Your brother and his lover have embrac'd: As those that feed grow full; as blossoming time, İsab. Some one with child by him?-My cousin Juliet? Lucio. Is she your cousin? Isab. Adoptedly; as school-maids change their names, By vain though apt affection. Lucio. She it is. Isab. O, let him marry her! Governs lord Angelo; a man, whose blood 7 To teeming foison;] Foison is plenty. 8 Tilth.] Tilth is tillage. 9 Bore many gentlemen, In hand, and hope of action:] To bear in hand is a common phrase for to keep in expectation and dependance; but we should read : 1 with hope of action. JOHNSON. to give fear to use-] To intimidate use, that is, practices long countenanced by custom. Under whose heavy sense your brother's life And follows close the rigour of the statute, Isab. Doth he so seek his life? Lucio. Has censur'd him2 Already; and, as I hear, the provost hath A warrant for his execution. Isab. Alas! what poor ability's in me To do him good? Lucio. Assay the power you have. Isab. My power! Alas! I doubt,Lucio. Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt: Go to lord Angelo, And let him learn to know, when maidens sue, Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel, All their petitions are as freely theirs As they themselves would owe3 them. Lucio. But, speedily. Isab. I will about it straight; 3 2 Has censur'd him-] i. e. sentenced him. Good sir, adieu. [Exeunt. ·would owe-] To owe, in this place, is to have. ACT II. SCENE I. A Hall in Angelo's House. Enter ANGELO, ESCALUS, a Justice, Provost,+ Officers, and other Attendants. Ang. We must not make a scare-crow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it Escal. Ay, but yet Let us be keen, and rather cut a little, Than fall, and bruise to death: Alas! this gentleman, Whom I would save, had a most noble father. Let but your honour know, (Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue,) That, in the working of your own affections, Had time coher'd with place, or place with wishing, Or that the resolute acting of your blood Could have attain'd the effect of your own purpose, Whether you had not sometime in your life Err'd in this point which now you censure him, And pull'd the law upon you. Ang. "Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus, Another thing to fall. I not deny, The jury, passing on the prisoner's life, May, in the sworn twelve, have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try: What's open made to justice, That justice seizes. What know the laws, 4 + Provost,] The Provost here, is not a military officer, but a kind of sheriff or gaoler. That thieves do pass on thieves?5 'Tis very preg nant, The jewel that we find, we stoop and take it, Ang. See that Claudio Where is the provost ? Prov. Here, if it like your honour. Ang. Be executed by nine to-morrow morning: Bring him his confessor, let him be prepar'd; For that's the utmost of his pilgrimage. [Exit Provost. Escal. Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all! Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall: 7 Some run from brakes of vice, and answer none; And some condemned for a fault alone. Enter ELBOW, FROTH, Clown, Officers, &c. Elb. Come, bring them away: if these be good people in a common-weal, that do nothing but use their abuses in common houses, I know no law; bring them away. 5 That thieves do pass on thieves?] pass or decide. 'Tis very pregnant,] 'Tis plain that we must act with bad as with good; we punish the faults, as we take the advantages that lie in our way, and what we do not see we cannot note. 7 brakes of vice, -] The commentators have not decided the meaning of this word. By brakes of vice may be meant a collection, a thicket of vices. Brake was also the name of an engine of torture. Ang. How now, sir! What's your name? and what's the matter? Elb. If it please your honour, I am the poor duke's constable, and my name is Elbow; I do lean upon justice, sir, and do bring in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors. Ang. Benefactors? Well; what benefactors are they are they not malefactors? Elb. If it please your honour, I know not well what they are: but precise villains they are, that I am sure of; and void of all profanation in the world, that good christians ought to have. Escal. This comes off well; here's a wise officer. Ang. Go to: What quality are they of? Elbow is your name? Why dost thou not speak, Elbow ? Clo. He cannot, sir; he's out at elbow. Ang. What are you, sir? Elb. He, sir? a tapster, sir; parcel-bawd; one that serves a bad woman; whose house, sir, was, as they say, pluck'd down in the suburbs; and now she professes a hot-house, which, I think, is a very ill house too. Escal. How know you that? Elb. My wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour,— Escal. How! thy wife? Elb. Ay, sir; whom, I thank heaven, is an honest woman, Escal. Dost thou detest her therefore? Elb. I say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as she, that this house, if it be not a bawd's house, it is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house. Escal. How dost thou know that, constable? Elb. Marry, sir, by my wife; who, if she had been a woman cardinally given, might have been 8 whom I detest] He designed to say protest. |