Measure for Measure / The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.]

Duke. Of government the properties to unfold,

Would seem in me to affect speech and discourse;

5 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,

10 And let them work. The nature of our people,

Our city’s institutions, and the terms

For common justice, you’re as pregnant in

As art and practice hath enriched any

That we remember.There is our commission,

15 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;

20 Lent him our terror, dress’d 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.

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 th’ observer doth thy history

30 Fully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings

Are not thine own so proper, as to waste

Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,

Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues

35 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

40 Herself the glory of a creditor,

Both thanks and use.But I do bend my speech

To one that can my part in him advertise;

Hold therefore, Angelo:—

In our remove be thou at full ourself;

45 Mortality and mercy in Vienna

Live in thy tongue and heart: old Escalus,

Though first in question, is thy secondary.

Take thy commission.

Ang.

Now, good my lord,

Let there be some more test made of my metal,

I.1.
50 Before so noble and so great a figure

Be stamp’d upon it

Duke.

No more evasion:

We have with a leaven’d and prepared choice

Proceeded to you; therefore take your honours.

Our haste from hence is of so quick condition,

55 That it prefers itself, and leaves unquestion’d

Matters of needful value. We shall write to you,

As time and our concernings shall importune,

How it goes with us; and do look to know

What doth befall you here.So, fare you well:

60 To the hopeful execution do I leave you

Of your commissions

Ang.

Yet, give leave, my lord,

That we may bring you something on the way.

Duke. My haste may not admit it;

Nor need you, on mine honour, have to do

65 With any scruple; your scope is as mine own,

So to enforce or qualify the laws

As to your soul seems good.Give me your hand:

I’ll privily away.I love the people,

But do not like to stage me to their eyes:

70 Though it do well, I do not relish well

Their loud applause and Aves vehement;

Nor do I think the man of safe discretion

That does affect it.Once more, fare you well.

Escal. I shall desire you, sir, to give me leave

To have free speech with you; and it concerns me

To look into the bottom of my place:

80 A power I have, but of what strength and nature

I am not yet instructed.

Ang. ’Tis so with me. Let us withdraw together,

And we may soon our satisfaction have

Touching that point.

Mrs Ov. I am too sure of it: and it is for getting

Madam Julietta with child.

Pom. No, but there’s a woman with maid by him.

You have not heard of the proclamation, have you?

110 Claud. Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to the world?

Bear me to prison, where I am committed.

Prov. I do it not in evil disposition,

But from Lord Angelo by special charge.

Claud. Thus can the demigod Authority

115 Make us pay down for our offence by weight

The words of heaven;—on whom it will, it will;

On whom it will not, so; yet still ’tis just

Claud. From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty:

120 As surfeit is the father of much fast,

So every scope by the immoderate use

Turns to restraint.Our natures do pursue,

Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,

A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die.

Lucio. A hundred, if they’ll do you any good.

Is lechery so look’d after?

Claud. Thus stands it with me:—upon a true contract

I got possession of Julietta’s bed:

140 You know the lady; she is fast my wife,

Save that we do the denunciation lack

Of outward order: this we came not to,

Only for propagation of a dower

Remaining in the coffer of her friends;

145 From whom we thought it meet to hide our love

Till time had made them for us.But it chances

The stealth of our most mutual entertainment

With character too gross is writ on Juliet.

Claud.

Unhappily, even so.

I.2.
150 And the new Deputy now for the Duke,—

Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness,

Or whether that the body public be

A horse whereon the governor doth ride,

Who, newly in the seat, that it may know

155 He can command, lets it straight feel the spur;

Whether the tyranny be in his place,

Or in his eminence that fills it up.

I stagger in:—but this new governor

Awakes me all the enrolled penalties

160 Which have, like unscour’d armour, hung by the wall

So long, that nineteen zodiacs have gone round,

And none of them been worn; and, for a name,

Now puts the drowsy and neglected act

Freshly on me: ’tis surely for a name.

Claud. I have done so, but he’s not to be found.

I prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service:

170 This day my sister should the cloister enter

And there receive her approbation:

Acquaint her with the danger of my state;

Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends

To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him:

I.2.
175 I have great hope in that; for in her youth

There is a prone and speechless dialect,

Such as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art

When she will play with reason and discourse,

And well she can persuade.

Duke. No, holy father; throw away that thought;

Believe not that the dribbling dart of love

Can pierce a complete bosomWhy I desire thee

To give me secret harbour, hath a purpose

5 More grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends

Of burning youth.

