O, faithless coward! O, dishonest wretch!
Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice!
Is't not a kind of incest, to take life

From thine own sister's shame? What should I think?
Heaven shield my mother play'd my father fair!
For such a warped slip of wilderness

Ne'er issu'd from his blood. Take my defiance :
Die; perish! might but my bending down
Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed:
I'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,
No word to save thee.

Clau. Nay, hear me, Isabel.

Isab. O, fye, fye, fye!

Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade :

Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd:

'Tis best that thou diest quickly.

Clau. O hear me, Isabella.

Re-enter Duke.

[Going

Duke. Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word. Isab. What is your will?

Duke. Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and by have some speech with you: the satisfaction I would require, is likewise your own benefit.

Isab. I have no superfluous leisure; my stay, must be stolen out of other affairs; but I will attend you a while. Duke. [To CLAUDIO, aside.] Son, I have overheard what hath past between you and your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her; only he hath made an essay of her virtue, to practice his judgment with the disposition of natures: she, having the truth of honour in her, hath made him that gracious denial which he is most glad to receive: I am confessor to Angelo, and I know this to be true; therefore prepare yourself to death; Do not satisfy your resolution with hopes that are fallible: to-morrow you must die; go to your knees, and make ready.

Clau. Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love with life, that I will sue to be rid of it. Duke. Hold there Farewell.you

Re-enter Provost.

Provost, a word with you.

Prov. What's your will, father?

[Exit CLAU.

[5] Wilderness is here used for wildness, the state of being disorderly. STE.

Duke That now you are come, you will be gone :Leave me a while with the maid; my mind promises with my habit, no loss shall touch her by my company.

Prov In good time.

[Exit Prov.

Duke. The hand, that hath made you fair, hath made you good: the goodness, that is cheap in beauty, makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of your complexion, should keep the body of it ever fair. The assault, that Angelo hath made to you, fortune hath conveyed to my understanding; and, but that frailty hath examples for his falling, I should wonder at Angelo. How would you do to content this substitute, and to save your brother?

Isab. I am now going to resolve him : I had rather my brother die by the law, than my son should be unlawfully born. But O, how much is the good duke deceived in Angelo! If ever he return, and I can speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or discover his government.

Duke. That shall not be much amiss: Yet, as the matter now stands, he will avoid your accusation; he made trial of you only.-Therefore, fasten your ear on my advisings; to the love I have in doing good, a remedy presents itself. I do make myself believe, that you may most uprighteously do a poor wronged lady a merited benefit; redeem your brother from the angry law; do no stain to your own gracious person; and much please the absent duke, if, peradventure, he shall ever return to have hearing of this business.

Isab. Let me hear you speak further; I have spirit to do any thing that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit. Duke. Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have you not heard speak of Mariana, the sister of Frederick, the great soldier, who miscarried at sea?

Isab. I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.

Duke. Her should this Angelo have married; was affianced to her by oath, and the nuptial appointed: between which time of the contract, and limit of the solemnity, her brother Frederick was wrecked at sea, having in that perish'd vessel the dowry of his sister. mark, how heavily this befel to the poor gentlewoman: there she lost a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward her ever most kind and natural; with him the

But

portion and sinew of her fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her combinate husband, this well-seeming Angelo.)

Isab. Can this be so? Did Angelo so leave her?

Duke. Left her in her tears, and dry'd not one of them with his comfort; swallowed his vows whole, pretending, in her, discoveries of dishonour in few, bestowed her on her own lamentation, which she yet wears for his sake; and he, a marble to her tears, is washed with them, but relents not.

Isab. What a merit were it in death, to take this poor maid from the world! What corruption in this life, that it will let this man live !-But how out of this can she avail?

Duke. It is a rupture that you may easily heal: and the cure of it not only saves your brother, but keeps you from dishonour in doing it.

Isab. Show me how, good father.

Duke. This fore-named maid hath yet in her the continuance of her first affection; his unjust unkindness, that in all reason should have quenched her love, hath, like an impediment in the current, made it more violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his requiring with a plausible obedience; agree with his demands to the point only refer yourself to this advantage,-first that your stay with him may not be long; that the time may have all shadow and silence in it; and the place answer to convenience: this being granted in course, now follows all. We shall advise this wronged maid to stead up your appointment, go in your place; if the encounter acknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him to her recompense: and here, by this, is your brother saved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid will I frame, and make fit for his attempt. If you think well to carry this as you may, the doubleness of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof. What think you of it?

