Chapter 5

I.iv.51 (26,6) [Bore many gentlemen, myself being one, In hand, and hope of action] _To bear in hand_ is a common phrase for _to keep in expectation and dependance_, but we should read,

--with _hope of action_.

I.iv.56 (26,7) [with full line] With full extent, with the whole length.

I.iv.62 (27,8) [give fear to use] To intimidate _use_, that is, practices long countenanced by _custom_.

I.iv.69 (27,9) [Unless you have the grace] That is, the acceptableness, the power of gaining favour. So when she makes her suit, the provost says,

_Heaven give thee moving_ graces. (1765, I,282,1)

I.iv.70 (27,1) [pith Of business] The inmost part, the main of my message.

I.iv.86 (28,4) [the mother] The abbess, or prioress.

II.i.8 (29,7) [Let but your honour know] To _know_ is here to _examine_, to _take cognisance_. So in _Midsummer-Night's Dream_,

_Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires_; Know of _your truth, examine well your blood_.

II.i.23 (29,8)

['Tis very pregnant, The jewel that we find, we stoop and take it, Because we see it; but what we do not see, We tread upon, and never think of it]

'Tis _plain_ that we must act with bad as with good; we punish the faults, as we take the advantages, that lie in our way, and what we do not see we cannot note.

II.i.28 (30,8) [For I have had such faults] That is, _because, by reason that I_ have had faults.

II.i.57 (31,9) [This comes off well] This is nimbly spoken; this is volubly uttered.

II.i.63 (32,1) [a tapster, sir; parcel-bawd] This we should now express by saying, _he is_ half-tapster, half-bawd. (1773)

II.i.66 (32,2) [she professes a hot-house] A _hot-house_ is an English name for a _bagnio_.

_Where lately harbour'd many a famous whore, A purging-bill now fix'd upon the door, Tells you it it a_ hot-house, _so it may. And still be a whore-house_. Ben. Jonson.

II.i.85 (32,3) [Ay, sir, by mistress Over-done's means] Here seems to have been some mention made of Froth, who was to be accused, and some words therefore may have been lost, unless the irregularity of the narrative may be better imputed to the ignorance of the constable.

II.i.180 (35,4) [Justice or Iniquity?] These were, I suppose, two personages well known to the audience by their frequent appearance in the old moralities. The words, therefore, at that time, produced a combination of ideas, which they have now lost.

II.i.183 (35,5) [Hannibal] Mistaken by the constable for _Cannibal_.

II.i.215 (36,6) [they will draw you] _Draw_ has here a cluster of senses. As it refers to the tapster, it signifies _to drain, to empty_; as it is related to hang, it means _to be conveyed to execution on a hurdle_. In Froth's answer, it is the same as _to bring along by some motive or power_.

II.i.254 (37,7) [I'll rent the fairest house in it, after three pence a bay] A _bay_ of building is, in many parts of England, a common term, of which the best conception that I could ever attain, is, that it is the space between the main beams of the roof; so that a barn crossed twice with beams is a barn of three _bays_.

II.ii.26 (40,8) [Stay yet a while] It is not clear why the provost is bidden to stay, nor when he goes out.

II.ii.32 (40,9) [For which I must not plead but that I am at war, 'twixt will, and will not] This is obscure; perhaps it may be mended by reading,

_For which I must_ now _plead; but_ yet _I am At war, 'twixt will, and will not._

_Yet_ and _yt_ are almost indistinguishable in a manuscript. Yet no alteration is necessary, since the speech is not unintelligible as it now stands, (see 1765, 9I,294,5)

II.ii.78 (42,2) [And mercy then will breathe within your lips, Like man new made] I rather think the meaning is, _You would then change the severity of your present character_. In familiar speech, _You would be quite another man_. (see 1765, 1,296,7)

II.ii.99 (43,6)

[_Isab_. Yet shew some pity. _Ang_. I shew it most of all, when I shew justice; For then I pity those I do not know]

This was one of Bale's memorials. _When I find myself swayed to mercy, let me remember, that there is a mercy likewise due to the country_.

