For we are soft as our complexions are, · ANG. . I think it well: And from this testimony of your own sex, (Since, I suppose, we are made to be no stronger Than faults may shake our frames,) let me be bold; I do arrest your words; Be that you are, That is, a woman; if you be more, you're none; If you be one, (as you are well express'd By all external warrants,) show it now, By putting on the destin❜d livery. ISAB. I have no tongue but one: gentle my lord, Let me intreat you speak the former language 2. ANG. Plainly conceive, I love you. ISAB. My brother did love Juliet; That he shall die for it. and you tell me, ANG. He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love. ISAB. I know, your virtue hath a licence in't', Which seems a little fouler than it is *, To pluck on others. For we are soft as our complexions are, And credulous to false prints.] i. e. take any impression. So, in Twelfth Night: "How easy is it for the proper false WARBURTON. "In women's waxen hearts to set their forms! MALONE. “For, such as we are made of, such we be." 2-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. JOHNSON. 3 I know, your virtue hath a LICENCE in't,] Alluding to the licences given by ministers to their spies, to go into all suspected companies, and join in the language of malcontents. WARBURTON. I suspect Warburton's interpretation to be more ingenious than just. The obvious meaning is, I know your virtue assumes an air of licentiousness which is not natural to you, on purpose to try me.-Edinburgh Magazine, Nov. 1786. STEEVENS. ANG. Believe me, on mine honour, My words express my purpose. ISAB. Ha! little honour to be much believ'd, And most pernicious purpose !-Seeming, seeming! I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't: Or, with an outstretch'd throat, I'll tell the world ANG. Who will believe thee, Isabel? My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life, That you shall stifle in your own report, 4 Which seems a little fouler, &c.] So, in Promos and Cassandra: "Cas. Renowned lord, you use this speech (I hope) your "If otherwise, my brother's life so deare I will not bye." 66 If you mistrust, to search my harte, would God you had a kaye." STEEVENS. 5-Seeming, seeming!] Hypocrisy, hypocrisy; counterfeit JOHNSON. 'virtue. 6 My VOUCH 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. JOHNSON. Vouch means assertion. ROBERTS. So, in a subsequent scene: "Did, as he vouches, misreport your grace." MALone. 7 That you shall stifle in your own report, And smell of calumny.] A metaphor from a lamp or candle extinguished in its own grease. STEEVENS. And now I give my sensual race the rein 3: That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother Or else he must not only die the death', ISAB. To whom shall I complain? Did I tell this, * And now I give my sensual race the rein:] And now I give my senses the rein, in the race they are now actually running. HEATH. 9 and PROLIXIOUS blushes,] The word prolixious is not peculiar to Shakspeare. I find it in Moses his Birth and Miracles, by Drayton : "Most part by water, more prolixious was," &c. Again, in the Dedication to Gabriel Harvey's Hunt Is Up, 1598: rarifier of prolixious rough barbarism," &c. 66 Again, in Nash's Lenten Stuff, &c. 1599: 66 well known unto them by his prolixious sea-wandering." Prolixious blushes mean what Milton has elegantly calledsweet reluctant delay." STEEVENS. 1 -die the death,] This seems to be a solemn phrase for death inflicted by law. So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream : "Prepare to die the death." JOHNSON. It is a phrase taken from Scripture, as is observed in a note on A Midsummer-Night's Dream. STEEVENS. The phrase is a good phrase, as Shallow says, but I do not conceive it to be either of legal or scriptural origin. Chaucer uses it frequently. See Canterbury Tales, ver. 607: "They were adradde of him, as of the deth." ver. 1222. "The deth he feleth thurgh his herte smite." It seems to have been originally a mistaken translation of the French La Mort. TYRWHITT. 2 Bidding the law make court'sy to their will; To such abhorr'd pollution. Then Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die : I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request, And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest. [Exit. ACT III. SCENE I. A Room in the Prison. Enter DUKE, CLAUDIO, and Provost. DUKE. So, then you hope of pardon from lord CLAUD. The miserable have no other medicine, But only hope: I have hope to live, and am prepar'd to die. DUKE. Be absolute for death; either death, or life, prompture-] Suggestion, temptation, instigation. JOHNSON. 3 such a mind of honour,] This, in Shakspeare's language, may mean, such an honourable mind, as he uses "mind of love,' in The Merchant of Venice, for loving mind. Thus also, in Philaster: 66 I had thought, thy mind Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life, If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing 5 That none but fools would keep a breath thou art, 4 Be absolute for death;] Be determined to die, without any hope of life. Horace, "The hour which exceeds expectation will be welcome." JOHNSON. 5 That none but fools would keep :] But this reading is not only contrary to all sense and reason, but to the drift of this moral discourse. The Duke. in his assumed character of a friar, is endeavouring to instil into the condemned prisoner a resignation of mind to his sentence; but the sense of the lines in this reading, is a direct persuasive to suicide: I make no doubt but the poet wrote 66 'That none but fools would reck :i. e. care for, be anxious about, regret the loss of. tragedy of Tancred and Gismand, Act IV Sc. III. : Not that she recks this life.--" 66 And Shakspeare, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona : So, in the WARBURTON. 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. JOHNSON. Keep, in this place, I believe, may not signify preserve, but care for. "No lenger for to liven I ne kepe," says Eneas, in Chaucer's Dido, Queen of Carthage; and elsewhere: "That I kepe not rehearsed be; " i. e. which I care not to have rehearsed. Again, in The Knightes Tale, Tyrwhitt's edit. ver. 2240: "I kepe nought of armes for to yelpe." Again, in A Mery Jeste of a Man called Howleglass, bl. 1. no date: "Then the parson bad him remember that he had a soule for to kepe, and he preached and teached to him the use of confession," &c. Again, in Ben Jonson's Volpone: "Faith I could stifle him rarely with a pillow, "As well as any woman that should keep him." i. e. have the care of him. STEEVENS. Mr. Steevens's explanation is confirmed by a passage in The Dutchess of Malfy, by Webster, (1623,) an author who has frequently imitated Shakspeare, and who perhaps followed him in the present instance: · |