human because (unlike his admirers) he has
not shown himself to be considerably less. He has come through youth
unsinged. He has not been betrayed by his "gross body's treason." Both
he and those about him think that he is proof against temptation to
sexual sin. Suddenly his security is swept away. He is betrayed by the
subtler temptation that would mean nothing to a grosser man. He is moved
by the sight of the beauty of a distressed woman's mind. The sight means
nothing to Claudio, and less than nothing to Lucio. The happy animal
nature of youthful man has a way of avoiding distressed women. The
cleverer man, who has shut himself up in the half life of sentiment,
cannot so escape. He is attacked suddenly by the unknown imprisoned side
of him as well as by temptation. He falls, and, like all who fall, he
falls not to one sin, but to a degradation of the entire man. The sins
come linked. "Treason and murder ever kept together." When he is once
involved with lust, treachery and murder follow. He is swiftly so
stained that when the wise Duke shows him as he is, he shrinks from the
picture, with a cry that he may be put out of the way by some swift
merciful death so that the horror of the knowledge of himself may end,
too.

The play is a marvellous piece of unflinching thought. Like all the
greatest of the plays, it is so full of illustration of the main idea
that it gives an illusion of an infinity like that of life. It is
constructed closely and subtly for the stage. It is more full of the
ingenuities of play-writing than any of the plays. The verse and the
prose have that smoothness of happy ease which makes one think of
Shakespeare not as a poet writing, but as a sun shining.

" ... It deserves with characters of brass
A forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time."

The thought of the play is penetrating rather than impassioned. The
poetry follows the thought. There are cold lines like Death laying a
hand on the blood. The faultless lyric, "Take, O take those lips away"
occurs. Some say Fletcher wrote it, some Bacon. "Love talks with better
knowledge, and knowledge with dearer love." The music of the great
manner rings--

"Merciful Heaven!
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,
Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
His glassy essence, like a