II.ii.126 (45,2) [We cannot weigh our brother with ourself] [W: yourself] The old reading is right. _We_ mortals proud and foolish cannot prevail on our passions to _weigh_ or compare _our brother_, a being of like nature and frailty, with _ourself_. We have different names and different judgments for the same faults committed by persons of different condition. (1773)

II.ii.141 (46,3) [She speaks, and 'tis Such sense, that my sense breeds with it] Thus all the folios. Some later editor has changed _breeds_ to _bleeds_, and Dr. Warburton blames poor Mr. Theobald for recalling the old word, which yet is certainly right. _My sense_ breeds _with her sense_, that is, new thoughts are stirring in my mind, new conceptions are _hatched_ in my imagination.

So we say to _brood_ over thought.

II.ii.149 (46,4) [tested gold] Rather cupelled, brought to the _test_, refined, (see 1765,I,299,6)

II.ii.157 (47,6) [For I am that way going to temptation, Where prayers cross] Which way Angelo is going to temptation, we begin to perceive; but how _prayers cross_ that way, or cross each other, at that way, more than any other, I do not understand.

Isabella prays that his _honour_ may be safe, meaning only to give him his title: his imagination is caught by the word _honour_; he feels that his _honour_ is in danger, and therefore, I believe, answers thus:

_I am that way going to temptation_, Which your _prayers cross_.

That is, I am tempted to lose that honour of which thou implorest the preservation. The temptation under which I labour is that which thou hast unknowingly _thwarted_ with thy prayer. He uses the same mode language a few lines lower. Isabella, parting, says, Save your _honour_! Angelo catches the word--_Save it_! _From what_? _From thee; even from thy virtue_!--(rev. 1778,II,52,3)

II.ii.165 (47,7)

[But it is I, That lying, by the violet, in the sun, Do, as the carrion does, not as the flower, Corrupt with virtuous season.]

I am not corrupted by her, but by my own heart, which excites foul desires under the same benign influences that exalt her purity, as the carrion grows putrid by those beams which encrease the fragrance of the violet.

II.ii.186 (48,8) [Ever, till now, When men were fond, I smil'd, and wonder'd how] As a day must now intervene between this conference of Isabella with Angelo, and the next, the act might more properly end here; and here, in my opinion, it was ended by the poet.

II.iii.11 (49,1) [Who falling in the flaws of her own youth, Hath blister'd her report] Who doth not see that the integrity of the metaphor requires we should read, --_flames of her own youth_? Warburton.]

Who does not see that, upon such principles, there is no end of correction?

II.iii.36 (50,3) [There rest] Keep yourself in this temper.

II.iii.40 (50,4) [Oh, injurious love] Her execution was respited on account of her pregnancy, the effects of her love: therefore she calls it _injurious_; not that it brought her to shame, but that it hindered her freeing herself from it. Is not this all very natural? yet the Oxford editor changes it to _injurious law_.

II.iv.9 (51,6) [Grown fear'd and tedious] [W: sear'd] I think _fear'd_

may stand. What we go to with reluctance may be said to be _fear'd_.

II.iv.13 (51,7) [case] For outside; garb; external shew.

II.iv.14 (51,8) [Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls To thy false seeming?] Here Shakespeare judiciously distinguishes the different operations of high place upon different minds. Fools are frighted, and wise men are allured. Those who cannot judge but by the eye, are easily awed by splendour; those who consider men as well as conditions, are easily persuaded to love the appearance of virtue dignified with power.

II.iv.16 (51,9) [Let's write good angel on the devil's horn; 'Tis not the devil's crest] [Hammer: Is't not the devil's crest] I am still inclined to the opinion of the Oxford editor. Angelo, reflecting on the difference between his seeming character, and his real disposition, observes, that he _could change his gravity for a plume_. He then digresses into an apostrophe, _O dignity, how dost thou impose upon the world_! then returning to himself, _Blood_, says he, _thou art but blood_, however concealed with appearances and decorations. Title and character do not alter nature, which is still corrupt, however dignified.

_Let's write good angel on the devil's horn_; _Is't not_?--or rather--_'Tis yet the devil's crest_.

It may however be understood, according to Dr. Warburton's explanation. O place, how dost thou impose upon the world by false appearances! so much, that if we _write good angel on the devil's horn, 'tis not_ taken any longer to be _the devil's crest_. In this sense,

_Blood, thou art but blood._!

is an interjected exclamation. (1773)

II.iv.27 (53,1) [The gen'ral subjects to a well-wish'd king] So the later editions: but the old copies read,

_The_ general subject _to a well-wish'd king_.

The _general subject_ seems a harsh expression, but _general subjects_ has no sense at all; and _general_ was, in our authour's time, a word for _people_, so that the _general_ is the _people_, or _multitude, subject_ to a king. So in _Hamlet_: _The play pleased not the_ million; _'twas caviare to the_ general.

