ACT II.
Scene 1. Page 216.
Escal. Let us be keen, and rather cut a little
Than fall and bruise to death.
On the very plausible authority of a passage in As you like it, where the executioner is said to "fall his axe," the present metaphor has been supposed to refer also to the punishment of decapitation. If it be so, there is a manifest impropriety in the expression "cut a little," as we are not to imagine that Escalus would intend to chop off a criminal's hand, or to deprive him of his ears; both modes of punishment, which though frequently practised in the reign of Elizabeth, seem exclusively adapted to a community of barbarians. May not the metaphor be rather borrowed from the cutting down of timber, and Escalus mean to say, "Is it not better to lop off a few branches, than to fall the whole tree?"
Scene 1. Page 217.
Ang. The jury, passing on the prisoner's life
May, in the sworn twelve, have a thief or two, &c.
We have here one of Shakspeare's trips; an English jury in a German court of justice.
Scene 1. Page 223.
Clo. Your honours have seen such dishes; they are not China dishes, but very good dishes.
We must not conclude with Mr Steevens that a China dish was such an uncommon thing in the age of Shakspeare. In the first act of Massinger's Renegado, this article is mentioned, together with crystal glasses and pictures, as composing the furniture of a broker's shop; and it appears from other authorities that China dishes were used at banquets. During the reign of Elizabeth several Spanish carracks were taken, a part of whose cargoes was China ware of porcelaine. The recent seizure by Philip II. of Portugal and its colonies led to this sort of commerce in the East Indies. In Minsheu's Spanish dialogues, 1623, folio, p. 12, China mettall is explained to be "the fine dishes of earth painted, such as are brought from Venice." It is very probable that we had this commodity by means of our traffic with Italy, which also supplied the term porcelaine. China ware was so called from its resemblance to the polished exterior of the concha Veneris or some other similar shell, which, for reasons that cannot here be given, was called porcellana. The curious reader may find a clue by consulting Florio's Italian dictionary, 1598, under the word porcile. In the time of Cromwell a duty of twenty shillings was paid on every dozen China dishes under a quart, and of sixty on those of a quart and upwards. See Oliverian acts, A. D. 1657.
Scene 2. Page 238.
Isab. ... spare him, spare him;
He's not prepar'd for death! Even for our kitchens
We kill the fowl of season.
She means "not before it is in season; not prematurely, as you would kill my brother."
Scene 2. Page 240.
Isab. Could great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,
For ev'ry pelting petty officer
Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder.
This fine sentiment, which nevertheless contains a very obvious fault in the mode of expressing it, appears to have been suggested by the following lines in Ovid's Tristia, lib. ii., that Shakspeare might have read in Churchyard's translation:
"Si quoties peccant homines sua fulmina mittat
Jupiter, exiguo tempore inermis erit."
Scene 2. Page 240.
Isab.. Merciful heaven!
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,
Than the soft myrtle.
There is much affinity between the above lines and these in Persius, sat. ii.:
"Ignovisse putas, quia, cum tonat, ocyus ilex
Sulfure discutitur sacro, quam tuque domusque?"
But although there were two or three editions of that author published in England in the reign of Elizabeth, he does not appear to have been then translated.
Scene 2. Page 243.
Isab. ... prayers from preserved souls,
From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal.
Here is no metaphor from preserved fruits, as Warburton fancifully conceives. Preserved is used in its common and obvious acceptation. Isabella alludes to the prayers of her fellow nuns in addition to her own.
Scene 2. Page 246.
Ang. O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook!
Enemy is here used for the Devil. See before in p. [62], 63.
Scene 4. Page 260.
Isab. ... Sir, believe this,
I had rather give my body than my soul.
It is Isabella's purpose to give an evasive or ambiguous answer to Angelo's strange question, and she accordingly does so. Or, if it have any meaning, it may be "I would even consent to your terms if I could save my soul, or if my soul did not thereby incur perdition."