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That we may bring you something on the way.
DUKE. My haste may not admit it;

Nor need you, on mine honour, have to do
With any scruple: your scope is as mine own:
So to enforce or qualify the laws

As to your soul seems good. Give me your hand;
I'll privily away: I love the people,

But do not like to stage me to their eyes:
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause, and aves vehement:
Nor do I think the man of safe discretion
That does affect it. Once more, fare you well.
safety to your purposes!

ANG. The heavens give

ESCAL. Lead forth, and bring you back in happiness.
DUKE. I thank
you: Fare you well.

ESCAL. I shall desire you, sir, to give me leave

To have free speech with you; and it concerns me
To look into the bottom of my place:

A power I have; but of what strength and nature
I am not yet instructed.

ANG. "T is so with me:-Let us withdraw together,
And we may soon our satisfaction have

[Exit.

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LUCIO. If the duke, with the other dukes, come not to composition with the king of Hungary, why, then all the dukes fall upon the king.

1 GENT. Heaven grant us its peace, but not the king of Hungary's!

2 GENT. Amen.

LUCIO. Thou concludest like the sanctimonious pirate, that went to sea with the ten commandments, but scraped one out of the table.

2 GENT. Thou shalt not steal?

LUCIO. Ay, that he razed.

1 GENT. Why, 't was a commandment to command the captain and all the rest from their functions; they put forth to steal: There's not a soldier of us all, that, in the thanksgiving before meat, doth relish the petition well that prays for peace.

2 GENT. I never heard any soldier dislike it.

LUCIO. I believe thee; for I think thou never wast where grace was said. 2 GENT. No? a dozen times at least.

1 GENT. What? in metre1?

Lucio. In any proportion, or in any language.

1 GENT. I think, or in any religion.

LUCIO. Ay! why not? Grace is grace, despite of all controversy: As for example: Thou thyself art a wicked villain, despite of all grace.

1 GENT. Well, there went but a pair of sheers between us.

LUCIO. I grant; as there may between the lists and the velvet: Thou art the list.

1 GENT. And thou the velvet: thou art good velvet; thou 'rt a three-piled piece, I warrant thee: I had as lief be a list of an English kersey, as be piled, as thou art piled, for a French velvet. Do I speak feelingly now? LUCIO. I think thou dost; and, indeed, with most painful feeling of thy speech: I will, out of thine own confession, learn to begin thy health; but, whilst I live, forget to drink after thee.

1 GENT. I think I have done myself wrong; have I not?

2 GENT. Yes, that thou hast; whether thou art tainted or free.

LUCIO. Behold, behold, where madam Mitigation comes! I have purchased as many diseases under her roof as come to

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1 GENT. Thou art always figuring diseases in me: but thou art full of error; I am sound.

LUCIO. Nay, not as one would say, healthy; but so sound as things that are hollow: : thy bones are hollow: impiety has made a feast of thee.

Enter Bawd.

1 GENT. How now? Which of your hips has the most profound sciatica ? BAWD. Well, well; there's one yonder arrested, and carried to prison, was worth

five thousand of you all.

1 GENT. Who's that, I pray thee?

BAWD. Marry, sir, that 's Claudio, signior Claudio.

1 GENT. Claudio to prison! 't is not so.

BAWD. Nay, but I know 't is so: I saw him arrested; saw him carried away; and, which is more, within these three days his head 's to be chopped off. LUCIO. But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so: Art thou sure of this? BAWD. I am too sure of it; and it is for getting madam Julietta with child. Lucio. Believe me, this may be: he promised to meet me two hours since; and he was ever precise in promise-keeping.

2 GENT. Besides, you know, it draws something near to the speech we had to such a purpose.

1 GENT. But most of all, agreeing with the proclamation.

a Dollars-a quibble upon dolours.

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BAWD. But what's his offence?

CLO. Groping for trouts in a peculiar river.

BAWD. What, is there a maid with child by him?

CLO. No; but there's a woman with maid by him: You have not heard of the proclamation, have you?

BAWD. What proclamation, man?

CLO. All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be plucked down.

BAWD. And what shall become of those in the city?

CLO. They shall stand for seed: they had gone down too, but that a wise burgher put in for them.

BAWD. But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be pulled down?
CLO. To the ground, mistress.

BAWD. Why, here's a change, indeed, in the commonwealth! What shall become of me?

CLO. Come; fear not you: good counsellors lack no clients: though you change your place, you need not change your trade; I'll be your tapster still. Courage; there will be pity taken on you: you that have worn your eyes almost out in the service, you will be considered.