II.iv.47 (54,3) [Falsely to take away a life true made] _Falsely_ is the same with _dishonestly, illegally_: so _false_, in the next lines, is _illegal, illegitimate_.

II.iv.48 (54,4) [As to put metal in restrained means] In forbidden moulds. I suspect _means_ not to be the right word, but I cannot find another.

II.iv.50 (55,5) ['Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth] I would have it considered, whether the train of the discourse does not rather require Isabel to say,

_'Tis so set down in_ earth, _but not in_ heaven.

When she has said this, _Then_, says Angelo, _I shall poze you quickly_. Would you, who, for the present purpose, declare your brother's crime to be less in the sight of heaven, than the law has made it; would you commit that crime, light as it is, to save your brother's life? To this she answers, not very plainly in either reading, but more appositely to that which I propose:

_I had rather give my body, than my soul_. (1773)

II.iv.67 (56,6)

[Pleas'd you to do't at peril of your soul, Were equal poize of sin and charity]

The reasoning is thus: Angelo asks, whether there might _not be a charity in sin to save this brother_. Isabella answers, that _if Angelo will save him, she will stake her soul that it were charity, not sin_. Angelo replies, that if Isabella would _save him at the hazard of her soul, it would be not indeed no sin, but a sin to which the charity would be equivalent_.

II.iv.73 (56,7) [And nothing of your answer] I think it should be read,

_And nothing of_ yours _answer_.

You, and whatever is _yours_, be exempt from penalty.

II.iv.86 (56,9) [Accountant to the law upon that pain] _Pain_ is here for _penalty, punishment_.

II.iv.90 (57,2) [But in the loss of question,] The _loss_ of question I do not well understand, and should rather read,

_But in the_ toss _of question_.

In the _agitation_, in the _discussion_ of the question. To _toss_ an argument is a common phrase.

II.iv.106 (57,4) [a brother dy'd at once] Perhaps we should read,

_Better it were, a brother died_ for _once, Than that a sister, by redeeming him. Should die_ for _ever_.

II.iv.123 (58,6) [Owe, and succeed by weakness] To _owe_ is, in this place, to _own_, to _hold_, to have possession.

II.iv.125 (59,7) [the glasses where they view themselves; Which are as easily broke, as they make forms] Would it not be better to read, ----take _forms_.

II.iv.128 (59,8) [In profiting by them] In imitating them, in taking them for examples.

II.iv.139 (59,1)

[I have no tongue but one. Gentle my lord, Let me intreat you, speak the former language]

Isabella answers to his circumlocutory courtship, that she has but _one tongue_, she does not understand this new phrase, and desires him to talk his _former language_, that is, to talk as he talked before.

II.iv.150 (60,3) [Seeming, seeming!] Hypocrisy, hypocrisy; counterfeit virtue.

II.iv.156 (60,4) [My Touch against you] [The calling his denial of her charge _his vouch_, has something fine. _Vouch_ is the testimony one man bears for another. So that, by this, he insinuates his authority was so great, that his _denial_ would have the same credit that a _vouch_ or testimony has in ordinary cases. Warburton.] I believe this beauty is merely imaginary, and that _vouch against_ means no more than denial.

II.iv.165 (60,5) [die the death] This seems to be a solemn phrase for death inflicted by law. So in _Midsummer Night's Dream_.

_Prepare_ to die the death.

II.iv.178 (61,6) [prompture] Suggestion, temptation, instigation.

III.i.5 (62,8) [Be absolute for death] Be determined to die, without any hope of life. _Horace_,--

--_The hour, which exceeds expectation will be welcome._

III.i.7 (62,9) [I do lose a thing, That none but fools would keep] [W: would reck] The meaning seems plainly this, that _none but fools would_ wish _to keep life_; or, _none but fools would keep_ it, if choice were allowed. A sense, which whether true or not, is certainly innocent.

III.i.14 (63,3) [For all the accommodations, that thou bear'st Are nurs'd by baseness] Dr. Warburton is undoubtedly mistaken in supposing that by _baseness_ is meant _self-love_ here assigned as the motive of all human actions. Shakespeare only meant to observe, that a minute analysis of life at once destroys that splendour which dazzles the imagination. Whatever grandeur can display, or luxury enjoy, is procured by _baseness_, by offices of which the mind shrinks from the contemplation. All the delicacies of the table may be traced back to the shambles and the dunghill, all magnificence of building was hewn from the quarry, and all the pomp of ornaments dug from among the damps and darkness of the mine.

