Prov. Save your honour! [Offering to retire. Ang. Stay a little while.-[To ISAB.]-Y' are welcome: what's your will? Isab. I am a woeful suitor to your honour, Please but your honour hear me. Ang. Well; what's your suit? Isab. There is a vice, that most I do abhor, And most desire should meet the blow of justice, For which I would not plead, but that I must; For which I must not plead, but that I am At war 'twixt will, and will not. Ang. Well; the matter? Isab. I have a brother is condemn'd to die: I do beseech you, let it be his fault, May call it back again: Well believe this, If he had been as you, and you as he, You would have slipt like him; but he, like you, Would not have been so stern. Who is it that hath died for this offence? There's many have committed it. Lucio. [Aside.] Ay, well said. Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept : Those many had not dar'd to do that evil, If the first, that did th' edict infringe, Had answer'd for his deed: now, 'tis awake; That skins the vice o' the top. Go to your bosom ; Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue Ang. [Aside.] She speaks, and 'tis Such sense, that my sense breeds with it.-[To her.]-Fare you well. Isab. Gentle my lord, turn back. Ang. I will bethink me.-Come again to-morrow. Isab. Hark, how I'll bribe you. Good my lord, turn back. Ang. How! bribe me? Isab. Ay, with such gifts, that heaven shall share with you. Lucio. [Aside.] You had marr'd all else. Isab. Not with fond shekels of the tested gold, Ang. [Aside.] Amen; At what hour to-morrow For I am that way going to temptation, Where prayers cross. Isab. Shall I attend your lordship? Ang. Isab. Save your honour! Ang. At any time 'fore noon. [Exeunt LUCIO, ISABELLA, and Provost. From thee; even from thy virtue !– What's this? what's this? Is this her fault, or mine? The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most? Ha! Do, as the carrion does, not as the flower, Can it be, That modesty may more betray our sense Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary, To sin in loving virtue. Never could the strumpet, When men were fond, I smil'd, and wonder'd how. SCENE III.-A Room in a Prison. [Exit. Enter DUKE, habited like a Friar, and Provost. Duke. Hail to you, provost; so I think you are. Prov. I am the provost. What's your will, good friar? Duke. Bound by my charity, and my bless'd order, I come to visit the afflicted spirits Here in the prison: do me the common right To let me see them, and to make me know Prov. I would do more than that, if more were needful. Enter JULIET. Look; here comes one: a gentlewoman of mine, Duke. When must he die? As I do think, to-morrow.[To JULIET.] I have provided for you: stay a while, And you shall be conducted. Duke. Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry? And try your penitence, if it be sound, Juliet. I'll gladly learn. Duke. Love you the man that wrong'd you? Juliet. Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd Ang. When I would pray and think, I think and pray To several subjects: heaven hath my empty words, As if I did but only chew his name, Is like a good thing, being often read, Ang. Yet may he live a while; and, it may be, As long as you, or I: yet he must die. Isab. Under your sentence? Ang. Yea. Isab. When, I beseech you? that in his reprieve, Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted, That his soul sicken not. Ang. Ha! Fye, these filthy vices! It were as good To pardon him, that hath from nature stolen Their saucy sweetness, that do coin heaven's image Isab. 'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth. Ang. Say you so? then, I shall poze 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? Ang. And his offence is so, as it appears Ang. Admit no other way to save his life, Isab. As much for my poor brother as myself: That is, were I under the terms of death, Th' impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies, And strip myself to death, as to a bed That longing I have been sick for, ere I'd yield My body up to shame. Then must Ang. 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 for ever. Ang. Were not you, then, as cruel, as the sentence That you have slander'd so? Isab. Ignomy in ransom, and free pardon, Are of two houses: lawful mercy is Nothing akin to foul redemption. Ang. You seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant; And rather prov'd the sliding of your brother Isab. O, pardon me, my lord! it oft falls out, To have what we would 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. If not a feodary, but only he, Owe, and succeed this weakness. Ang. Nay, women are frail too. Isab. Ay, 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. |