Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man,

You would have slipp'd like him; but he, like Drest in a little brief authority,

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
That make her good? O let her brother live.
Thieves for their robbery have authority
When judges steal themselves. What do I love

181

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.
Ever till now,
When men were fond, I smil'd and wonder'd how.
Exit. 190

SCENE III.--A Room in a Prison.

Enter DUKE, disguised as a friar, and Provost.
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.

Prov. I would do more than that, if more were
needful.

11

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, sentenc'd; a young man
More fit to do another such offence,
Than die for this.

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.

her.

41

Juliet. Must die to-morrow! O! injurious love, That I desire to hear her speak again, That respites me a life, whose very comfort And feast upon her eyes? What is 't I dream on? Is still a dying horror. O cunning enemy! that, to catch a saint,

Prov.

'Tis pity of him. Excunt.

SCENE IV.-A Room in ANGELO'S House.
Enter ANGELO.

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

To several subjects: heaven hath my empty words,

61

Whilst my invention, 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 scar'd 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.

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!

10

Isab.

How now, fair maid?
Isab.

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.
1sab. Even so.

Heaven keep your honour!
Ang. Yet may he live awhile; and, it may be,
As long as you or I yet he must die.
Isab. Under your sentence?
Ang. Yea.

Isub. 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: 'tis all as easy
Falsely to take away a life true made,
As to put metal in restrained means
To make a false one.

50

Isab. 'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth

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

41

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

Please you to do 't,
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 poise of sin and charity.

70

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.

Ang.

Nay, but hear me. Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant,

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 so
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.

Isab. So.

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

90

Ang. 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 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-building 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?

101

Isab. As much for my poor brother as myself:
That is, were I under the terms of death,
The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death, as to a bed
That longing have been sick for, ere I'd yield
My body up to shame.

Ang.
Then must your brother die.
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. 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 mean.

I something do excuse the thing I hate,
For his advantage that I dearly love.
Ang. We are all frail.
Isub.

1:20

Else let my brother die, 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.

If not a feodary, but only he
Owe and succeed thy weakness.

Ang. Nay, women are frail too.

Isab. Ay, as the glasses where they view them-
selves,

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,
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.

Isb. I have no tongue but one: gentle my lord, 140 Let me entreat 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 't.

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

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 the 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,

180

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

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

ACT III.

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?

Claud. The miserable have 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

Reason thus with

valiant ;

Ang.
Believe me, on mine honour, For all the accommodations that thou bear'st
My words express my purpose.
Are nurs'd by baseness. Thou art by no means
Isab. Ha! little honour to be much believ'd, 150
And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seem-
ing!

For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork
Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,
And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not
thyself;

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

170

Exit.

true.

Shall thereby be the sweeter.

life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep: a breath thouart,
Servile to all the skyey influences,
That do this habitation, where thou keep'st, 1)
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 ;

aloud

What man thou art.
Ang.
Who will believe thee, Isabel?
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,
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 The mere effusion of thy proper loins,

brother

For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains 20
That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;
For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get,
And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not
certain;

For thy complexion shifts to strange effects, After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor; 160 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

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
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,