Even Master Barnardine is not left to the
mercy of what others think of him; but when he comes in, speaks for
himself, and pleads his own cause, as well as if counsel had been
assigned him. In one sense, Shakespeare was no moralist at all: in
another, he was the greatest of all moralists. He was a moralist in
the same sense in which nature is one. He taught what he had learnt
from her. He showed the greatest knowledge of humanity with the
greatest fellow-feeling for it.
One of the most dramatic passages in the present play is the
interview between Claudio and his sister, when she comes to inform
him of the conditions on which Angelo will spare his life.
Claudio. Let me know the point.
Isabella.--O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,
Lest thou a feverous life should'st entertain,
And six or seven winters more respect
Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die?
The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.
Claudio. Why give you me this shame?
Think you I can a resolution fetch
From flowery tenderness; if I must die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride, And hug it in mine arms.
Isabella. There spake my brother! there my father's grave
Did utter forth a voice! Yes, thou must die:
Thou art too noble to conserve a life
In base appliances.
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