Lucio. Go to: it is well; away. [Aside to ISABEL. Isab. Heaven keep your honor safe!

Ang.

For I am that way going to temptation,

Where prayers cross.'

Isab.

Amen.

[Aside.

At what hour to-morrow

At any time 'fore noon.

Shall I attend your lordship?
Ang.

Isub. Save your honor!

Ang.

[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,

3

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, fie, fie, fie!
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.

her,

What? do I love

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

1 The petition of the Lord's Prayer, "Lead us not into temptation,” is here considered as crossing or intercepting the way in which Angelo was going: he was exposing himself to temptation by the appointment for the morrow's meeting.

2 I am corrupted, not by her, but by my own heart, which excites foul desires under the same influences that exalt her purity, as the carrion grows putrid by those beams that increase the fragrance of the violet. 3 Sense for sensual appetite.

Is that temptation, that doth goad us on

To sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet,
With all her double vigor, art and nature,

Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid

Subdues me quite ;-ever, till now,

When men were fond, I smiled, and wondered how!1

[Exit.

SCENE III. A Room in a Prison.

Enter Duke, habited like a friar, and Provost. Duke. Hail to you, provost! so I think you are. Prov. I am the provost: what's your will, good friar? Duke. Bound by my charity, and my blest 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

needful.

Enter JULIET.

Look, here comes one; a gentlewoman of mine,
Who, falling in the flames of her own youth,
Hath blistered her report: she is with child;
And he that got it, sentenced;-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.
I have provided for you; stay a while,

And you shall be conducted."

[TO JULIET.

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 conscience,

1 Dr. Johnson thinks the second act should end here.

2 The folio reads flawes.

And try your penitence, if it be sound,
Or hollowly put on.
Juliet.

I'll gladly learn.

Duke. Love you the man that wronged you?

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

Juliet.

Mutually.

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 lest you do

repent,

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

Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,

There rest.

[Exit.

And I am going with instruction to him.

Grace go with you! Benedicite!

Juliet. Must die to-morrow! O, injurious love,2

That respites me a life, whose very comfort

Is still a dying horror!

Prov.

'Tis pity of him.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. A Room in Angelo's House.

Enter ANGElo.

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,

1 i. e. not spare to offend heaven.

2 "O injurious love." Sir Thomas Hanmer proposed to read law instead of love.

3 Invention for imagination.

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 feared and tedious; 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 still art blood!
Let's write good angel on the devil's horn,
"Tis not the devil's crest.2

How now: who's there?

Serv.

Enter Servant.

One Isabel, a sister,

Teach her the way. [Exit Serv.

Desires access to you.
Ang.

O heavens!

Why does my blood thus muster to my heart;
Making both it unable for itself,

And dispossessing all the other parts

Of necessary fitness?

So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;

Come all to help him, and so stop the air

By which he should revive: and even so

The general, subject to a well-wished king,
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.

1 Boot is profit.

2 Though we should write good angel on the devil's horn, it will not change his nature, so as to give him a right to wear that crest." 3 i. e. the people or multitude.

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 honor!

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

Isab. Under your sentence?

Ang. Yea.

Isab. When, I beseech you? That in his reprieve, Longer, or shorter, he may be so fitted,

That his soul sicken not.

Ang. Ha! Fie, these filthy vices! It were as good To pardon him, that hath from nature stolen

A man already made,' as to remit

Their saucy sweetness, that do coin heaven's image
In stamps that are forbid: 'tis all as easy
Falsely to take away a life true made,

As to put mettle in restrained means,
To make a false one.

Isab. 'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.
Ang. Say you so? Then I shall pose you quickly.
Which had you rather, that the most just law
Now took your brother's life; or, to redeem him,
Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness,
As she that he hath stained?

Isab.

Sir, believe this,

I had rather give my body than my soul.

Ang. I talk not of your soul: our compelled sins Stand more for number than account.2

Isab.

How say you?

Ang. Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak

Against the thing I say.

Answer to this:

I, now the voice of the recorded law,

Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life:

Might there not be a charity in sin,

To save this brother's life?

1 i. e. that hath killed a man.

2 i. e. actions that we are compelled to, however numerous, are not imputed to us by Heaven as crimes.