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Let her have needful, but not lavish, means;

There shall be order for it.

Enter LUCIO and ISABELLA.

Prov. Save your honour!

[Offering to retire.

Ang. Stay a little while.-[To ISAB.] Y' are wel

come: what's your will?

Isab. I am a woeful suitor to your honour,

Please but your honour hear me.

suit?

Ang.
Well; what's your
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.

Prov. [Aside.] Heaven give thee moving graces! Ang. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it? Why, every fault's condemn'd ere it be done.

Mine were the very cipher of a function,

To fine the faults, whose fine stands in record,

And let go by the actor.

Isab.
I had a brother then.-Heaven keep your honour!

O just, but severe law!

[Retiring.

Lucio. [To ISAB.] Give't not o'er so: to him again,

intreat him;

Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown

You are too cold: if you should need a pin,

VOL. II.

You could not with more tame a tongue desire it.

To him, I say.

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

As mine is to him?

Ang.

He's sentenc'd: 'tis too late.

Lucio. [To ISAB.] You are too cold.

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
Would not have been so stern.

Ang.

you,

Pray you, begone.

Isab. I would to heaven I had your potency,
And you were Isabel! should it then be thus?
No; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge,
And what a prisoner.

Lucio. [Aside.] Ay, touch him; there's the vein.
Ang. Your brother is a forfeit of the law,

And you but waste your words.

Isab.

Alas! alas!

Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once;

2 May call it BACK again :] The word back was inserted by the editor of the folio of 1632; and, perhaps, as the measure shows, it had accidentally dropped out in the original impression of 1623.

And he that might the vantage best have took,
Found out the remedy. How would you be,
If he, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? O, think on that,
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made!

Ang.
Be you content, fair maid.
It is the law, not I, condemns your brother:
Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,

It should be thus with him: he must die to-morrow. Isab. To-morrow? O, that's sudden! Spare him, spare him!

He's not prepar'd for death. Even for our kitchens
We kill the fowl of season: shall we serve heaven

With less respect than we do minister

To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you: Who is it that hath died for this offence?

There's many have committed it.

Lucio.

[Aside.] Ay, well said.

Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath

slept :

Those many had not dar'd to do that evil,

If the first, that did th' edict infringe3,

Had answer'd for his deed: now, 'tis awake;
Takes note of what is done, and, like a prophet,
Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils
(Either now, or by remissness new-conceiv'd,
And so in progress to be hatch'd and born,)
Are now to have no successive degrees,
But here they live to end.

* If the first, that did th' edict infringe,] The sense is here complete without man, which Pope inserted after "first." Malone, Steevens, &c., adopted this reading, in opposition to Capell and Tyrwhitt, who recommended that the line should run, "If he, the first that did the edict infringe." The second folio makes no change, and were the sense incomplete, there might be some reason for an attempt to amend the measure of Shakespeare.

But HERE they live to end.] This is the reading of all the folios: Sir Thomas Hanmer altered the text to "ere they live, to end ;" and Malone to "where they live, to end." There is no need of alteration. Angelo is referring to the

Isab.

Yet show some pity.

Ang. I show it most of all, when I show justice; For then I pity those I do not know,

Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall,

And do him right, that, answering one foul wrong,

Lives not to act another. Be satisfied:

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

To use it like a giant.

Lucio.

[Aside.] 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. Merciful heaven!

Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt

Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,
Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man!
Drest in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.

Lucio. [To ISAB.] O, to him, to him, wench! He

will relent:

He's coming; I perceive't.

Prov.

[Aside.] Pray heaven, she win him! Isab. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself:

place of his own rule, and contrasts what the state of the law there had been with what it then was: formerly it slept, and criminals escaped, but now it is awake, and resolves to punish crimes-" but here they live to end ;" here crimes live only that they may be brought to an end. All the modern editors have erred in this passage by not attending to the old copies: mistakes have been made from carelessness of collation, and subsequently reasoned upon, as if the text had been accurately followed.

Great men may jest with saints: 'tis wit in them,
But in the less foul profanation.

Lucio. [To ISAB.] 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. [Aside.] Art avis'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
Against my brother's life.

Ang.

[Aside.] She speaks, and 'tis Such sense, that my sense breeds with it. [To her.] 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?

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

with you.

Lucio. [Aside.] You had marr'd all else.

5

Isab. Not with fond shekels of the tested 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 souls,
From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal.
Ang.

Well; come to me to-morrow.

5 Not with FOND SHEKELS] "Fond "is foolish, and in this instance worthless, or only valued by the foolish. The old copies have "sickles" for "shekels," and Shakespeare's word may have been "cycles."

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