Pardon is still the nurse of second woe: SCENE II. [Exeunt. Another Room in the same. Enter Provost and a Servant. Serv. He's hearing of a cause; he will come straight. I'll tell him of you. Prov. Pray you, do. [Ex. Serv.] I'll know All sects, all ages smack of this vice; and he Enter ANGELO. Ang. Now, what's the matter, provost ? Prov. Is it your will Claudio shall die to-morrow? Ang. Did I not tell thee, yea? hadst thou not order? Why dost thou ask again? Prov. Lest I might be too rash : Ang. Go to; let that be mine : Prov. I crave your honour's pardon.- Ang. Dispose of her To some mor fitter place; and that with speed. Re-enter Servant. Serv. Here is the sister of the man condemn'd, Desires access to you. Ang. Hath he a sister? Prov. Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid, And to be shortly of a sisterhood, If not already. Ang. Well, let her be admitted. See you the fornicatress be remov'd; Let her have needful, but not lavish, means; There shall be order for it. [Ex. Serv. Enter LUCIO and ISABELLA. Prov. 'Save your honour ! [Offering to retire. Ang. Stay a little while.- [To ISAB.] You are wel come: What's your will ? Isab. I am a woeful suitor to your honour, Please but your honour hear me. Ang. Well; what's your suit ? Isab. There is a vice, that most I do abhor, And most desire should meet the blow of justice; For which I would not plead, but that I must; For which I must not plead, but that I am At war, 'twixt will, and will not. Ang. Well; the matter? Isab. I have a brother is condemn'd to die: I do beseech you, let it be his fault, And not my brother. I Prov. Heaven give thee moving graces ! Why, every fault's condemn'd, ere it be done: To find the faults, whose fine stands in record, Isab. O just, but severe law ! I had a brother then.-Heaven keep your honour ! [Retiring. Lucio. [To ISAB.] Give't not o'er so: to him again, intreat him; Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown; You could not with more tame a tongue desire it : Isab. Must he needs die ? Ang. Maiden, no remedy. Isab. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him, And neither heaven, nor man, grieve at the mercy. Ang. I will not do't. Isab. But can you, if you would ? Ang. Look, what I will not, that I cannot do. Isab. But might you do't, and do the world no wrong, If so your heart were touch'd with that remorse Ang. He's sentenc'd; 'tis too late. [1] i. e. let his fault be condemned, or extirpated, but let not my brother hmself suffer. MALONE. [2] Remorse, in this place, as in many others, signifies pity. STEEV. Lucio. You are too cold. [TO ISAB. Isab. Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word, May call it back again: Well, believe this, No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, Become them with one half so good a grace, As mercy does. If he had been as you, And you as he, you would have slipt like him; But he, like you, would not have been so stern. Ang. Pray you, be gone. Isab. I would to heaven I had your potency, Lucio. [Aside.] Ay, touch him: there's the vein. And you but waste your words. Isab. Alas! alas! Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once; Ang. Be you content, fair maid; spare him: He's not prepar'd for death! Even for our kitchens To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you : Lucio. Ay, well said. [3] This is a fine thought, and finely expressed. The meaning is, that Mercy will add such a grace to your person, that you will appear as amiable as a man come fresh out of the hands of his Creator. WARBURTON. I incline to a different interpretation: And you, Angelo, will breathe new life into Claudio, as the Creator animated Adam, by "breathing into his nostrils the breath of life." HOLT WHITE. Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept: Those many had not dar'd to do that evil, Ang. I show it most of all when I show justice; For then I pity those I do not know, Your brother dies to-morrow; be content. Isab. So you must be the first, that gives this sentence; And he, that suffers ? O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous Luc. That's well said. Isab. Could great men thunder As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet, For every pelting, petty officer, Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder. Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd, Lucio. O, to him, to him, wench: he will relent, Prov. Pray heaven, she win him! [4] This alludes to the fopperies of the beril, much used at that time by cheats and fortune-tellers to predict by. WARBURTON. The beril, which is a kind of crystal, hath a weak tincture of red in it. Among other tricks of astrologers, the discovery of past or future events was supposed to be the consequence of looking into it. [5] Gnarre is the old English word for a knot in wood. REED. STEEVENS. Isab. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself : 6 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 choleric 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: 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 Ang. She speaks, and 'tis Such sense, that my sense breeds with it.-Fare 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. Ang. How! bribe me ? Isa. Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you. Lucio. You had marr'd all else. Isab. Not with fond shekels of the tested gold,7 Or stones, whose rates are either rich or poor, Ang. Well: come to me to-morrow. [Aside to ISAB. Ang. Amen! For I Am going that way to temptation, Isab. At what hour to-morrow Shall I attend your lordship ? [Aside. [6] We mortals, proud and foolish, cannot prevail on our passions to weigh or compare our brother, a being of like nature and like frailty, with ourself. We have different names and different judgments for the same faults committed by persons of different condition. JOHNSON. place valued or prized by folly. [7] Fond means very frequently in our author, foolish. It signifies in this STEEVENS. 29* VOL. I. |