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. 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. 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, As mercy does. If he had been as you, and you as he, Ang. you, Pray you, begone. 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; 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, Ang. 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 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; * 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, 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, Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, 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, 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 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, 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." |