The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most? Ha! 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, When judges steal themselves. What? do I love her, And feast upon her eyes? What is 't I dream on? To sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet, 22 When men were fond, I smil'd, and wonder'd how! 29 20 Sense for sensual appetite. [Exit. 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. SCENE III. A Room in a Prison. Enter Duke, habited like a Friar, and Provost. Duke. Hail to you, 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 The nature of their crimes, that I may minister Prov. I would do more than that, if more were needful. Enter JULIET. Look, here comes one; a gentlewoman of mine, 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 the man that wrong'd you? you Juliet. Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him. 1 The folio reads flawes. Duke. So then, it seems, your most offenceful act Was mutually committed? Juliet. Mutually. Duke. Then was your sin of heavier kind than his. As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,- ven; 2 Showing, we'd not spare heaven as we love it, Juliet. I do repent me, as it is an evil; Duke. There rest3. Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow, Grace go with you! Benedicite! [Exit. Juliet. Must die to-morrow! O, injurious love", 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 invention1, hearing not my tongue, 2 i. e. not spare to offend heaven. 3 i. e. keep yourself in this frame of mind. 4 O injurious love.' Sir Thomas Hanmer proposed to read law instead of love. 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,' Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth, And in my heart, the strong and swelling evil Grown fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity, "Tis not the devil's crest 5. Enter Servant. One Isabel, a sister, How now, who's there? Serv. Desires access to you. O heavens! Teach her the way. [Exit Serv. Why does my blood thus muster to my heart; And dispossessing all the other parts So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons; 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 awed by splendour; those who consider men as well as conditions, are easily persuaded to love the appearance of virtue dignified with power. 5 " 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 Lylys Midas, Melancholy! is melancholy a word for barber's mouth? Thou shouldst say heavy, dull, and doltish; melancholy is the crest of courtiers.' Come all to help him, and so stop the air How now, Isab. Enter ISABELLa. fair maid? 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. Isab. Even so?-Heaven keep your honour! [Retiring. Ang. Yet may he live awhile; and it may be, As long as you, or I: 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 Their saucy sweetness, that do coin heaven's image 6 i. 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. 7 i. e. that hath killed a man. B Sweetness has here probably the sense of lickerrshness. |