Page 1095 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

No. Holy father, throw away that thought;
Believe not that the dribbling dart of love
Can pierce a complete bosom. Why I desire thee
To give me secret harbour hath a purpose

More grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends [5]
Of burning youth.

FRIAR
May your Grace speak of it?

DUKE
My holy sir, none better knows than you
How I have ever lov’d the life remov’d,

And held in idle price to haunt assemblies,
Where youth, and cost, witless bravery keeps. [10]
I have deliver’d to Lord Angelo −
A man of stricture and firm abstinence −

My absolute power and place here in Vienna,
And he supposes me travell’d to Poland;
For so I have strew’d it in the common ear, [15]
And so it is receiv’d. Now, pious sir,

You will demand of me, why I do this.

FRIAR
Gladly, my lord.

DUKE
We have strict statutes and most biting laws,
The needful bits and curbs to headstrong jades, [20]
Which for this fourteen years we have let slip;

Even like an o’er-grown lion in a cave
That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers,
Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch,
Only to stick it in their children’s sight [25]

For terror, not to use, in time the rod
Becomes more mock’d than fear’d: so our decrees,
Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead,
And Liberty plucks Justice by the nose,