Isabella prays that his _honour_ may be safe, meaning only to give him his title: his imagination is caught by the word _honour_; he feels that his _honour_ is in danger, and therefore, I believe, answers thus: _I am that way going to temptation_, Which your _prayers cross_. That is, I am tempted to lose that honour of which thou implorest the preservation. The temptation under which I labour is that which thou hast unknowingly _thwarted_ with thy prayer. He uses the same mode language a few lines lower. Isabella, parting, says, Save your _honour_! Angelo catches the word--_Save it_! _From what_? _From thee; even from thy virtue_!--(rev. 1778,II,52,3) II.ii.165 (47,7) [But it is I, That lying, by the violet, in the sun, Do, as the carrion does, not as the flower, Corrupt with virtuous season.] I am not corrupted by her, but by my own heart, which excites foul desires under the same benign influences that exalt her purity, as the carrion grows putrid by those beams which encrease the fragrance of the violet. II.ii.186 (48,8) [Ever, till now, When men were fond, I smil'd, and wonder'd how] As a day must now intervene between this conference of Isabella with Angelo, and the next, the act might more properly end here; and here, in my opinion, it was ended by the poet. II.iii.11 (49,1) [Who falling in the flaws of her own youth, Hath blister'd her report] Who doth not see that the integrity of the metaphor requires we should read, --_flames of her own youth_? Warburton.] Who does not see that, upon such principles, there is no end of correction? II.iii.36 (50,3) [There rest] Keep yourself in this temper. II.iii.40 (50,4) [Oh, injurious love] Her execution was respited on account of her pregnancy, the effects of her love: therefore she calls it _injurious_; not that it brought her to shame, but that it hindered her freeing herself from it. Is not this all very natural? yet the Oxford editor changes it to _injurious law_. II.iv.9 (51,6) [Grown fear'd and tedious] [W: sear'd] I think _fear'd_ may stand. What we go to with reluctance may be said to be _fear'd_. II.iv.13 (51,7) [case] For outside; garb; external shew. II.iv.14 (51,8) [Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls To thy false seeming?] Here Shakespeare judiciously distinguishes the different operations of high place upon different minds. Fools are frighted, and wise men are allured. Those who cannot judge but by the eye, are easily awed by splendour; those who consider men as well as conditions, are easily persuaded to love the appearance of virtue dignified with power.