The Plays Author:William Shakespeare Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MEASURE FOR MEASURE. ACT I. SCENE L AN APARTMENT IN THE BUKfi's PALACg. Enter Duke, Escalus, Lords, and Attendants. Duke. Escalus,— Escal. My lord... more ». Duke. Of government the properties to unfold, Would seem in me to affect speech and discourse; Since I am put to know, that your own science, Exceeds, in that, the lists of all advice My strength can give you: Then no more remains, But that to your sufficiency, as your worth is able, And let them work. The nature of our people, , Our city's institutions, and the terms For common justice, you are as pregnant in, As art and practice hath enriched any That we remember: There is our commission, From which we would not have you warp.—Call hither, I say, bid come before us Angelo.— [Exit an Attendant. What figure of us think you he will bear? For you must know, we have with special soul Elected him our absence to supply; Lent him our terror, drest him with our love; And given his deputation all the organs Of our own power: What think you of it? Escal. If any in Vienna be of worth To undergo such ample grace and honour, It is lord Angelo. Enter Angelo. Duke. Look, where he comes. Ang, Always obedient to your grace's will, I come to know your pleasure. Duke. Angelo, There is a kind of character in thy life, That, to the observer, doth thy history Fully unfold: Thyself and thy belongings Are not thine own so proper, as to waste Thyself upon thy virtues, them on thee. Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do; Not light them for themselves: for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd, But to fine issues: nor nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence, But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines Herself t...« less