Another Room in the Same. | |
| |
Enter PROVOST and a Servant. | |
| Serv. He’s hearing of a cause: he will come straight: | |
| I’ll tell him of you. | 4 |
| Prov. Pray you, do. [ExitServ.] I’ll know | |
| His pleasure; may be he will relent. Alas! | |
| He hath but as offended in a dream: | |
| All sects, all ages smack of this vice, and he | 8 |
| To die for it! | |
| |
Enter ANGELO. | |
| Ang. Now, what’s the matter, provost? | |
| Prov. Is it your will Claudio shall die tomorrow? | 12 |
| Ang. Did I not tell thee, yea? hadst thou not order? | |
| Why dost thou ask again? | |
| Prov. Lest I might be too rash. | |
| Under your good correction, I have seen, | 16 |
| When, after execution, Judgment hath | |
| Repented o’er his doom. | |
| Ang. Go to; let that be mine: | |
| Do you your office, or give up your place, | 20 |
| And you shall well be spar’d. | |
| Prov. I crave your honour’s pardon. | |
| What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet? | |
| She’s very near her hour. | 24 |
| Ang. Dispose of her | |
| To some more fitter place; and that with speed. | |
| |
Re-enter Servant. | |
| Serv. Here is the sister of the man condemn’d Desires access to you. | 28 |
| Ang. Hath he a sister? | |
| Prov. Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid, | |
| And to be shortly of a sisterhood, | |
| If not already. | 32 |
| Ang. Well, let her be admitted. [Exit Servant. | |
| See you the fornicatress be remov’d: | |
| Let her have needful, but not lavish, means; | |
| There shall be order for ’t. | 36 |
| |
Enter ISABELLA and LUCIO. | |
| Prov. God save your honour! [Offering to retire. | |
| Ang. Stay a little while.—[To ISAB.] You’re welcome: what’s your will? | |
| Isab. I am a woful suitor to your honour, | 40 |
| Please but your honour hear me. | |
| Ang. Well; what’s your suit? | |
| Isab. There is a vice that most I do abhor, | |
| And most desire should meet the blow of justice, | 44 |
| For which I would not plead, but that I must; | |
| For which I must not plead, but that I am | |
| At war ’twixt will and will not. | |
| Ang. Well; the matter? | 48 |
| Isab. I have a brother is condemn’d to die: | |
| I do beseech you, let it be his fault, | |
| And not my brother. | |
| Prov. [Aside.] Heaven give thee moving graces! | 52 |
| Ang. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it? | |
| Why, every fault’s condemn’d ere it be done. | |
| Mine were the very cipher of a function, | |
| To fine the faults whose fine stands in record, | 56 |
| And let go by the actor. | |
| Isab. O just, but severe law! | |
| I had a brother, then.—Heaven keep your honour! [Retiring. | |
| Lucio. [Aside to ISAB.] Give ’t not o’er so: to him again, entreat him; | 60 |
| Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown; | |
| You are too cold; if you should need a pin, | |
| You could not with more tame a tongue desire it. | |
| To him, I say! | 64 |
| Isab. Must he needs die? | |
| Ang. Maiden, no remedy. | |
| Isab. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him, | |
| And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy. | 68 |
| Ang. I will not do’t. | |
| Isab. But can you, if you would? | |
| Ang. Look, what I will not, that I cannot do. | |
| Isab. But might you do’t, and do the world no wrong, | 72 |
| If so your heart were touch’d with that remorse | |
| As mine is to him? | |
| Ang. He’s sentenc’d: ’tis too late. | |
| Lucio. [Aside to ISAB.] You are too cold. | 76 |
| Isab. Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word, | |
| May call it back again. Well, believe this, | |
| No ceremony that to great ones ’longs, | |
| Not the king’s crown, nor the deputed sword, | 80 |
| The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe, | |
| Become them with one half so good a grace | |
| As mercy does. | |
| If he had been as you, and you as he, | 84 |
| You would have slipt like him; but he, like you, | |
| Would not have been so stern. | |
| Ang. Pray you, be gone. | |
| Isab. I would to heaven I had your potency, | 88 |
| And you were Isabel! should it then be thus? | |
| No; I would tell what ’twere to be a judge, | |
| And what a prisoner. | |
| Lucio. [Aside to ISAB.] Ay, touch him; there’s the vein. | 92 |
| Ang. Your brother is a forfeit of the law, | |
| And you but waste your words. | |
| Isab. Alas! alas! | |
| Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once; | 96 |
| And He that might the vantage best have took, | |
| Found out the remedy. How would you be, | |
| If He, which is the top of judgment, should | |
| But judge you as you are? O! think on that, | 100 |
| And mercy then will breathe within your lips, | |
| Like man new made. | |
| Ang. Be you content, fair maid; | |
| It is the law, not I, condemn your brother: | 104 |
| Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son, | |
