so sound, as things that are hollow; thy bones are hollow: impiety has made a feast of thee.

Enter Bawd.

1 Gent. How now? Which of your hips has the most profound sciatica?

Bawd. Well, well; there's one yonder arrested, and carried to prison, was worth five thousand of you all.

1 Gent. Who's that, I pray thee?

Bawd. Marry, sir, that's Claudio, signior Claudio. 1 Gent. Claudio to prison! 'tis not so. Bawd. Nay, but I know, 'tis so; I saw him arrested; saw him carried away; and which is more, within these three days his head's to be chopped off. Lucio. But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so: Art thou sure of this?

Bawd. I am too sure of it: and it is for getting madam Julietta with child.

Lucio. Believe me, this may be: he promised to meet me two hours since; and he was ever precise in promise-keeping.

2 Gent. Besides, you know, it draws something near to the speech we had to such a purpose. 1 Gent. But most of all, agreeing with the proclamation.

Lucio. Away; let's go learn the truth of it. [Exeunt Lucio and Gentlemen. Bawd. Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what with the gallows, and what with poverty, I am custom-shrunk.

the news with you?

Enter Clown.

How now? what's

Clo. Yonder man is carried to prison.

Bawd. Well; what has he done?

Clo. A woman.

The sweat; the consequences of the curative process then

used for a certain disease.

Bawd. But what's his offence?

Clo. Groping for trouts in a peculiar river. Bawd. What is there a maid with child by him? Clo. No; but there's a woman with maid by him: You have not heard of the proclamation, have you? Bawd. What proclamation, man?

Clo, All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be pluck'd down.

Bawd. And what shall become of those in the city? Clo. They shall stand for seed: they had gone down too, but that a wise burgher put in for them. Bawd. But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be pull'd down?

Clo. To the ground, mistress.

Buwd. Why, here's a change, indeed, in the commonwealth! What shall become of me?

Clo. Come, fear not you; good counsellors lack no clients: though you change your place, you need not change your trade; I'll be your tapster still. Courage; there will be pity taken on you: you that have worn your eyes almost out in the service, you will be considered.

Bawd. What's to do here, Thomas Tapster? Let's withdraw.

Clo. Here comes signior Claudio, led by the provost to prison: and there's madam Juliet. [Exeunt.

SCENE III. The same.

Enter Provost 1, CLAUDIO, JULIET, and Officers; LUCIO, and two Gentlemen.

Claud. Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to the world?

Bear me to prison where I am committed.

5 In one of the Scotch Laws of James it is ordered, 'that common women be put is remarkable that the licensed houses of rethe utmost endes of townes, queire least peril of fire is. It is sort at Vienna, are at this time all in the suburbs, under the permission of the Committee of Chastity.

1 j. c. gaoler.

Prov. I do it not in evil disposition,

But from lord Angelo by special charge.
Claud. Thus can the demi-god, Authority,
Make us pay down for our offence by weight.—
The words of heaven;-on whom it will, it will;
On whom it will not, so; yet still 'tis just 2.

Lucio. Why, how now, Claudio? whence comes this restraint?

Claud. From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty; As surfeit is the father of much fast, So every scope by the immodcrate use

Turns to restraint: Our natures do pursue, (Like rats that ravin 3 down their proper bane) A thirsty evil; and when we drink, we die 4.

Lucio. If I could speak so wisely under an arrest, I would send for certain of my creditors: And yet, to say the truth, I had as lief have the foppery of freedom, as the morality of imprisonment.What's thy offence, Claudio?

Claud. What, but to speak of would offend again. Lucio. What is it? murder?

Claud. No.

Lucio. Lechery?

Claud. Call it so.

Prov. Away, sir; you must go.

Claud. One word, good friend:-Lucio, a word with you. [Takes him aside. Lucio. A hundred if they'll do you any good.— Is lechery so look'd after?

Claud. Thus stands it with me:-Upon a true contract,

2 Authority being absolute in Angelo, is finely styled by Claudio, the demigod, whose decrees are as little to be questioned as the words of heaven. The poet alludes to a passage in St. Paul's Epist, to the Romans, ch. ix. v. 15–18: 'I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy."

To ravin is to voraciously devour.

So, in Chapman's Revenge for Honour:

Like poison'd rats, which, when they've swallowed
The pleasing bane, rest not until they drink,

And can rest then much less, until they burst.'

I got possession of Julietta's bed 5;
You know the lady; she is fast my wife,
Save that we do the denunciation lack
Of outward order: this we came not to,
Only for propagation of a dower

6

Remaining in the coffer of her friends;

From whom we thought it meet to hide our love,
Till time had made them for us. But it chances,
The stealth of our most mutual entertainment,
With character too gross, is writ on Juliet.
Lucio. With child, perhaps?

Claud. Unhappily, even so.

And the new deputy now for the duke,-
Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness;
Or whether that the body public be

A horse whereon the governor doth ride,
Who, newly in the seat, that it may know
He can command, lets it straight feel the spur:
Whether the tyranny be in his place,
Or in his eminence that fills it up,
I stagger in:-But this new governor
Awakes me all the enrolled penalties,

Which have, like unscour'd armour, hung by the wall
So long, that nineteen zodiacks have gone round,
And none of them been worn; and, for a name,
Now puts the drowsy and neglected act
Freshly on me:-'tis surely for a name.

Lucio. I warrant, it is: and thy head stands so

5 This speech is surely too indelicate to be spoken concerning Juliet before her face. Claudio may therefore be supposed to speak to Lucio apart.

6 This singular mode of expression has not been satisfactorily explained. The old sense of the word is 'promoting, inlarging, increasing, spreading.' It appears that Claudio would say: 'for the sake of promoting such a dower as her friends might hereafter bestow on her, when time had reconciled them to her clandestine marriage. The verb is as obscurely used by Chapman in the Sixteenth book of the Odyssey: 'to try if we

Alone may propagate to victory

Our bold encounters.

Shakspeare uses "To propagate their states, for to improve or promote their conditions, in Timon of Athens, Act i. Sc. I. ↑ Zodiacks, yearly circles.

tickle on thy shoulders, that a milk-maid, if she be in love, may sigh it off. Send after the duke, and appeal to him.

Claud. I have done so, but he's not to be found.
I pr'ythee, Lucio, do me this kind service:
This day my sister should the cloister enter,
And there receive her approbation 9:

Acquaint her with the danger of my state;
Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends
To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him;
I have great hope in that: for in her youth
There is a prone 10 and speechless dialect,
Such as moves men; besides, she hath prosperous art
When she will play with reason and discourse,
And well she can persuade.

Lucio. I pray, she may: as well for the enconragement of the like, which else would stand under grievous imposition; as for the enjoying of thy life, who I would be sorry should be thus foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack 11. I'll to her.

Claud. I thank you, good friend Lucio.
Lucio. Within two hours,-

Claud. Come, officer, away.

SCENE IV. A Monastery.

Enter DUKE and Friar THOMAS.

[Exeunt.

Duke. No, holy Father; throw away that thought; Believe not that the dribbling dart of love. Can pierce a cómplete bosom 1: why I desire thee To give me secret harbour, hath a purpose More grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends Of burning youth.

Fri.

8 Tickle, for ticklish.

May your grace speak of it?

i.e. enter on her noviciate or probation.

10 Prone, is prompt, or ready.

11 Jouer au tric trac is used in French in a wanton sense.

A complete bosom is a bosom completely armed.