Duke. My holy sir, none better knows than you

How I have ever loved the life removed,

And held in idle price to haunt assemblies

10 Where youth, and cost, and witless bravery keeps

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;

15 For so I have strew’d it in the common ear,

And so it is received.Now, pious sir,

You will demand of me why I do this?

Duke. We have strict statutes and most biting laws,

20 The needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds,

Which for this fourteen years we have let slip;

Even like an o’ergrown lion in a cave,

That goes not out to prey.Now, as fond fathers,

Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch,

I.3.
25 Only to stick it in their children’s sight

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;

30 The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart

Goes all decorum.

Fri.T.

It rested in your Grace

To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleased:

And it in you more dreadful would have seem’d

Than in Lord Angelo.

Duke.

I do fear, too dreadful:

35 Sith ’twas my fault to give the people scope,

’Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall them

For what I bid them do: for we bid this be done,

When evil deeds have their permissive pass,

And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my father,

40 I have on Angelo imposed the office;

Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home,

And yet my nature never in the fight

To do in slander. And to behold his sway,

I will, as ’twere a brother of your order,

45 Visit both prince and people: therefore, I prithee,

Supply me with the habit, and instruct me

How I may formally in person bear me

Like a true friar.More reasons for this action

At our more leisure shall I render you;

I.3.
50 Only, this one: Lord Angelo is precise;

Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses

That his blood flows, or that his appetite

Is more to bread than stone: hence shall we see,

If power change purpose, what our seemers be.

Isab. Yes, truly: I speak not as desiring more;

But rather wishing a more strict restraint

5 Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.

Fran. It is a man’s voice. Gentle Isabella,

Turn you the key, and know his business of him;

You may, I may not; you are yet unsworn.

10 When you have vow’d, you must not speak with men

But in the presence of the prioress:

Then, if you speak, you must not show your face;

Or, if you show your face, you must not speak.

He calls again; I pray you, answer him. Exit.

Lucio. Hail, virgin, if you be, as those cheek-roses

Proclaim you are no less!Can you so stead me

As bring me to the sight of Isabella,

A novice of this place, and the fair sister

20 To her unhappy brother Claudio?

Isab. Why, ‘her unhappy brother’? let me ask

The rather, for I now must make you know

I am that Isabella and his sister.

Lucio. Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you:

I.4.
25 Not to be weary with you, he’s in prison.

Lucio. For that which, if myself might be his judge,

He should receive his punishment in thanks:

He hath got his friend with child.

30 Lucio.

It is true.

I would not—though ’tis my familiar sin

With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest,

Tongue far from heart—play with all virgins so:

I hold you as a thing ensky’d and sainted;

35 By your renouncement, an immortal spirit;

And to be talk’d with in sincerity,

As with a saint.

Lucio. Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, ’tis thus:—

40 Your brother and his lover have embraced:

As those that feed grow full,—as blossoming time,

That from the seedness the bare fallow brings

To teeming foison,—even so her plenteous womb

Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.

Isab. Adoptedly; as school-maids change their names

By vain, though apt, affection.

Lucio.

This is the point.

I.4.
50 The duke is very strangely gone from hence;

Bore many gentlemen, myself being one,

In hand, and hope of action: but we do learn

By those that know the very nerves of state,

His givings-out were of an infinite distance

55 From his true-meant design. Upon his place,

And with full line of his authority,

Governs Lord Angelo; a man whose blood

Is very snow-broth; one who never feels

The wanton stings and motions of the sense,

60 But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge

With profits of the mind, study and fast.

He—to give fear to use and liberty,

Which have for long run by the hideous law,

As mice by lions—hath pick’d out an act,

65 Under whose heavy sense your brother’s life

Falls into forfeit: he arrests him on it;

And follows close the rigour of the statute,

To make him an example. All hope is gone,

Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer

70 To soften Angelo: and that’s my pith of business

’Twixt you and your poor brother.

Lucio.

Has censured him

Already; and, as I hear, the provost hath

A warrant for his execution.

I.4.
75 Isab. Alas! what poor ability’s in me

To do him good?

Lucio.

Our doubts are traitors,

And make us lose the good we oft might win

By fearing to attempt.Go to Lord Angelo,

80 And let him learn to know, when maidens sue,

Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,

All their petitions are as freely theirs

As they themselves would owe them.

