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 flick it in their children's fight,

For terror, not to ufe; in time the rod

8

Becomes more mock'd, than fear'd: fo our decrees,
Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead;
And Liberty plucks Justice by the nose;
The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart
Goes all decorum.

Fri. It refted in your grace

To unloose this ty'd up juftice, when you pleas'd: 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 scope,
'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 pass,

And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my father,

I have on Angelo impos'd the office:

Who may, in the ambush of my name, ftrike home, And yet, my nature never in the fight

To do it flander. And to behold his fway,

I will

& Becomes more mock'd than fear'd:] Becomes was added by Mr. Pope to restore fenfe to the paffage, fome fuch word hav ing been left out. STEEVENS.

9 To do it flander.

So do in flander.

-] The text flood,

Sir Thomas Hanmer has very well corrected it thus,

To do it flander.

Yet

I will, as 'twere a brother of your order,
Vifit both prince and people. Therefore, pr'ythee,
Supply me with the habit, and instruct me

How I may formally in perfon bear,'

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

2

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

Is more to bread than ftone: Hence fhall we fee,
If power change purpose, what our feemers be,

A

SCENE V.

NUNNERY

Enter Ifabella and Francifca.

Ijab. And have you nuns no further privileges?
Nun. Are not thefe large enough?

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

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

Yet perhaps lefs alteration might have produced the true reading,
And yet my nature newer, in the fight,

So doing flandered.

And yet my nature never fuffer flander by doing any open acts of feverity. JOHNSON.

in perfon bear,] Mr. Pope reads,

-my perfon bear.

Perhaps a word was dropped at the end of the line, which origi nally stood thus,

How I may formally in perfon bear me,

Like a true friar.

STEEVENS.

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

Turn you the key, and know his business of him;
You may; I may not; you are yet unfworn:
When you have vow'd, you must not speak with men,
But in the prefence of the prioress:

Then, if you fpeak, you must not fhew 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 those 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 muft make

I am that Ifabella, and his fifter.

you know

Lucio. Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you:

Not to be weary with you, he's in prison.
Ifab. Woe me! For what?

Lucio. For that, which, if myself 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.3

Lucio. 'Tis true :-I would not (tho' 'tis my fami

liar fin

With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest,

3

Tongue

make me not your flory.] Do not, by deceiving me, make

me a fubject for a tale. JOHNSON.

Perhaps only, Do not divert yourself with me, as you would with a fory. STEEVENS.

4

-'tis my familiar fin

With maids to feem the lapwing,]

The Oxford editor's note on this paffage is in these words. The

lap

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

As with a faint.

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,

lapwings fly, with feeming fright and anxiety, far from their nests, 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 here alluded to, viz. its perpetually flying fo low and fo near the paffenger, that he thinks he has it, and then 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 modern editors have not taken in the whole fimilitude here they have taken notice of the lightnefs of a fpark's behaviour to his mistress, and compared it to the lapwing's hovering and fluttering as it flies. But the chief, of which no notice is taken, is,

-and to jeft.

(See Ray's Proverbs)" The lapwing cries, tongue far from heart." i. e. moft furtheft from the neft, i. e. She is, as Shakespeare has it here,

Tongue far from beart.

"The farther she is from her nest, where her heart is with her young ones, fhe is the louder, or perhaps all tongue." SMITH. Shakespeare has an expreffion of the like kind, Com. of Errors, act. iv. fc. 3.

"Adr. Far from her neft the lapwing cries away, My heart prays for him, tho' my tongue do curfe." We meet with the fame thought in John Lilly's comedy, intitled Campaspe (first published in 1591) act ii. fc. 2. from whence Shakespeare might borrow it.

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

As

As those that feed grow full; as bloffoming time
That from the feedness the bare fallow brings
To teeming foyfon, fo her plenteous womb
Expreffeth his full tilth and husbandry.

Ifab. Some one with child by him?-My coufin
Juliet?

Lucio. Is fhe your coufin?

Ifab. Adoptedly; as fchool-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," myfelf being one,
In hand, and hope of action: but we do learn
By those 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 of his authority,

5 as blossoming time

That from the feedness the bare fallow brings

To teeming foyfon; fo

As the fentence now ftands, it is apparently ungrammatical. read,

At blooming time, &c.

That is, As they that feed grow full, fo her womb now at bloffoming time, at that time through which the feed time proceeds to the harveft, her womb fhows what has been doing. Lucio ludicrously calls pregnancy blossoming time, the time when fruit is promised, though not yet ripe. JOHNSON.

Inftead of that, we may read-doth; and, instead of brings's bring, STEEVENS.

Bore many gentlemen

In band and hope of action ;- -]

To bear in hand is a common phrafe for to keep in expectation and dependance, but we should read,

with hope of action.

JOHNSON.

7 --nwith full line—] With full extent, with the whole length,

JOHNSON.

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