III.i.16 (64,4) [the soft and tender fork Of a poor worm] _Worm_ is put for any creeping thing or _serpent_. Shakespeare supposes falsely, but according to the vulgar notion, that a serpent wounds with his tongue, and that his tongue is _forked_. He confounds reality and fiction, a serpent's tongue is _soft_ but not _forked_ nor hurtful. If it could hurt, it could not be soft. In _Midsummer Night's Dream_ he has the same notion.

--_With_ doubler _tongue Than thine, O serpent, never adder_ stung.

III.i.17 (64,5)

[Thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provok'st; yet grosly fear'st Thy death which is no more]

Here Dr. Warburton might have found a sentiment worthy of his

animadversion. I cannot without indignation find Shakespeare saying, that _death is only sleep_, lengthening out his exhortation by a sentence which in the friar is impious, in the reasoner is foolish, and in the poet trite and vulgar.

III.i.19 (64,6)

[Thou art not thyself, For thou exist'st on many thousand grains, That issue out of dust]

Thou art perpetually repaired and renovated by external assistance, thou subsistest upon foreign matter, and hast no power of producing or continuing thy own being.

III.i.24 (64,7) [strange effects] For _effects_ read _affects_; that is, _affections_, _passions_ of mind, or disorders of body variously _affected_. So in _Othello_, _The young_ affects.

III.i.32 (65,9)

[Thou hast nor youth, nor age; But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, Dreaming on both]

This is exquisitely imagined. When we are young, we busy ourselves in forming schemes for succeeding time, and miss the gratifications that are before us; when we are old, we amuse the languor of age with the recollection of youthful pleasures or performances; so that our life, of which no part is filled with the business of the present time, resembles our dreams after dinner, when the events of the morning are mingled with the designs of the evening.

III.i.34 (65,1)

[for all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palsied eld]

[W: for pall'd, thy blazed youth Becomes assuaged] Here again I think Dr. Warburton totally mistaken. Shakespeare declares that man has _neither youth nor age_; for in _youth_, which is the _happiest_ time, or which might be the happiest, he commonly wants means to obtain what he could enjoy; he is dependent on _palsied eld_; _must beg alms_ from the coffers of hoary avarice: and being very niggardly supplied, _becomes as aged_, looks, like an old man, on happiness which is beyond his reach. And when _he is old and rich_, when he has wealth enough for the purchase of all that formerly excited his desires, he has no longer the powers of enjoyment,

--_has neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty, To make _his _riches pleasant_.--

I have explained this passage according to the present reading, which may stand without much inconvenience; yet I am willing to persuade my reader, because I have almost persuaded myself, that our authour wrote,

--_for all thy_ blasted _youth Becomes as aged_--

III.i.37 (66,2) [Thou has neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty To make thy riches pleasant] [W: nor bounty] I am inclined to believe, that neither man nor woman will have much difficulty to tell how _beauty makes riches pleasant_. Surely this emendation, though it it elegant and ingenious, is not such as that an opportunity of inserting it should be purchased by declaring ignorance of what every one knows, by confessing insensibility to what every one feels.

III.i.40 (66,3) [more thousand deaths] For this sir T. Hammer reads, ----_ a thousand deaths_:---- The meaning is not only _a thousand deaths_, but _a thousand deaths_ besides what have been mentioned.

III.i.55 (67,5) [Why, as all comforts are; most good in Deed] If this reading be right, Isabella must mean that she brings something better than _words_ of comfort, she brings an assurance of _deeds_. This is harsh and constrained, but I know not what better to offer. Sir Thomas Hammer reads,--_in_ speed.

III.i.59 (68,6) [an everlasting leiger. Therefore your best appointment] _Leiger_ is the same with resident. _Appointment_; preparation; act of fitting, or state of being fitted for any thing. So in old books, we have a knight well _appointed_; that is, well armed and mounted or fitted at all points.

III.i.68 (68,8)

[Tho' all the world's vastidity you had, To a determin'd scope]

A confinement of your mind to one painful idea; to ignominy, of which the remembrance can neither be suppressed nor escaped.

