Measure for Measure

Measure for Measure

ACT II SCENE IV	A room in ANGELO's house.
	Enter ANGELO
ANGELO	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,	5
	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 fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity,	10
	Wherein--let no man hear me--I take pride,
	Could I with boot change for an idle plume,
	Which the air beats for vain. O place, O form,
	How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
	Wrench awe from fools and tie the wiser souls	15
	To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood:
	Let's write good angel on the devil's horn:
	'Tis not the devil's crest.
	Enter a Servant
	How now! who's there?
Servant	One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.	20
ANGELO	Teach her the way.
	Exit Servant
	O heavens!
	Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,
	Making both it unable for itself,
	And dispossessing all my other parts	25
	Of necessary fitness?
	So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;
	Come all to help him, and so stop the air
	By which he should revive: and even so
	The general, subject to a well-wish'd king,	30
	Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
	Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
	Must needs appear offence.
	Enter ISABELLA
	How now, fair maid?
ISABELLA	I am come to know your pleasure.	35
ANGELO	That you might know it, would much better please me
	Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live.
ISABELLA	Even so. Heaven keep your honour!
ANGELO	Yet may he live awhile; and, it may be,
	As long as you or I yet he must die.	40
ISABELLA	Under your sentence?
ANGELO	Yea.
ISABELLA	When, I beseech you? that in his reprieve,
	Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted
	That his soul sicken not.	45
ANGELO	Ha! fie, 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	50
	Falsely to take away a life true made
	As to put metal in restrained means
	To make a false one.
ISABELLA	'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.
ANGELO	Say you so? then I shall pose you quickly.	55
	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?
ISABELLA	Sir, believe this,	60
	I had rather give my body than my soul.
ANGELO	I talk not of your soul: our compell'd sins
	Stand more for number than for accompt.
ISABELLA	How say you?
ANGELO	Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak	65
	Against the thing I say. Answer to this:
	I, now the voice of the recorded law,
	Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life:
	Might there not be a charity in sin
	To save this brother's life?	70
ISABELLA	Please you to do't,
	I'll take it as a peril to my soul,
	It is no sin at all, but charity.
ANGELO	Pleased you to do't at peril of your soul,
	Were equal poise of sin and charity.	75
ISABELLA	That I do beg his life, if it be sin,
	Heaven let me bear it! you granting of my suit,
	If that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer
	To have it added to the faults of mine,
	And nothing of your answer.	80
ANGELO	Nay, but hear me.
	Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant,
	Or seem so craftily; and that's not good.
ISABELLA	Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good,
	But graciously to know I am no better.	85
ANGELO	Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright
	When it doth tax itself; as these black masks
	Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder
	Than beauty could, display'd. But mark me;
	To be received plain, I'll speak more gross:	90
	Your brother is to die.
ISABELLA	So.
ANGELO	And his offence is so, as it appears,
	Accountant to the law upon that pain.
ISABELLA	True.	95
ANGELO	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 desired of such a person,
	Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,	100
	Could fetch your brother from the manacles
	Of the all-building 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 supposed, or else to let him suffer;	105
	What would you do?
ISABELLA	As much for my poor brother as myself:
	That is, were I under the terms of death,
	The impression of keen whips I'ld wear as rubies,
	And strip myself to death, as to a bed	110
	That longing have been sick for, ere I'ld yield
	My body up to shame.
ANGELO	Then must your brother die.
ISABELLA	And 'twere the cheaper way:
	Better it were a brother died at once,	115
	Than that a sister, by redeeming him,
	Should die for ever.
ANGELO	Were not you then as cruel as the sentence
	That you have slander'd so?
ISABELLA	Ignomy in ransom and free pardon	120
	Are of two houses: lawful mercy
	Is nothing kin to foul redemption.
ANGELO	You seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant;
	And rather proved the sliding of your brother
	A merriment than a vice.	125
ISABELLA	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.
ANGELO	We are all frail.	130
ISABELLA	Else let my brother die,
	If not a feodary, but only he
	Owe and succeed thy weakness.
ANGELO	Nay, women are frail too.
ISABELLA	Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves;	135
	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;
	For we are soft as our complexions are,
	And credulous to false prints.	140
ANGELO	I think it well:
	And from this testimony of your own sex,--
	Since I suppose we are made to be no stronger
	Than faults may shake our frames,--let me be bold;
	I do arrest your words. Be that you are,	145
	That is, a woman; if you be more, you're none;
	If you be one, as you are well express'd
	By all external warrants, show it now,
	By putting on the destined livery.
ISABELLA	I have no tongue but one: gentle my lord,	150
	Let me entreat you speak the former language.
ANGELO	Plainly conceive, I love you.
ISABELLA	My brother did love Juliet,
	And you tell me that he shall die for it.
ANGELO	He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.	155
ISABELLA	I know your virtue hath a licence in't,
	Which seems a little fouler than it is,
	To pluck on others.
ANGELO	Believe me, on mine honour,
	My words express my purpose.	160
ISABELLA	Ha! little honour to be much believed,
	And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!
	I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't:
	Sign me a present pardon for my brother,
	Or with an outstretch'd throat I'll tell the world aloud	165
	What man thou art.
ANGELO	Who will believe thee, Isabel?
	My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life,
	My vouch against you, and my place i' the state,
	Will so your accusation overweigh,	170
	That you shall stifle in your own report
	And smell of calumny. I have begun,
	And now I give my sensual race the rein:
	Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;
	Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes,	175
	That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother
	By yielding up thy body to my will;
	Or else he must not only die the death,
	But thy unkindness shall his death draw out
	To lingering sufferance. Answer me to-morrow,	180
	Or, by the affection that now guides me most,
	I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,
	Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true.
	Exit
ISABELLA	To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,
	Who would believe me? O perilous mouths,	185
	That bear in them one and the self-same tongue,
	Either of condemnation or approof;
	Bidding the law make court'sy to their will:
	Hooking both right and wrong to the appetite,
	To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother:	190
	Though he hath fallen by prompture of the blood,
	Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour.
	That, had he twenty heads to tender down
	On twenty bloody blocks, he'ld yield them up,
	Before his sister should her body stoop	195
	To such abhorr'd pollution.
	Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:
	More than our brother is our chastity.
	I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,
	And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest.	200
	Exit