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SCENE IV. A room in ANGELO's house.

Enter ANGELO.

Ang. 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;

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 fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity,
Wherein let no man hear me - I take pride,
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:
Let's write good angel on the devil's horn;
"Tis not the devil's crest.

10

15

Enter a Servant.

How now! who's there?

Serv. One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.

Ang. Teach her the way.

-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 swoons;
Come all to help him, and so stop the air
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
offence.
appear

Enter ISABELLA.

25

How now, fair maid? 30

Isab. I am come to know your pleasure.

Ang. That you might know it, would much better please me

Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot

live.

Isab.

Even so.

Heaven keep your honour!

Ang. Yet may he live awhile; and, it may be, 35

As long as you or I: yet he must die.

Isab. Under your sentence?

Ang. Yea.

Isab. When, I beseech you? that in his reprieve,

Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted

That his soul sicken not.

Ang. Ha! fie, these filthy vices!

good

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It were as

To pardon him that hath from nature stolen

A man already made, as to remit

Their saucy sweetness that do coin heaven's image

In stamps that are forbid: 'tis all as easy

Falsely to take away a life true made,

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As to put metal in restrained means
To make a false one.

Isab.

'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in

earth.

50

Ang. 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?

Isab.

Sir, believe this,

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I had rather give my body than my soul.

Ang. I talk not of your soul: our compell'd sins Stand more for number than for accompt.

How say you

?

Isab.
Ang. Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak
Against the thing I say. Answer to this:

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?

Isab.

Please you to do't,

I'll take it as a peril to my soul,

It is no sin at all, but charity.

Ang. Pleased you to do't at peril of your soul,

Were equal poise of sin and charity.

Isab. That I do beg his life, if it be sin,

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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

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Ang.

Nay, but hear me.

Your sense pursues not mine: either you are igno

rant,

Or seem so, craftily; and that's not good.

Isab. Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, But graciously to know I am no better.

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80

Ang. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright When it doth tax itself; as these black masks Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder Than beauty could, display'd. But mark me; To be received plain, I'll speak more gross: Your brother is to die.

Isab. So.

Ang. And his offence is so, as it appears, Accountant to the law upon that pain.

Isab. True.

Ang. 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 desired of such a person,
Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,
Could fetch your brother from the manacles
Of the all-building law; and that there were
No earthly mean to save him, but that either
You must lay down the treasures of your body
To this supposed, or else to let him suffer:
What would you do?

Isab. As much for my poor brother as myself:
That is, were I under the terms of death,
The impression of keen whips I'ld wear as rubies,

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And strip myself to death, as to a bed

That longing have been sick for, ere I'ld yield
My body up to shame.

Ang.

Then must your brother die. Isab. 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.

Ang. Were not you, then, as cruel as the sentence That you have slander'd so?

Isab. Ignomy in ransom and free pardon

Are of two houses: lawful mercy

Is nothing kin to foul redemption.

110

Ang. You seem'd of late to make the law a

tyrant,

And rather proved the sliding of your brother 115 A merriment than a vice.

Isab. 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.

Ang. We are all frail.

Isab.

Else let my brother die,

If not a feodary, but only he

Owe and succeed thy weakness.

Ang. Nay, women are frail too.

120

Isab. Ay, as the glasses where they view them

selves;

Which are as easy broke as they make forms.

126

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