85 Isab. I will about it straight;

No longer staying but to give the Mother

Notice of my affair.I humbly thank you:

Commend me to my brother: soon at night

I’ll send him certain word of my success.

Ang. We must not make a scarecrow of the law,

Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,

And let it keep one shape, till custom make it

Their perch, and not their terror.

Escal.

Ay, but yet

5 Let us be keen, and rather cut a little,

Than fall, and bruise to death.Alas, this gentleman,

Whom I would save, had a most noble father!

Let but your honour know,

Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue,

10 That, in the working of your own affections,

Had time cohered with place or place with wishing,

Or that the resolute acting of your blood

Could have attain’d the effect of your own purpose,

Whether you had not sometime in your life

15 Err’d in this point which now you censure him,

And pull’d the law upon you.

Ang. ’Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,

Another thing to fall.I not deny,

The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life,

20 May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two

Guiltier than him they try.What’s open made to justice,

That justice seizes: what know the laws

That theives do pass on thieves? ’Tis very pregnant,

The jewel that we find, we stoop and take’t,

II.1.
25 Because we see it; but what we do not see

We tread upon, and never think of it.

You may not so extenuate his offence

For I have had such faults; but rather tell me,

When I, that censure him, do so offend,

30 Let mine own judgement pattern out my death,

And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.    

Ang.

See that Claudio

Be executed by nine to-morrow morning:

35 Bring him his confessor, let him be prepared;

For that’s the utmost of his pilgrimage.

Escal. [Aside] Well, heaven forgive him!and forgive us all!

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall:

Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none;

40 And some condemned for a fault alone.

Ang. This will last out a night in Russia,

When nights are longest there: I’ll take my leave,

130 And leave you to the hearing of the cause;

Hoping you’ll find good cause to whip them all.

Whip me?No, no; let carman whip his jade:

240 The valiant heart is not whipt out of his trade. Exit.

Escal. To my house. Fare you well.

Exit Elbow.

What’s o’clock, think you?

Escal. It grieves me for the death of Claudio;

But there’s no remedy.

Escal.

It is but needful:

265 Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so;

Pardon is still the nurse of second woe:

But yet,—poor Claudio! There is no remedy.

Come, sir.

Serv. He’s hearing of a cause; he will come straight:

I’ll tell him of you.

Prov.

Pray you, do.[Exit Servant.] I’ll know

His pleasure; may be he will relent.Alas,

He hath but as offended in a dream!

5 All sects, all ages smack of this vice; and he

To die for ’t!

Ang.

Now, what’s the matter, provost?

Ang. Did not I tell thee yea? hadst thou not order?

Why dost thou ask again?

Prov.

Lest I might be too rash:

10 Under your good correction, I have seen,

When, after execution, Judgement hath

Repented o’er his doom.

Ang.

Go to; let that be mine:

Do you your office, or give up your place,

And you shall well be spared.

Prov.

I crave your honour’s pardon.

15 What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet?

She’s very near her hour.

Ang.

Dispose of her

To some more fitter place, and that with speed.

Serv. Here is the sister of the man condemn’d

Desires access to you.

20 Prov. Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid,

And to be shortly of a sisterhood,

If not already.

Ang.

Well, let her be admitted.

Exit Servant.

See you the fornicatress be removed:

Let her have needful, but not lavish, means;

There shall be order for ’t

Isab. I am a woeful suitor to your honour,

Please but your honour hear me.

Isab. There is a vice that most I do abhor,

30 And most desire should meet the blow of justice;

For which I would not plead, but that I must;

For which I must not plead, but that I am

At war ’twixt will and will not.

Isab. I have a brother is condemn’d to die:

35 I do beseech you, let it be his fault,

And not my brother.

Ang. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?

Why, every fault’s condemn’d ere it be done:

Mine were the very cipher of a function,

40 To fine the faults whose fine stands in record,

And let go by the actor.

Isab.

O just but severe law!

I had a brother, then.—Heaven keep your honour!

Lucio. [Aside to Isab.] Give’t not o’er so: to him again, entreat him;

Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown:

45 You are too cold; if you should need a pin,

You could not with more tame a tongue desire it:

To him, I say!

Isab. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him,

II.2.
50 And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.

Isab. But might you do’t, and do the world no wrong,

If so your heart were touch’d with that remorse

As mine is to him

Isab. Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word,

May call it back again. Well, believe this,

No ceremony that to great ones ’longs,

60 Not the king’s crown, nor the deputed sword,

The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe,

Become them with one half so good a grace

As mercy does.

