Duke. Either this is envy in you, folly, or mistaking the very stream of his life, and the business he hath helmed,18 must, upon a warranted need, give him a better proclamation. Let him be but testimonied in his own bringings forth, and he shall appear to the envious a scholar, a statesman, and a soldier: Therefore you speak unskilfully, or, if your knowledge be more, it is much darken'd in your malice. Lucio. Sir, I know him, and I love him. Duke. Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer love. Lucio. Come, sir, I know what I know. Duke. I can hardly believe that, since you know not what you speak. But, if ever the Duke return, (as our prayers are he may,) let me desire you to make your answer before him: If it be honest you have spoke, you have courage to maintain it: I am bound to call upon you; and, I pray you, your name? Lucio. Sir, my name is Lucio; well known to the Duke. Duke. He shall know you better, sir, if I may live to report you. Lucio I fear you not. Duke. O! you hope the Duke will return no more; or you imagine me too unhurtful an opposite: But, indeed, I can do you little harm: you'll forswear this again. 19 Lucio. I'll be hang'd first: thou art deceiv'd in me, friar. But no more of this: Canst thou tell if Claudio die to-morrow, or no? Duke. Why should he die, sir? Lucio. Why? for filling a bottle with a tun-dish 18 Guided, steered through, a metaphor from navigation. 19 Opposite, opponent. I would the Duke we talk of were return'd again: this ungenitur'd 20 agent will unpeople the province with continency; sparrows must not build in his house-eaves, because they are lecherous. The Duke yet would have dark deeds darkly answered; he would never bring them to light would he were return'd! Marry, this Claudio is condemn'd for untrussing. Farewell, good friar; I pr'ythee, pray for me. The Duke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on Fridays. He's not past it yet; and I say to thee, he would mouth with a beggar, though she smelt brown bread and garlic: say that I said So. 21 22 Farewell. [Exit. Duke. No might nor greatness in mortality Can censure 'scape: back-wounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes: What king so strong, Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue? But who comes here? Enter ESCALUS, Provost, Bawd, and Officers. Bawd. Good my lord, be good to me; your honour is accounted a merciful man: good my lord. Escal. Double and treble admonition, and still forfeit in the same kind? 23 This would make mercy swear, and play the tyrant. 20 That is, unfathered, not begotten after the ordinary course of nature; in accordance with what Lucio says of him a little before. The word seems to be formed from genitoirs, which occurs several times in Holland's Pliny, and comes from the French genitoires. H. 21 A wench was called a laced mutton. In Doctor Faustus, 1604, Lechery says, "I am one that loves an inch of raw mutton better than an ell of stock-fish." See The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act. i. sc. 1, and note 9. 22 Smelt, for smelt of. 23 Forfeit, transgress, offend, from forfaire, Fr. Prov. A bawd of eleven years' continuance, may it please your honour. Bawd. My lord, this is one Lucio's information against me: Mistress Kate Keep-down was with child by him in the Duke's time; he promis'd her marriage his child is a year and a quarter old, come Philip and Jacob: I have kept it myself; and see how he goes about to abuse me. : Escal. That fellow is a fellow of much license: let him be call'd before us. -Away with her to prison: Go to; no more words. [Exeunt Bawd and Officers.] Provost, my brother Angelo will not be alter'd; Claudio must die to-morrow: Let him be furnish'd with divines, and have all charitable preparation if my brother wrought by my pity, it should not be so with him. Prov. So please you, this friar hath been with him, and advis'd him for the entertainment of death. Escal. Good even, good father. Duke. Bliss and goodness on you! Escal. Of whence are you? Duke. Not of this country, though my chance is now To use it for my time: I am a brother Of gracious order, late come from the see, Escal. What news abroad i'the world? Duke. None, but that there is so great a fever on goodness, that the dissolution of it must cure it: novelty is only in request; and as it is as dangerous to be aged in any kind of course, as it is virtuous to be constant in any undertaking, there is scarce truth enough alive, to make societies secure; but security enough, to make fellowships accurs'd: 24 Much upon 24 The allusion is to those legal securities into which fellowship This I this riddle runs the wisdom of the world. news is old enough, yet it is every day's news. pray you, sir, of what disposition was the Duke? Escal. One that, above all other strifes, contended especially to know himself. Duke. What pleasure was he given to? Escal. Rather rejoicing to see another merry, than merry at any thing which profess'd to make him rejoice: a gentleman of all temperance. But leave we him to his events, with a prayer they may prove prosperous; and let me desire to know how you find Claudio prepar❜d. I am made to understand, that you have lent hin visitation. Duke. He professes to have received no sinister measure from his judge, but most willingly humbles himself to the determination of justice: yet had he framed to himself, by the instruction of his frailty, many deceiving promises of life; which I, by my good leisure, have discredited to him, and now is he resolv'd to die. 25 Escal. You have paid the heavens your function, and the prisoner the very debt of your calling. 】 have labour'd for the poor gentleman, to the extremest shore of my modesty; but my brother justice have I found so severe, that he hath forc'd me to tell him, he is indeed-justice.26 Duke. If his own life answer the straitness of his proceeding, it shall become him well; wherein, if he chance to fail, he hath sentenc'd himself. Escal. I am going to visit the prisoner: Fare you well. leads men to enter for each other. For this quibble Shakespeare has high authority; He that hateth suretyship is sure." xi. 15. Prov. 25 That is, satisfied; probably because conviction leads to de cision or resolution. 25 Summum jus, summa iniuria. Duke. Peace be with you! [Exeunt ESCALUS and Provost He who the sword of Heaven will bear 27 Should be as holy as severe; Most ponderous and substantial things! 29 27 Coleridge, in his Literary Remains, remarks upon this pas-"Worse metre indeed, but better English would be: sage, Grace to stand, virtue to go."" H. 28 The Duke's vice may be explained by what he says himselt Act i. sc. 4: 'Twas my fault to give the people scope." Angelo's vice requires no explanation. 29 We here give the reading of the original, except the changeing of made into wade; an emendation proposed by Mr. Halliwell, and so apt that we have ventured to adopt it. How easy it were for a printer to put m for w, or vice versa, need not be argued; and an instance of it has already occurred in this play, Act ii. sc. 3, where the original reads flawes for flames. With this change, the passage, though rather dark in itself, is intelligible enough, when we consider that the speaker has Angelo in his mind; who, bad as he is, has by his hypocrisy managed to raise himself as high as merit could lift him. Likeness apparently has much the same meaning here as what the Poet elsewhere calls "virtuous-sceming." So that the passage may be rendered thus: How may seeming virtue, unsubstantial as it is, and wickedly put on, by practising upon the times draw to itself the greatest of earthly honours and emoluments, even while it is wading er rioting in crime! H. |