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 determined scope.

Claud.

But in what nature? 70 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. 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. Claud.

80
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

father's grave

Did utter forth a voice. Yes, thou must die: Thou art too noble to conserve a life

my

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 prenzie Angelo!
Isab. O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell,
The damned'st body to invest and cover

In prenzie guards! Dost thou think, Claudio?
If would yield him my virginity,
Thou mightst 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.

100

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; 110
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 fined? 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 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.
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

120

130

From thine own sister's shame? What should I think?

140

must be stolen out of other affairs; but I will attend you awhile. (Walks apart. Duke. Son, I have overheard what hath passed between you and your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her; only he hath made an assay of her virtue to practise his judgement with the disposition of natures: she, having the truth of honour in her, hath made him that gracious denial which he is most glad to receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I know this to be true; therefore prepare yourself to death: do not satisfy your resolution with hopes that are falDe: to-morrow you must die; go to your knees and make ready.

Claud. Let me ask my sister pardon. I am 9 out of love with life that I will sue to be rid of it.

Duke. Hold you there: farewell. Claudio.] Provost, a word with you!

gone.

Re-enter PROVOST.

[Exit

Pree. What's your will, father? Dake. That now you are come, you will be Leave me awhile with the maid: my mind promises with my habit no loss shall touch her by my company.

Free. In good time.

[Exit Provost. Isabella comes forward. Duke. The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good: the goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of your complexion, shall keep the body of it ever fair. The assault that Angelo hath made to you, fortune hath conveyed to my understanding: and, but that frailty hath examples for his falling, I should wonder at Angelo. How will you do to content this substitute, and to save your brother?

Isab. I am now going to resolve him: I had rather my brother die by the law than my son Sould be unlawfully born. But, O, how much is the good duke deceived in Angelo! If ever he return and I can speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or discover his government.

Duke That shall not be much amiss yet, as the matter now stands, he will avoid your accusation; he made trial of you only. Therefore fasten your ear on my advisings: to the love I have in doing good a remedy presents itself. I make myself believe that you may most upnighteously do a poor wronged lady a merited benefit; redeem your brother from the angry law; do no stain to your own gracious person; and much please the absent duke, if peradventure he shall ever return to have hearing of this business.

211

Isa. Let me hear you speak farther. I have sarit to do any thing that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.

Dake. Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have you not heard speak of Mariana, the sister of Frederick the great soldier who miscarried at sea?

lab. I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name. 220 Duke. She should this Angelo have married; was affianced to her by oath, and the nuptial appointed: between which time of the contract ad limit of the solemnity, her brother Frederick

was wrecked at sea, having in that perished vessel the dowry of his sister. But mark how heavily this befell to the poor gentlewoman: there she lost a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward her ever most kind and natural; with him, the portion and sinew of her fortune, her marriagedowry; with both, her combinate husband, this well-seeming Angelo.

Isab. Can this be so? did Angelo so leave her? Duke. Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them with his comfort; swallowed his vows, whole, pretending in her discoveries of dishonour: in few, bestowed her on her own lamentation, which she yet wears for his sake; and he, a marble to her tears, is washed with them, but relents not. Isab. What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid from the world! What corruption in this life, that it will let this man live! But how out of this can she avail?

Duke. It is a rupture that you may easily heal: and the cure of it not only saves your brother, but keeps you from dishonour in doing it. Isab. Show me how, good father.

Duke. This forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance of her first affection: his unjust unkindness, that in all reason should have quenched her love, hath, like an impediment in the current, made it more violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his requiring with a plausible obedience; agree with his demands to the point; only refer yourself to this advantage, first, that your stay with him may not be long; that the time may have all shadow and silence in it; and the place answer to convenience. This being granted in course,-and now follows all,-we shall advise this wronged maid to stead up your appointment, go in your place; if the encounter acknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him to her recompense: and here, by, this, is your brother saved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid will I frame and make fit for his attempt. If you think well to carry this as you may, the doubleness of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof. What think you of it?

Isab. The image of it gives me content already; and I trust it will grow to a most pro- | sperous perfection.

