The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  To make a false one.

  ISABELLA ’Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.

  50

  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:

  55

  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:

  60

  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;

  65

  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,

  70

  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.

  75

  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

  80

  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,

  85

  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,

  90

  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

  95

  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,

  100

  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.

  105

  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?

  110

  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

  115

  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.

  120

  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.

  125

  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 –

  130

  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

  135

  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.

  140

  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,

  145

  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.

  150

  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

  155

  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;

  160

  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

  165

  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,

  170

  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,

  175

  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

  180

  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,

  185

  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;

  15

  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;

  25

  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

  35

  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

  40

  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.

  45

  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.

  50

  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.

  55

  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?

  60

  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,

  65

  But fetter you till death.

  CLAUDIO Perpetual durance?

  ISABELLA Ay, just, perpetual durance; a restraint,