If he had been as you, and you as he,

65 You would have slipt like him; but he, like you,

Would not have been so stern.

Isab. I would to heaven I had your potency,

And you were Isabel!should it then be thus?

No; I would tell what ’twere to be a judge,

And what a prisoner.

Ang. Your brother is a forfeit of the law,

And you but waste your words.

Isab.

Alas, alas!

Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once;

And He that might the vantage best have took

II.2.
75 Found out the remedy. How would you be,

If He, which is the top of judgement, should

But judge you as you are?O, think on that;

And mercy then will breathe within your lips,

Like man new made.

Ang.

Be you content, fair maid;

80 It is the law, not I condemn your brother:

Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,

It should be thus with him: he must die to-morrow.

Isab. To-morrow! O, that’s sudden! Spare him, spare him!

He’s not prepared for death.Even for our kitchens

85 We kill the fowl of season: shall we serve heaven

With less respect than we do minister

To our gross selves?Good, good my lord, bethink you;

Who is it that hath died for this offence?

There’s many have committed it.

90 Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept:

Those many had not dared to do that evil,

If the first that did the edict infringe

Had answer’d for his deed: now ’tis awake,

Takes note of what is done; and, like a prophet,

95 Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils,

Either now, or by remissness new-conceived,

And so in progress to be hatch’d and born,

Are now to have no successive degrees,

But, ere they live, to end.

II.2.
100 Ang. I show it most of all when I show justice;

For then I pity those I do not know,

Which a dismiss’d offence would after gall;

And do him right that, answering one foul wrong.

Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;

105 Your brother dies to-morrow; be content.

Isab. So you must be the first that gives this sentence.

And he, that suffers. O, it is excellent

To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous

To use it like a giant.

110 Isab. Could great men thunder

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne’er be quiet,

For every pelting, petty officer

Would use his heaven for thunder.

Nothing but thunder! Merciful Heaven,

115 Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt

Split’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 assured,

120 His glassy essence, like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven

As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,

Would all themselves laugh mortal.

Lucio. [Aside to Isab.] O, to him, to him, wench!he will relent;

He’s coming; I perceive’t.

Isab. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself:

Great men may jest with saints; ’tis wit in them.

But in the less foul profanation.

130 Isab. That in the captain’s but a choleric word,

Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

Isab. Because authority, though it err like others.

135 Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,

That skins the vice o’ the top.Go to your bosom;

Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know

That’s like my brother’s fault: if it confess

A natural guiltiness such as is his,

140 Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue

Against my brother’s life.

Ang.

[Aside] She speaks, and ’tis

Such sense, that my sense breeds with it. Fare you well.

Isab. Not with fond shekels of the tested gold,

II.2.
150 Or stones whose rates are either rich or poor

As fancy values them; but with true prayers

That shall be up at heaven and enter there

Ere sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls,

From fasting maids whose minds are dedicate

To nothing temporal.

Ang.

[Aside] Amen:

For I am that way going to temptation,

Where prayers cross.

Isab.

At what hour to-morrow

Shall I attend your lordship?

Ang.

From thee,—even from thy virtue!

What’s this, what’s this?Is this her fault or mine?

The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?

Ha!

165 Not she; nor doth she tempt: 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.Can it be

That modesty may more betray our sense

170 Than woman’s lightness? Having waste ground enough,

Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,

And pitch our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie!

What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?

Dost thou desire her foully for those things

II.2.
175 That make her good? O, let her brother live:

Thieves for their robbery have authority

When judges steal themselves.What, do I love her,

That I desire to hear her speak again,

And feast upon her eyes?What is’t I dream on?

180 O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,

With saints dost bait thy hook!Most dangerous

Is that temptation that doth goad us on

To sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet,

With all her double vigour, art and nature,

185 Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid

Subdues me quite. Ever till now,

When men were fond, I smiled, and wonder’d how. Exit.

Duke. Bound by my charity and my blest order,

I come to visit the afflicted spirits

5 Here in the prison. Do me the common right

To let me see them, and to make me know

The nature of their crimes, that I may minister

To them accordingly.

10 Look, here comes one: a gentlewoman of mine,

Who, falling in the flaws of her own youth,

Hath blister’d her report: she is with child;

And he that got it, sentenced; a young man

More fit to do another such offence

15 Than die for this.

Prov.

As I do think, to-morrow.

I have provided for you: stay awhile, To Juliet.

And you shall be conducted.

Duke. I’ll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,

And try your penitence, if it be sound,

Or hollowly put on.

Duke. So, then, it seems your most offenceful act

Was mutually committed?

30 Duke. ’Tis meet so, daughter: but lest you do repent,

As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,

Which sorrow is always towards ourselves, not heaven,

Showing we would not spare heaven as we love it,

But as we stand in fear,—

35 Jul. I do repent me, as it is an evil,

And take the shame with joy.

Duke.

There rest.

Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,

And I am going with instruction to him.

Grace go with you, Benedicite! Exit.

40 Jul. Must die to-morrow! O injurious love,

That respites me a life, whose very comfort

Is still a dying horror!

Ang. When I would pray and think, I think and pray

To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words;

Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,

Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth,

5 As if I did but only chew his name;

And in my heart the strong and swelling evil

Of my conception.The state, whereon I studied,

Is like a good thing, being often read,

Grown fear’d and tedious; yea, my gravity,

10 Wherein—let no man hear me—I take pride,

Could I with boot change for an idle plume,

Which the air beats for vain.O place, O form,

How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,

Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls

15 To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood:

Let’s write good angel on the devil’s horn;

’Tis not the devil’s crest.

Enter a Servant

How now!who’s there?

Ang. Teach her the way. O heavens!

20 Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,

Making both it unable for itself,

And dispossessing all my other parts

Of necessary fitness?

So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons:

II.4.
25 Come all to help him, and so stop the air

By which he should revive: and even so

The general, subject to a well-wish’d king,

Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness

Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love

Must needs appear offence.

Enter Isabella

30 How now, fair maid?

Ang. That you might know it, would much better please me

Than to demand what ’tis. Your brother cannot live.

35 Ang. Yet may he live awhile; and, it may be,

As long as you or I: yet he must die.

Isab. When, I beseech you? that in his reprieve,

40 Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted

That his soul sicken not.

Ang. Ha! fie, these filthy vices! It were as good

To pardon him that hath from nature stolen

A man already made, as to remit

45 Their saucy sweetness that do coin heaven’s image

In stamps that are forbid: ’tis all as easy

Falsely to take away a life true made,

As to put metal in restrained means

To make a false one.

Ang. Say you so? then I shall pose you quickly.

Which had you rather,—that the most just law

Now took your brother’s life; or, to redeem him,

Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness

As she that he hath stain’d?

55 Isab.

Sir, believe this,

I had rather give my body than my soul.

Ang. I talk not of your soul: our compell’d sins

Stand more for number than for accompt

Ang. Nay, I’ll not warrant that; for I can speak

60 Against the thing I say. Answer to this:—

I, now the voice of the recorded law,

Pronounce a sentence on your brother’s life:

Might there not be a charity in sin

To save this brother’s life?

Isab.

Please you to do’t,

65 I’ll take it as a peril to my soul,

It is no sin at all, but charity.

Ang. Pleased you to do’t at peril of your soul,

Were equal poise of sin and charity.

Isab. That I do beg his life, if it be sin,

70 Heaven let me bear it! you granting of my suit,

If that be sin, I’ll make it my morn prayer

To have it added to the faults of mine,

And nothing of your answer.

Ang.

Nay, but hear me.

Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant,

II.4.
75 Or seem so, craftily; and that’s not good.

Isab. Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good,

But graciously to know I am no better.

Ang. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright

When it doth tax itself; as these black masks

80 Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder

Than beauty could, display’d. But mark me;

To be received plain, I’ll speak more gross:

Your brother is to die.

85 Ang. And his offence is so, as it appears,

Accountant to the law upon that pain.

Ang. Admit no other way to save his life,—

As I subscribe not that, nor any other,

90 But in the loss of question,—that you, his sister,

Finding yourself desired of such a person,

Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,

Could fetch your brother from the manacles

Of the all-building law; and that there were

95 No earthly mean to save him, but that either

You must lay down the treasures of your body

To this supposed, or else to let him suffer;

What would you do?

Isab. As much for my poor brother as myself:

II.4.
100 That is, were I under the terms of death,

The impression of keen whips I’ld wear as rubies,

And strip myself to death, as to a bed

That longing have been sick for, ere I’ld yield

My body up to shame.

105 Isab. And ’twere the cheaper way:

Better it were a brother died at once,

Than that a sister, by redeeming him,

Should die for ever.