BAWD. What's to do here, Thomas Tapster? Let's withdraw.

CLO. Here comes signior Claudio, led by the provost to prison: and there's madam Juliet.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.-The same a.

Enter Provost, CLAUDIO, JULIET, and Officers; LUCIO and two Gentlemen.

CLAUD. Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to the world?

Bear me to prison, where I am committed.

PRO. I do it not in evil disposition,

But from lord Angelo by special charge.

CLAUD. Thus can the demi-god, Authority,

Make us pay down for our offence by weight ".

Mr. Dyce says,

"As there is no change of place here, a new 'Scene' ought not to have been marked." Although there is not a change of " place," there is an entirely new succession of persons. The stage has been wholly vacant.

To pay down by weight is to pay the full price or penalty.

The words of heaven a
a;-
;-on whom it will, it will;

On whom it will not, so; yet still 't is just.

LUCIO. Why, how now, Claudio? whence comes this restraint?
CLAUD. From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty:

As surfeit is the father of much fast,

So every scope, by the immoderate use,
Turns to restraint: Our natures do pursue
(Like rats that ravin' down their proper bane)

A thirsty evil, and when we drink, we die.

LUCIO. If I could speak so wisely under an arrest, I would send for certain of my creditors: And yet, to say the truth, I had as lief have the foppery of freedom as the morality of imprisonment.-What's thy offence, Claudio? CLAUD. What but to speak of would offend again.

LUCIO. What! is't murder?

CLAUD. NO.

LUCIO. Lechery?

CLAUD. Call it so.

PRO. Away, sir; you must go.

CLAUD. One word, good friend :-Lucio, a word with you.
LUCIO. A hundred, if they 'll do you any good.-

Is lechery so look'd after?

CLAUD. Thus stands it with me :-Upon a true contract,

I got possession of Julietta's bed;

You know the lady; she is fast my wife,

Save that we do the denunciation lack
Of outward order: this we came not to,
Only for propagation of a dower

d

Remaining in the coffer of her friends;

From whom we thought it meet to hide our love,
Till time had made them for us. But it chances,
The stealth of our most mutual entertainment,

With character too gross, is writ on Juliet.

LUCIO. With child, perhaps?

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[Takes him aside.

It has been proposed here to read the swords of heaven. The passage is, however, an allusion to St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, chap. ix. ver. 15.

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Ravin-devour greedily.

Morality-in the original mortality. It has been corrected, and properly so as would appear from the context, in the modern editions.

d

Propagation. The meaning of the passage is evident; but the word appears to be employed with some obscurity. It has been proposed to read prorogation and procuration.

He can command, lets it straight feel the spur;
Whether the tyranny be in his place,

Or in his eminence that fills it up,
I stagger in:-But this new governor
Awakes me all the enrolled penalties,

Which have, like unscour'd armour, hung by the wall

So long, that nineteen zodiacs have gone round,

And none of them been worn; and, for a name,

Now puts the drowsy and neglected act

Freshly on me :-'t is surely for a name.

LUCIO. I warrant, it is: and thy head stands so tickle on thy shoulders, that a

milkmaid, if she be in love, may sigh it off.

peal to him.

CLAUD. I have done so, but he 's not to be found.
I prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service;
This day my sister should the cloister enter,
And there receive her approbation":
Acquaint her with the danger of my state;
Implore her in my voice, that she make friends
To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him;

I have great hope in that: for in her youth

There is a prone and speechless dialect,

Send after the duke, and ap

Such as moves men; beside, she hath prosperous art

When she will play with reason and discourse,

And well she can persuade.

LUCIO. I pray, she may as well for the encouragement of the like, which else would stand under grievous imposition; as for the enjoying of thy life, who I would be sorry should be thus foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack. I'll to her.

CLAUD. I thank you, good friend Lucio.

LUCIO. Within two hours.

CLAUD. Come, officer, away.

SCENE IV-A Monastery.

Enter DUKE and Friar THOMAS.

DUKE. No, holy father; throw away that thought;
Believe not that the dribbling dart of love
Can pierce a complete bosom: why I desire thee
To give me secret harbour, hath a purpose

a Approbation-probation.

[Exeunt.

Prone. It appears to us that the word is here used in the sense of humble; and not in that of prompt, which Johnson and Malone have suggested. The timidity and silence of her youth alone would move men; but when she chooses to exercise reason and discourse she can well persuade.

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