ISAB. O just, but severe law ! I had a brother then.-Heaven keep your honour! [Retiring. LUCIO. [TO ISAB.] Give't not o'er so: to him again, intreat him; Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown; You could not with more tame a tongue desire it : ISAB. Must he needs die? ANG. Maiden, no remedy. ISAB. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him, And neither heaven, nor man, grieve at the mercy. ANG. I will not do't. ISAB. But can you, if you would? ANG. Look, what I will not, that I cannot do. ISAB. But might you do't, and do the world no wrong, If so your heart were touch'd with that remorse ANG. 7 He's sentenc'd; 'tis too late. LUCIO. You are too cold. [TO ISABELLA. ISAB. Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word, 8 May call it back again : Well believe this", 7 - touch'd with that REMORSE-] Remorse, in this place, as in many others, signifies pity. So, in the Fifth Act of this play: "My sisterly remorse confutes " And I did yield to him.” Again, in Heywood's Iron Age, 1632: my honour, "The perfect image of a wretched creature, See Othello, Act III. STEEVENS. 8 May call it BACK again:] The word back was inserted by the editor of the second folio, for the sake of the metre. MALONE. Surely, it is added for the sake of sense as well as metre. STEEVENS. No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, ANG. Pray you, begone. 1SAB. I would to heaven I had your potency, And you were Isabel! should it then be thus ? No; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge, And what a prisoner. LUCIO. Ay, touch him: there's the vein. [Aside. ANG. Your brother is a forfeit of the law, And you but waste your words. ISAB. Alas! alas! Why, all the souls that were ', were forfeit once; 9 I - WELL believe this.] Be thoroughly assured of this. THEOBALD. all the souls that WERE,] This is false divinity. We should read-are. WARBURTON. I fear, the player, in this instance, is a better divine than the prelate. The souls that were," evidently refer to Adam and Eve, whose transgression rendered them obnoxious to the penalty of annihilation, but for the remedy which the Author of their being most graciously provided. The learned Bishop, however, is more successful in his next explanation. HENLEY. 2 And mercy then will breathe within your lips Like man NEW MADE.] This is a fine thought, and finely expressed. The meaning is, that "mercy will add such a grace to your person, that you will appear as amiable as a man come fresh out of the hands of his Creator." WARBURTON. I rather think the meaning is, "You will then change the seve ANG. Be you content, fair maid It is the law, not I, condemns your brother: It should be thus with him;-he must die to-morrow. ISAB. To-morrow? O, that's sudden! Spare him, spare him: He's not prepar'd for death! Even for our kitchens We kill the fowl of season 3; shall we serve heaven With less respect than we do minister To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you: Who is it that hath died for this offence ? There's many have committed it. LUCIO. Ay, well said. ANG. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept *: Those many had not dar'd to do that evil, rity of your present character." In familiar speech, "You would be quite another man." JOHNSON. "And mercy then will breathe within your lips, "Like man new made." You will then appear as tender-hearted and merciful as the first man was in his days of innocence, immediately after his creation. MALone. I incline to a different interpretation: "And you, Angelo, will breathe new life into Claudio, as the Creator animated Adam, by breathing into his nostrils the breath of life." HOLT WHITE. 3- of season;] i. e. when it is in season. So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor: buck; and of the season too it shall ap pear." STEEVENS. 66 4 The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept :] "Dor miunt aliquando leges, moriuntur nunquam," is a maxim in our law. HOLT White. 5 If the first man, &c.] The word man has been supplied by the modern editors. I would rather read 66 If he, the first," &c. TYRWHITT. Man was introduced by Mr. Pope. Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils, ISAB. like a prophet, Yet show some pity. Looks in a glass,] This alludes to the fopperies of the beril, much used at that time by cheats and fortune-tellers to predict by. WARBURTON. See Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. I. So again, in Vittoria Corombona, 1612: "How long have I beheld the devil in chrystal?" STEEVENS. The beril, which is a kind of crystal, hath a weak tincture of red in it. Among other tricks of astrologers, the discovery of past or future events was supposed to be the consequence of looking into it. See Aubrey's Miscellanies, p. 165, edit. 1721. REED. 7 (Either now,] Thus the old copy. Modern editors readOr new-. STEEVENS. 8 But, WHERE they live, to end.] The old copy reads-But, here they live, to end. Sir Thomas Hanmer substituted ere for here; but where was, I am persuaded, the author's word. So, in Coriolanus, Act V. Sc. V.: 66 but there to end, "Where he was to begin, and give away Again, in Julius Cæsar : "And where I did begin, there shall I end." The prophecy is not, that future evils should end, ere, or before they are born; or, in other words, that there should be no more evil in the world (as Sir T. Hanmer by his alteration seems to have understood it); but, that they should end where they began,' i. e. with the criminal; who, being punished for his first offence, could not proceed by successive degrees in wickedness, nor excite others, by his impunity, to vice. So, in the next speech: "And do him right, that, answering one foul wrong, "Lives not to act another." It is more likely that a letter should have been omitted at the press, than that one should have been added. The same mistake has happened in The Merchant of Venice, folio, 1623, p. 173, col. 2:-" ha, ha, here in Genoa,❞—instead of "where? in Genoa?" MALONE. Dr. Johnson applauds Sir Thomas Hanmer's emendation. I prefer that of Mr. Malone. STEEVENS. ANG. I show it most of all, when I show justice; For then I pity those I do not know 9, Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall; And do him right, that, answering one foul wrong, Lives not to act another. Be satisfied; Your brother dies to-morrow: be content. ISAB. So you must be the first, that gives this sentence; And he, that suffers: O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous LUCIO. That's well said. ISAB. Could great men thunder As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet, Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder. Merciful heaven! Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak 3, Ang. I show it most of all, when I show justice; For then I pity those I do not know,] This was one of Hale's memorials. When I find myself swayed to mercy, let me remember, that there is a mercy likewise due to the country.' JOHNSON. To use it LIKE A GIANT.] Isabella alludes to the savage con duct of giants in ancient romances. 2 pelting,] i. e. paltry. STEEVENS. This word I meet with in Mother Bombie, 1594: 66 STEEVENS. It occurs very frequently in Shakspeare and his contemporaries in the same sense. BOSWELL. 3 — GNARLED oak,] Gnarre is the old English word for a knot in wood. So, in Antonio's Revenge, 1602 : "Till by degrees the tough and gnarly trunk "Be riv'd in sunder." Again, in Chaucer's Knight's Tale, Tyrwhitt's edit. v. 1979: "With knotty knarr barrein trees old." STEEVENS. |