

Can pierce a complete bosom: Why I desire thee
To give me secret harbour, hath a purpose
More grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends
Of burning youth.

Fri.

May your grace speak of it?

Duke. My holy sir, none better knows than

you

How I have ever lov'd the life remov'd;

And held in idle price to haunt assemblies,

Where youth, and cost, and witless bravery keeps. I have deliver'd to lord Angelo

(A man of stricture and firm abstinence)

My absolute power and place here in Vienna,
And he supposes me travell'd to Poland;
For so I have strew'd it in the common ear,
And so it is receiv'd: Now, pious sir,
You will demand of me, why I do this?
Fri. Gladly, my lord.

1 "Dribble," says Richardson, " is a diminutive of drib," from drip, and means to do any thing by drips or drops. The sense of dribbling, therefore, is trifling, ineffective. Thus in Holland's Livy: "Howbeit, there passed some dribbling skirmishes between the rearward of the Carthaginians and the vaunt-couriers of the Romans." So also in Milton's Apology for Smectymnus: "For small temptations allure but dribbling offenders!" And in Brome's Songs:

"And out of all 's ill-gotten store

He gives a dribbling to the poor."

Respecting the use of the term in archery, which Steevens thought could not be satisfactorily explained, Ascham says of one who, having learned to shoot well, neglects to practise with the bow, "He shall become, of a fayre archer, a starke squyrter and dribber." - In the next line, "a complete bosom " is a bosom com pletely armed.

H.

2 That is, dwells. So, in 1 Henry IV. Act i. sc. 3, Hotspur says, -"'Twas where the madcap duke, his uncle, kept." This use of the word, though now rare in England, is so conimon in America as to be called an Americanism. Bravery is fine showy dress.

H.

Duke. We have strict statutes and most biting

laws,

(The needful bits and curbs to headstrong steeds,3 Which for these fourteen years we have let sleep; Even like an o'ergrown lion in a cave,

That goes not out to prey: Now, as fond fathers, Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch, Only to stick it in their children's sight,

For terror, not to use; in time the rod

4

Becomes more mock'd than fear'd: so our decrees,

Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead,

And liberty plucks justice by the nose;

The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart
Goes all decorum.

Fri.

It rested in your grace

To unloose this tied-up justice, when you pleas'd; And it in you more dreadful would have seem'd, Than in lord Angelo.

Duke.

I do fear, too dreadful : Sith 'twas my fault to give the people scope, "Twould be my tyranny to strike, and gall them For what I bid them do: for we bid this be done, When evil deeds have their permissive pass, And not the punishment.

father,

Therefore, indeed, my

I have on Angelo impos'd the office;

3 The original here has weeds, which Mr. Collier retains, saying that "weed is a term still commonly applied to an ill-conditioned horse." But this wants confirmation; otherwise the change were hardly to be allowed. — In the next line, instead of let sleep, the original has let slip, which Knight retains, notwithstanding its jarring with the context. While sleep seems required by the course of the metaphor, it is no less justified by what is said in another place: "The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept."

H.

4 This word, not in the original, but required alike by the sense and by the verse, was suggested by Davenant, and inserted by Pope, and has since been universally received

H.

Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home, And yet my nature never in the fight,

To do in slander: And to behold his sway,

I will, as 'twere a brother of your order,

Visit both prince and people: therefore, I pr'ytheo,
Supply me with the habit, and instruct me
How I may formally in person bear me
Like a true friar. More reasons for this action
At our more leisure shall I render you;

Only, this one :— Lord Angelo is precise;

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Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses
That his blood flows, or that his appetite

Is more to bread than stone: Hence shall we see,
If power change purpose, what our seemers be.

SCENE V. A Nunnery.

Enter ISABELLA and FRANCISCA.

[Exeunt.

Isab. And have you nuns no further privileges? Fran. Are not these large enough?

Isab. Yes, truly: I speak not as desiring more; But rather wishing a more strict restraint Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare. Lucio. [Within.] Ho! Peace be in this place! Isab. Who's that which calls!

Fran. It is a man's voice: Gentle Isabella,

This is the reading of the original. The passage is usually printed thus:

"And yet my nature never in the sight

To do it slander."

The words ambush and strike home show the image of a fight to have been in the Poet's mind. As the text stands, the speaker's purpose apparently is to avoid any open contest with crime, where his action would expose him to slander; not to let his person be seen in the fight, where he would have to work, to do, in the face of detraction and censure.

That is, stands on his defence against envy.

H.

H.

Turn you the key, and know his business of him; You inay, I may not; you are yet unsworn:

When you have vow'd, you must not speak with men
But in the presence of the prioress:

Then, if you speak, you must not show your face;
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, make me not your story.1

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

1 Such is the reading of the original; the me being expletive, as in the well-known passage setting forth the virtues of sack: "It ascends me. into the brain," &c. So that the meaning is,"Make not your tale, invent not your fiction." Malone improved the passage thus: " Sir, mock me not,-your story;" which surely, renders Lucio's reply, 'tis true, very unapt.

H.

2

With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest,

Tongue far from heart

play with all virgins so: I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted By your renouncement; an immortal spirit, And to be talk'd with in sincerity,

As with a saint.

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

'tis thus:

Your brother and his lover have embrac'd:

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

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Isab. Adoptedly; as school-maids change their

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2 This bird is said to divert pursuers from her nest by crying in other places. "The lapwing cries most, farthest from her nest," is an old proverb. Thus in The Comedy of Errors:

"Far from her nest the lapwing cries away;

My heart prays for him, though my tongue doth curse;

which shows what is meant by "tongue far from heart." So, again, in Lyly's Alexander and Campaspe: "You resemble the lapwing, who crieth most where her nest is not, and so, to lead me from espying your love for Campaspe, you cry Timoclea."

3 That is, in few and true words.

4 Teeming foison is abundant produce.

Tilth is tillage. So in Shakespeare's third Sonnet :

"For who is she so fair, whose unrear'd womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?"

H.

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