Part 5 (1/2)

Again, when Poeneral, exclai:

”That ere all as some would see free”

Then follows the interesting talk with Lucio, akens the slightly pompous Duke to natural life with his conteuised as a friar, that he (the Duke) was a notorious loose-liver--”he had so of the sport; he knew the service”--the Duke merely denies the soft impeachment; but when Lucio tells hinorant, unweighing fellow,” the Duke bursts out, ”either this is envy in you, folly, or s-forth, and he shall appear to the envious a scholar, a statesman, and a soldier,” which recalls Hamlet's ”Friends, scholars, and soldiers,” and Ophelia's praise of Haoes off, and the Duke ”moralizes” the incident in Hareatness incalu Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?”

Hamlet says to Ophelia:

”Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shall not escape calumny”

And Laertes says that ”virtue itself” cannot escape calumny

The reflection is manifestly Shakespeare's own, and here the form, too, is characteristic It may be as well to recall now that Shakespeare himself was calumniated in his lifetiuilt” will ”shame” his friend

In his talk with Escalus the Duke's speech becoht--a habit which grew upon Shakespeare

Escalus asks:

”What news abroad in the world?”

The Duke answers:

”None, but that there is so great a fever on goodness, that the dissolution of it must cure it: novelty is only in requestThere is scarce truth enough alive to h to make fellowshi+ps accursed”

Escalus then tells us of the Duke's temperament in words which would fit Hah, they furnish us with the best description of Shakespeare'sto see anotherwhich professed to make him rejoice”

And, lastly, the curious rhymed soliloquy of Vincentio which closes this third act, ue to ”The Tempest”:

”He who the sword of Heaven will bear Should be as holy as severe; Pattern in hio;”

- - - - - - - - - - ”Sha Kills for faults of his own liking!

Twice treble sharow!”

In the fifth act the Duke, freed fro plots and plans, speaks without constraint and reveals his nature ingenuously He uses words to Angelo that recall the sonnets:

”O, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it, To lock it in the wards of covered bosom, When it deserves, with characters of brass, A forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time And razure of oblivion”[1]

[Footnote 1: Cf Sonnet 122 with its ”full character'd” and ”razed oblivion”]

Again, the Duke argues in gentle Shakespeare's fashi+on for Angelo and against Isabella:

”If he had so offended, He would have weighed thy brother by himself And not have cut him off”