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

20

Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough,

Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,
And pitch our evils there 21? O, fy, fy, fy!
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,

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,
Provost! so, I think you are.
Prov. I am the provost: What's your will, good

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
To let me see them; and to make me know

The nature of their crimes, that I may minister
To them accordingly.

Prov. I would do more than that, if more were

needful.

Enter JULIET.

Look, here comes one; a gentlewoman of mine,
Who falling in the flames1 of her own youth,
Hath blister'd her report: She is with child:
And he that got it, sentenc'd: a young man
More fit to do another such offence,

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.
Juliet. I do confess it, and repent it, father,
Duke. 'Tis meet so, daughter: But lest you do
repent,

As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,-
Which sorrow is always towards ourselves, not hea-

ven;

2

Showing, we'd not spare heaven as we love it,
But as we stand in fear,-

Juliet. I do repent me, as it is an evil;
And take the shame with joy.

Duke.

There rest3.

Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,
And I am going with instruction to him.-

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,
As if I did but only chew his name;

And in my heart, the strong and swelling evil
Of my conception: The state, whereon I studied,
Is like a good thing, being often read,

Grown fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity,
Wherein (let no man hear me) I take pride,
Could I, with boot, change for an idle plume,
Which the air beats for vain. O place! O form!
How often dost thou with thy case 3, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
To thy false seeming 4? Blood, thou still art blood!
Let's write good angel on the devil's horn,

"Tis not the devil's crest 5.

Enter Servant.

One Isabel, a sister,

How now, who's there?

Serv.

Desires access to you.
Ang.

O heavens!

Teach her the way. [Exit Serv.

Why does my blood thus muster to my heart;
Making both it unable for itself,

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
By which he should revive: and even so
The general, subject to a well-wish'd king,
Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence.

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
A man already made7, as to remit

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.