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, 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, 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, How I may formally in perfon bear,' Like a true friar. More reafons for this action 2 Only, this one :-Lord Angelo is precife; Is more to bread than ftone: Hence fhall we fee, A SCENE V. NUNNERY Enter Ifabella and Francifca. Ijab. And have you nuns no further privileges? Ifab. Yes, truly I fpeak not as defiring more; Upon the fifter-hood, the votarifts of faint Clare, Yet perhaps lefs alteration might have produced the true reading, 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; Then, if you fpeak, you must not fhew your face; Enter Lucio. Lucio. Hail, virgin, if you be; as those cheek-rofes A novice of this place, and the fair fifter Ifab. Why her unhappy brother? let me afk; 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. Lucio. For that, which, if myself might be his judge, 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. 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 Ifab. Some one with child by him?-My coufin 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! The duke is very strangely gone from hence; 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. Go |