Such sense that my sense breeds with it.- Fare When judges steal themselves. What? do I love

Ang. I will bethink me:- come again to-mor- And feast upon her eyes? What is 't I dream on? O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,

Isab. Hark how I'll bribe you: Good my lord, With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous turn back. Is that temptation, that doth goad us on

To sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet,

Isab. Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall With all her double vigor, art and nature,

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 blesséd or-
der,

[Aside. I come to visit the afflicted spirits

The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most? Who, falling in the flames of her own youth,

I have provided for you; stay a while, [To JULIET. As if I did but only chew his name; And you shall be conducted. And in my heart the strong and swelling evil Duke. Repent you, fair one, of the sin you Of my conception: The state, whereon I studied, carry? Is like a good thing, being often read, Juliet. I do; and bear the shame most pa- Grown feared and tedious; yea, my gravity, tiently. Wherein (let no man hear me) I take pride, Duke. I'll teach you how you shall arraign your Could I, with boot, change for an idle plume,

Duke. Then was your sin of heavier kind than Desires access to you.

Enter ANGELO.

Ang.
O heavens !
Why does my blood thus muster to my heart;
Making both it unable for itself,
And dispossessing all the other parts
Of necessary fitness?

Teach her the way. [Exit Servant.

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,
Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offense.—

Ang. Yet may he live a while; and it may be,

Ang. When I would pray and think, I think As long as you, or I : yet he must die.

and pray

Isab. Under your sentence?

Ang. Yea.

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

Isab. When, I beseech you? that in his re- But graciously to know I am no better.

prieve,

Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted

That his soul sicken not.

Ang. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright,

When it doth tax itself: as these black masks

Ang. Ha! Fy, these filthy vices! It were as Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder

Isab. 'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in (As I subscribe not that, nor any other,

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 uncleanliness
As she that he hath stained?

Isab.

Sir, believe this,

I had rather give my body than my soul.

Ang. I talk not of your soul: our cómpelled

sins

Stand more for number than accompt.

Isab.

How say you?

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-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 supposéd, or else 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,
The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,

Ang. Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can And strip myself to death, as to a bed

Ang. Pleased you to do 't, at peril of your soul, That you have slandered so?

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

Else let my brother die,

If not a feodary, but only he,

Owe and succeed by weakness.

Ang.

Nay, women are frail too.

I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for 't:
Sign me a present pardon for my brother,
Or, with an outstretched throat, I'll tell the world
Aloud, what man thou art.

Ang.

Who will believe thee, Isabel?

My unsoiled name, the austereness of my life,
My vouch against you, and my place i' the state,

Isab. Ay, as the glasses where they view them- Will so your accusation overweigh,

you be one (as you are well expressed

By all external warrants), shew it now,

By putting on the destined livery.

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 all nicety and prolixious blushes,

That banish what they sue for; redeem thy bro-
ther

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 shall I complain? Did I tell this,

Isab. I have no tongue but one: gentle my Who would believe me? O perilous mouths,

lord,

Let me intreat you speak the former language.

Ang. Plainly conceive, I love you.

That bear in them one and the self-same tongue,
Either of condemnation or approof!
Bidding the law make courtesy to their will;

Isab. My brother did love Juliet; and you tell 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 abhorred 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.

Duke. So then you hope of pardon from Lord Dreaming on both for all thy blesséd youth Becomes as agéd, and doth beg the alms

Angelo?
Claud. The miserable have no other medicine, Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,
But only hope:
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this,

I have hope to live, and am prepared to die.
Duke. Be absolute for death; either death or That bears the name of life? Yet in this life
life
Lie hid more thousand deaths: yet death we fear,
Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with That makes these odds all even.

life:

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

Claud. I humbly thank you.
To sue to live, I find I seek to die;

That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art, And seeking death, find life: Let it come on.

Servile to all the skiey influences

That do 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 runn'st toward him still thou art not

noble;

For all the accommodations that thou bear'st

Are nursed by baseness: thou art 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 provok'st; yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more: thou art not thy-

self;

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 striv'st to get;
And what thou hast, forget'st: thou art not cer-

tain;

For thy complexion shifts to strange affects,
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,

Enter ISABELLA.

Isab. What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company!

Prov. Who's there? come in: the wish deserves
a welcome.

Duke. Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again.
Claud. Most holy sir, I thank you.

Isab. My business is a word or two with Claudio.
Prov. And very welcome. Look, signior, here's
your sister.

Duke. Provost, a word with you.

Prov.

As many as you please.
Duke. Bring them to speak where I may be
concealed,

Yet hear them. [Exeunt DUKE and Provost.
Claud. Now, sister, what's the comfort?
Isab. Why, as all comforts are; most good in
deed:

Lord Angelo having affairs to heaven,
Intends you for his swift ambassador,
Where you shall be an everlasting lieger;
Therefore your best appointment make with speed;
To-morrow you set on.

Claud. Is there no remedy?
Isab. None, but such remedy as, to save a head,
To cleave a heart in twain.