Like man new-made.4

Ang.

Be you content, fair maid;

It is the law, not I, condemns your brother:

Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,

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 prepared for death. Even for our kitchens
We kill the fowl of season: 5 shall we serve Heaven

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 to ISAB.]

Ay, well said.

Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept : Those many had not dared to do that evil,

If that the first that did th' edict infringe
Had answer'd for his deed: now 'tis awake,

Takes note of what is done; and, like a prophet,
Looks in a glass,7 that shows what future evils,
Either new, or by remissness new-conceived,
And so in progress to be hatch'd and born,
Are now to have no súccessive degrees,
But, ere they live, to end.

6

4 I take our Poet's meaning to be, "If you allow this consideration its due weight, you will find mercy breathing within your lips, as if a new man were formed within you." - HEATH.

-5 In fitting season; that is, when they are mature or made ready for the purpose. So in Hamlet, iii. 3: "Am I, then, revenged to take him in the purging of his soul, when he is fit and season'd for the passage?"

6 Dormiunt aliquando leges, moriunter nunquam,

law.

Yet it may operate as an ex-post-facto law.

is a maxim of English

7 Alluding to the magic glasses or charmed mirrors with which witches and fortune-tellers used to reveal the far-off future. In Macbeth, iv. 1, the Weird Sisters make use of such a glass to disclose to the hero the long line of kings that is to spring from Banquo.

Yet show some pity.

Isab.

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; 8

And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,
Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;

Your brother dies to-morrow; be content.

plead my

Isab. So you must be the first that gives this sentence,
And he that suffers. O, 'tis excellent

To have a giant's strength, but tyrannous 17~~
To use it like a giant.

Lucio. [Aside to ISAB.] That's well said.

Isab. Could great men thunder

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet;
For every pelting,9 petty officer

Would use his heaven for thunder,

Nothing but thunder. Merciful Heaven!

Thou rather with Thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarlèd oak
Than the soft myrtle: but man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority, -

Most ignorant of what he's most assured,

His glassy essence, 10

like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven

As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.11

8 So in the Memorials of Sir Matthew Hale: "When I find myself swayed to mercy, let me remember that there is a mercy likewise due to the country."

་་

9 The Poet repeatedly uses pelting for paltry. So in A Midsummer, ii. 1: Have every pelting river made so proud."

10 That is, his brittle, fragile being. The meaning seems to be, most ignorant of that which is most certain, namely, his natural infirmity.

11 A very mark-worthy saying; meaning that, if the angels had our disposition to splenetic or satirical mirth, the sight of our human arrogance

Lucio. [Aside 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 yourself: 12 Great men may jest with saints; 'tis wit in them,

But in the less foul profanation.

Lucio. [Aside to ISAB.] Thou'rt i' 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 to ISAB.] Art avised o' that?13 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.14 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
Against my brother's life.

Ang. [Aside.]

She speaks, and 'tis

Fare you well.

Such sense, that my sense breeds with't.15

Isab. Gentle my lord, turn back.

1

in the play

strutting through its absurd antics would cast them into such an ecstasy of ridicule, that they would laugh themselves clean out of their immortality; this celestial prerogative being incompatible with such ebullitions of spleen. 12 Meaning, apparently, "I cannot match or compare my brother with you, cannot cast him into the scales as a counterpoise to yourself." To jest with one is to be on equal terms with him. See Critical Notes.

18" Have you well considered that?" Avised is merely another form of advised, which the Poet often uses in the sense of informed, assured, circumspect. See page 28, note 12.

14 This metaphor occurs again in Hamlet, iii. 4: "It will but skin and film the ulcerous place."

15"Such sense as breeds a response in my mind."

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! both ų k

Isab. Ay, with such gifts that Heaven shall share with

you.

Lucio. [Aside to ISAB.] You had marr'd all else.

Isab. Not with fond shekels of the tested gold,
Or stones, whose rates are either rich or poor
As fancy values them; but with true prayers,
That shall be up at Heaven and enter there
Ere sun-rise, prayers from perserved souls,
From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal.

Ang.

Well; come to me to-morrow. Lucio. [Aside to ISAB.] Go to; 'tis well; away!

Isab. Heaven keep your Honour safe!

16 The petition, "Lead us not into temptation," is here regarded as crossing or intercepting the way Angelo is going. He is seeking temptation by appointing another interview. See, however, Angelo's first speech in the next scene but one. Heath explains the passage thus: "For I am labouring under a temptation of that peculiar and uncommon kind, that prayers, and every other act of piety and virtue, tend to inflame, instead of allaying it.' For it was the very piety and virtue of Isabella that gave an edge to the lust of Angelo."

17 Isabella has just used "your Honour" as his title: he catches at the proper meaning of the word, and goes to reflecting on the danger his honour is in from the course he is taking.

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.18 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 19 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. 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 : (ne'er could the strumpet,
With all her double vigour, art and nature,

Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
Subdues me quite. - Ever till now,

When men were fond, I smiled, and wonder'd how.) [Exit.

18 "Virtuous season" here means the season that matures and unfolds, or brings forth, the virtue in question, the sweetness of the flower.

19 Evils is here used in the sense of offal or offals. Dyce quotes upon the passage, "It would not be difficult to show that by evil or evils our forefathers designated physical as well as moral corruption and impurity." The desecration of religious structures by converting them to the lowest uses of nature was an eastern mode of showing contempt. Angelo could hardly have chosen a stronger figure for expressing the heinousness of his intended profligacy.