A room in the prison. Enter DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as before, CLAUDIO, and Provost DUKE VINCENTIO So then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo? CLAUDIO The miserable have no other medicine But only hope:
I've hope to live, and am prepared to die. DUKE VINCENTIO Be absolute for death; either death or life Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art, Servile to all the skyey influences, That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st, Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool;For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun And yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble;For all the accommodations that thou bear'st Are nursed by baseness. Thou'rt by no means valiant;For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provokest; yet grossly fear'st Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;For what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get, And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain;For thy complexion shifts to strange effects, After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor;For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows, Thou bear's thy heavy riches but a journey, And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none;For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire, The mere effusion of thy proper loins, Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum, For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age, But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich, Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty, To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this That bears the name of life? Yet in this life Lie hid moe thousand deaths: yet death we fear, That makes these odds all even. CLAUDIO I humbly thank you.
To sue to live, I find I seek to die;And, seeking death, find life: let it come on. ISABELLA [Within] What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company! Provost Who's there? come in: the wish deserves a welcome. DUKE VINCENTIO Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again. CLAUDIO Most holy sir, I thank you.
Enter ISABELLA ISABELLA My business is a word or two with Claudio. Provost And very welcome. Look, signior, here's your sister. DUKE VINCENTIO Provost, a word with you. Provost As many as you please. DUKE VINCENTIO Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be concealed.
Exeunt DUKE VINCENTIO and Provost CLAUDIO Now, sister, what's the comfort? ISABELLA 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. CLAUDIO Is there no remedy? ISABELLA None, but such remedy as, to save a head, To cleave a heart in twain. CLAUDIO But is there any? ISABELLA 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. CLAUDIO Perpetual durance? ISABELLA Ay, just; perpetual durance, a restraint, Though all the world's vastidity you had, To a determined scope. CLAUDIO But in what nature? ISABELLA In such a one as, you consenting to't, Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear, And leave you naked. CLAUDIO Let me know the point. ISABELLA 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. Darest thou die?
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. CLAUDIO 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. ISABELLA 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. CLAUDIO The prenzie Angelo! ISABELLA O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell, The damned'st body to invest and cover In prenzie guards! Dost thou think, Claudio?
If I would yield him my virginity, Thou mightst be freed. CLAUDIO O heavens! it cannot be. ISABELLA 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. CLAUDIO Thou shalt not do't. ISABELLA O, were it but my life, I'ld throw it down for your deliverance As frankly as a pin. CLAUDIO Thanks, dear Isabel. ISABELLA Be ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow. CLAUDIO 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. ISABELLA Which is the least? CLAUDIO If it were damnable, he being so wise, Why would he for the momentary trick Be perdurably fined? O Isabel! ISABELLA What says my brother? CLAUDIO Death is a fearful thing. ISABELLA And shamed life a hateful. CLAUDIO 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 spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling region 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 thought Imagine howling: 'tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life That age, ache, penury and imprisonment Can lay on nature is a paradise To what we fear of death. ISABELLA Alas, alas! CLAUDIO Sweet sister, let me live: