Clo. Once, sir? there was nothing done to her am drawn in.

Just. Eleven, sir.

Escal. I pray you home to dinner with me.
Just. I humbly thank you.

Escal. It grieves me for the death of Claudio;
But there's no remedy.

Just. Lord Angelo is severe.
Escal.

Ang. Condemn the fault and not the actor of it!
Why, every fault's condemned, ere it be done:
Mine were the very cipher of a function,
To fine the faults, whose fine stands in record,
And let go by the actor.
Isab.

O just, but severe law!

It is but needful: I had a brother then.-Heaven keep your honor!

Now, what's the matter, Provost? Prov. Is it your will Claudio shall die to-morrow?

[Retiring.

Lucio. [To ISAB.] Give't not o'er so: to him

again, intreat him;

Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown;
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. Must he needs die?
Ang.
Maiden, no remedy.
Isab. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him,
And neither heaven, nor man, grieve at the mercy.
Ang. I will not do't.

Isab.
But can you, if you would?
Ang. Look, what I will not, that I cannot do.
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.

Ang.

He's sentenced: 'tis too late.

Lucio. You are too cold. [To ISABELLA. Isab. Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word, Ang. Did I not tell thee, yea? hadst thou not May call it back again: Well believe this,

order?

Why dost thou ask again?

Prov.

No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,
Lest I might be too rash: The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,

See you, the fornicatress be remov'd;
Let her have needful, but not lavish, means;
There shall be order for it.

Enter Lucio and ISABELLA.
Prov. Save your honor! [Offering to retire.
Ang. Stay a little while.-[To ISAB.] You are
welcome: What's your will?
Isab. I am a woeful suitor to your honor:
Please but your honor hear me.
Well; what's your suit?
Isab. There is a vice that most I do abhor,
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.

Ang.

Ang.

Well; the matter?
Isab. I have a brother is condemned to die:
I do beseech you, let it be his fault,

And not my brother.

Prov.

Become them with one half so good a grace,
As mercy does. If he had been as you,
And you as he, you would have slipt like him;
But he, like you, would not have been so stern.
Ang. Pray you, begone.

Isab. I would to heaven I had your potency,
No; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge,
And you were Isabel! should it then be thus?
And what a prisoner.

Lucio. Ay, touch him: there's the vein. [Aside.
Ang. Your brother is a forfeit of the law,
And you but waste your words.

Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once;
And He that might the vantage best have took,
Found out the remedy: How would you be,
If He, which is the top of judgment, 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;
It is the law, not I, condemns 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,

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

Those many had not dar'd to do that evil,

If the first man that did the edict infringe,
Had answer'd for his deed: now, 'tis awake;
Takes note of what is done; and, like a prophet,

Heaven give thee moving graces! Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils

(Either now, or by remissness new-conceiv'd,
And so in progress to be hatch'd and born)
Are now to have no successive degrees,
But, where 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 it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.

Shall I attend your lordship?
Ang.

Isab. Save your honor!

At any time 'fore-noon.

[Exeunt Lucio, ISABELLA, and Provost.
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!
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,

Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, And pitch our evils there? O, fye, fye, fye!
Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,
Than the soft myrtle;-0, but man, proud man!
Drest in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
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.

Luc. O, to him, to him, wench: he will relent;
He's coming, I perceive't.

Prov.
Pray heaven, she win him!
Isab. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself:
Great men may jest with saints: 'tis wit in them;
But, in the less, foul profanation.

Lucio. Thou'rt in the right, girl; more o' that.
Isab. That in the captain's but a choleric word,
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

Lucio. Art advis'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,

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother's life.

Ang.
She speaks, and 'tis
Such sense,
that my sense breeds with it.-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?

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,
And feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on?
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 vigor, 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.

SCENE III-A Room in a Prison.

Enter DUKE, habited like 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.

Enter JULIET.

Look, here comes one; a gentlewoman of mine,
Who, falling in the flames of her own youth,
Hath blister'd her report: She is with child;

Isab. Ay, with such gifts, that heaven shall share And he that got it, sentenced: a young man

with you.

Lucio. You had marr'd all else.

Isab. Not with fond shekels 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.

More fit to do another such offence,
Than die for this.

And strip myself to death, as to a bed
That longing I 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. 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'd 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.
Isab.

Isab. I know your virtue hath a licence in't, Which seems a little fouler than it is,

To pluck on others.

Ang.

Believe me, on mine honor,
My words express my purpose.

Isab. Ha! little honor to be much believ'd,
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?
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 brother
By yielding up thy body to my will;

Else let my brother die, 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.

If not a feodary,' but only he,
Owe, and succeed by 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."
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 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 it.

Ang. He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.

Isab. To whom shall 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 honor,
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.
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, 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,
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 skiey influences,)

That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st,
Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool;
For him thou labor'st by thy flight to shun,
And yet run'st toward him still: Thou art not noble;
For all the accommodations that thou bear'st,
Are nurs'd by baseness: Thou art by no means
valiant ;
▾ Impressions.

• Associate.

• Own.

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;
For thou exist'st on many thousand grains
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 art 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,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,
Do curse the gout, serpigo,' and the rheum,
For ending thee no sooner: Thou hast nor youth,