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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,

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May call it back again: Well believe this,
No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace
As mercy does.

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.

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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;
Takes note of what is done, and, like a prophet.
Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils
(Either now, or by remissness new-conceiv'd,
And so in progress to be hatch'd and born)

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That skins the vice o' the top. Go to your bosom ;
Knock there, and ask your heart, what it doth know
That's like my brother's fault: if it confess
A natural guiltiness, such as is his,

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother's life.

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,
Or stones, whose rates are either rich or poor
As fancy values them; but with true prayers,
That shall be up at heaven, and enter there
Ere sun-rise prayers from preserved souls,
From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal.

Ang.
Well; come to me to-morrow.
Lucio. [To ISAB.] Go to; 'tis well away!
Isab. Heaven keep your honour safe!
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!
Not she, nor doth she tempt; but it is I,
That lying by the violet in the sun,

Do, as the carrion does, not as the flower,
Corrupt with virtuous season.

Can it be,

That modesty may more betray our sense
Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground
enough,

Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,
And pitch our evils there? O, fye, fye, fye!
What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?
Dost thou desire her foully for those things
That make her good? O, let her brother live!
Thieves for their robbery have authority,
When judges steal themselves. What! do I love her,
That I desire to hear her speak again,
And feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on?
O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous
Is that temptation, that doth goad us on

To sin in loving virtue. Never could the strumpet,
With all her double vigour, art and nature,
Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
Subdues me quite.-Ever, till now,

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
The nature of their crimes, that I may minister
To them accordingly.

Prov. I would do more than that, if more were needful.

Enter JULIET.

Look; here comes one: a gentlewoman of mine,
Who, falling in the flames of her own youth,
Hath blister'd her report. She is with child,
And he that got it, sentenc'd-a young man
More fit to do another such offence,
Than die for this.

Duke. When must he die?
Prov.

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?
Juliet. I do, and bear the shame most patiently.
Duke. I'll teach you how you shall arraign your
conscience,

And try your penitence, if it be sound,
Or hollowly put on.

Juliet.

I'll gladly learn.

Duke. Love you the man that wrong'd you? Juliet. Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd

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Ang. 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 sear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity,
Wherein (let no man hear me) I take pride,
Could I, with boot, change for an idle plume,

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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
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.

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?

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Ang. And his offence is so, as it appears
Accountant to the law upon that pain.
Isab. True.

Ang. Admit no other way to save his life,
(As I subscribe not that, nor any other,
But in the loss of question,) that you, his sister,
Finding yourself desir'd of such a person,
Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,
Could fetch your brother from the manacles
Of the all-binding law; and that there were
No earthly mean to save him, but that either
You must lay down the treasures of your body
To this suppos'd, or else to let him suffer,
What would you do?

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
A merriment, than a vice.

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.

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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.

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