Bidding the law make court'sy to their will; Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die : I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request, And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest. [Exit. ACT III. SCENE I.-A Room in the Prison. Enter Duke, CLAUDIO, and Provost. Duke. SO, then you hope of pardon from lord Angelo ? 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 a breath thou art, (Servile to all the skiey influences,) That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st, Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool; And yet run'st toward him still: Thou art not noble, Are nurs'd by baseness: Thou art by no means valiant, [1] Dr. Warburton is undoubtedly mistaken in supposing that by baseness is meant self-love, here assigned as the motive of all human actions. Shakespeare only meant to observe, that a minute analysis of life at once destroys that splendour which dazzles the imagination. Whatever grandeur can display, or luxury enjoy, is procured by baseness, by offices of which the mind shrinks from the contemplation. All the delicacies of the table may be traced back to the shambles and the dunghill, all magnificence of building was hewn from the quarry, and all the pomp of ornament dug from among the damps and darkness of the mine. JOHNSON. Of a poor worm: Thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum, For ending thee no sooner: Thou hast nor youth, nor age ; Dreaming on both for all thy blessed youth Of palsied eld: and when thou art old, and rich, Clau. I humbly thank you. To sue to live, I find, I seek to die e; And, seeking death, find life: Let it come on. [2] Worm is put for any creeping thing or serpent. Shakespeare supposes falsely, but according to the vulgar notion, that a serpent wounds with his tongue, and that his tongue is forked. He confounds reality and fiction; a serpent's tongue is soft, but not forked nor hurtful. If it could hurt, it could not be soft. JOHNSON. Shakespeare mentions the "adder's fork" in Macbeth; and might have caught this idea from old tapestries or paintings, in which the tongues of serpents and draSTEEVENS. gons always appear barbed like the point of an arrow. [3] Thou art perpetually repaired and renovated by external assistance, thou subsistest upon foreign matter, and hast no power of producing or continuing thy own being. JOHNSON. [4] For effects read affects; that is, affections, passions of mind, or disorders of body variously affected. JOHNSON. [5] This is exquisitely imagined. When we are young, we busy ourselves in forming schemes for succeeding time, and miss the gratifications that are before us; when we are old, we amuse the languor of age with the recollection of youthful pleasures or performances; so that our life, of which no part is filled with the business of the present time, resembles our dreams after dinner, when the events of the morning are mingled with the designs of the evening. JOHNSON. [6] Eld is generally used for old age, decrepitude. It is here put for old people persons worn with years. STEEVENS. Enter ISABElla. Isab. What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company! Prov. Who's there? come in the wish deserves a welcome. Duke. Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again. Clau. Most holy sir, I thank you. Isab. My business is a word or two with Claudio. sister. Duke. Provost, a word with you.' signior, here's your Duke. Bring them to speak, where I may be conceal'd, Yet hear them. [Exeunt Duke and Provost. Clau. Now, sister, what's the comfort? Isab. Why, as all comforts are; most good indeed : Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven, Intends you for his swift embassador, Where you shall be an everlasting leiger: Therefore your best appointment? make with speed Clau. Is there no remedy? Isab. None, but such remedy, as, to save a head, To cleave a heart in twain. Clau. But is there any? Isab. Yes, brother, you may live ; Clau. Perpetual durance? Isab. Ay, just, perpetual durance; a restraint, Though all the world's vastidity you had, To a determin'd scope." Clau. But in what nature? Isab. In such a one as (you consenting to't) Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear, And leave you naked. Clau. Let me know the point. Isab. O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake, Lest thou a feverous life should'st entertain, And six or seven winters more respect [7] The word appointment, on this occasion, should seem to comprehend confession, communion, and absolution. STEEVENS. [8] A confinement of your mind to one painful idea; to ignominy, of which the remembrance can neither be suppressed nor escaped. JOHNSON. Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die ? Clau. Why give you me this shame ? From flowery tenderness? If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride, And hug it in mine arms. Isab. There spake my brother; there my father's grave In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,— Nips youth i' th' head, and follies doth enmew, Clau. The princely Angelo? Isab. O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell, Thou might'st be freed? Clau. O, heavens! it cannot be. Isab. Yes, he would give it thee, from this rank offence, So to offend him still: This night's the time That I should do what I abhor to name, Or else thou diest to-morrow. Clau. Thou shalt not do't. Isab. O, were it but my life, I'd throw it down for your As frankly as a pin. deliverance Clau. Thanks, dear Isabel. Isab. Be ready, Claudio, for your death to-morrow. That thus can make him bite the law by th' nose, Or of the deadly seven it is the least.' [9] In whose presence the follies of youth are afraid to show themselves, as the fowl is afraid to flutter while the falcon hovers over it. To enmen is a term in falconry. STEEVENS. [1] It may be useful to know which they are; the reader is, therefore, presented with the following catalogue of them, viz. Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Isab. Which is the least? Clau. If it were damnable, he, being so wise, Why, would he for a momentary trick Be perdurably fin'd?-O Isabel !3 Isab. What says my brother? Clau. Death is a fearful thing. Clau. Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; This sensible warm motion to become The weariest and most loathed worldly life, To what we fear of death.* Isab. Alas! alas! Clau. Sweet sister, let me live : Isab. O, you beast! Covetousness, Gluttony, and Lechery. To recapitulate the punishments hereafter for these sins, might have too powerful an effect upon the weak nerves of the present generation; but whoever is desirous of being particularly acquainted with them, may find information in some of the old monkish systems of divinity, and especially in a curious book entitled Le Kalendrier des Bergiers, 1500, folio, of which there is an English translation. DOUCE. [2] Perdurably is lastingly. STEEVENS. [3] Shakespeare shows his knowledge of human nature in the conduct of Claudio. When Isabella first tells him of Angelo's proposal, he answers, with honest indignation, agreeably to his settled principles, Thou shalt not do't. But the love of life being permitted to operate, soon furnishes him with sophistical arguments; he believes it cannot be very dangerous to the soul, since Angelo, who is so wise, will venture it. JOHNSON. [4] Most certainly the idea of the "spirit bathing in fiery floods," or of residing "in thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice," is not original to our poet; but I am not sure that they came from the Platonic hell of Virgil. The monks also had their hot and cold hell; "the fyrste is fyre that ever brenneth, and never gyveth lighte," says an old homily:" The seconde is passying cold, that yf a greate hylle of fyre were cast therin, it shold torne to yce." One of their legends, well remembered in the time of Shakespeare, gives us a dialogue between a bishop and a soul tormented in a piece of ice, which was brought to cure a brenning heate in his foot; take care, that you do not interpret this the gout, for I remember Menage quotes a ca non upon us : "Si quis dixerit episcopum podagra laborare, anathema sit." FARMER. |