That from the seedness the bare fallow brings

To teeming foison*; even so her plenteous womb
Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.

Isab. 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.

The duke is very strangely gone from hence;
Bore many gentlemen, myself being one,
In hand, and hope of action: but we do learn
By those that know the very nerves of state,
His givings out were of an infinite distance
From his true-meant design. Upon his place,
And with full line of his authority,

Governs lord Angelo; a man, whose blood
Is very snow-broth; one who never feels
The wanton stings and motions of the sense;
But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
With profits of the mind, study and fast.
He (to give fear to use and liberty,

6

Which have, for long, run by the hideous law,
As mice by lions), hath pick'd out an act,
Under whose heavy sense your brother's life
Falls into forfeit: he arrests him on it;
And follows close the rigour of the statute,
To make him an example: all hope is gone,
Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer
To soften Angelo: And that's my pith

Teeming foison is abundant produce.

Tilth is tillage. See Shakespeare's third Sonnet.

6 To rebate is to make dull: Aciem ferri hebetare.-Baret. 7 i. e. to intimidate use, or practices long countenanced by

custom

Of business 'twixt you and your poor brother.
Isab. Doth he so seek his life?

Lucio.

Has censur'd him

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 owe them.
Isab. I'll see what I can do.

Lucio.

But speedily.

Isab. I will about it straight;
No longer staying but to give the mother
Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you :
Commend me to my brother: soon at night
I'll send him certain word of my success.
Lucio. I take my leave of you.

Isab.

Good sir, adieu.
[Exeunt.

To censure is to judge. This is the poet's general meaning for the word, but the editors have given him several others. We have it again in the next scene:

"When I that censure him do so offend,

Let mine own judgment pattern out my death."

To owe is to have, to possess.

ACT II.

SCENE I. A Hall in Angelo's House.

Enter ANGELO, ESCALUS, a Justice, Provost,
Officers, and other Attendants.

Angelo.

E must not make a scare-crow of the law, Setting it up to fear1 the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it Their perch, and not their terror.

Escal.

Ay, but yet Let us be keen, and rather cut a little,

Than fall 2, 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 him3,
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,

1 The verb active, to fear is to affright.

2 i. e. throw down; to fall a tree is still used for to fell it.

3 To complete the sense of this line for seems to be required: -" which now you censure him for." But Shakespeare frequently uses elliptical expressions.

That thieves do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant,
The jewel that we find, we stoop and take it,
Because we see it; but what we do not see,
We tread upon, and never think of it.
You may not so extenuate his offence,
For I have had such faults; but rather tell me,
When I, that censure him, do so offend,
Let mine own judgment pattern out my death,
And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.
Escal. Be it as your wisdom will.

Ang.

Where is the provost ? Prov. Here, if it like your honour. Ang.

See that Claudio

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:
Some run from brakes7 of vice, and answer none;
And some condemned for a fault alone.

4 An old forensic term, signifying to pass judgment, or sentence. 5 Full of force or conviction, or full of proof in itself. So, in Othello, Act ii. Sc. 1, "As it is a most pregnant and unforc'd position."

6 i. e. Because I have had such faults.

7 The first folio here reads "Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none." The correction was made by Rowe. Brakes here most probably signify thorny perplexities, as in K. Henry VIII. Act i. Sc. 2.

""Tis but the fate of place, and the rough brake,
That virtue must go through."

A brake also signified any engine or instrument, as a flax-brake, a brake for horses, &c. and hence also a trap or snare. Thus Skelton's Eleinour Rummin. It was a state to take the devil in a brake. And in Holland's Leaguer, a Comedy, by Sh. Marmion:

her I'll make

A stale to catch this courtier in a brake. And, in Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, p. 84, "At last, as ye have

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.

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, plucked down in the suburbs; and now she professes a hot-house, which, I think, is a very ill house

too.

heard here before, how divers of the great estates and Lords of the council lay in await with my lady Anne Boleyn, to espy a convenient time and occasion to take the Cardinal in a brake.” Mr. Knight retains the old reading. Mr. Collier alters it to "breaks of ice," and by mistake says, that this is the reading of the old copies.

8 This comes off well, i. e. is well told. The meaning of this phrase, when seriously applied to speech, is, "This is well delivered," "this story is well told." But in the present instance it is used ironically.

9 Professes a hot-house, i. e, keeps a bagnio.