My abfolute Pow'r and Place here in Vienna;
And he fuppofes me travell'd to Poland;
For fo I've ftrew'd it in the common ear,
And fo it is receiv'd: now, pious Sir,
You will demand of me, why I do this?
Fri. Gladly, my lord.

Duke. We have ftrict Statutes and moft biting Laws, The needful bits and curbs for head-ftrong Steeds,(1) Which for these nineteen years we have let fleep; (2) Even like an o'er-grown lion in a cave,

That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers
Having bound up the threat'ning twigs of birch,
Only to stick it in their Children's fight,
For terror, not to ufe; in time the rod

;

Becomes more mock'd, than fear'd: so our Decrees,
Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead
And liberty plucks Juftice by the nofe;
The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart
Goes all decorum.

Fri. It refted in your Grace

T'unloofe this ty'd up justice, when you pleas'd:

(1) In the copies. The needful Bits and Curbs for beadfirong Weeds.] There is no matter of Analogy or Confonance, in the Metaphors here and, tho' the Copies agree, I do not think, the Author would have talk'd of Bits and Curbs for Weeds. On the other hand, nothing can be more proper, than to compare Perfons of unbridled Licentiousness to headstrong Steeds: and, in this View, bridling the Paffions has been a Phrafe adopted by our best Poets.

THEOBALD.

(2) In former editions. Which for thefe fourteen years we have let lip. For fourteen I have made no Scruple to replace nineteen, I have alter'd the odd Phrafe of letting the Laws flip: for how does it fort with the Comparison that follows, of a Lion in his Cave that went not out to prey? But letting the Law fleep, adds a particular Propriety to the thing reprefented, and accords exactly too with the. Simile. It is the Metaphor too, that our Author feems food of using upon this Occafion, in several other Paffages of this Play. The Law hath not been dead, tho' it hath fept;

'Tis now awake.

And fo, again,

ties;

but this new Governor Awakes me all tb enrolled Penal

and for a Name

Now puts the drowsy and neglected A&

Freshy on me.

THEOBALD.
And

And it in you more dreadful would have feem'd,.
Than in lord Angelo.

Duke. I do fear, too dreadful.

Sith 'twas my fault to give the people fcope,
"Twould be my tyranny to ftrike and gall them,
For what I bid them do. For we bid this be done,
When evil deeds have their permiffive pafs,

And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my father,
I have on Angelo impos'd the office:

Who may in th' ambufh of my name ftrike home,
And yet, my nature never in the fight

To do it flander. (3) And to behold his sway,
I will, as 'twere a Brother of your Order,
Vifit both prince and people. Therefore, pr'ythee,
Supply me with the habit, and inftru&t me
How I may formally in perfon bear,

Like a true Friar. More reafons for this action
At our more leifure fhall I render

Only, this

you;

one: -Lord Angelo is precife; Stands at a guard (4) with envy; fcarce confeffes That his blood flows, or that his appetite

Is more to bread than ftone: hence fhall we fee,
If pow'r change purpofe, what our feemers be. [Exeunt

SCENE VIII

ANUNNERY.

Enter Ifabella and Francifca.

ND

Nuns

Hab. A Nun. Are not these large enough?
have you Nere no further privileges ?

Ifab. Yes, truly; I fpeak not as defiring more;
But rather wishing a more ftrict restraint

Upon the fifter-hood, the votarifts of Saint Clare..
Lucio. [within.] Hoa! Peace be in this place!
Ifab. Who's that which calls?

Nun. It is a man's voice. Gentle Isabella,

Turn you the key, and know his bufinefs of him;

(3) The text food, Se de in flander.] Sir Thomas Hanmer has very

well corrected it thus,

To do it flander.

(4) Stands at a guard] Stand's on terms of defiance.

You

You may; I may not; you are yet unfworn :
When you have vow'd, you muft not speak with men,
But in the prefence of the Prioress;

Then, if you fpeak, you must not shew your face ;
Or, if you fhew your face, you must not speak.
He calls again; I pray you, anfwer him. [Exit. Franc.
Ifab. Peace and profperity! who is't that calls?
Enter Lucio.

Lucio. Hail, virgin, (if you be) as thofe cheek-rofes
Proclaim you are no lefs; can you so stead me,
As bring me to the fight of Ifabella,

A novice of this place, and the fair fifter
To her unhappy brother Claudio?

Ifab. Why her unhappy brother? let me afk
The rather, for I now must make you know

I am that Isabella, and his fifter.

Lucio. Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you; Not to be weary with you, he's in prifon.

Ifab. Wo me! for what?

Lucio. For that, which, if myfelf might be his judge,

He should receive his punishment in thanks

He hath got his friend with child.

