Isab. I'll see what I can do.
Lucio.

Isab. I will about it straight;

But speedily.

No longer staying but to give the mother 13
Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you:
Commend me to my brother: soon at night
I'll send him certain word of my success.
Lucio. I take my leave of you.

Isab.

Good sir, adieu.

[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I. A Hall in Angelo's House.

Enter ANGELO, ESCALUS, a Justice, Provost1, Officers, and other Attendants.

Ang. We must not make a scare-crow of the law, Setting it up to fear 2 the birds of prey,

And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch, and not their terror.

Escal.

Ay, but yet

Let us be keen, and rather cut a little,

Than fall3, and bruise to death: Alas! this gentleman, Whom I would save, had a most noble father,

Let but your honour know*,

(Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue),
That, in the working of your own affections,
Had time coher❜d with place, or place with wishing,
Or that the resolute acting of your blood

13 i. e. the abbess.

1 A kind of sheriff or jailer, so called in foreign countries. 2 To fear is to affright.

3 i. e. throw down; to fall a tree is still used for to fell it. i. e. examine.

5 i. e. suited.

Could have attain'd the effect of your own purpose,
Whether you had not sometime in your life
Err'd in this point which now you censure him,
And pull'd the law upon you.

Ang. "Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
Another thing to fall. I not deny,

The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,

May, in the sworn twelve, have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try: What's open made to

justice,

That justice seizes.
That thieves do pass

What know the laws,
on thieves? '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.
You may not so extenuate his offence,
For I have had such faults; but rather tell me,
When I, that censure him, do so offend,
Let mine own judgment pattern out my death,
And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.
Escal. Be it as your wisdom will.

Ang.

Prov. Here, if it like

Ang.

Where is the provost?

Be executed by nine to-morrow morning:
Bring him his confessor, let him be prepared;
For that's the utmost of his pilgrimage.

[Exit Provost. Escal. Well,heaven forgive him; and forgive us all!

6 To complete the sense of this line for seems to be required :'which now you censure him for.' But Shakspeare frequently uses eliptical expressions.

7 An old forensic term, signifying to pass judgment, or sentence. 8 Full of force or conviction, or full of proof in itself. So, in Othello, Act ii. Sc. 1, As it is a most pregnant and unforc'd position.'

9 i. e. cause I have had such faults.

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall 10:
Some run from brakes 11 of vice, and answer none;
And some condemned for a fault alone.

Enter ELBOW, FROTH, Clown, Officers, &c.

Elb. Come, bring them away: if these be good people in a common-weal, that do nothing but use their abuses in common houses, I know no law; bring them away. Ang. How now, what's the matter?

sir! What's your name? and

Elb. If it please your honour, I am the poor duke's constable, and my name is Elbow; I do lean upon justice, sir, and do bring in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors.

Ang. Benefactors! Well; what benefactors are they? are they not malefactors?

Elb. If it please your honour, I know not well what they are: but precise villains they are, that I am sure of; and void of all profanation in the world, that good christians ought to have.

Escal. This comes off well 12; here's a wise officer.

10 This line is printed in Italics as a quotation in the first folio. 11 The first folio here reads- Some run from brakes of ice."' The correction was made by Rowe. Brakes most probably here signify thorny perplexities; but a brake was also used to signify a trap or snare. Thus in Skelton's Ellinour Rummin:

'It was a stale to take-the devil in a brake.' And in Holland's Leaguer, a Comedy, by Sh. Marmion-her I'll make

A stale to catch this courtier in a brake.'

There can be no allusion to the instrument of torture mentioned by Steevens. A brake seems to have signified an engine or instrument in general.

12 i. e. is well told. The meaning of this phrase, when seriously applied to speech, is 'This is well delivered,' this story is well told.' But in the present instance it is used ironically.

Ang. Go to: What quality are they of? Elbow is your name? Why dost thou not speak, Elbow? Clo. He cannot, sir; he's out at elbow.

Ang. What are you, sir?

Elb. He, sir? a tapster, sir; parcel-bawd; one that serves a bad woman; whose house, sir, was, as they say, plucked down in the suburbs; and now she professes 13 a hot-house, which, I think, is a very ill house too.

Escal. How know you that?

Elb. My wife, sir, whom I detest 14 before heaven and your honour,

Escal. How! thy wife?

Elb. Ay, sir; whom, I thank heaven, is an ho

nest woman,

Escal. Dost thou detest her therefore?

Elb. I say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as she, that this house, if it be not a bawd's house, it is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house.

Escal. How dost thou know that, constable?

Elb. Marry, sir, by my wife; who, if she had been a woman cardinally given, might have been accused in fornication, adultery, and all uncleanliness there. Escal. By the woman's means?

Elb. Ay, sir, by mistress Over-done's means: but as she spit in his face, so she defied him.

Clo. Sir, if it please your honour, this is not so. Elb. Prove it before these varlets here, thou honourable man, prove it.

Escal. Do you hear how he misplaces?

[To ANGELO. Clo. Sir, she came in great with child; and longing (saving your honour's reverence), for stew'd

13 Professes a hot house, i. e. keeps a bagnio.

14 Detest, for protest, or attest.

prunes 15: sir, we had but two in the house, which at that very distant time stood, as it were, in a fruitdish, a dish of some three pence; your honours have seen such dishes; they are not China dishes, but very good dishes.

Escal. Go to, go to: no matter for the dish, sir.

Clo. No, indeed, sir, not of a pin; you are therein in the right but, to the point: As I say, this mistress Elbow, being, as I say, with child, and being great belly'd, and longing, as I said, for prunes ; and having but two in the dish, as I said, master Froth here, this very man having eaten the rest, as I said, and, as I say, paying for them very honestly; -for, as you know, master Froth, I cou'd not give you three pence again.

Froth. No, indeed.

Clo. Very well: you being then, if you be remember'd, cracking the stones of the aforesaid prunes. Froth. Ay, so I did, indeed.

Clo. Why, very well: I telling you then, if you be remember'd, that such a one, and such a one, were past cure of the thing you wot of, unless they kept very good diet, as I told you.

Froth. All this is true.

Clo. Why, very well then.

Escal. Come, you are a tedious fool: to the purpose,-What was done to Elbow's wife, that he hath cause to complain of? Come me to what was done to her.

Clo. Sir, your honour cannot come to that yet. Escal. No, sir, nor I mean it not.

ho

Clo. Sir, but you shall come to it, by your nour's leave: And, I beseech you, look into master Froth here, sir; a man of fourscore pound a year;

15 A favourite dish, anciently common in brothels. VOL. II.

D