William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

CLAUDIO.

But in what nature?

ISABELLA.

In such a one as, you consenting to’t,

Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear,

And leave you naked.

CLAUDIO.

Let me know the point.

ISABELLA.

O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,

Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain,

And six or seven winters more respect

Than a perpetual honour. Dar’st thou die?

The sense of death is most in apprehension;

And the poor beetle that we tread upon

In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great

As when a giant dies.

CLAUDIO.

Why give you me this shame?

Think you I can a resolution fetch

From flowery tenderness? If I must die,

I will encounter darkness as a bride

And hug it in mine arms.

ISABELLA.

There spake my brother; there my father’s grave

Did utter forth a voice! Yes, thou must die:

Thou art too noble to conserve a life

In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,—

Whose settled visage and deliberate word

Nips youth i’ the head, and follies doth emmew

As falcon doth the fowl,—is yet a devil;

His filth within being cast, he would appear

A pond as deep as hell.

CLAUDIO.

The precise Angelo?

ISABELLA.

O, ‘tis the cunning livery of hell

The damned’st body to invest and cover

In precise guards! Dost thou think, Claudio,

If I would yield him my virginity

Thou mightst be freed?

CLAUDIO.

O heavens! it cannot be.

ISABELLA.

Yes, he would give it thee, from this rank offence,

So to offend him still. This night’s the time

That I should do what I abhor to name,

Or else thou diest tomorrow.

CLAUDIO.

Thou shalt not do’t.

ISABELLA.

O, were it but my life,

I’d throw it down for your deliverance

As frankly as a pin.

CLAUDIO.

Thanks, dear Isabel.

ISABELLA.

Be ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow.

CLAUDIO.

Yes.—Has he affections in him

That thus can make him bite the law by the nose

When he would force it? Sure it is no sin;

Or of the deadly seven it is the least.

ISABELLA.

Which is the least?

CLAUDIO.

If it were damnable, he, being so wise,

Why would he for the momentary trick

Be perdurably fined?—O Isabel!

ISABELLA.

What says my brother?

CLAUDIO.

Death is a fearful thing.

ISABELLA.

And shamed life a hateful.

CLAUDIO.

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;

To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;

This sensible warm motion to become

A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods or to reside

In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;

To be imprison’d in the viewless winds,

And blown with restless violence round about

The pendent world; or to be worse than worst

Of those that lawless and incertain thought

Imagine howling!—‘tis too horrible!

The weariest and most loathed worldly life

That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment

Can lay on nature is a paradise

To what we fear of death.

ISABELLA.

Alas, alas!

CLAUDIO.

Sweet sister, let me live:

What sin you do to save a brother’s life

Nature dispenses with the deed so far

That it becomes a virtue.

ISABELLA.

O you beast!

O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!

Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?

Is’t not a kind of incest to take life

From thine own sister’s shame? What should I think?

Heaven shield my mother play’d my father fair!

For such a warped slip of wilderness

Ne’er issued from his blood. Take my defiance:

Die; perish! might but my bending down

Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed:

I’ll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,—

No word to save thee.

CLAUDIO.

Nay, hear me, Isabel.

ISABELLA.

O fie, fie, fie!

Thy sin’s not accidental, but a trade:

Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd:

‘Tis best that thou diest quickly.

[Going.]

CLAUDIO.

O, hear me, Isabella.

[Re-enter DUKE.]

DUKE.

Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.

ISABELLA.

What is your will?

DUKE. Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and by have some speech with you: the satisfaction I would require is likewise your own benefit.

ISABELLA. I have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be stolen out of other affairs; but I will attend you awhile.

DUKE. [To CLAUDIO aside.] Son, I have overheard what hath passed between you and your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her; only he hath made an assay of her virtue to practise his judgment with the disposition of natures; she, having the truth of honour in her, hath made him that gracious denial which he is most glad to receive: I am confessor to Angelo, and I know this to be true; therefore prepare yourself to death. Do not satisfy your resolution with hopes that are fallible: tomorrow you must die; go to your knees and make ready.

CLAUDIO. Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love with life that I will sue to be rid of it.

DUKE.

Hold you there. Farewell.

[Exit CLAUDIO.]

[Re-enter PROVOST.]

Provost, a word with you.

PROVOST.

What’s your will, father?

DUKE. That, now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me a while with the maid; my mind promises with my habit no loss shall touch her by my company.

PROVOST.

In good time.

[Exit PROVOST.]

DUKE. The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good; the goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of your complexion, shall keep the body of it ever fair. The assault that Angelo hath made to you, fortune hath conveyed to my understanding; and, but that frailty hath examples for his falling, I should wonder at Angelo. How will you do to content this substitute, and to save your brother?

ISABELLA. I am now going to resolve him; I had rather my brother die by the law than my son should be unlawfully born. But, O, how much is the good duke deceived in Angelo! If ever he return, and I can speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or discover his government.

DUKE. That shall not be much amiss: yet, as the matter now stands, he will avoid your accusation; he made trial of you only.—Therefore fasten your ear on my advisings; to the love I have in doing good a remedy presents itself. I do make myself believe that you may most uprighteously do a poor wronged lady a merited benefit; redeem your brother from the angry law; do no stain to your own gracious person; and much please the absent duke, if peradventure he shall ever return to have hearing of this business.

ISABELLA. Let me hear you speak further; I have spirit to do anything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.

DUKE. Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have you not heard speak of Mariana, the sister of Frederick, the great soldier who miscarried at sea?

ISABELLA.

I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.

DUKE. She should this Angelo have married; was affianced to her by oath, and the nuptial appointed: between which time of the contract and limit of the solemnity her brother Frederick was wrecked at sea, having in that perished vessel the dowry of his sister. But mark how heavily this befell to the poor gentlewoman: there she lost a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward her ever most kind and natural; with him the portion and sinew of her fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her combinate husband, this well-seeming Angelo.

ISABELLA.

Can this be so? Did Angelo so leave her?