The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare [book recommendations based on other books txt] 📗

is it that hath died for this offence?

There’s many have committed it.

LUCIO. [Aside] Ay, well said.

ANGELO. 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-Are now to have no successive degrees, But here they live to end.

ISABELLA. Yet show some pity.

ANGELO. I show it most of all when I show justice; For then I pity those I do not know,

Which a dismiss’d offence would after gall, And do him right that, answering one foul wrong, Lives not to act another. Be satisfied; Your brother dies tomorrow; be content.

ISABELLA. So you must be the first that gives this sentence, And he that suffers. O, it is excellent To have a giant’s strength! But it is tyrannous To use it like a giant.

LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] That’s well said.

ISABELLA. Could great men thunder

As Jove himself does, Jove would never be quiet, For every pelting petty officer

Would use his heaven for thunder,

Nothing but thunder. Merciful Heaven, Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak Than the soft myrtle. But man, proud man, Dress’d in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d, His glassy essence, like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As makes the angels weep; who, with our speens, Would all themselves laugh mortal.

LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] O, to him, to him, wench! He will relent; He’s coming; I perceive ‘t.

PROVOST. [Aside] Pray heaven she win him.

ISABELLA. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself.

Great men may jest with saints: ‘tis wit in them; But in the less foul profanation.

LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Thou’rt i’ th’ right, girl; more o’ that.

ISABELLA. That in the captain’s but a choleric word Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Art avis’d o’ that? More on’t.

ANGELO. Why do you put these sayings upon me?

ISABELLA. Because authority, though it err like others, Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself That skins the vice o’ th’ 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.

ANGELO. [Aside] She speaks, and ‘tis

Such sense that my sense breeds with it.- Fare you well.

ISABELLA. Gentle my lord, turn back.

ANGELO. I will bethink me. Come again tomorrow.

ISABELLA. Hark how I’ll bribe you; good my lord, turn back.

ANGELO. How, bribe me?

ISABELLA. Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.

LUCIO. [To ISABELLA) You had marr’d all else.

ISABELLA. Not with fond sicles of the tested gold, Or stones, whose rate 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.

ANGELO. Well; come to me tomorrow.

LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Go to; ‘tis well; away.

ISABELLA. Heaven keep your honour safe!

ANGELO. [Aside] Amen; for I

Am that way going to temptation

Where prayers cross.

ISABELLA. At what hour tomorrow

Shall I attend your lordship?

ANGELO. At any time ‘fore noon.

ISABELLA. Save your honour! Exeunt all but ANGELO

ANGELO. 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 flow’r, 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, fie, fie, fie!

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 wond’red how. Exit

SCENE III.

A prison

 

Enter, severally, DUKE, disguised as a FRIAR, and PROVOST

 

DUKE. Hail to you, Provost! so I think you are.

PROVOST. I am the Provost. What’s your will, good friar?

DUKE. Bound by my charity and my blest 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.

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

 

Enter JULIET

 

Look, here comes one; a gentlewoman of mine, Who, falling in the flaws 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?

PROVOST. As I do think, tomorrow.

[To JULIET] I have provided for you; stay awhile 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 him.

DUKE. So then, it seems, your most offenceful act Was mutually committed.

JULIET. Mutually.

DUKE. Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.

JULIET. I do confess it, and repent it, father.

DUKE. ‘Tis meet so, daughter; but lest you do repent As that the sin hath brought you to this shame, Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not heaven, Showing we would not spare heaven as we love it, But as we stand in fear-JULIET. I do repent me as it is an evil, And take the shame with joy.

DUKE. There rest.

Your partner, as I hear, must die tomorrow, And I am going with instruction to him.

Grace go with you! Benedicite! Exit JULIET. Must die tomorrow! O, injurious law, That respites me a life whose very comfort Is still a dying horror!

PROVOST. ‘Tis pity of him. Exeunt

SCENE IV.

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, 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 sere and tedious; yea, my gravity, 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 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 SERVANT

 

How now, who’s there?

SERVANT. One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

ANGELO. Ha! Fie, these filthy vices! It were as good To pardon him that hath from nature stol’n 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.

ISABELLA. ‘Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.

ANGELO. Say you so? Then I shall pose 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?

ISABELLA. Sir, believe this:

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 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?

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. Pleas’d you to do’t at peril of your soul, Were equal poise of sin and charity.

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.

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.

ANGELO. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright When it doth tax itself; as these black masks Proclaim an enshielded beauty ten times louder Than beauty could, display’d. But mark me: To be received plain, I’ll speak more gross-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.

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 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