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ACT IV SCENE I
The moated grange at St. Luke's.
Enter MARIANA and a Boy.
Boy sings.
Take, O, take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn:
But my kisses bring again, bring again;
Seals of love, but sealed in vain, sealed in vain.
MARIANA
Break off thy song, and haste thee quick away:
Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice
Hath often still'd my brawling discontent.
Exit Boy.
Enter DUKE VINCENTIO, disguised as before.
I cry you mercy, sir; and well could wish
10
You had not found me here so musical:
Let me excuse me, and believe me so,
My mirth it much displeased, but pleased my woe.
DUKE VINCENTIO
'Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm
To make bad good, and good provoke to harm.
I pray, you, tell me, hath any body inquired
for me here to-day? much upon this time have
I promised here to meet.
MARIANA
You have not been inquired after:
I have sat here all day.
20
Enter ISABELLA.
DUKE VINCENTIO
I do constantly believe you. The time is come even
now. I shall crave your forbearance a little: may
be I will call upon you anon, for some advantage to yourself.
MARIANA
I am always bound to you.
Exit.
DUKE VINCENTIO
Very well met, and well come.
What is the news from this good deputy?
ISABELLA
He hath a garden circummured with brick,
Whose western side is with a vineyard back'd;
And to that vineyard is a planched gate,
That makes his opening with this bigger key:
30
This other doth command a little door
Which from the vineyard to the garden leads;
There have I made my promise
Upon the heavy middle of the night
To call upon him.
DUKE VINCENTIO
But shall you on your knowledge find this way?
ISABELLA
I have ta'en a due and wary note upon't:
With whispering and most guilty diligence,
In action all of precept, he did show me
The way twice o'er.
DUKE VINCENTIO
Are there no other tokens
40
Between you 'greed concerning her observance?
ISABELLA
No, none, but only a repair i' the dark;
And that I have possess'd him my most stay
Can be but brief; for I have made him know
I have a servant comes with me along,
That stays upon me, whose persuasion is
I come about my brother.
DUKE VINCENTIO
'Tis well borne up.
I have not yet made known to Mariana
A word of this. What, ho! within! come forth!
Re-enter MARIANA.
I pray you, be acquainted with this maid;
50
She comes to do you good.
ISABELLA
I do desire the like.
DUKE VINCENTIO
Do you persuade yourself that I respect you?
MARIANA
Good friar, I know you do, and have found it.
DUKE VINCENTIO
Take, then, this your companion by the hand,
Who hath a story ready for your ear.
I shall attend your leisure: but make haste;
The vaporous night approaches.
MARIANA
Will't please you walk aside?
Exeunt MARIANA and ISABELLA
DUKE VINCENTIO
O place and greatness! millions of false eyes
Are stuck upon thee: volumes of report
60
Run with these false and most contrarious quests
Upon thy doings: thousand escapes of wit
Make thee the father of their idle dreams
And rack thee in their fancies.
Re-enter MARIANA and ISABELLA
Welcome, how agreed?
ISABELLA
She'll take the enterprise upon her, father,
If you advise it.
DUKE VINCENTIO
It is not my consent,
But my entreaty too.
ISABELLA
Little have you to say
When you depart from him, but, soft and low,
'Remember now my brother.'
MARIANA
Fear me not.
DUKE VINCENTIO
Nor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all.
70
He is your husband on a pre-contract:
To bring you thus together, 'tis no sin,
Sith that the justice of your title to him
Doth flourish the deceit. Come, let us go:
Our corn's to reap, for yet our tilth's to sow.
Exeunt.
___________
Explanatory Notes for Act 1, Scene 1
From Measure for Measure. Ed. William J. Rolfe. New York: Harper & Brothers., 1899.
1.Take, O, take those lips away, etc. In The Bloody Brother,
by B. and F., this stanza appears with the addition of the following:
"Hide, O hide those hills of snow
Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow
Are of those that April wears;
But first set my poor heart free,
Bound in those icy chains by thee."
Both were printed in the spurious edition of Shakespeare's Poems, published in 1640; but probably the second is Fletcher's. W. remarks: "The two stanzas in fact will not make one song, except at great violence
to both the form and spirit of the first. For that is written so that the music shall repeat the last three syllables of each of the last two lines, which is impossible with the other: they can both be sung to the same
music only by suppressing the beautiful and touching repetition in the first; and this was done when it was introduced in The Bloody Brother. Besides, the stanza added in that play is palpably addressed to a woman,
while this is just as certainly and as clearly, though not just as palpably, addressed to a man. The command to the boy to break off his song is but a dramatic contrivance to procure the effect of an intrusion upon
Mariana's solitude." It may be added that the second stanza is poetically inferior to the first; marred as it is by the conceit — quite in the taste of the time, to be sure — in the second couplet, and by "those icy chains,"
which makes a confusion of metaphors, to say nothing of the awkward repetition of those. We suspect, however, that Fletcher wrote "these icy chains."
