Give up your body to fuch sweet uncleanness, Ifab. Sir, believe this, I had rather give my body than my foul3. Ifab. How fay you? Ang. Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak Against the thing I fay. Anfwer to this ;— I, now the voice of the recorded law, Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life: Ifab. Please you to do't, I'll take it as a peril to my foul, Ang. Pleas'd you to do't, at peril of your foul*, Ifab. That I do beg his life, if it be fin, Ang. s I had rather give my body than my foul.] Ifabel, I believe, uses the words, "give my body," in a different fenfe from that in which they had been employed by Angelo. She means, I think, I had rather die, than forfeit my eternal happiness by the prostitution of my perfon. MALONE. Our compell'd fins 9 Stand more for number than for accompt.] Actions to which we are compelled, however numerous, are not imputed to us by heaven as crimes. If you cannot fave your brother but by the loss of your chastity, it is not a voluntary but compelled fin, for which you cannot be accountable. MALONE. Pleas'd you to do't, at peril, &c.] The reafoning is thus: Angelo afks whether there might not be a charity in fin ta fave this brother. Ifabella anfwers, that if Angelo will fave bim, fhe will flake her foul that it were charity, not fin. Angelo replies, that if Ifabella would fave bim at the bazard of ber foul, it would be not indeed no fin, but a fin to which the charity would be equivalent. JOHNSON. 2 And nothing of your, answer.] This paffage would be clear, I think, if it were pointed thus: To have it added to the faults of mine, And nothing of your, answer. So Ang. Nay, but hear me : Your fenfe purfues not mine: either you are ignorant, Ifab. Let me be ignorant +, and in nothing good, Ang. Thus wifdom wishes to appear moft bright, When it doth tax itfelf: as thefe black masks Proclaim an enfhield beauty ten times louder Than So that the fubftantive anfewer may be understood to be joined in conftruction with mine as well as your. The faults of mine answer are the faults which I am to answer for. TYRWHITT. And nothing of your answer, means, and make no part of those for which you fhall be called to answer. STEEVENS. 3 Or feem fo, craftily,] Olá copy-crafty. Corrected by Sir William D'Avenant. MALONE. 4 Let me be ignorant,] Me is wanting in the original copy. The emendation was made by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE. 5 Proclaim an enthield beauty-] An enfield beauty is a fhielded beauty, a beauty covered as with a fhield. STEEVENS. This fhould be written en-fhell'd, or in-foell'd, as it is in Coriolanus, A&t. IV. fc. vi. "Thrufts forth his horns again into the world "That were in-fhell'd when Marcius ftood for Rome." Thefe Masks must mean, I think, the Mafks of the audience; however improperly a compliment to them is put into the mouth of Angelo. As Shakspeare would hardly have been guilty of fuch an indecorum to flatter a common audience, I think this paffage affords ground for fuppofing that the play was written to be acted at court. Some ftrokes of particular flattery to the king I have already pointed out; and there are feveral other general reflections, in the character of the duke especially, which feem calculated for the royal ear. TYRWHITT. I do not think fo well of the conjecture in the latter part of this note, as I did fome years ago; and therefore I fhould wish to withdraw it. Not that I am inclined to adopt the idea of the author of REMARKS, &c. p. 20. as I fee no ground for fuppofing that Ifabella had any mask in her band. My notion at prefent is, that the phrase thefe black masks fignifies nothing more than black masks; according to an old idiom of our language, by which the demonftrative pronoun is put for the prepofitive article. See the Gloffary to Chaucer, Ed. 1775. v. This, Thife. Shakfpeare feems to have ufed the fame idiom, not only in the paffage quoted by Mr. Steevens from Romeo and Juliet, but also in 1 H. IV. A& I. fc. ¡¡¡. -and, but for these vile guns, He would himlelf have been a foldier. With respect to the former part of this note, though the Remarker has told us, that "enfhield is CERTAINLY put by contraction for enfielded, I have no objection to leaving my conjecture in its place, till E 3 fome Than beauty could difplay'd.-But mark me; Ifab. So. Ang. And his offence is fo, as it appears Ang. Admit no other way to fave his life, fome authority is produced for fuch an usage of enfield or enshielded. TYRWHITT. Sir W. D'Avenant reads as a black mask; but I am afraid Mr. Tyrwhitt is too well fupported in his first supposition, by a passage at the beginning of Romeo and Juliet: 6 "Thefe happy masks that kifs fair ladies' brows, "Being black, put us in mind they hide the fair." STEEVENS. -upon that pain.] Pain is here for penalty, punishment. JoHNSON. 