Ne'er issu'd from his blood. Take my defiance:9 Claud. Nay, hear me, Isabel. O, fie, fie, fie! [Going. Thy sin 's not accidental, but a trade:1 Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd: 'Tis best that thou diest quickly. Claud. Re-enter DUKE. O hear me, Isabella. 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 CLAUD. 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 assay of her virtue, to practice his judgment with the disposition of natures: she, having the truth of honour in her, hath made him that gra 8 a warped slip of wilderness-] Wilderness is here used for wildness, the state of being disorderly. So, in The Maid's Tragedy: "And throws an unknown wilderness about me." Again, in Old Fortunatus, 1600: "But I in wilderness totter'd out my youth." The word, in this sense, is now obsolete, though employed by Milton: 9 "The paths, and bowers, doubt not, but our joint hands, "Will keep from wilderness with ease." Steevens. and Juliet: 1 Take my defiance:] Defiance is refusal. So, in Romeo "I do defy thy commiseration " Steevens. -but a trade:] A custom; a practice; an established habit. So we say of a man much addicted to any thing, he makes a trade of it. Johnson. cious 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:2 to-morrow you must die; go to your knees, and make ready. Claud. 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 you there :3 Farewel. Re-enter Provost. Provost, a word with you. Prov. What's your will, father? [Exit CLAUD. 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.4 [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 2 Do not satisfy your resolution with hopes that are fallible :] A condemned man, whom his confessor had brought to bear death with decency and resolution, began anew to entertain hopes of life This occasioned the advice in the words above But how did these hopes satisfy his resolution? or what harm was there, if they did? We must certainly read, Do not falsify your resolution with hopes that are fallible. And then it becomes a reasonable admonition. For hopes of life, by drawing him back into the world, would naturally elude or weaken the virtue of that resolution which was raised only on motives of religion. And this his confessor had reason to warn him of. The term falsify is taken from fencing, and signifies the pretending to aim a stroke, in order to draw the adversary off his guard. So, Fairfax: "Now strikes he out, and now he falsfieth.” Warburton. The sense is this:-Do not rest with satisfaction on hopes that are fallible. There is no need of alteration. Steevens. Perhaps the meaning is, Do not satisfy or content yourself with that kind of resolution, which acquires strength from a la tent hope that it will not be put to the test; a hope, that in your case, if you rely upon it, will deceive you. Malone. 3 Hold you there:] Continue in that resolution. Johnson. 4 In good time.] i, e, à la bonne heure, so be it, very well. Steevens, fair. The assault, that Angelo hath made to you, for. tune hath convey'd 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. be made trial of you only.] That is, be will say he made trial of you only. M. Mason. 6 by oath,] By inserted by the editor of the second folio. Malone. 7 and limit of the solemnity,] So, in King John: "Prescribes how long the virgin state shall last,"Gives limits unto holy nuptial rites." i. e. appointed times. Malone. But 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 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 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 grant 8 ber combinate husband, ] Combinate is betrothed, settled by contract. Steevens. 9 bestowed her on her own lamentation,] i. e. left her to her sorrows. Malone. Rather, as our author expresses himself in King Henry V:— gave her up" to them. 1 Steevens. only refer yourself to this advantage,] This is scarcely to be reconciled to any established mode of speech. We may read, only reserve yourself to, or only reserve to yourself this advantage. Johnson. Refer yourself to, merely signifies-bave recourse to, betake yourself to, this advantage. Steevens. ed 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 his bed, give him promise of satisfaction. I will presently to St. Luke's; there, at the moated granges resides this dejected Mariana: At that place call upon me; and despatch with Angelo, that it may be quickly. 2 the corrupt deputy scaled.] 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 concealed by the investments of authority. Johnson. To scale, as may be learned from a note to Coriolanus, Act I, sc. i, most certainly means, to disorder, to disconcert, to put to flight. An army routed is called by Holinshed, an army scaled. The word sometimes signifies to diffuse or disperse ; at others, as I suppose in the present instance, to put into confusion. Steevens. To scale is certainly to reach (as Dr. Johnson explains it) as well as to disperse or spread abroad, and hence its application to a routed army which is scattered over the field. The Duke's meaning appears to be, either that Angelo would be over-reached, as a town is by the scalade, or that his true character would be spread or laid open, so that his vileness would become evident. Dr. Warburton thinks it is weighed, a meaning which Dr. Johnson affixes to the word in another place. See Coriolanus, Act I, sc. i. Scaled, however, may mean-laid open, as a corrupt sore is by removing the slough that covers it. The allusion is rendered less disgusting, by more elegant language, in Hamlet: 3 "It will but skin and film the ulcerous place: the moated grange A grange is a solitary farmhouse. So, in Othello: this is Venice, My house is not a grange." Steevens. |