Enter Angelo.ANGELO 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. ⌜God⌝ 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 ⌜sere⌝ 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 souls15 To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood. Let’s write “good angel” on the devil’s horn. ’Tis not the devil’s crest. ⌜Knock within.⌝ How now, who’s there?Enter Servant.SERVANT One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.ANGELO 20 Teach her the way. ⌜Servant exits.⌝ O heavens, Why does my blood thus muster to my heart, Making both it unable for itself And dispossessing all my other parts Of necessary fitness?25 So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons, Come all to help him, and so stop the air By which he should revive. And even so The general subject to a well-wished king
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Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness30 Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love Must needs appear offense.Enter Isabella. How now, fair maid?ISABELLA I am come to know your pleasure.ANGELO That you might know it would much better please me35 Than to demand what ’tis. Your brother cannot live.ISABELLA Even so. Heaven keep your Honor.ANGELO Yet may he live a while. And it may be As long as you or I. Yet he must die.ISABELLA Under your sentence?ANGELO 40Yea.ISABELLA When, I beseech you? That in his reprieve, Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted That his soul sicken not.ANGELO Ha! Fie, these filthy vices! It were as good45 To pardon him that hath from nature stolen A man already made, as to remit Their saucy sweetness that do coin ⌜God’s⌝ image In stamps that are forbid. ’Tis all as easy Falsely to take away a life true made50 As to put metal in restrainèd means To make a false one.ISABELLA ’Tis set down so in heaven, but not in Earth.ANGELO Say you so? Then I shall pose you quickly: Which had you rather, that the most just law55 Now took your brother’s life, ⌜or,⌝ to redeem him,
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Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness As she that he hath stained?ISABELLA Sir, believe this: I had rather give my body than my soul.ANGELO 60 I talk not of your soul. Our compelled sins Stand more for number than for accompt.ISABELLA How say you?ANGELO Nay, I’ll not warrant that, for I can speak Against the thing I say. Answer to this:65 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?ISABELLA Please you to do ’t,70 I’ll take it as a peril to my soul, It is no sin at all, but charity.ANGELO Pleased you to do ’t, at peril of your soul, Were equal poise of sin and charity.ISABELLA That I do beg his life, if it be sin75 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.ANGELO Nay, but hear me.80 Your sense pursues not mine. Either you are ignorant, Or seem so, crafty, and that’s not good.ISABELLA Let ⌜me⌝ be ignorant and in nothing good, But graciously to know I am no better.ANGELO 85 Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright
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When it doth tax itself, as these black masks Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder Than beauty could, displayed. But mark me. To be receivèd plain, I’ll speak more gross:90 Your brother is to die.ISABELLA So.ANGELO And his offense is so, as it appears, Accountant to the law upon that pain.ISABELLA True.ANGELO 95 Admit no other way to save his life— As I subscribe not that, nor any other— 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,100 Could fetch your brother from the manacles Of the all-⌜binding⌝ law, and that there were 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,105 What would you do?ISABELLA As much for my poor brother as myself. That is, were I under the terms of death, Th’ impression of keen whips I’d wear as rubies And strip myself to death as to a bed110 That longing have been sick for, ere I’d yield My body up to shame.ANGELO Then must your brother die.ISABELLA And ’twere the cheaper way. Better it were a brother died at once115 Than that a sister, by redeeming him, Should die forever.ANGELO Were not you then as cruel as the sentence That you have slandered so?
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ISABELLA Ignomy in ransom and free pardon120 Are of two houses. Lawful mercy Is nothing kin to foul redemption.ANGELO You seemed of late to make the law a tyrant, And rather proved the sliding of your brother A merriment than a vice.ISABELLA 125 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 For his advantage that I dearly love.ANGELO 130 We are all frail.ISABELLA Else let my brother die, If not a fedary but only he Owe and succeed thy weakness.ANGELO Nay, women are frail too.ISABELLA 135 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,140 And credulous to false prints.ANGELO 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.145 I do arrest your words. Be that you are— That is, a woman. If you be more, you’re none. If you be one, as you are well expressed By all external warrants, show it now By putting on the destined livery.
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ISABELLA 150 I have no tongue but one. Gentle my lord, Let me entreat you speak the former language.ANGELO Plainly conceive I love you.ISABELLA My brother did love Juliet, And you tell me that he shall die for ’t.ANGELO 155 He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.ISABELLA I know your virtue hath a license in ’t Which seems a little fouler than it is To pluck on others.ANGELO Believe me, on mine honor,160 My words express my purpose.ISABELLA Ha! Little honor to be much believed, And most pernicious purpose. Seeming, seeming! I will proclaim thee, Angelo, look for ’t. Sign me a present pardon for my brother165 Or with an outstretched throat I’ll tell the world aloud What man thou art.ANGELO Who will believe thee, Isabel? My unsoiled name, th’ austereness of my life,170 My vouch against you, and my place i’ th’ state Will so your accusation overweigh That you shall stifle in your own report And smell of calumny. I have begun, And now I give my sensual race the rein.175 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, Or else he must not only die the death,180 But thy unkindness shall his death draw out To ling’ring sufferance. Answer me tomorrow,
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Or by the affection that now guides me most, I’ll prove a tyrant to him. As for you, Say what you can, my false o’erweighs your true.He exits.ISABELLA 185 To whom should I complain? Did I tell this, Who would believe me? O, perilous mouths, That bear in them one and the selfsame tongue, Either of condemnation or approof, Bidding the law make curtsy to their will,190 Hooking both right and wrong to th’ 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 honor That, had he twenty heads to tender down195 On twenty bloody blocks, he’d yield them up Before his sister should her body stoop To such abhorred pollution. Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die. More than our brother is our chastity.200 I’ll tell him yet of Angelo’s request, And fit his mind to death, for his soul’s rest.She exits.
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