Act 3, Scene 1

A Room in the Palace.

[Enter DUKE FREDERICK, OLIVER, Lords and Attendants.]
Duke Frederick
1058 Not see him since? Sir, sir, that cannot be:
1059 But were I not the better part made mercy,
1060 I should not seek an absent argument
1061 Of my revenge, thou present. But look to it:
1062 Find out thy brother wheresoe'er he is:
1063 Seek him with candle; bring him dead or living
1064 Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more
1065 To seek a living in our territory.
1066 Thy lands, and all things that thou dost call thine
1067 Worth seizure, do we seize into our hands,
1068 Till thou canst quit thee by thy brother's mouth
1069 Of what we think against thee.
Oliver
1070 O that your highness knew my heart in this!
1071 I never lov'd my brother in my life.
Duke Frederick
1072 More villain thou.—Well, push him out of doors,
1073 And let my officers of such a nature
1074 Make an extent upon his house and lands:
1075 Do this expediently, and turn him going.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 1059syntax grammar
“were I not the better part made mercy”
Duke Frederick means: 'if I were not more than half composed of mercy' — that is, if mercy were not the larger share of his nature. 'The better part' = the greater portion; 'made' = constituted, made up of. The phrase 'seek an absent argument of my revenge' follows: argument here means 'subject' or 'occasion,' so he would not go hunting for a subject (Orlando, who is absent) for his vengeance when the very person he wants to punish (Oliver) stands before him. The logic is a threat: Oliver is already within reach of the Duke's anger.
TLN 1063biblical allusion
“Seek him with candle”
The phrase echoes the parable of the lost coin in Luke 15:8, where a woman lights a candle and sweeps the whole house to find a coin she has lost. Frederick is telling Oliver to search with the same obsessive thoroughness — leave no corner unexamined. For Shakespeare's audience, primed on the Geneva Bible read aloud weekly in church, the reference would be immediate.
TLN 1068archaic vocab
“quit thee by thy brother's mouth”
'Quit' here means 'acquit' — to clear someone of a charge or accusation. 'Quit thee by thy brother's mouth' means: get yourself cleared of suspicion by having Orlando himself testify for you (or confess his own guilt). Oliver's lands are seized 'till' he can produce Orlando, whose own statement will either exonerate Oliver or confirm the charges against him.
TLN 1074historical topical
“Make an extent upon his house and lands”
A 'writ of extent' was an Elizabethan legal instrument that allowed the Crown (or a creditor) to seize and value a debtor's property — lands, goods, and chattels — as security for a debt or penalty owed to the sovereign. Duke Frederick is ordering his officers to execute exactly this kind of royal confiscation on Oliver's estate. The phrase would have been recognizable legal vocabulary to Shakespeare's audience.