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He's not prepar'd for death. Even for our kitchens
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.

Lucio.

[Aside.] Ay, well said. Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept :

Those many had not dar'd to do that evil,
If the first one that did th' edict infringe,
Had answer'd for his deed: now, 't is awake;
Takes note of what is done, and, like a prophet,
Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils
Either new, or by remissness new-conceiv'd,
And so in progress to be hatch'd and born,
Are now to have no successive degrees,
But ere they live to end.

Isab.

Yet show some pity.

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:
Your brother dies to-morrow: be content.

Isab. So you must be the first that gives this sen-
tence,

And he that suffers. O! it is excellent.
To have a giant's strength; but tyrannous
To use it like a giant.

Lucio.

[Aside.] That's well said.
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!

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,

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Isab. That in the captain's but a choleric word, Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

Lucio. [Aside.] Art avis'd o' that? more on 't.
Ang. Why do you put these sayings upon me?
Isab. Because authority, though it err like others,
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,

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[Aside.] She speaks, and 't is Such sense, that my sense breeds with it. [To her.] Fare you well.

Isab. Gentle my lord, turn back.

Ang. I will bethink me.-Come again to-morrow. Isab. Hark, how I'll bribe you. Good my lord, turn back.

Ang. How! bribe me?

[with you.
Isab. Ay, with such gifts, that heaven shall share
Lucio. [Aside.] You had marr'd all else.
Isab. Not with fond circles of the tested gold,
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.
Well; come to me to-morrow.
Lucio. [To ISAB.] Go to; 't is well away!
Isab. Heaven keep your honour safe! [Going.*
Ang.

For I am that way going to temptation,
Where prayers cross.

Isab.

[Aside.] Amen:

At what hour to-morrow

Shall I attend your lordship?
Ang.

Isab. Save your honour!

Ang.

At any time 'fore noon.

[Exeunt LUCIO, ISABELLA, and Provost.
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!
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
Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough,
Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,
And pitch our offals there? O, fie, fie, fie!
What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?
Dost thou desire her foully for those things
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,

What is 't I dream on?

And feast upon her eyes? What is 't

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,
Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
Subdues me quite.-Even from youth till now,
When men were fond, I smil'd, and wonder'd how.

SCENE III.-A Room in a Prison.
Enter DUKE, as a Friar, and Provost.

[Exit.

Duke. Hail to you, provost; so I think you are. Prov. I am the provost. What's your will, good friar?

Duke. Bound by my charity, and my bless'd order,
I come to visit the afflicted spirits

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.

1 Not in f. e. 2 f.e. here. Knight reads-where. 3 shekels in f. e. 4 Not in f. e. 5 evils: in f. e.

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Mutually.

Duke. Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.
Juliet. I do confess it, and repent it, father.

Duke. 'Tis meet so, daughter: but least you do
repent,

As that the sin hath brought you to this shame;
Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not heaven,
Showing, we would not serve3 heaven, as we love it,
But as we stand in fear.

Juliet. I do repent me, as it is an evil,
And take the shame with joy.

Duke.

There rest.

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pray

To several subjects: heaven hath my empty words,
Whilst my intention, hearing not my tongue,
Anchors on Isabel: heaven in my mouth,
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 sear and tedious; yea, my gravity,
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
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 Servant.
How now! who's there?
Serv.

Desires access to you.

Ang.

One Isabel, a sister,

Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,
Making it both unable for itself,

And dispossessing all my other part

Of necessary fitness?

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-wish'd king,
Quit their own path, and in obsequious fondness
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence.
Enter ISABELla.

How now,
Isab.

fair maid?

I am come to know your pleasure. Ang. That you might know it, would much better please me,

Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live.
Isab. Even so.-Heaven keep your honour!

[Going.*

Ang. Yet may he live a while; and, it may be,
As long as you, or I : yet he must die.
Isab. Under your sentence?

Ang. Yea.

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

Their saucy sweetness, that do coin heaven's image
In stamps that are forbid: 't is all as easy
Falsely to take away a life true made,
As to put metal in restrained means,
To make a false one.

Isab. 'T is set down so in heaven, but not in earth.
Ang. Say you so? then, I shall poze 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?

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.
Isab.
How say you?
Ang. Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak
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?

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I'll take it as a peril to my soul:

It is no sin at all, but charity.

Ang. Pleas'd you to do 't, at peril of your soul, Were equal poize of sin and charity.

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

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.

Nay, but hear me.

Ang.
Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant..
Or seem so, crafty; and that is 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,
Teach her the way. [Exit Serv. When it doth tax itself: as these black masks

1 Knight, with the old eds., reads: flaws. 2 Most modern eds. read: lest.

spare in f. e. 4 Retiring: in f. e.

Proclaim an inshell'd' beauty ten times louder Than beauty could displayed.—But mark me : To be received plain, I'll speak more gross. Your brother is to die.

Isab. So.

Ang. And his offence is so, as it appears Accountant to the law upon that pain.

Isab. True.

Ang. Admit no other way to save his life, (As I subscribe not that, nor any other, But in the force of question) that you, his sister, Finding yourself desir'd of such a person, Whose credit with the judge, or own great place, 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 suppos'd, or else to let him suffer, What would you do?

Isab. 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 bed

That longing I've been sick for, ere I'd yield
My body up to shame.

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Isab. And 't were 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 That you have slander'd so?

Isab. Ignomy in ransom, and free pardon, Are of two houses: lawful mercy is

Nothing akin to foul redemption.

Ang. You seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant
And rather prov'd 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

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If not a feodary, but only he,
Owe, and succeed this3 weakness.
Ang.
Nay, women are frail too.
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.
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,

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 destin'd livery.

Isab. I have no tongue but one: gentle my lord, Let me intreat you speak the former language. Ang. Plainly, conceive I love you.

Isab. My brother did love Juliet; and you tell me, That he shall die for it.

Ang. He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love. Isab. I know, your virtue hath a licence in 't, Which seems a little fouler than it is,

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Ang.

Who will believe thee, Isabel?
My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life,
May 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,
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,

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,
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, Bidding the law make court'sy to their will, Hooking both right and wrong to th' appetite, To follow as it draws. I'll to my brother: Though he hath fallen by prompture of the blood, Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour, That had he twenty heads to tender down On twenty bloody blocks, he'd yield them up, Before his sister should her body stoop To such abhorr'd pollution.

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ACT III.

Claud. The miserable have

SCENE I.-A Room in the Prison.
Enter DUKE, as a Friar, CLAUDIO, and Provost.
Duke. So then, you hope of pardon from lord Angelo?

No other medicine, but only hope.

I have hope to live, and am prepar'd to die.
Duke. Be absolute for death; either death, or life,

1 enshield: in f. e. 2 loss in f. e. : 3 Knight thy. The old copies: by. The word in the text was taken from a copy of the first folio, with MS. emendations, belonging to Lord Francis Egerton.

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