Lucio. [To ISAB.] Go to; 'tis well: away!
Isab. Heaven keep your honour safe!
Ang.

For I am that way going to temptation,

Where prayers cross o.

Isab.

[Aside.] Amen :

At what hour to-morrow

Shall I attend your lordship?

Ang.

Isab. Save your honour!

Ang.

At any time 'fore noon.

[Exeunt LUCIO, ISABELLA, and Provost. From thee; even from thy virtue!

What's this? what's this? Is this her fault, or mine?

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

Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough,
Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,

And pitch our evils there? O, fye, fye, fye!

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,

6 For I am that way going to temptation,

Where prayers cross.] The meaning is not very clear, but it may thus be explained. Isabella prays, "Heaven keep your honour safe ;" and Angelo answers, "Amen; for, tempted as I am, I pray for one thing, you for another; you pray heaven to keep my honour safe, I the contrary, and thus our prayers cross."

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.

SCENE III.

A Room in a Prison.

[Exit.

Enter DUKE, habited like a Friar, and Provost.

Duke. Hail to you, provost; so I think you are. Proc. 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 need

ful.

Enter JULIET.

Look; here comes one: a gentlewoman of mine,
Who, falling in the flames 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.

[To JULIET.] I have provided for you: stay a while, And you shall be conducted.

7 Who falling in the FLAMES of her own youth,] The old copies read "flawes for flames, which word Sir W. Davenant, in his "Law against Lovers," restored. The misprint is a very easy one; and as the flames of youth is a natural expression, and the metaphor requires fire to produce the blistering mentioned in the next line, there is little doubt that Sir W. Davenant, who flourished so near the time of Shakespeare, was right.

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 con-

science,

And try your penitence, if it be sound,

Or hollowly put on.

Duke. Love you the man that wrong'd you?

Juliet. Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him. Duke. So then, it seems, your most offenceful act Was mutually committed?

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 least you do

repent,

8

As that the sin hath brought you to this shame ; Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not heaven, Showing, we would 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.

Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,
And I am going with instruction to him.

Grace go with you! Benedicite!

8

Juliet. Must die to-morrow! O, injurious love,

but LEAST you do repent,

[Exit.

As that the sin hath brought you to this shame;] The modern editors have printed lest instead of "least," as it stands in the old copies, and have thus confused the meaning, which is, "You do repent least that the sin hath brought you to this shame," instead of repenting most the sin itself. This true reading makes the sense of the Duke's observation complete at " But as we stand in fear," without supposing his unfinished sentence to be rudely broken in upon by Juliet, as it has been invariably printed.

9 Grace go with you! Benedicite!] Ritson suggested that "Grace go with you ought to be given to Juliet, and "Benedicite " to the Duke; but Juliet may be supposed to be so absorbed by the information that Claudio "must die to-morrow," (which words she repeats) as hardly to have heard, much less to have spoken to, the Duke at his departure.

That respites me a life, whose very comfort

Is still a dying horror!

Ang. When I would pray and think, I think and pray

To several subjects: heaven hath my empty words,
Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
Anchors on Isabel: heaven in my mouth,
As if I did but only chew his name,

And in my heart the strong and swelling evil
Of my conception. The state, whereon I studied,
Is like a good thing, being often read,
Grown sear'd and tedious1; yea, my gravity,
Wherein (let no man hear me) I take pride,
Could I, with boot, change for an idle plume,
Which the air beats for vain. O place! O form!
How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood":
Let's write good angel on the devil's horn,
"Tis not the devil's crest.

1 Grown SEAR'D and tedious ;] Warburton suggested scared for "feared," or "feard," as it stands in most copies of the first folio: that belonging to Lord Francis Egerton has it seard, as if the letter s had been substituted for f, as the sheet was going through the press. We need not therefore doubt as to the adoption of sear'd instead of " fear'd."

8

2 Blood, thou art blood :] Pope, to remedy the supposed defect of the metre, read, "Blood, thou art but blood ;" and Malone, "Blood, thou still art blood," for the same reason; but we have no right to take these liberties with the text: "Blood, thou art blood," is more emphatic than "Blood, thou art but blood," or "Blood, thou still art blood," and the pause after the mark of admiration amply fills up the time.

Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,

Making both it unable for itself,

And dispossessing all my other parts

Of necessary fitness?

So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons ;
Come all to help him, and so stop the air

3

By which he should revive: and even so
The general, subject to a well-wish'd king 3,
Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence.

Enter ISABELLA.

How now, fair maid?

Isab.

I am come to know your pleasure. Ang. That you might know it, would much better

please me,

Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live. Isab. Even so.-Heaven keep your honour!

[Retiring.

Ang. Yet may he live a while; and, it may be, As long as you, or I: yet he must die.

Isab. Under your sentence?

Ang. Yea.

3 THE GENERAL, subject to a well-wish'd king,] This is the old and intelligible reading. "The general" is the people: so in "Hamlet"-"'twas caviare to the general," A. ii. sc. 2; and Lord Clarendon, as quoted by Malone, "as rather to be consented to, than that the general should suffer." Hist. b. 5, p. 530, 8vo. edit. Yet in Act iii. sc. 2, of this play, "subject" is used for subjects, and "the general subject of a well-wish'd king" may mean, "the general subjects," &c. Either way, the meaning is evident.