6.Seals of love, etc. Steevens compares Sonnet. 142. 7;
"those lips of thine,
That have profan'd their scarlet ornaments,
And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine;"
and V. and A. 511: "Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted."
10.I cry you mercy. I beg your pardon. Cf M. N. D. p. 159.
13.My mirth, etc. "Though the music soothed my sorrows, it had no
tendency to produce light merriment" (Johnson).
18.Meet. Hanmer adds "one;" but cf. M. W. ii. 3. 5: "'T is past the
hour, sir, that Sir Hugh promised to meet;" and A. Y. L. v. 2. 129: 'as you love Phebe, meet; and as I love no woman, I'll meet."
21.Constantly. Firmly.
27.Circummur'd. Walled round; used by S. only here.
29.Planched. Planked, made of boards. Steevens quotes Gorges, Lucan, 1614: "The planched floor," etc. We find also plancher = plank;
as in Lyly, Maid's Metamorphosis, 1600: " A hollow plancher," etc
33-35.There . . . him. The folio reads:
"There haue I made my promise, vpon the
Heauy midle of the night, to call vpon him."
Various re-arrangements have been proposed, that in the text being
Walker's conjecture, adopted by the Camb. editors, D., and H. D. says
that it was recommended to him by Tennyson in 1844. Delius and St.
print the passage as prose.
Heavy seems here to be = drowsy, sleepy; as in Temp. i. ii. 189, 194,
198, M. N. D. v.i. 380, etc In Oth. v. i. 42 "heavy night" probably
means cloudy or gloomy night. See our ed. p. 205.
39.Action all of precept. "Shewing the several turnings of the way
with his hand" (Warb.). Johnson would transpose action and precept.
41.Concerning her observance. Which it concerns her to observe. For
greed (not 'greed as often printed), see Wh.
43.Possess'd. Informed; as in Much Ado, v. i. 290, M. of V. i. iii. 65, etc
On my most stay, cf. 2 Hen. IV. iv. i. 71: "our most quiet," etc.
46.Stays upon. Waits for. Cf. Macb. i. iii. 148: "stay upon your
leisure," etc.
47.Borne up. Arranged, devised.
60.Are stuck upon thee. Cf. A. W. v. iii. 45: "I stuck my choice upon
her," etc.
61.Quests. Spyings. Contrarious here is = contradictory, or perhaps
merely = diverse. S. uses the word elsewhere only in I Hen. IV. v. i. 52:
"contrarious winds."
62.Escapes. Sallies; changed by Pope to "'scapes."
63.Dreams. The folio has "dreame;" corrected by Pope.
64.Rack. Probably = strain, distort, misrepresent. Cf. racker in L. L.
L. v. i. 21: "rackers of orthography."
71.Pre-contract. Betrothal.
73.Sith. Since. See on i. iii. 35 above.
74.Flourish. "Colour, varnish" (Schmidt), or grace.
75.Tilth's. The folios have "Tithes" or "Tythes," and the Camb. ed.
reads "tithe's." The emendation was suggested by Warb. and is generally adopted. See on i. iv. 44 above.
Abbott (or Gr.), Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar (third edition).
A. S., Anglo-Saxon.
A. v.. Authorized Version of the Bible (1611).
B. and F., Beaumont and Fletcher.
B. J., Ben Jonson.
Camb. ed., "Cambridge edition" of Shakespeare, edited by Clark and Wright.
Cf. confer\ compare.
Clarke, "Cassell's Illustrated Shakespeare," edited by Charles and Mary Cowden-Clarke (London, n. d.).
Coll., Collier (second edition).
Coll. MS., Manuscript Corrections of Second Folio, edited by Collier.
D., Dyce (second edition).
H., Hudson ("Harvard" edition).
Halliwell, J. O. Halliwell (folio ed. of Shakespeare).
Id. (idem), the same.
J. H., J. Hunter's ed. M./or M. (London, 1873).
K., Knight (second edition).
Nares, Glossary, edited by Halliwell and Wright Lndon, 1859).
Prol., Prologue.
S., Shakespeare.
Schmidt, A. Schmidt's Shakespeare-Lexicon (Berlin, 1874).
Sr., Singer.
St, Staunton.
Theo., Theobald.
v., Verplanck.
W., R. Grant White.
Walker, Wm. Sidney Walker's Critical Examination of the Text of Shakespeare
(London, i860).
Warb., Warburton.
Wb., Webster's Dictionary (revised quarto edition of 1879).
Wore, Worcester's Dictionary (quarto edition).
How to cite the explanatory notes:
Shakespeare, William. Measure for Measure. Ed. William J. Rolfe. New York: Harper & Brothers., 1899. Shakespeare Online. 20 Feb. 2010. (date when you accessed the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/measure_4_1.html >.
