ISABELLA Tomorrow? O, that’s sudden.
Spare him, spare him!
He’s not prepar’d for death. Even for our kitchens
85
We kill the fowl of season: shall we serve heaven
With less respect than we do minister
To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you:
Who is it that hath died for this offence?
There’s many have committed it.
LUCIO [to Isabella] Ay, well said.
90
ANGELO
The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept:
Those many had not dar’d to do that evil
If the first that did th’edict infringe
Had answer’d for his deed. Now ’tis awake,
Takes note of what is done, and like a prophet
95
Looks in a glass that shows what future evils,
Either new, or by remissness new conceiv’d,
And so in progress to be hatch’d and born,
Are now to have no successive degrees,
But ere they live, to end.
ISABELLA Yet show some pity.
100
ANGELO 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;
105
Your brother dies tomorrow; be content.
ISABELLA
So you must be the first that gives this sentence,
And he, that suffers. O, it is excellent
To have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
110
LUCIO [to Isabella] That’s well said.
ISABELLA Could great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne’er be quiet,
For every pelting petty officer
Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder.
Merciful Heaven,
115
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,
Than the soft myrtle. But man, proud man,
Dress’d in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d –
120
His glassy essence – like an angry ape
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.
LUCIO [to Isabella]
O, to him, to him, wench! He will relent;
125
He’s coming: I perceive’t.
PROVOST [aside] Pray heaven she win him.
ISABELLA We cannot weigh our brother with ourself.
Great men may jest with saints: ’tis wit in them,
But in the less, foul profanation.
LUCIO [to Isabella] Thou’rt i’th’ right, girl; more o’ that.
130
ISABELLA That in the captain’s but a choleric word,
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.
LUCIO [to Isabella] Art avis’d o’ that? More on’t.
ANGELO Why do you put these sayings upon me?
ISABELLA Because authority, though it err like others,
135
Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself
That skins the vice o’th’ 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,
140
Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother’s life.
ANGELO [aside] She speaks, and ’tis such sens
That my sense breeds with it. – Fare you well.
[going]
ISABELLA Gentle my lord, turn back.
ANGELO I will bethink me. Come again tomorrow.
145
[going]
ISABELLA
Hark, how I’ll bribe you: good my lord, turn back.
ANGELO How! Bribe me?
ISABELLA
Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.
LUCIO [to Isabella] You had marr’d all else.
ISABELLA Not with fond sickles of the tested gold,
150
Or stones, whose rate are either rich or poor
As fancy values them: but with true prayers,
That shall be up at heaven and enter there
Ere sunrise: prayers from preserved souls,
From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate
155
To nothing temporal.
ANGELO Well: come to me tomorrow.
LUCIO [to Isabella] Go to: ’tis well; away.
ISABELLA Heaven keep your honour safe.
ANGELO [aside] Amen.
For I am that way going to temptation,
Where prayer’s cross’d.
ISABELLA At what hour tomorrow
160
Shall I attend your lordship?
ANGELO At any time ’fore noon.
ISABELLA Save your honour. Exeunt all but Angelo.
ANGELO 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
165
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,
170
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!
175
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,
180
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
185
Subdues me quite. Ever till now
When men were fond, I smil’d, and wonder’d how.
Exit.
2.3 Enter severally DUKE,
disguised as a friar, and Provost.
DUKE Hail to you, Provost – so I think you are.
PROVOST
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
5
To let me see them, and to make me know
The nature of their crimes, that I may minister
To them accordingly.
PROVOST
I would do more than that, if more were needful –
Enter JULIET.
Look, here comes one: a gentlewoman of mine,
10
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.
15
DUKE When must he die?
PROVOST As I do think, tomorrow.
[to Juliet] I have provided for you; stay a while,
And you shall be conducted.
DUKE Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?
JULIET I do; and bear the same most patiently.
20
DUKE
I’ll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience
And try your penitence, if it be sound,
Or hollowly put on.
JULIET I’ll gladly learn.
DUKE Love you the man that wrong’d you?
JULIET Yes, as I love the woman that wrong’d him.
25
DUKE So then it seems your most offenceful act
Was mutually committed?
JULIET Mutually.
DUKE Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.
JULIET I do confess it, and repent it, father.
DUKE ’Tis meet so, daughter; but lest you do repent,
30
As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,
Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not heaven,
Showing we would not spare heaven as we love it,
But as we stand in fear –
JULIET I do repent me as it is an evil,
35
And take the shame with joy.
DUKE There rest.
Your partner, as I hear, must die tomorrow,
And I am going with instruction to him.
Grace go with you: Benedicite! Exit.
JULIET Must die to-morrow! O injurious love,
40
That respites me a life, whose very comfort
Is still a dying horror!
PROVOST ’Tis pity of him. Exeunt.
2.4 Enter ANGELO.
ANGELO
When I would pray and think, I think and pray
To several subjects: Heaven hath my empty words,
Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth,
As if I did but only chew his name,
5
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 sere and tedious; yea, my gravity,
Wherein – let no man hear me – I take pride,
10
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.
15
Let’s write good angel on the devil’s horn –
’Tis not the devil’s crest.
[knock] How now! Who’s there?
Enter Servant.
SERVANT One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.
ANGELO Teach her the way. Exit Servant.
O heavens,
Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,
20
Making both it unable for itself
And dispossessing all my other parts
Of necessary fitness?
So play the foolish throngs with one that swounds,
Come all to help him, and so stop the air
25
By which he should revive; and even so
The general subject to a well-wish’d king
Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence.
Enter ISABELLA.
How now, fair maid?
30
ISABELLA I am come to know your pleasure.
ANGELO [aside]
That you might know it, would much better please me,
Than to demand what ’tis. – Your brother cannot live.
ISABELLA Even so. Heaven keep your honour.
ANGELO Yet may he live a while; and, it may be,
35
As long as you or I; yet he must die.
ISABELLA Under your sentence?
ANGELO Yea.
ISABELLA When, I beseech you? That in his reprieve,
Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted
40
That his soul sicken not.
ANGELO 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
45
In stamps that are forbid. ’Tis all as easy
Falsely to take away a life true made,
As to put mettle in restrained means
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 353
