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 prepared 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 skyey influences
That dost this habitation where thou keep’st
Hourly afflict. Merely, 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 th’ accommodations that thou bear’st
Are nursed by baseness. Thou’rt 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 exists 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, forget’st. Thou art not certain;
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou’rt 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 concealed.
[Exeunt Duke and Provost.]
CLAUDIO.
Now, sister, what’s the comfort?
ISABELLA.
Why,
As all comforts are, most good, most good indeed.
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 determined scope.
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’ th’ head, and follies doth enew
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 th’ 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 imprisoned 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 played 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.
Enter Duke as a Friar.
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 a while.
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 judgement 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.]
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 farther. 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 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?
DUKE.
Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them with his comfort, swallowed
his vows whole, pretending in her discoveries of dishonour; in few,
bestowed her on her own lamentation, which she yet wears for his sake;
and he, a marble to her tears, is washed with them, but relents not.
ISABELLA.
What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid from the world! What
corruption in this life, that it will let this man live! But how out of this
can she avail?
DUKE.
It is a rupture that you may easily heal, and the cure of it not only saves
your brother, but keeps you from dishonour in doing it.
ISABELLA.
Show me how, good father.
DUKE.
This forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance of her first affection. His
unjust unkindness, that in all reason should have quenched her love, hath, like
an impediment in the current, made it more violent and unruly. Go you to
Angelo; answer his requiring with a plausible obedience; agree with his demands
to the point. Only refer yourself to this advantage: first, that your
stay with him may not be long; that the time may have all shadow and silence in
it; and the place answer to convenience. This being granted in course, and now
follows all. We shall advise this wronged maid to stead up your appointment, go
in your place. If the encounter acknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him
to her recompense; and here, by this, is your brother saved, your honour
untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid
will I frame and make fit for his attempt. If you think well to carry this as
you may, the doubleness of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof. What
think you of it?
ISABELLA.
The image of it gives me content already, and I trust it will grow to a most
prosperous perfection.
DUKE.
It lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily to Angelo; if for this
night he entreat you to his bed, give him promise of satisfaction. I will
presently to Saint Luke’s; there at the moated grange resides this dejected
Mariana. At that place call upon me; and dispatch with Angelo, that it may be
quickly.
ISABELLA.
I thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father.
[Exit Isabella.]
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