FRI. More grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends Of burning youth. May your grace speak of it? DUKE. My holy sir, none better knows than you How I have ever lov'd the life remov'd; And held in idle price to haunt assemblies, I have deliver'd to lord Angelo (A man of stricture and firm abstinence) My absolute power and place here in Vienna, You will demand of me why I do this? FRI. Gladly, my lord. DUKE. We have strict statutes, and most biting laws, (The needful bits and curbs to headstrong steeds ",) Which for this fourteen years we have let slipe; Even like an o'ergrown lion in a cave, FRI. That goes not out to prey 2: Now, as fond fathers [Becomes f] more mock'd than fear'd: so our decrees, It rested in your grace DUKE. I do fear, too dreadful : Sith 't was my fault to give the people scope, For what I bid them do: For we bid this be done, And is not found in the original, but is supplied in the second folio. Stricture-strictness. Steeds. In the original, weeds. Slip. The reading of the original has been changed to sleep. Theobald, who, as Mr. Dyce informs us, followed Davenant in this alteration,-(Davenant's The Law against Lovers' being founded on Measure for Measure,' and Much Ado about Nothing,') made this correction. He thought that it suited the comparison; and that the laws were sleeping like an old lion. The Duke compares himself with the animal "who goes not out to prey." He has let the laws slip. Mr. Collier and Mr. Dyce consider sleep to be the true reading. * Becomes was added by Pope to the original. When evil deeds have their permissive pass, And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my father, Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home, And yet my nature never in the fight, To do, in slander: And to behold his sway, I will, as 't were a brother of your order, Visit both prince and people: therefore, I prithee, Like a true friar. More reasons for this action, Is more to bread than stone: Hence shall we see, If power change purpose, what our seemers be. [Exeunt. SCENE V.-A Nunnery. Enter ISABELLA and FRANCISCA. ISAB. And have you nuns no further privileges? ISAB. Yes, truly: I speak not as desiring more; But rather wishing a more strict restraint Who's that which calls? ISAB. Turn you the key, and know his business of him; Then, if you speak, you must not show your face; ISAB. Peace and prosperity! Who is 't that calls? a We print this as in the original. The passage is ordinarily printed "And yet, my nature never in the sight To do it slander." [Within. [Exit FRANCISCA. The image of a fight was certainly in the poet's mind, from the use of ambush and strike home. We understand by to do, in slander, to be prominent in action, and thus exposed to slander. Enter LUCIO. LUCIO. Hail, virgin, if you be; as those cheek-roses A novice of this place, and the fair sister ISAB. Why her unhappy brother? let me ask; The rather, for I now must make you know I am that Isabella, and his sister. LUCIO. Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you: ISAB. Woe me! For what? LUCIO. For that, which if myself might be his judge, He hath got his friend with child. ISAB. Sir, make me not your story. LUCIO. 'Tis true. I would not-though 't is my familiar sin Tongue far from heart,-play with all virgins soa: I hold you as a thing ensky'd, and sainted; As with a saint. ISAB. You do blaspheme the good, in mocking me. As those that feed grow full; as blossoming time, That from the seedness the bare fallow brings ISAB. Some one with child by him?-My cousin Juliet? ISAB. Adoptedly; as schoolmaids change their names, By vain though apt affection. In this passage we follow the original. Malone says that the reading should be thus: "Sir, mock me not-your story." But the original meaning is clear enough: make me not your story is, invent me not your story,a very common phraseology of our author. When Lucio replies 't is true, he means his story is true; he has not invented it; and he adds that he would not jest with her, though jesting be his familiar sin, &c. ⚫ Lover-mistress. Shakspere's poem of The Lover's Complaint' is the lament of a deserted maiden. The duke is very strangely gone from hence; Governs lord Angelo: a man whose blood Which have, for long, run by the hideous law, And make us lose the good we oft might win, As they themselves would owe them. ISAB. I'll see what I can do. |