JULIET. I do; and bear the fhame moft patiently. DUKE. I'll teach you how you fhall arraign your confcience, And try your penitence, if it be found, Or hollowly put on. JULIET. I'll gladly learn. DUKE. Love you the man that wrong'd you? JULIET. Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him. DUKE. So then, it feems, your most offenceful act Was mutually committed? DUKE. Then was your fin of heavier kind than his. JULIET. I do confefs it, and repent it, father. DUKE. 'Tis meet fo daughter: But left you do repent, 2 As that the fin hath brought you to this fhame, Which forrow is always toward ourselves, not 1 heaven; Showing, we'd not fpare heaven, 3 as we love it, But left you do repent,] Thus the old copy. The modern editors, led by Mr. Pope, read: But repent you not. But left you do repent is only a kind of negative imperative Ne te pæniteat, and means, repent not on this account. STEEVENS. I think that a line at leaft is wanting after the first of the Duke's fpeech. It would be prefumptuous to attempt to replace the. words; but the fenfe, I am perfuaded, is cafily recoverable out of Juliet's anfwer. I fuppofe his advice, in fubftance, to have been nearly this: Take care, left you repent [not fo much of your fault, as it is an evil, ] as that the fin hath brought you to this fhame. Accordingly, Juliet's anfwer is explicit to this point: I do repent me, as it is an evil, And take the' fhame with joy. TYRWHITT. 3 Showing, we'd not fpare heaven,] The modern editors had changed this word into feek. STEEVENS. JULIET. I do repent me, as it is an evil; And take the flame with joy. -DUKE. There reft. Your partner, as I hear, muft die to-morrow, JULIET. Muft die to-morrow! love, 6 [Exit. O, injurious Showing, we'd not fpare heaven,] i. c. fpare to offend heaven. MALONE.' 4 There reft. Keep yourfelf in this temper. JOHNSON. Grace go with you! Benedicite!] The former part of this line evidently belongs to Juliet. Benedicite is the Duke's reply. RITSON. This regulation is undoubtedly proper: but I suppose Shakspeare to have written, 6 Juliet. May grace go with you! Benedicite! STEEVENS. O, injurious love,] Her execution was refpited on account of her pregnancy, the effects of her love; therefore the calls it injurious; not that it brought her to fhame, but that it hindered her freeing herself from it. Is not this all very natural? yet the Oxford editor changes it to injurious law. JOHNSON. I know not what circumstance in this play can authorise a suppofition that Juliet was refpited on account of her pregnancy; as her life was in no danger from the law, the leverity of which was exerted only on the feducer. I fuppofe fhe means that a parent's love for the child fhe bears, is injurious, because it makes her careful of her life in her prefent fhameful condition. Mr. Tollet explains the paffage thus: " O, love, that is injurious in expediting Claudio's death, and that refpites me a life, which is a burthen to me worfe than death!" STEEVENS. Both Johnson's explanation of this paffage, and Steevens's refutation of it, prove the neceflity of Hanmer's amendment, which removes every difficulty, and can fcarcely be confidered as an alteration, the trace of the letters in the words law and love being fo nearly alike. The law affected the life of the man only, not that of the woman; and this is the injury that Juliet complains of, as fhe wifhed to die with him. M. MASON. That refpites me a life, whofe very comfort Is ftill a dying horror! PROV. 'Tis pity of him. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. A Room in ANGELO'S Houfe. Enter ANGELO, 7 ANG. When I would pray and think, I think and pray To feveral fubjects: heaven hath my empty words; Whilft my invention, hearing not my tongue, 7 Enter Angelo.] Promos, in the play already quoted, has likewife a foliloquy previous to the fecond appearance of Caffandra. It begins thus: "Do what I can, no reafon cooles defire: The more I ftrive my fond affe&tes to tame, "The hotter (oh) I feele a burning fire “ Within my breast, vaine thoughts to forge and frame, "&c. STEEVENS. Nothing can be either plainer or [Dr. Warburton means 8 Whilft my invention,] exacer than this expreffion. intention, a word fubftituted by himself. But the old blundering folio having it, invention, this was enough for Mr. Theobald to prefer authority to