7 (As I fubfcribe not that,] To fubfcribe means, to agree to. STEEVENS. 8 But in the lofs of question)-] This expreffion I believe means, but in idle fuppofition, or conversation that tends to nothing, which may therefore, in our author's language, be call'd the loss of question. Thus, in Coriolanus, Act III. fc. i: "The which fhall turn you to no other harm, "Than fo much loss of time." Queftion, in Shakspeare, often bears this meaning. So, in his Rape of Lucrece: "And after fupper long he queftioned "With modeft Lucrece, &c.' STEEVENS. Question is ufed here, as in many other places, for converfation. MALONE. 9 Of the all binding law;] The old copy has-all-building. The emendation is Mr. Theobald's. MALONE. 1 or elfe to let him fuffer;] Sir Thomas Hanmer reads more grammatically" or elfe let him fuffer." But our author is frequently inaccurate in the conftruction of his fentences. I have therefore adhered to the old copy. You must be under the neceffity [to let, &c.] must be understood. MALONE. What What would you do? Ijab. As much for my poor brother, as myself: That longing I have been fick for, ere I'd yield Ang. Then must your brother die. Ifab. And 'twere the cheaper way: Better it were, a brother died at once, Than that a fifter, by redeeming him, Should die for ever. Ang. Were not you then as cruel as the fentence That you have flander'd fo? Ifab. Ignomy in ranfom3, and free pardon, Are of two houfes: lawful mercy Is nothing kin to foul redemption. Ang. You feem'd of late to make the law a tyrant; And rather prov'd the fliding of your brother A merriment than a vice. Ifab. O, pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out, To have what we would have, we fpeak not what we mean: I fomething do excufe the thing I hate, For his advantage that I dearly love. Ang. We are all frail. Ifab. Elfe let my brother die, If not a feodary, but only he *, Owe, 2- a brother died at once,] Perhaps we should read-for once. JOHNSON. 3 Ignomy in ransom,] Ignomy was in our author's time used for ignominy. So again, in K. Henry IV. Part I. "Thy ignomy fleep with thee in thy grave." Sir W. D'Avenant's alteration of these lines may prove a reasonably good comment on them: Ignoble ranfom no proportion bears To pardon freely given. MALONE. 4 If not a feodaty, but only be, &c.] This is fo obfcure, but the allufion fo fine, that it deferves to be explained. A feodary was one that in the times of vafalage held lands of the chief lord, under the tenure of paying rent and fervice, which tenures were called feuda amongst the Goths. Now, fays Angelo, "we are all frail; yes, replies Ifabella; if all mankind were not fecdaries, who owe what they are to this tenure of imbecility, and who fucceed each other by the fame tenure, as well Owe 5, and fucceed by weakness. Ang. Nay, women are frail too. Ifab. Ay, as the glaffes where they view themselves; Which are as eafy broke as they make forms. Women! -Help heaven! men their creation mar In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail; For we are foft as our complexions are, And credulous to false prints 7. Ang. I think it well: And from this testimony of your own fex, (Since, I fuppofe, we are made to be no stronger That is, a woman; if you be more, you're none; By all external warrants,) fhew it now, By putting on the deftin❜d livery. Ijab. I have no tongue but one: gentle my lord, as my brother, I would give him up." The comparing mankind, lying under the weight of original fin, to a feodary, who owes fuit and fervice to his lord, is, I think, not ill imagined. WARBURTON. Shakspeare has the fame allufion in Cymbeline: fenfelefs bauble, "Art thou a feodary for this act ?" The old copy reads-tby weakness. STEEVENS. The emendation was made by Mr. Rowe. I am by no means fatisfied with it. Thy is much more likely to have been printed by mistake for this, than the word which has been fubftituted. Yet this weakness and by weakness are equally difficult to be understood. Sir W. D'Avenant omitted the paffage in his Law against Lovers, probably on account of its difficulty. MALONE. 5 Owe,-] To owe is, in this place, to own, to hold, to have poffeffion. JOHNSON. 6 In profiting by them.] In imitating them, in taking them for examples. JOHNSON. I rather think the meaning is,—in taking advantage of their weakness. A French fenfe: fe profiter. MALONE. 7 For we are foft as our complexions are, And credulous to falle prints.] So, in Twelfth Night: "How eafy is it for the proper falfe "In women's waxen kearts to let their forms! "Alas! our frailty is the caufe, not we; MALONE. And credulous to false prints. i. e, we take any impression. WARBUR. Let |
