ACT III.

SCENE I. A Room in the Prison.

Enter Duke, CLAUDIO, and Provost.

Duke. So, then you hope of pardon from lord Angelo?

Claud. The miserable have no other medicine, But only hope:

I have hope to live, and am prepared to die.

Duke. Be absolute for death; either death or life Shall thereby be the sweeter.

life,

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

1

Reason thus with

That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art, (Servile to all the skyey influences,)

That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st,2

Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool;

For him thou labor'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 art 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 provok'st; 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 striv'st to get;
And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain;
For thy complexion shifts to strange affects,3

After the moon.

If thou art rich, thou art poor;

1 Keep here means care for, a common acceptation of the word in Chaucer and later writers.

2 i. e. dwellest.

3 The old copy reads effects. We should read affects, i. e. affections, passions of the mind. See Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 4.

For, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'st 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; 2 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 more thousand deaths; yet death we fear,
That makes these odds all even.

Claud.

I humbly thank you.

To sue to live, I find, I seek to die:
And seeking death, find life: let it come on.

Enter ISABElla.

Isab. What, ho!

Peace here; grace and good

company!

Prov. Who's there? Come in; the wish deserves

a welcome.

Duke. Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again.

Claud. Most holy sir, I thank you.

Isab. My business is a word or two with Claudio. Prov. And very welcome. Look, seignior, here's

your sister.

Duke. Provost, a word with you.

Prov.

As many as you please. Duke. Bring me to hear them speak, where I may

be concealed,3

Yet hear them.

Exeunt Duke and Provost.

2 Old age.

1 Serpigo is a leprous eruption.

3 The first folio reads, "Bring them to hear me speak," &c.; the second folio reads, "Bring them to speak." The emendation is by Steevens.

Claud. Now, sister, what's the comfort?

Isab. Why, as all comforts are, most good indeed: Lord Angelo, having affairs to Heaven,

Intends you for his swift ambassador,

Where you shall be an everlasting leiger: 1

Therefore your best appointment2 make with speed; To-morrow you set on.

Claud.

Is there no remedy?

Isab. None, but such remedy, as to save a head, To cleave a heart in twain.

Claud.

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 vastidity3 you had,

To a determined scope.4

Claud.

But in what nature?

Isab. In such a one as (you consenting to't) Would bark your honor 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 should'st entertain,
And six or seven winters more respect
Than a perpetual honor. Dar'st 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.5

1 A leiger is a resident.

2 i. e. preparation.

3 i. e. vastness of extent.

4 “To a determined scope

---a confinement of your mind to one painful idea; to ignominy, of which the remembrance can neither be suppressed nor escaped.

5" And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,

In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great

As when a giant dies.”

This beautiful passage is in all our minds and memories, but it most

Claud.

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 my father's

grave

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

1

In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy-
Whose settled visage and deliberate word
Nips youth i' the head, and follies doth enmew,1
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 princely Angelo?
Isab. O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell,
The damned'st body to invest and cover
In princely guards! Dost thou think, Claudio,
If I would yield him my virginity,

Thou might'st be freed?

Claud.

O, Heavens! it cannot be.

Isab. Yes, he would give it 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.

Isab. Be ready, Claudio, for your death to-morrow.

frequently stands in quotation detached from the antecedent line-"The sense of death is most in apprehension;" without which it is liable to an opposite construction.

1 To enmew is a term in falconry, signifying to restrain, to keep in a mew or cage either by force or terror.

2 Guards were trimmings, facings, or other ornaments applied upon a dress. It here stands, by synecdoche, for dress.

3 Freely.