A room in ANGELO's house. Enter ANGELO ANGELO 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.
Enter a Servant How now! who's there? Servant One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you. ANGELO Teach her the way.
Exit Servant O heavens!
Why does my blood thus muster to my heart, 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 appear offence.
Enter ISABELLA
How now, fair maid? ISABELLA I am come to know your pleasure. ANGELO That you might know it, would much better please me Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live. ISABELLA Even so. Heaven keep your honour! ANGELO Yet may he live awhile; and, it may be, As long as you or I yet he must die. ISABELLA Under your sentence? ANGELO Yea. ISABELLA When, I beseech you? that in his reprieve, Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted That his soul sicken not. ANGELO Ha! fie, these filthy vices! It were as good 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 As to put metal in restrained means To make a false one. ISABELLA 'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth. ANGELO 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? ISABELLA Sir, believe this, I had rather give my body than my soul. ANGELO I talk not of your soul: our compell'd sins Stand more for number than for accompt. ISABELLA How say you? ANGELO 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? ISABELLA Please you to do't, I'll take it as a peril to my soul, It is no sin at all, but charity. ANGELO Pleased you to do't at peril of your soul, Were equal poise of sin and charity. ISABELLA That I do beg his life, if it be sin, Heaven let me bear it! you granting of my suit, 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. ANGELO Nay, but hear me.
Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant, Or seem so craftily; and that's not good. ISABELLA Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, But graciously to know I am no better. ANGELO 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: