William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

That you have slandered so?

ISABELLA.

Ignominy in ransom and free pardon

Are of two houses; lawful mercy

Is nothing kin to foul redemption.

ANGELO.

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.

ISABELLA.

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.

We are all frail.

ISABELLA.

Else let my brother die,

If not a feodary, but only he,

Owe, and succeed by weakness.

ANGELO.

Nay, women are frail too.

ISABELLA.

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.

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;—

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.

ISABELLA.

I have no tongue but one: gentle, my lord,

Let me intreat 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 it.

ANGELO.

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 honour,

My words express my purpose.

ISABELLA.

Ha! little honour 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 brother

Or, with an outstretch’d throat, I’ll tell the world

Aloud what man thou art.

ANGELO.

Who will believe thee, Isabel?

My unsoil’d name, th’ 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;

Or else he must not only die the death,

But thy unkindness shall his death draw out

To lingering sufferance: answer me tomorrow,

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.]

ISABELLA.

To whom should I complain? Did 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 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

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?

CLAUDIO.

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; mere’y, 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;

For all the accommodations that thou bear’st

Are nurs’d 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 thyself:

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, forgett’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 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,

To make thy riches pleasant. What’s yet in this

That bears the name of life? Yet in this life

Lie hid more thousand deaths: yet death we fear,

That makes these odds all even.

CLAUDIO.

I humbly thank you.

To sue to live, I find I seek to die;

And, seeking death, find life. Let it come on.

ISABELLA.

[Within.] What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company!

PROVOST.

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

DUKE.

Dear sir, ere long I’ll visit you again.

CLAUDIO.

Most holy sir, I thank you.

[Enter ISABELLA.]

ISABELLA.

My business is a word or two with Claudio.

PROVOST.

And very welcome. Look, signior, here’s your sister.

DUKE.

Provost, a word with you.

PROVOST.

As many as you please.

DUKE.

Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be conceal’d.

[Exeunt DUKE and PROVOST.]

CLAUDIO.

Now, sister, what’s the comfort?

ISABELLA.

Why,

As all comforts are; most good, most good, in deed:

Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,

Intends you for his swift ambassador,

Where you shall be an everlasting leiger:

Therefore, your best appointment make with speed;

Tomorrow you set on.

CLAUDIO.

Is there no remedy?

ISABELLA.

None, but such remedy as, to save a head,

To cleave a heart in twain.

CLAUDIO.

But is there any?

ISABELLA.

Yes, brother, you may live:

There is a devilish mercy in the judge,

If you’ll implore it, that will free your life,

But fetter you till death.

CLAUDIO.

Perpetual durance?

ISABELLA.

Ay, just; perpetual durance; a restraint,

Though all the world’s vastidity you had,

To a determin’d scope.