Duke. It lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily to Angelo: if for this night he entreat you to his bed, give him promise of satisfaction. I will presently to Saint Luke's: there, at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana. At that place call upon me; and dispatch with Angelo, that it may be quickly. Isab. I thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father." [Exeunt severally. 281

SCENE II. The street before the prison. Enter, on one side, DUKE disguised as before; on

the other, ELBOW, and Officers with POMPEY.

Elb. Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will needs buy and sell men and women like beasts, we shall have all the world drink brown and white bastard.

Duke. O heavens ! what stuff is here? Pom. 'Twas never merry world since, of two usuries, the merriest was put down, and the wors

Elb. Come your way, sir. 'Bless you, good father friar.

Duke. And you, good brother father. What offence hath this man made you, sir?

Elb. Marry, sir, he hath offended the law: and, sir, we take him to be a thief too, sir; for we have found upon him, sir, a strange picklock, which we have sent to the deputy.

21

Duke. Fie, sirrah! a bawd, a wicked bawd!
The evil that thou causest to be done,
That is thy means to live. Do thou but think
What 'tis to cram a maw or clothe a back
From such a filthy vice: say to thyself,
From their abominable and beastly touches
I drink, I eat, array myself, and live.
Canst thou believe thy living is a life,
So stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend.
Pom. Indeed, it does stink in some sort, sir;
but yet, sir, I would prove-
30
Duke. Nay, if the devil have given thee proofs
for sin,

Thou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer:
Correction and instruction must both work
Ere this rude beast will profit.

Elb. He must before the deputy, sir; he has given him warning: the deputy cannot abide a whoremaster: if he be a whoremonger, and comes before him, he were as good go a mile on his errand.

Duke. That we were all, as some would seem to be,

40

Lucio. How now, noble Pompey! What, at the wheels of Cæsar? art thou led in triamph? What, is there none of Pygmalion's images, newly made woman, to be had now, for putting the hand in the pocket and extracting it clutched? What reply, ha? What sayest thou to this tune, matter and method? Is't not drowned i' the last rain, ha? What sayest thou, Trot? Is the world as it was, man? Which is the way? Is it sad, and few words? or how? The trick of it?

Duke. Still thus, and thus; still worse! Lucio. How doth my dear morsel, thy mistress? Procures she still, ha?

Pom. Troth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she is herself in the tub.

Lucio. Why, 'tis good; it is the right of it; it must be so: ever your fresh whore and your powdered bawd: an unshunned consequence; it must be so. Art going to prison, Pompey?

Pom. Yes, faith, sir.

Lucio. Why, 'tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell: go, say I sent thee thither. For debt, Pompey? or how?

Elb. For being a bawd, for being a bawd. Lucio. Well, then, imprison him: if imprisonment be the due of a bawd, why, 'tis his right: bawd is he doubtless, and of antiquity too; bawd

Duke. I know none. Can you tell me of any? Lucio. Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other some, he is in Rome: but where is he, think you?

Duke. I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well.

Lucio. It was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from the state, and usurp the beggary he was never born to. Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence; he puts transgression to't. Duke. He does well in't.

ΤΟΙ

Lucio. A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in him: something too crabbed that way, frian.

Duke. It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it.

Lucio. Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred; it is well allied: but it is impossible to extirp it quite, friar, till eating and drinking be put down. They say this Angelo was not made by man and woman after this downright way of creation: is it true, think you?

Duke. How should he be made, then?

Lucio. Some report a sea-maid spawned him; some, that he was begot between two stock-fishes. But it is certain that when he makes water his urine is congealed ice; that I know to be true! and he is a motion generative; that's infallible.

Duke. You are pleasant, sir, and speak apace. Lucio. Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the rebellion of a codpiece to take away the life of a man! Would the duke that is absent have done this? Ere he would have hanged a man for the getting a hundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing a thousand: he had some feeling of the sport; he knew the service, and that instructed him to mercy.

Duke. I never heard the absent duke much detected for women; he was not inclined that way Lucio. O, sir, you are deceived. Duke. "Tis not possible.

13

He

Lucio. Who, not the duke? yes, your beggar of fifty; and his use was to put a ducat in her clack-dish: the duke had crotchets in him. would be drunk too; that let me inform you. Duke. You do him wrong, surely. Lucio. Sir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the duke: and I believe I know the cause of his withdrawing.