Ang. Were not you, then, as cruel as the sentence

110 That you have slander’d so?

Isab. Ignomy in ransom and free pardon

Are of two houses: lawful mercy

Is nothing kin to foul redemption.

Ang. You seem’d of late to make the law a tyrant;

115 And rather proved the sliding of your brother

A merriment than a vice.

Isab. O, pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out,

To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean:

I something do excuse the thing I hate,

120 For his advantage that I dearly love.

Isab.

Else let my brother die,

If not a feodary, but only he

Owe and succeed thy weakness

II.4.
125 Isab. Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves;

Which are as easy broke as they make forms.

Women! —Help Heaven! men their creation mar

In profiting by them.Nay, call us ten times frail;

For we are soft as our complexions are,

And credulous to false prints.

130 Ang.

I think it well:

And from this testimony of your own sex,—

Since, I suppose, we are made to be no stronger

Than faults may shake our frames,—let me be bold;—

I do arrest your words.Be that you are,

135 That is, a woman; if you be more, you’re none;

If you be one,—as you are well express’d

By all external warrants,—show it now,

By putting on the destined livery.

Isab. I have no tongue but one: gentle my lord,

140 Let me entreat you speak the former language.

Isab. My brother did love Juliet,

And you tell me that he shall die for it

145 Isab. I know your virtue hath a license in’t,

Which seems a little fouler than it is,

To pluck on others.

Ang.

Believe me, on mine honour,

My words express my purpose.

Isab. Ha! little honour to be much believed,

II.4.
150 And most pernicious purpose! —Seeming, seeming! —

I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for’t:

Sign me a present pardon for my brother,

Or with an outstretch’d throat I’ll tell the world aloud

What man thou art.

Ang.

Who will believe thee, Isabel?

155 My unsoil’d name, the austereness of my life,

My vouch against you, and my place i’ the state,

Will so your accusation overweigh,

That you shall stifle in your own report,

And smell of calumny.I have begun;

160 And now I give my sensual race the rein:

Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;

Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes,

That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother

By yielding up thy body to my will;

165 Or else he must not only die the death,

But thy unkindness shall his death draw out

To lingering sufferance.Answer me to-morrow.

Or, by the affection that now guides me most,

I’ll prove a tyrant to him.As for you,

170 Say what you can, my false o’erweighs your true. Exit.

Isab. To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,

Who would believe me? O perilous mouths,

That bear in them one and the self-same tongue,

Either of condemnation or approof;

II.4.
175 Bidding the law make court’sy to their will;

Hooking both right and wrong to the appetite,

To follow as it draws!I’ll to my brother:

Though he hath fall’n by prompture of the blood,

Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour,

180 That, had he twenty heads to tender down

On twenty bloody blocks, he’ld yield them up,

Before his sister should her body stoop

To such abhorr’d pollution.

Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:

185 More than our brother is our chastity.

I’ll tell him yet of Angelo’s request,

And fit his mind to death, for his soul’s rest. Exit.

Claud. The miserable have no other medicine

But only hope:

I’ve hope to live, and am prepar’d to die.

5 Duke. Be absolute for death; either death or life

Shall thereby be the sweeter.Reason thus with life:

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,

Servile to all the skyey influences.

10 That dost this habitation, where thou keep’st,

Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death’s fool;

For him thou labour’st by thy flight to shun,

And yet runn’st toward him still.Thou art not noble;

For all the accommodations that thou bear’st

15 Are nursed by baseness. Thou’rt by no means valiant;

For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork

Of a poor worm.Thy best of rest is sleep,

And that thou oft provokest; yet grossly fear’st

Thy death, which is no more.Thou art not thyself;

20 For thou exist’st on many a thousand grains

That issue out of dust.Happy thou art not;

For what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get.

And what thou hast, forget’st.Thou art not certain;

For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,

III.1
25 After the moon. If thou art rich, thou’rt poor;

For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,

Thou bear’st thy heavy riches but a journey,

And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none;

For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,

30 The mere effusion of thy proper loins,

Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,

For ending thee no sooner.Thou hast nor youth nor age.

But, as it were, an after-dinner’s sleep,

Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth

35 Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms

Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,

Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,

To make thy riches pleasant. What’s yet in this

That bears the name of life?Yet in this life

40 Lie hid more thousand deaths: yet death we fear,

That makes these odds all even.

Claud.

I humbly thank you.

To sue to live, I find I seek to die;

And, seeking death, find life: let it come on.