Enter the DUKE disguised as before, CLAUDIO, and the Provost. Duke. So, then, you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo? Claud. The miserable have no other medicine But only hope : I've hope to live, and am prepared to die. Duke. Be absolute for death; either death or life Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life: If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That none but fools would keep a breath thou art, That do this habitation, where thou keep'st,1 Hourly afflict: merely, thou art Death's Fool;2 For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun, And yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble ; Are nursed by baseness. Thou'rt by no means valiant; Of a poor worm.3 Thy best of rest is sleep, 1 Keep, again, for dwell. See page 144, note 2. 2 Merely in the sense of absolutely. Often so. See vol. v., page 68, note 51. Death and his Fool were famous personages in the old Moral-plays. Douce had an old wood-cut, one of a series representing the Dance of Death, in which the Fool was engaged in combat with Death, and buffetting him with a bladder filled with peas or small pebbles. The moral of those performances was, that the Fool, after struggling against his adversary, at last became his victim. 8 Worm is put for any creeping thing, snake, or serpent. Shakespeare seems to have held the current notion, that a serpent wounds with his tongue, and that this is forked. And that thou oft provokest; yet grossly fear'st Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey, And death unloadeth thee. Friend hast thou none; The mere effusion of thy proper loins, Do curse the gout, serpigo,5 and the rheum, For ending thee no sooner. Thou'st nor youth nor age, Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palsied eld; and, when thou'rt old and rich, What's in this Yet in this life To make thy riches pleasant. I humbly thank you. 4 The Poet has affects repeatedly for affections.— Complexion is here used in its old sense of natural texture or grain; very much as temperament is now. 5 The serpigo is a sort of tetter or leprous eruption. 6" Palsied eld" is tremulous old age. - This strain of moralizing may be rendered something thus: "In youth, which is or ought to be the happiest time, man commonly lacks the means of what he considers enjoyment; he has to beg alms of hoary avarice; and, being niggardly supplied, he becomes as aged, or looks, like an old man, on happiness beyond his reach." See, however, Critical Notes. To sue to live, I find I seek to die; And, seeking death, find life: let it come on. Isab. [Within.] What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company! Prov. Who's there? come in the wish deserves a welcome. : Duke. Dear son, ere long I'll visit you again. Claud. Most holy sir, I thank you. Enter ISABELLA. Isab. My business is a word or two with Claudio. Prov. And very welcome. Look, signior, here's your sister. Duke. Provost, a word with you. Prov. As many as you please. Duke. Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be Conceal'd. [Exeunt the DUKE, and Provost. Claud. Now, sister, what's the comfort? Isab. Why, as all comforts are; most good, most good indeed. Lord Angelo, having affairs to Heaven, Intends you for his swift ambassador, Where you shall be an everlasting lieger: 8 Therefore your best appointment9 make with speed; To-morrow you set on. Claud. Is there no remedy? Isab. None, but such remedy as, to save a head, To cleave a heart in twain. To sue is another instance of the infinitive used gerundively, or like the Latin gerund, and so is equivalent to in or by suing. So again, a little further on, "To cleave a heart"; that is, by cleaving. See vol. i., page 207, note 12. Also vol. ii., page 58, note 6. 8 A lieger is a resident, or minister residing at a foreign court. 9 Appointment for preparation or outfit. Still used thus in military language; as a well-appointed army, meaning an army well equipped or furnished. Claud. But is there any? Isab. Yes, brother, you may live : If you'll implore it, that will free your life, Claud. Perpetual durance? Isab. Ay, just; perpetual durance, a restraint, Though all the world's vastidity 10 you had, To a determined scope.11 Claud But in what nature? Isab. In such a one as, you consenting to't, Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear, And leave you naked. Claud. Let me know the point. Isab. O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake, Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain, And six or seven Winters more respect Than a perpetual honour. Darest thou die? Claud. Why give you me this shame? Think you I can a resolution fetch From flowery tenderness ?13 If I must die, 10 Vastidity for vastness; the only instance of the word in Shakespeare. 11"Shutting you up in a perpetual sense and shame of your own ignominy." Determined in its old sense of limited, confined, or narrow; literally, fenced-in with terms, that is, bounds. 12 This is apt to be misunderstood, though probably not quite true in any sense. The meaning is, that the apprehension of death is the chief pain, and that a giant feels no more pain in death itself than a beetle. 13 I am not quite sure as to the meaning here; but it seems to be, "Do you think me so effeminate in soul as to be capable of an unmanly resolution?" or, "such a milksop as to quail and collapse at the prospect of I will encounter darkness as a bride, And hug it in mine arms. Isab. There spake my brother; there my father's grave Did utter forth a voice! Yes, thou must die : Thou art too noble to conserve a life In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy- Nips youth i' the head, and follies doth enew As falcon doth the fowl 14-is yet a devil; Claud. The priestly Angelo? death?" Perhaps the sentence should be imperative, thus: "Think you, I can a resolution fetch from flowery tenderness." So Heath proposes; and explains, "Do me the justice to think that I am able to draw a resolution even from this tenderness of my youth, which is commonly found to be less easily reconciled to so sudden and harsh a fate." 14 Enew, from the French eneau, was a technical term in aquatic falconry, and was used, to denote the act of forcing the fowl back to the water, as her only sure refuge from the souse of the hawk. The best, indeed the only, explanation of the word that I have met with is in The Edinburgh Review, October, 1872. I condense a part of the matter: When a flight at water fowl was in hand, the falconer whistled off his hawk at some distance from the spot where the duck or mallard, the heron or crane, was known to be. The hawk having reached a tolerable height, the falconer, with his dogs and assistants, "made in upon the fowl, forcing its flight, if possible, in the direction of the land. This was termed landing the fowl, a vital point in aquatic falconry. For, in order that the hawk might stoop with effect, it was necessary to have solid ground immediately beneath; else the hawk might stoop in vain, the fowl taking refuge in diving. The fowl having been thus landed, the hawk would stoop swiftly on its prey; while the former, to avoid the fatal stroke, would instinctively make for the water again. In this case the fowl was said to be enewed; that is, forced back to the water, from which it had to be driven afresh and landed, before the hawk could stoop and seize its prey. The fowl was often enewed several times before it was landed effectively enough for the final swoop. From this technical use, the word came to be applied in the more general sense of to drive back and pursue relentlessly. It would thus be naturally used of a course of extreme and vindictive severity. See Critical Notes. |