No; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge,
And what a prisoner.

Lucio. [Aside.] Ay, touch him: there's the vein.
Ang. Your brother is a forfeit of the law,
And you but waste your words.

Isab.

Alas! alas!

Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once;
And He, that might the vantage best have took,
Found out the remedy.

If He, which is the top of

How would you be,
judgment, should
O! think on that;

But judge you as you are?
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made.*

Ang.

Be you content, fair maid: It is the law, not I, condemns your brother:

Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,

It should be thus with him : — he must die to-mor

row.

Isah. To-morrow? O, that's sudden! Spare him, spare him!

5

He's not prepar'd for death. Even for our kitchens We kill the fowl of season: shall we serve Heaven With less respect than we do minister

To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink

you:

Who is it that hath died for this offence?

There's many have committed it.

Lucio.

[Aside.] Ay, well said.

Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept : "

Those many had not dar'd to do that evil,

4" You will then be as tender-hearted and merciful as the first man was in his days of innocence."

That is, when in season.

"Dormiunt aliquando leges, moriuntur nunquam,” is a maxim

of our law.

If the first that did the edict infringe

Had answer'd for his deed: now 'tis awake;
Takes note of what is done; and, like a prophet,
Looks in a glass,' that shows what future evils
(Either now, or by remissness new-conceiv'd,
And so in progress to be hatch'd and born)
Are now to have no successive degrees,
But, ere they live, to end.

Isab.

Yet show some pity

Ang. I show it most of all, when I show justice; For then I pity those I do not know,

8

Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall;

And do him right, that, answering one foul wrong, Lives not to act another. Be satisfied:

Your brother dies to-morrow: be content.

Isab. So, you must be the first, that gives this

sentence;

And he, that suffers: O! it is excellent

To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.

Lucio.

[Aside.] That's well said.

Isab. Could great men thunder

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet, For every pelting, petty officer

9

Would use his heaven for thunder;

Nothing but thunder. Merciful Heaven!

Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled 10 oak, Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man! Dress'd in a little brief authority,

7 This alludes to the deceptions of the fortune-tellers, who pretended to see future events in a beryl, or crystal glass.

8 One of Judge Hale's Memorials is of the same tendency "When I find myself swayed to mercy, let me remember that there is a mercy likewise due to the country."

9 Pelting for paltry.

10 Gnarled, knotted.

Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
His glassy essence,"1 like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven,
As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.12

Lucio. [To ISAB.] O, to him, to him, wench! he will relent:

He's coming, I perceive't.

Prov. [Aside.] Pray Heaven, she win him! Isab. We cannot weigh our brother with yourself:

Great men may jest with saints: 'tis wit in them; But in the less foul profanation.

Lucio. [To ISAB.] Thou'rt in the right, girl: more o' that.

Isab. That in the captain's but a choleric word, Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

Lucio. [Aside.] Art advis'd o' that? more on't. Ang. Why do you put these sayings upon me? Isab. Because authority, though it err like others, Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,

That skins the vice o' the top: 13 Go to your bosom;
Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know
That's like my brother's fault: if it confess
A natural guiltiness, such as is his,

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother's life.

Ang.

[Aside.] She speaks, and 'tis

11 That is, his brittle, fragile being.

H.

12 The notion of angels weeping for the sins of n.en is rabbin. ical. By spleens Shakespeare meant that peculiar turn of the human mind, which always inclines it to a spiteful and unseasonable mirth. Had the angels that, they would laugh themselves out of their immortality, by indulging a passion unworthy of that prerogative.

13 Shakespeare has used this indelicate metaphor again in Hamlet: "It will but skin and film the ulcerous place."

14

Such sense, that my sense breeds with it.14

[To her.] Fare you well.

Isab. Gentle my lord, turn back.

Ang. I will bethink me:

row.

- Come again to-mor

Isab. Hark, how I'll bribe you: Good my lord, turn back.

Ang. How! bribe me?

Isab. Ay, with such gifts, that Heaven shall share with you.

Lucio. [Aside.] You had marr'd all else.

Isab. Not with fond shekels of the tested gold, Or stones, whose rates are either rich or poor As fancy values them: but with true prayers, That shall be up at heaven, and enter there, Ere sunrise; prayers from preserved souls, From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate To nothing temporal.

Ang.

To-morrow.

Well: come to me

Lucio. [Aside to ISAB.] Go to; it is well: away. Isab. Heaven keep your honour safe!

Ang.

For I am that way going to temptation,

Where prayers cross.16

Isab.

[Aside.] Amen;

15

At what hour to-morrow

Shall I attend your lordship?

14 That is, such sense as breeds a response in his mind. lone thought that sense here meant sensual desire.

Ma

15 Isabella prays that his honour may be safe, meaning only to give him his title: his mind is caught by the word honour, he feels that it is in danger, and therefore says amen to her benediction.

16 The petition of the Lord's Prayer, " Lead us not into temptation," is here considered as crossing or intercepting the way in which Angelo was going: he was exposing himself to temptation by the appointment for the morrow's meeting.

Ang.

Isab. Save your honour!

Ang.

At any time 'fore noon.

[Exeunt LUCIO, ISABELLA, and Provost.
From thee; even from thy virtue !
What's this? what's this? Is this her fault, or mine?
The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most? Ha!
Not she; nor doth she tempt: but it is I,
That, lying by the violet in the sun,

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

Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,

17

And pitch our evils there?' O, fie, fie, fie!
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! [Exit.

17 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.