Ifab. Sir, make me not your ftory. (5)

;

Lucio. 'Tis true:-I would not (tho'tis my familiar fin With maids to feem the lapwing, (6) and to jeft,

Tongue

(5) make me not your flory.] Do not, by deceiving me, make me a fubject for a tale. (6)

'tis my familiar fin

With maids to feem the lapwing, and to jeft,

Tongue far from beart] The Oxford Editor's note, on this paffage, is in these words. The lapwings fly with feeming fright and anxiety far from their nefts, to deceive those who seek their young. And do not all other birds do the fame But what has this to do with the infidelity of a general lover, to whom this bird is compared. It is another quality of the lapwing, that is it here alluded to, viz. its perpetually flying fo low and fo near the paffenger, that he thinks he has it, and then it is fuddenly gone again. This made it a proverbial expreffion to fignify a lover's falfhood and it feems to be a very old one; for Chaucer, in his Plowman's Tale, fays-- And lapwings that well conith lie, WARBURTON.

The

Tongue far from heart) play with all virgins fo.
I hold you as a thing en-sky'd, and fainted;
By your renouncement, an immortal Spirit;
And to be talk'd with in fincerity,

As with a Saint.

Ifab. You do blafpheme the good, in mocking me. Lucio. Do not believe it. Fewnefs and truth, 'tis thus, Your brother and his lover having embrac❜d,

As thofe that feed grow full; as bloffoming time (7)
That from the feedness the bare fallow brings
To teeming foyfon; fo her plenteous womb
Expreffeth his full tilth and husbandry.
Ijab. Some one with child by him
Lucio. Is the your coufin ?

my coufin Fuliet?

fab.

The modern editors have not taken in the whole Gimilitude here: they have taken notice of the lightnefs of a fpark's behaviour to his miftrefs, and compared it to the lapwing's hovering and fluttering flying. But the chief, of which no notice is taken, is,and 10 jeft. (See Ray's Proverbs.) "The lapwing cries, "Tongue far from beart," moft, farthest from the net, i. e. She is, as Sbakefpeare has it here,

66

Tongue far from heart.

"The farther the is from her neft, where her heart is with her young ones, the is the louder, or, perhaps, all tongue." Mr. Smith. Shakespeare has an expreffion of the like kind, Comedy of Errors. act iv. fc. iii. p. 246.

Adr. Far from ber neft, the lapaving cries away,.

My beart prays for him, tho' my tongue do curfe.

We meet with the fame thought in John Lilly's comedy, intitled;. Campafpe, (first published in 1591, act ii. fc. ii.) from whence Shakespeare might borrow it.

Alexander to Hepbeflion.

Alex. "Not with Timoleon you mean, wherein you refemble the lapwing, who crieth moft where her neft is not, and fo to lead me from efpying your love for Campafpe, you cry Timoclea." Dr. GRAY.

(7)

as blooming time

That from the feednefs the bare fallow brings

To teeming foyfon so; so- -] As the fentence now ftands it is ap parently ungrammatical, I read,

At blooming time, &c.

That is, As they that feed grow full, fo ber womb now at bloffoming time, at that time through which the feed time proceeds to the harvest, her womb fhews what has been doing. Lucio ludicrously calls pregnancy blooming time, the time when fruit is promiled, though not yet ripe.

Ifab, Adoptedly, as school-maids change their names, By vain, tho' apt affection.

Lucio. She it is.

Ifab. O, let him marry her !
Lucio. This is the point.

The Duke is very strangely gone from hence;
Bore many gentlemen, (8) myfelf being one,
In hand and hope of action; but we learn,
By thofe that know the very nerves of state,
His givings out were of an infinite diftance
From his true-meant defign. Upon his place,
And with full line (9) of his authority,
Governs lord Angelo; a man whofe blood
Is very fnow-broth; one who never feels
The wanton ftings and motions of the fenfe
But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
With profits of the mind, ftudy and faft.
He, to give fear to * ufe and liberty,
Which have long time run by the hideous law,
As mice by lions, hath pickt out an act,
Under whofe heavy sense your brother's life
Falls into forfeit: he arrefts him on it;
And follows close the rigour of the ftatute,
To make him an example. All hope's gone,
Unless you have the grace (1) by your

fair prayer To foften Angelo; and that's my pith of business (2) "Twixt you and your poor brother.

Ifab. Doth he fo

Seek for his life?

Lucio. H'as cenfur'd him already

And, as I hear, the Provoft hath a warrant

(8) Bore many gentlemen

For's

In band and hope of action;—] To bear in band is a common phrafe for to keep in expectation and dependance, but we should read, With bope of action.

(9) with full line.]

length.

With full extent, with the whole

—give fear to ufe.] To intimidate ufe, that is, practises long countenanced by custom.

(1) Unless you have the grace.] That is, the acceptableness, the power of gaining favour.

(2) · pith of business.] The inmost part, the main of my mellage.