Isab. The image of it gives me content already; and, I trust, it will grow to a most prosperous perfection.

Duke. It lies much in your holding up: Haste you speedily to Angelo; if for this night he entreat you to

[6] To scale the deputy, may be, to reach him notwithstanding the elevation of his place; or, it may be, to strip him and discover his nakedness, though armed and eoncealed by the investment of authority. JOHNSON.

his bed, give him promise of satisfaction. I will presently to St. Luke's; there, at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana: at that place call upon me; and despatch with Angelo, that it may be quickly.

Isab. I thank you for this comfort: Fare you well, good father. [Exeunt severally.

SCENE II.

The Street before the Prison. Enter Duke, as a friar; to him ELBOW, Clown, and Officers.

Elb. Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will needs buy and sell men and women like beasts, we shall have all the world drink brown and white bastard.R

Duke. O, heavens! what stuff is here?

Clown. 'Twas never merry world, since, of two usuries, the merriest was put down, and the worser allow'd by order of law a furr'd gown to keep him warm; and furr'd with fox and lamb-skins too, to signify that craft, being richer than innocency, stands for the facing.

Elb. Come your way, sir :-Bless you, good father friar. Duke. And you, good brother father: What offence hath this man made you, sir?

Elb. Marry, sir, he hath offended the law; and, sir, we take him to be a thief too, sir; for we have found upon him, sir, a strange pick-lock, which we have sent to the deputy.

Duke. Fye, sirrah; a bawd, a wicked bawd!
The evil that thou causest to be done,

That is thy means to live: Do thou but think
What 'tis to cram a maw, or clothe a back,
From such a filthy vice: say to thyself,—
From their abominable and beastly touches
I drink, I eat, array myself, and live.
Canst thou believe thy living is a life,

So stinkingly depending? Go, mend, go, mend.

Clown. Indeed, it does stink in some sort, sir; but yet, sir, I would prove

Duke. Nay, if the devil hath given thee proofs for sin, Thou wilt prove his.-Take him to prison, officer;

In

[7] A grange, in its original signification, meant a farm-house of a monastery (from grana gerendo) from which it was always at some little distance. Lincolnshire they at this day call every lone house that is unconnected with others, a grange. MALONE.

[8] Bastard, a kind of sweet wine, then much in vogue, from the Italian bastardo. WARBURTON.

Correction and instruction must both work,
Ere this rude beast will profit.

Elb. He must before the deputy, sir; he has given him warning: the deputy cannot abide a whoremaster: if he be a whoremonger, and come before him, he were as good go a mile on his errand.

Duke. That we were all, as some would seem to be, Free from our faults, as faults from seeming, free!

Enter LUCIO.

Elb. His neck will come to your waist, a cord, sir." Clown. I spy comfort; I cry, bail : here's a gentleman, and a friend of mine.

Lucio. How now, noble Pompey? What, at the heels of Cæsar? Art thou led in triumph? What, is there none of Pygmalion's images, newly made woman, to be had now, for putting the hand in the pocket and extracting it clutch'd? What reply? Ha? What sayst thou to this tune, matter, and method? Is't not drown'd i' th' last rain? Ha? What says't thou, trot? Is the world as it was, man? Which is the way? Is it sad, and few words? Or how? The trick of it?

Duke. Still thus, and thus! still worse!

Lucio. How doth my dear morsel, thy mistress? Procures she still? Ha?

Clown. Troth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she is herself in the tub.'

Lucio. Why, 'tis good; it is the right of it; it must be so: Ever your fresh whore, and your powder'd bawd: An unshunn'd consequence; it must be so: Art going to prison, Pompey?

Clown. Yes, faith, sir.

Lucio. Why 'tis not amiss, Pompey: Farewell: Go; say, I sent thee thither. For debt, Pompey? Or how? Elb. For being a bawd, for being a bawd.

Lucio. Well, then imprison him: If imprisonment be the due of a bawd, why, 'tis his right: Bawd is he, doubtless, and of antiquity too; bawd-born. Farewell, good Pompey: Commend me to the prison, Pompey:

[9] i. e. his neck will be tied, like your waist, with a rope. The friars of the Franciscan order, perhaps of all others, wear a hempen cord for a girdle. Thus Buchanan : "Fac gemant suis "Variata terga funibus."

JOHNSON.

[1] The method of cure for venereal complaints is grossly called the powdering

tub.

JOHNSON