A room in the prison
[Enter DUKE VINCENTIO disguised
as before, CLAUDIO, and Provost]
DUKE VINCENTIO
So then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?
CLAUDIO The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope:
I’ve hope to live, and am prepared to die.
DUKE VINCENTIO Be absolute for death; either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyey influences,
That dost this habitation, where thou keep’st,
Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death’s fool;
For him thou labour’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’rt 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 provokest; 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 strivest to get,
And what thou hast, forget’st. Thou art not certain;
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou’rt poor;
For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear’s 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; 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 moe thousand deaths: yet death we fear,
That makes these odds all even.
CLAUDIO I humbly thank you.
To sue to live, I find I seek to die;
And, seeking death, find life: let it come on.
ISABELLA [Within] What, ho!
Peace here; grace and good company!
Provost Who’s there? come in: the wish deserves a welcome.
DUKE VINCENTIO Dear sir, ere long I’ll visit you again.
CLAUDIO Most holy sir, I thank you.
[Enter ISABELLA]
ISABELLA My business is a word or two with Claudio.
Provost And very welcome. Look, signior, here’s your sister.
DUKE VINCENTIO Provost, a word with you.
Provost As many as you please.
DUKE VINCENTIO
Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be concealed.
[Exeunt DUKE VINCENTIO and Provost]
CLAUDIO Now, sister, what’s the comfort?
ISABELLA Why,
As all comforts are; most good, most good indeed.
Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,
Intends you for his swift ambassador,
Where you shall be an everlasting leiger:
Therefore your best appointment make with speed;
To-morrow you set on.
CLAUDIO Is there no remedy?
ISABELLA None, but such remedy as, to save a head,
To cleave a heart in twain.
CLAUDIO But is there any?
ISABELLA 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.
CLAUDIO Perpetual durance?
ISABELLA Ay, just; perpetual durance, a restraint,
Though all the world’s vastidity you had,
To a determined scope.
CLAUDIO But in what nature?
ISABELLA In such a one as, you consenting to’t,
Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear,
And leave you naked.
CLAUDIO Let me know the point.
ISABELLA O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,
Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain,
And six or seven winters more respect
Than a perpetual honour. Darest 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.
CLAUDIO 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.
ISABELLA
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
In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,
Whose settled visage and deliberate word
Nips youth i’ the head and follies doth emmew
As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil
His filth within being cast, he would appear
A pond as deep as hell.
CLAUDIO The prenzie Angelo!
ISABELLA O, ’tis the cunning livery of hell,
The damned’st body to invest and cover
In prenzie guards! Dost thou think, Claudio?
If I would yield him my virginity,
Thou mightst be freed.
CLAUDIO O heavens! it cannot be.
ISABELLA
Yes, he would give’t 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.
CLAUDIO Thou shalt not do’t.
ISABELLA O, were it but my life,
I’ld throw it down for your deliverance
As frankly as a pin.
CLAUDIO Thanks, dear Isabel.
ISABELLA Be ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow.
CLAUDIO Yes. Has he affections in him,
That thus can make him bite the law by the nose,
When he would force it? Sure, it is no sin,
Or of the deadly seven, it is the least.
ISABELLA Which is the least?
CLAUDIO If it were damnable, he being so wise,
Why would he for the momentary trick
Be perdurably fined? O Isabel!
ISABELLA What says my brother?
CLAUDIO Death is a fearful thing.
ISABELLA And shamed life a hateful.
CLAUDIO Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison’d in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling: ’tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
ISABELLA Alas, alas!
CLAUDIO Sweet sister, let me live:
What sin you do to save a brother’s life,
Nature dispenses with the deed so far
That it becomes a virtue.
ISABELLA O you beast!
O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!
Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?
Is’t not a kind of incest, to take life
From thine own sister’s shame? What should I think?
Heaven shield my mother play’d my father fair!
For such a warped slip of wilderness
Ne’er issued from his blood. Take my defiance!
Die, perish! Might but my bending down
Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed:
I’ll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,
No word to save thee.
CLAUDIO Nay, hear me, Isabel.
ISABELLA O, fie, fie, fie!
Thy sin’s not accidental, but a trade.
Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd:
‘Tis best thou diest quickly.
CLAUDIO O hear me, Isabella!
[Re-enter DUKE VINCENTIO]
DUKE VINCENTIO
Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.
ISABELLA What is your will?
DUKE VINCENTIO
Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and
by have some speech with you: the satisfaction I
would require is likewise your own benefit.
ISABELLA
I have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be
stolen out of other affairs; but I will attend you awhile.
[Walks apart]
DUKE VINCENTIO
Son, I have overheard what hath passed between you
and your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to
corrupt her; only he hath made an essay of her
virtue to practise his judgment with the disposition
of natures: she, having the truth of honour in her,
hath made him that gracious denial which he is most
glad to receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I
know this to be true; therefore prepare yourself to
death: do not satisfy your resolution with hopes
that are fallible: tomorrow you must die; go to
your knees and make ready.
CLAUDIO Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love
with life that I will sue to be rid of it.
DUKE VINCENTIO Hold you there: farewell.
[Exit CLAUDIO]
[Exeunt severally]
Act 2.4 | Act 3.2
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