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Enter ISABELLA.

Isab. What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company! Prov. Who's there? come in: the wish deserves a wel

come.

Duke. Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again.

Claud. Most holy sir, I thank you.

Isab. My business is a word or two with Claudio.

Prov. And very welcome. Look, signior, here's your

sister.

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As many as you please.

[Exeunt DUKE and Prov.

Duke. Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be

conceal'd.

Claud. Now, sister, what 's the comfort?

Isab. 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;
To-morrow you set on.

Claud.

Is there no remedy?

Isab. None, but such remedy as, to save a head, To cleave a heart in twain.

Claud.

But is there any?

Isab. 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.

Claud.

Perpetual durance? Isab. Ay, just, perpetual durance; a restraint, Though all the world's vastidity you had,

To a determin'd scope.

Claud.

But in what nature?

Isab. In such a one as (you consenting to 't) Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear. And leave you naked.

Claud.

Let me know the point.

Isab. 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?

a A leiger ambassador means a resident ambassador.

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.

Claud.

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.

Isab. 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' the head, and follies doth emmew
As falcon doth the fowl,-is yet a devil;

His filth within being cast, he would appear
A pond as deep as hell.

Claud.

The precise Angelo?
Isab. O, 't is 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 might'st be freed?

Claud.

O, Heavens! it cannot be.

Isab. Yes, he would give 't 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 to-morrow.

Claud.

Isab. O, were it but my life,

Thou shalt not do 't.

I'd throw it down for your deliverance

As frankly as a pin.

Claud.

Thanks, dear Isabel.

Isab. Be ready, Claudio, for your death to-morrow.
Claud. Yes. Has he affections in him,

That thus can make him bite the law by the nose,

When he would force it? Sure it is no sin;

Or of the deadly seven it is the least.

Isab. Which is the least?

Claud. If it were damnable, he, being so wise,

Why would he for the momentary trick

Be perdurably fin'd?-O Isabel!

Isab. What says my brother?

Claud.

Death is a fearful thing.

Isab. And shamed life a hateful.

Claud, 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 a spir
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd 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 thoughts
Imagine howling!-'t is too horrible!

The weariest and most loathed worldly life,
That age, ach, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise

To what we fear of death.

Isab. Alas! alas!

Claud

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.

Isab.

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 play'd my father fair!

For such a warped slip of wilderness b

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.

a Delighted. Does not the word (de-lighted) mean removed from the regions of light, which is a strictly classic use of the prepositive particle de, and very frequent in Shakspere ?

b Wilderness-wildness.

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