As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens, Would all themselves laugh mortal 12.

Lucio. O, to him, to him, wench: he will relent; He's coming, I perceive't.

Prov.

Pray heaven, she win him! Isab. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself: Great men may jest with saints: 'tis wit in them; But, in the less, foul profanation.

Lucio. Thou'rt in the right, girl; more o' that. Isab. That in the captain's but a cholerick word, Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

Lucio. 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.

She speaks, and 'tis

-Fare

Such sense, that my sense breeds with it 14..

you well.

Isab. Gentle my lord, turn back.

Ang. I will bethink me:— -Come again to-morrow. Isab. Hark, how I'll bribe you: Good my lord, turn back..

12 The notion of angels weeping for the sins of men is rabbinical. By spleens Shakspeare meant that peculiar turn of the human mind, that 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 Shakspeare has used this indelicate metaphor again in HamIt will but skin and film the ulcerous place.' 14 i. e. Such sense as breeds or produces a consequence in his mind. Malone thought that sense here meant sensual desire.

let:

Ang. How! bribe me?

Isab. Ay, with such gifts, that heaven shall share

with you.

Lucio. You had marr'd all else.

Isab. Not with fond 15 shekels of the tested 16 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 sun-rise; prayers from preserved 17 souls, From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate To nothing temporal.

Ang.

To-morrow.

Well: come to me

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

Isab. Save your honour!

At time 'fore noon. any

[Exeunt LUCIO, ISABELLA, and Provost. Ang. From thee; even from thy virtue.—— What's this? what's this? Is this her fault, or mine?

15 Fond, in its old signification sometimes meant foolish. In its modern sense it evidently implied a doting or extravagant affection; here it signifies overvalued or prized by folly.

16 i. e. tried, refined.

17 Preserved from the corruption of the world.

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

19 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.

VOL. II.

E

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,

When men were fond, I smil'd, and wonder'd how! 22

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 you the man that wrong'd you?
Juliet. Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him.

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;

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 rest 3.

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.'