Nature dispenses with the deed so far,
That it becomes a virtue.’
What adds to the dramatic beauty of this scene and the effect of Claudio’s passionate attachment to life is, that it immediately follows the Duke’s lecture to him, in the character of the Friar, recommending an absolute indifference to it.
—‘Reason thus with life,—
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing,
That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyey influences
That do this habitation, where thou keep’st,
Hourly afflict; merely, thou art death’s fool;
For him thou labour’st by thy flight to shun,