| It should be thus with him: he must die tomorrow. | |
| Isab. To-morrow! O! that’s sudden! Spare him, spare him! | |
| He’s not prepar’d for death. Even for our kitchens | 108 |
| 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? | 112 |
| There’s many have committed it. | |
| Lucio. [Aside toISAB.] Ay, well said. | |
| Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept: | |
| Those many had not dar’d to do that evil, | 116 |
| If that 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, | |
| Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils, | 120 |
| 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. | 124 |
| Isab. Yet show some pity. | |
| Ang. 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, | 128 |
| And do him right, that, answering one foul wrong, | |
| Lives not to act another. Be satisfied: | |
| Your brother dies to-morrow: be content. | |
| Isab. So you must be the first that gives this sentence, | 132 |
| And he that suffers. O! it is excellent | |
| To have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous | |
| To use it like a giant. | |
| Lucio. [Aside to ISAB.] That’s well said. | 136 |
| Isab. 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. | 140 |
| Merciful heaven! | |
| Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt | |
| Split’st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak | |
| Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man, | 144 |
| Drest in a little brief authority, | |
| Most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d, | |
| His glassy essence, like an angry ape, | |
| Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven | 148 |
| As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens, | |
| Would all themselves laugh mortal. | |
| Lucio. [Aside to ISAB.] O, to him, to him, wench! He will relent: | |
| He’s coming: I perceive ’t. | 152 |
| Prov. [Aside.] Pray heaven she win him! | |
| Isab. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself: | |
| Great men may jest with saints; ’tis wit in them, | |
| But, in the less foul profanation. | 156 |
| Lucio. [Aside to ISAB.] Thou ’rt in the right, girl: more o’ that. | |
| Isab. That in the captain’s but a choleric word, | |
| Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy. | |
| Lucio. [Aside to ISAB.] Art advis’d o’ that? more on ’t. | 160 |
| Ang. Why do you put these sayings upon me? | |
| Isab. Because authority, though it err like others, | |
| Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself, | |
| That skins the vice o’ the top. Go to your bosom; | 164 |
| 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, | |
| Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue | 168 |
| Against my brother’s life. | |
| Ang. She speaks, and ’tis | |
| Such sense that my sense breeds with it. Fare you well. | |
| Isab. Gentle my lord, turn back. | 172 |
| Ang. I will bethink me. Come again tomorrow. | |
| Isab. Hark how I’ll bribe you. Good my lord, turn back. | |
| Ang. How! bribe me? | |
| Isab. Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you. | 176 |
| Lucio. [Aside to ISAB.] You had marr’d all else. | |
| Isab. Not with fond sicles of the tested gold, | |
| Or stones whose rates are either rich or poor | |
| As fancy values them; but with true prayers | 180 |
| That shall be up at heaven and enter there | |
| Ere sun-rise: prayers from preserved souls, | |
| From fasting maids whose minds are dedicate | |
| To nothing temporal. | 184 |
| Ang. Well; come to me to-morrow. | |
| Lucio. [Aside to ISAB.] Go to; ’tis well: away! | |
| Isab. Heaven keep your honour safe! | |
| Ang. [Aside.] Amen: | 188 |
| For I am that way going to temptation, | |
| Where prayers cross. | |
| Isab. At what hour to-morrow | |
| Shall I attend your lordship? | 192 |
| Ang. At any time ’fore noon. | |
| Isab. Save your honour! [Exeunt ISABELLA, LUCIO, and PROVOST. | |
| Ang. From thee; even from thy virtue! | |
| What’s this? what’s this? Is this her fault or mine? | 196 |
| The tempter or the tempted, who sins most? | |
| Ha! | |
| Not she; nor doth she tempt: but it is I, | |
| That, lying by the violet in the sun, | 200 |
| 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, | 204 |
| 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 | 208 |
| That make her good? O, let her brother live! | |
| Thieves for their robbery have authority | |
| When judges steal themselves. What! do I love her, | |
| That I desire to hear her speak again, | 212 |
| And feast upon her eyes? What is’t I dream on? | |
| O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint, | |
| With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous | |
| Is that temptation that doth goad us on | 216 |
| 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 | |
| Subdues me quite. Ever till now, | 220 |
| When men were fond, I smil’d and wonder’d how. [Exit. | |