III.i.79 (69,9)

[And the poor beetle, that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great, As when a giant dies]

The reasoning is, _that death is no more than every being must suffer, though the dread of it is peculiar to man_; or perhaps, that_ we are inconsistent with ourselves, when we so much dread that which we carelessly inflict on other creatures, that feel the pain as acutely as we.

III.i.91 (69,1) [follies doth emmew] Forces follies to lie in cover without daring to show themselves.

III.1.93 (69,3) [His filth within being cast] To _cast_ a pond is to empty it of mud.

Mr. Upton reads, _His_ pond _within being cast, he would appear A_ filth _as deep as hell_.

III.1.94 (70,4) [_Claud_. The princely Angelo? _Isab_. Oh, 'tis the cunning livery of hell, The damned'st body to invest and cover In princely guards!]

[W: priestly guards] The first folio has, in both places, _prenzie_,

from which the other folios made _princely_, and every editor may make what he can.

III.i.113 (71,7)

[If it were damnable, he being so wise, Why would he for the momentary trick Be perdurably fin'd?]

Shakespeare shows his knowledge of human nature in the conduct of Claudio. When Isabella first tells him of Angelo's proposal, he answers, with honest indignation, agreeably to his settled principles,

_Thou shalt not do't._

But the love of life being permitted to operate, soon furnishes him with sophistical arguments, he believes it cannot be very dangerous to the soul, since Angelo, who is so wise, will venture it.

III.i.121 (71,8) [delighted spirit] This reading may perhaps stand, but many attempts have been made to correct it. The most plausible is that which substitutes,

--_the_ benighted _spirit_,

alluding to the darkness always supposed in the place of future punishment.

Perhaps we may read,

--_the_ delinquent _spirit_,

a word easily changed to _delighted_ by a bad copier, or unskilful reader. _Delinquent_ is proposed by Thirlby in his manuscript.(1773)

III.i.127 (72,9) [lawless and incertain thoughts] Conjecture sent out to wander without any certain direction, and ranging through all possibilities of pain.

III.i.139 (73,2) [Is't not a kind of incest, to take life From thine own sister's shame?] In Isabella's declamation there is something harsh, and something forced and far-fetched. But her indignation cannot be thought violent, when we consider her not only as a virgin, but as a nun.

III.i.149 (74,4) [but a trade] A custom; a practice, an established habit. So we say of a man much addicted to any thing, _he makes_ a trade _of it_.

III.i.176 (75,6) [Hold you there] Continue in that resolution.

III.i.255 (77,l) [only refer yourself to this advantage] This is scarcely to be reconciled to any established mode of speech. We may read, _only_ reserve yourself to, or _only_ reserve to _yourself this advantage_.

III.i.266 (77,2) [the corrupt deputy scaled] _To scale the deputy_ may _be, to reach him, notwithstanding the elevation of his place_; or it may be, _to strip him and discover his nakedness, though armed and concealed by the investments of authority_.

III.ii.6 (78,4) [since, of two usuries] Sir Thomas Hammer corrected this with less pomp [than Warburton], then _since of two_ usurers _the merriest was put down, and the worser allowed, by order of law, a furr'd gown_, &c. His punctuation is right, but the alteration, small as it is, appears more than was wanted. Usury may be need by an easy licence for the _professors of usury_.

III.ii.14 (79,5) [father] This word should be expunged.

III.ii.40 (80,7) [That we were all, as some would seem to be, Free from all faults, as faults from seeming free!]

Sir T. Hammer reads,

_Free from all faults, as from faults seeming free_.

In the interpretation of Dr. Warburton, the sense is trifling, and the expression harsh. To wish _that men were as free from faults, as faults are free from comeliness_ [instead of _void of comeliness_] is a very poor conceit. I once thought it should be read,

_O that all were, as all would seem to be. Free from all faults_, or _from_ false seeming _free_.

So in this play,

_O place, 0 power--how dost thou Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls To thy_ false seeming.

But now I believe that a less alteration will serve the turn.

_Free from all faults_, or _faults from seeming free;

that men were really good, or that their faults were known_, that men were free from faults, _or_ faults from _hypocrisy_. So Isabella calls Angelo's hypocrisy, _seeming, seeming_.

III.ii.42 (81,8) [His neck will come to your waist] That is, his neck will be tied, like your waist, with a rope. The friars of the Franciscan order, perhaps of all others, wear a hempen cord for a girdle. Thus Buchanan,

_Fac gemant suis, Variata terga funibus_.