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, Isab. That I do beg his life, if it be sin, Ang. Nay, but hear me: Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant, 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. Ang. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright, When it doth tax itself: as these black masks 1 Proclaim an enshield 2 beauty ten times louder Than beauty could displayed.-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 you, Ang. Admit no other way to save his life, Isab. As much for my poor brother, as myself: 1 The masks worn by female spectators of the play are here probably meant. 2 i. e. enshielded, covered. 3 i. e. conversation that tends to nothing. That is, were I under the terms of death, The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies, That longing I have been sick for, ere I'd yield Ang. Then must your brother die. Isab. And 'twere the cheaper way: Better it were, a brother died at once, Than that a sister, by redeeming him, Should die forever. Ang. Were not you then as cruel as the sentence That you have slandered so? Isab. Ignomy in ransom, and free pardon, Are of two houses: lawful mercy is Nothing akin to foul redemption. Ang. You seemed of late to make the law a tyrant; And rather proved the sliding of your brother A merriment than a vice. Isab. O pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out, To have what we'd 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 foodary, but only he. Owe, and succeed by weakness.? Nav, women are frail, too. 1g. Isb. Av. as the glasses where they view themselves; Which are as easy broke as they make forms. Women-Help Heaven! men their creation mar In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail; that it deserves to be exsalage, held lands of the vice, which tenure was Angela, we are all frail." --s, who owe what each other by the The comparing fecdary who owes ratures by taking in Heaven to as For we are soft as our complexions are, Ang. I think it well: And from this testimony of your own sex, (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 : you be one, (as you are well expressed If By all external warrants,) show it now, By putting on the destined livery. Isab. I have no tongue but one: gentle my lord, Isab. My brother did love Juliet; and you tell me, That he shall die for it. Ang. He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love. Isab. I know, your virtue hath a license in't, Which seems a little fouler than it is, To pluck on others.2 Ang. Believe me, on mine honor, My words express my purpose. Isab. Ha! Little honor to be much believed, And most pernicious purpose!-Seeming, seeming! 3 I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't: Sign me a present pardon for my brother, Or, with an outstretched throat, I'll tell the world, Ang. That you shall stifle in your own report, 1 i. e. impressions 2 i. e. "your virtue assumes an air of licentiousness, which is not natu ral to you, on purpose to try me." 3 Seeming is hypocrisy. Lay by all nicety, and prolixious blushes, That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother Or else he must not only die the death, Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true. Bidding the law make courtesy to their will; To such abhorred pollution. Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die: I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request, And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest [Exit. 1 i. e. temptation, instigation. ACT III. SCENE I. A Room in the Prison. Enter Duke, CLAUDIO, and Provost. Duke. So, then you hope of pardon from lord Angelo? Claud. 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. life, If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing 1 Reason thus with That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art, (Servile to all the skyey influences,) That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st,2 Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool; And yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble; Are nursed by baseness. Thou art by no means valiant ; For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep, 1 Keep here means care for, a common acceptation of the word in Chaucer and later writers. 2 i. e. dwellest. 3 The old copy reads effects. We should read affects, i. e. affections, passions of the mind. See Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 4. VOL. I. 47 |