By cold gradation and weal-balanced form, Re-enter Provost. PROV. Here is the head; I'll carry it myself. DUKE. Convenient is it: Make a fwift return; For I would commune with you of such things, That want no ear but yours. PROV. I'll make all speed. ISAB. [Within.] Peace, ho, be here! [Exit. DUKE. The tongue of Ifabel :-She's come to know, If yet her brother's pardon be come hither: Enter ISABELLA. ISAB. Ho, by your leave. DUKE. Good morning to you, fair, and gracious daughter. ISAB. The better, given me by fo holy a man. Hath yet the deputy fent my brother's pardon? DUKE. He hath releas'd him, Ifabel, from the world; His head is off, and fent to Angelo. 3 weal-balanced form,] Thus the old copy. Mr. Heath thinks that well-balanced is the true reading; and Hanmer was of the fame opinion. STEEVENS. 4 When it is leaft expected.] A better reafon might have been given. It was neceffary to keep Ifabella in ignorance, that fhe might with more keennefs accufe the deputy. JOHNson. ISAB. Nay, but it is not fo. DUKE. It is no other: Show your wisdom, daughter, in your clofe patience. ISAB. O, I will to him, and pluck out his eyes. DUKE. You fhall not be admitted to his fight. ISAB. Unhappy Claudio! Wretched Ifabel! Injurious world! Moft damned Angelo! DUKE. This nor hurts him, nor profits you a jot: Forbear it therefore; give your cause to heaven. Mark what I fay; which you fhall find By every fyllable, a faithful verity: The duke comes home to-morrow; -nay, dry your eyes; One of our convent, and his confeffor, Gives me this inftance: Already he hath carried Who do prepare to meet him at the gates, In that good path that I would with it go; ISAB. I am directed by you. DUKE. This letter then to friar Peter give; 'Tis that he fent me of the duke's return: Say, by this token, I defire his company At Mariana's houfe to-night. Her caufe, and yours, I'll perfect him withal; and he shall bring you Before the duke; and to the head of Angelo Accufe him home, and home. For my poor felf, I am combined by a facred vow, 5 your bofom] Your wish; your heart's defire. JOHNSON. 6 I am combined by a facred vow,] I once thought this fhould be confined, but Shakspeare uses combine for to bind by a pact or agreements fo he calls Angelo the combinate husband of Mariana. JOHNSON, And shall be absent. Wend you' with this letter: LUCIO. O, pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart, to fee thine eyes fo red: thou must be patient: I am fain to dine and fup with water and bran; I dare not for my head fill my belly; one fruitful meal would fet me to't: But they fay the duke will be here to-morrow. By my troth, Ifabel, I lov'd thy brother if the old fantaftical duke of dark corners had been at home, he had lived. [Exit ISABELLA. DUKE. Sir, the duke is marvellous little beholden to your reports; but the beft is, he lives not in them. 7 Wend you] To wend is to go.-An obfolete word. So, in The Comedy of Errors: 8 "To let his daughter wend with us to France." STEEVENS. if the old, &c.] Sir Thomas Hanmer reads-the odd fantastical duke; but old is a common word of aggravation in ludiCrous language, as, there was old revelling. JOHNSON. duke of dark corners -] This duke who meets his mistresses in by-places. So, in King Henry VIII': them. There is nothing I have done yet, o' my confcience, "Deferves a corner." MALONE. --he lives not in them,] i. e. his chara&er depends not on So, in Much ado about Nothing: "The practice of it lives in John the baftard." STEEVENS LUCIO. Friar, thou knoweft not the duke fo well : 3 as I do he's a better woodman than thou takeft him for. DUKE. Well, you'll answer this one day. Fare ye well. LUCIO. Nay, tarry; I'll go along with thee; I can tell thee pretty tales of the duke. DUKE. You have told me too many of him already, fir, if they be true; if not true, none were enough. LUCIO. I was once before him for getting a wench with child. DUKE. Did fuch a thing? you LUCIO. Yes, marry, did I: but was fain to forfwear it; they would else have married me to the rotten medlar. DUKE. Sir, your company is fairer than honeft: Reft you well. LUCIO. By my troth, I'll go with thee to the lane's end: If bawdy talk offend you, we'll have very little of it: Nay, friar, I am a kind of burr, I fhall stick. [Exeunt, woodman-1 A woodman feems to have been an attendant or fervant to the Officer called Forefter. See Manwood on the Foreft Laws, 4to. 1615, p. 46. It is here, however, ufed in a wanton sense, and was, probably, in our author's time generally fo received. In like manner in The Chances, A& I. fc. ix. the Landlady fays: Well, well, fon John, "I see you are a woodman, and can choofe "Your deer tho' it be i' th' dark." REED. So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff asks his miftreffes: SCENE IV. A Room in ANGELO'S Houfe. Enter ANGELO and ESCALUS. ESCAL. Every letter he hath writ hath difvouch'd other. ANG. In moft uneven and diftracted manner. His actions fhow much like to madness: pray heaven, his wisdom be not tainted! And why meet him at the gates, and re-deliver our authorities there? ESCAL. I guess not.. ANG. And why fhould we proclaim it in an hour before his entering, that, if any crave redress of injustice, they should exhibit their petitions in the ftreet? ESCAL. He fhows his reafon for that: to have a dispatch of complaints; and to deliver us from devices hereafter, which fhall then have no power to ftand against us. ANG. Well, I beseech you, let it be proclaim'd: Betimes i' the morn, I'll call you at your house, ' 2 Ang. And why should we, &c.] It is the confcious guilt of Angelo that prompts this queftion. The reply of Efcalus is fuch as arifes from an undisturbed mind, that only confiders the myfterious conduct of the Duke in a political point of view. 3 let it be proclaim'd: STEEVENS Betimes i the morn, &c.] Perhaps it fhould he pointed thus: Betimes the morn: I'll call you at your house. So above: And why should we proclaim it an hour before his entering?" MALONE. |