sense. WARBURTON. Intention (if it be the true reading) has, in this inftance more than its common meaning, and fignifies eagerness of defire. So, in The Merry Wives of Windfor: "courfe o'er my exteriors, with fuch greediness of intention." By invention, however, I believe the poet means imagination. "That overgoes my blunt invention quite. " Again, in King Henry V: "O for a mufe of fire, that would afcend "The brightest heaven of invention!" MALONE. STEEVENS. Steevens fays that intention, in this place, means eagerness of defire; but I believe it means attention only, a fenfe in which the Anchors on Ifabel: Heaven in my mouth, As if I did but only chew his name; And in my heart, the ftrong and fwelling evil 2 Grown fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity, Wherein (let no man hear me) I take pride, Could I, with boot, 3 change for an idle plume, Which the air beats for vain. O place! O form!* word is frequently ufed by Shakspeare and the other writers of his time. - Angelo fays, he thinks and prays to feveral subjects; that Heaven has his prayers, but his thoughts are fixed on Isabel. — So, in Hamlet, the King fays: My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: M. MASON. 9 Anchors on Ifabel:] We have the fame fingular expreffion in Antony and Cleopatra: "There would he anchor his afpe&t, and die 2 Grown fear'd and tedious;] We fhould read feared. i. e. old. So, Shakspeare ufes in the fear, to fignify old age. WARBURTON. I think fear'd may ftand. What we go to with reluctance may be faid to be fear'd. JOHNSON. 3 with boot, "You obboot." Boot is profit, advantage, gain. So, in M. Kyffin's tranflation of The Andria of Terence, 1588: tained this at my hands, and I went about it while there was any Again, in The Pinner of Wakefield, 1599: 4 "Then lift to me: Saint Andrew be my boot, change for an idle plume, STEEVENS. Which the air beats for vain. O place! O form! &c.] There is, I believe, no inftance in Shakspeare, or any other author, of for vain" being used for « in vain. Befides; has the air or wind less effect on a feather than on twenty other things?or rather, is not the reverfe of this the truth? An idle plume affuredly is not that " ever-fixed mark,' of which our author fpeaks elfewhere, that looks on tempefts, and is never fhaken. The old copy has vaine, in which way a vane or weather-cock was formerly fpelt. [See Minfhieu's DICT. 1617, in verb. So alfo, in Love's How often doft thou with thy cafe,' thy habit, Labour's Loft, A& IV. fc. i. edit. 1623: "What vaine? what weathercock?" I would therefore read vane. - . I would exchange my gravity, fays Angelo, for an idle feather, which being driven along by the wind, ferves, to the fpectator, for a vane or weathercock. So, in The Winter's Tale: "I am a feather for each wind that blows." And in The Merchant of Venice we meet with a kindred thought: I fhould be ftill Plucking the grafs, to know where fits the wind. The omiffion of the article is certainly awkward, but not without example. Thus, in King Lear: "Hot queftrifts after him met him at gate. Again, in Coriolanus: "Go, fee him out at gates. Again, in Titus Andronicus: Which the air beats for vane o' the place. O form, The pronoun thou, referring to only one antecedent, appears to me ftrongly to fupport fuch a regulation. MALOne. I adhere to the old reading. As fair is known to have been repeatedly used by Shakspeare, Marfton, &c. for fairness, vain might have been employed on the prefent occafion, instead of vanity. Pure is alfo fubftituted for purity in England's Helicon. See likewife notes on The Midfummer Night's Dream, A& I. fc. i. and The Comedy of Errors, A& II. fc. i. Again, in Love's Labour's Loft, foul is given, as a fubftantive, to exprefs foulness. The air is reprefented by Angelo as chaftifing the plume for being vain. A feather is exhibited by many writers as the emblem of vanity. Shakspeare himself, in K. Henry VIII. mentions fool and feather, as congenial obje&s. That the air beats the plume for its vainnefs, is a fuppofition fanciful enough; and yet it may be parallel'd by an image in K. Edward III. 1599, were flags are made the affailants, and cuff the air, and beat the wind that fruggles to kifs them. The pronoun thou, referring to the double antecedents place and. form, ought to be no objection, for, a little further on, the Duke Lays: |