Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life: To save this brother's life? Isab. Please you to do't, I'll take it as a peril to my soul, It is no sin at all, but charity. Ang. Pleas'd you to do't, at peril of your soul, Were equal poise of sin and charity. Isab. That I do beg his life, if it be sin, Heaven, let me bear it! you granting of my suit, And nothing of your answer. Ang. Nay, but hear me: Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ig norant, Or seem so, craftily; and that's not good. Isab. Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, But graciously to know I am no better. Ang. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright, When it doth tax itself: as these black masks 12 Proclaim an enshield 13 beauty ten times louder Than beauty could displayed. But mark me; To be received plain, I'll speak more gross : Your brother is to die. Isab. So. Ang. And his offence is so, as it appears Accountant to the law upon that pain 14. Isab. True. Ang. Admit no other way to save his life, (As I subscribe 15 not that, nor any other, But in the loss of question 16), that you, his sister, 12 The masks worn by female spectators of the play are here probably meant; however improperly, a compliment to them is put into the mouth of Angelo: unless the demonstrative pronoun is put for the prepositive article? At the beginning of Romeo and Juliet, we have a passage of similar import: "These happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows, 13 i. e. enshielded, covered. 14 Pain, penalty. 15 Subscribe, agree to. 16 i. e. conversation that tends to nothing. Finding yourself desir'd of such a person, Isab. As much for my poor brother, as myself: That longing I have been sick for, ere I'd yield My body up to shame. Then must your brother die. Ang. Better it were, a brother died at once, Should die for ever. Ang. Were not you then as cruel as the sentence That you have slander'd so? Isab. Ignomy 17 in ransom, and free pardon, Are of two houses: lawful mercy is Nothing akin to foul redemption. Ang. You seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant; And rather prov'd the sliding of your brother A merriment than a vice. Isab. O pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out,, To have what we'd have, we speak not what we mean: I something do excuse the thing I hate, Isab. Else let my brother die, If not a feodary, but only he, Ignomy, ignominy. 18 I adopt Mr. Nares' cxplanation of this difficult passage as the most satisfactory yet 'offered:-'If he is the only feodary, i. e. subject who holds by the common tenure of human frailty. Owes, i. e. possesses and succeeds by, holds his right of succession by it. Ang. Nay, women are frail too. Isab. Ay, as the glasses where they view them selves; Which are as easy broke as they make forms. Women! Help heaven! men their creation mar In profiting by them 19. Nay, call us ten times frail; For we are soft as our complexions are, And credulous to false prints 20. Ang. I think it well: And from this testimony of your own sex, (Since, I suppose, we are made to be no stronger Than faults may shake our frames) let me be bold; I do arrest your words; Be that you are, That is, a woman; if you be more, you're none; If you be one (as you are well express'd By all external warrants), show it now, By putting on the destin'd livery. Isab. I have no tongue but one: gentle my lord, Let me entreat you speak the former language. Ang. Plainly conceive, I love you. Isab. My brother did love Juliet; and you tell me, That he shall die for it. Ang. He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love. Isab. I know, your virtue hath a licence in't, Which seems a little fouler than it is, To pluck on others 21. Ang. Believe me, on mine honour, My words express my purpose. Isab. Ha! little honour to be much believ'd, And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming 22! .. I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't: Warburton says that the allusion is so fine that it deserves to be explained. The comparing mankind lying under the weight of original sin, to a feodary who owes suit and service to his lord, is not ill imagined.' 19 The meaning appears to be, that 'men debase their natures by taking advantage of women's weakness." She therefore calls on Heaven to assist them. 20 i. e. impressions. 21 i. e. your virtue assumes an air of licentiousness, which is not natural to you, on purpose to try me.' 22 Seeming is hypocrisy. Sign a h present pardon for my brother, Or, with an outstretch'd throat, I'll tell the world Aloud, what man thou art. Ang. Who will believe thee, Isabel? That you shall stifle in your own report, Or else he must not only die the death 26, Bidding the law make court'sy to their will; 23 Vouch, assertion. 24 A metaphor from a lamp or candle extinguished in its own grease. 25 Prolixious blushes mean what Milton has elegantly called→ Sweet reluctant delay. 26 The death. This phrase seems originally to have been a mistaken translation, of the French La mort, Chaucer uses it frequently, and it is common to all writers of Shakspeare's age. 27. e. temptation, instigation. To such abhorr'd pollution. Then Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die: And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest. [Exit. ACT III. Enter Duke, CLAUDIO, and Provost. Duke. So, then you hope of pardon from lord Angelo ? Claud. The miserable have no other medicine, But only hope: I have hope to live, and am prepar'd to die. Duke. Be absolute for death; either death or life, Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life, If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That none but fools would keep 2: a breath thou art (Servile to all the skiey influences), That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st3, 2 Keep here means care for, a common acceptation of the word in Chaucer and later writers. 3 i. e. dwellest. So. in Henry IV. Part i: Twas where the madcap duke his uncle kept.' 4 Shakspeare here meant to observe, that a minute analysis of life at once destroys that splendour which dazzles the imaginatior Whatever grandeur can display, or luxury enjoy, ts procured by baseness, by offices of which the mind shrinks from the |