To make a false one.
ISABELLA ’Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.
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ANGELO Say you so? Then I shall pose 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 uncleanness
As she that he hath stain’d?
ISABELLA Sir, believe this:
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I had rather give my body than my soul.
ANGELO I talk not of your soul: our compell’d sins
Stand more for number than for accompt.
ISABELLA How say you?
ANGELO Nay, I’ll not warrant that: for I can speak
Against the thing I say. Answer to this:
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I – now the voice of the recorded law –
Pronounce a sentence on your brother’s life:
Might there not be a charity in sin
To save this brother’s life?
ISABELLA Please you to do’t,
I’ll take it as a peril to my soul;
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It is no sin at all, but charity.
ANGELO Pleas’d you to do’t, at peril of your soul,
Were equal poise of sin and charity.
ISABELLA That I do beg his life, if it be sin,
Heaven let me bear it; you granting of my suit,
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If that be sin, I’ll make it my morn prayer
To have it added to the faults of mine,
And nothing of your answer.
ANGELO Nay, but hear me;
Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant,
Or seem so, crafty; and that’s not good.
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ISABELLA Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good,
But graciously to know I am no better.
ANGELO Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright
When it doth tax itself: as these black masks
Proclaim an enciel’d beauty ten times louder
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Than beauty could, display’d. But mark me;
To be received plain, I’ll speak more gross.
Your brother is to die.
ISABELLA So.
ANGELO And his offence is so, as it appears,
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Accountant to the law upon that pain.
ISABELLA True.
ANGELO Admit no other way to save his life –
As I subscribe not that, nor any other,
But in the loss of question – that you, his sister,
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Finding yourself desir’d 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
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You must lay down the treasures of your body
To this suppos’d, or else to let him suffer:
What would you do?
ISABELLA As much for my poor brother as myself;
That is, were I under the terms of death,
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Th’impression of keen whips I’d wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death as to a bed
That longing have been sick for, ere I’d yield
My body up to shame.
ANGELO Then must your brother die.
ISABELLA And ’twere the cheaper way.
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Better it were a brother died at once,
Than that a sister, by redeeming him,
Should die for ever.
ANGELO Were you not then as cruel as the sentence
That you have slander’d so?
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ISABELLA Ignomy 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
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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.
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ANGELO We are all frail.
ISABELLA Else let my brother die,
If not a feodary but only he
Owe and succeed thy 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.
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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 –
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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
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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 entreat you speak the former language.
ANGELO Plainly conceive, I love you.
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ISABELLA My brother did love Juliet,
And you tell me that he shall die for’t.
ANGELO He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.
ISABELLA I know your virtue hath a licence in’t,
Which seems a little fouler than it is,
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To pluck on others.
ANGELO Believe me, on mine honour,
My words express my purpose.
ISABELLA Ha? Little honour, to be much believ’d,
And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!
I will proclaim thee, Angelo, look for’t.
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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’th’ state
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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;
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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
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To ling’ring 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 I tell this,
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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 curtsey to their will,
Hooking both right and wrong to th’appetite,
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To follow as it draws! I’ll to my brother.
Though he hath fall’n 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
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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,
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And fit his mind to death, for his soul’s rest. Exit.
3.1 Enter DUKE, disguised, and Provost with CLAUDIO.
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
5
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 skyey influences
That dost this habitation where thou keep’st
10
Hourly afflict. Merely, thou art Death’s fool;
For him thou labour’st by thy flight to shun,
And yet run’st toward him still. Thou art not noble;
For all th’accommodations that thou bear’st
Are nurs’d by baseness. Thou’rt by no means valiant;
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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 exists on many a thousand grains
20
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’rt poor;
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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,
30
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
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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 moe thousand deaths; yet death we fear
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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 hoa! Peace here; grace and good company!
PROVOST
Who’s there? Come in; the wish deserves a welcome.
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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.
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PROVOST As many as you please.
DUKE Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be
conceal’d. [Duke and Provost retire.]
CLAUDIO Now, sister, what’s the comfort?
ISABELLA Why,
As all comforts are: most good, most good indeed.
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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?
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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,
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But fetter you till death.
CLAUDIO Perpetual durance?
ISABELLA Ay, just, perpetual durance; a restraint,
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 354
