...enables human beings to live against the grain of their shameful condition. There is reference to grace: all the souls that were, were forfeit once, And He...the vantage best have took Found out the remedy. How should you be If He, which is the top of judgement, should But judge you as you are? (2.2.73-9) But...

...thought and feeling through the play? Are we to try to reconcile the deeply Christian cry of Isabella: Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once; And...the vantage best have took, Found out the remedy; (n, ii, 73-5) with the Duke's speech on death in ra, i? In this connexion we should remember that,...

...she begs him to remember that we must be merciful, as the Father was also merciful in redeeming us: Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once, And...remedy. How would you be If he which is the top of judgement should But judge you as you are? O, think on that! And mercy then will breathe within your...

...transformation that occurs when we consider our own judgments before God's . . . How would you be, If He, which the top of judgment, should But judge you as you are?...mercy then will breathe within your lips, Like man new made.2 So, knowing that we are to be judged, we should cut one another some slack. This, I suppose,...

...justice to its limits, and, if he did, as Shakespeare asks us, How would you be If He, which is the tops of judgment, should But judge you as you are? O think...then will breathe within your lips Like man new made. 1 And that is a lesson which must govern any project for extending the administration of law to new...

...himself is impartial, and that he too may find himself in need of the mercy which God provided in Christ: Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once; And...will breathe within your lips, Like man new made. Measure for Measure Act 2, Scene 2 Angelo refuses: Claudio must die. But at the same time Angelo is...

...one half so good a grace As mercy does . . . ANGELO Your brother is a forfeit of the law, ISABELLA Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once, And...remedy. How would you be If He, which is the top of judgement, should But judge you as you are? (2.2.59-77)16 Considered in its religious terms, the dialogue...

...theological basis for this has never been better expressed than in two well-known Shakespearean passages: Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once; And...took Found out the remedy. How would you be, If he, that is the top of judgment, should But judge you as you are? O, think on that; And mercy then will...

...play as a whole suggests a dialectic of mercy and discipline. But recall Isabella's eloquent words: "Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once,/...the vantage best have took / Found out the remedy" (2.2.73-75). For Isabella, our being redeemed from Original Sin by Christ's death and resurrection...

...prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy. ISABELLA. Alas! alas! Why all the souls that are, were forfeit once; And He, that might the Vantage...then will breathe within your lips Like man new made! The beautiful things which Isabella is made to utter, have, like the sayings of Portia, become proverbial:...