The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 353

by William Shakespeare


  ISABELLA Tomorrow? O, that’s sudden.

  Spare him, spare him!

  He’s not prepar’d for death. Even for our kitchens

  85

  We kill the fowl of season: shall we serve heaven

  With less respect than we do minister

  To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you:

  Who is it that hath died for this offence?

  There’s many have committed it.

  LUCIO [to Isabella] Ay, well said.

  90

  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

  95

  Looks in a glass that shows what future evils,

  Either new, or by remissness new conceiv’d,

  And so in progress to be hatch’d and born,

  Are now to have no successive degrees,

  But ere they live, to end.

  ISABELLA Yet show some pity.

  100

  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;

  105

  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.

  110

  LUCIO [to Isabella] That’s well said.

  ISABELLA Could great men thunder

  As Jove himself does, Jove would ne’er be quiet,

  For every pelting petty officer

  Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder.

  Merciful Heaven,

  115

  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 –

  120

  His glassy essence – like an angry ape

  Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven

  As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens,

  Would all themselves laugh mortal.

  LUCIO [to Isabella]

  O, to him, to him, wench! He will relent;

  125

  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.

  130

  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,

  135

  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,

  140

  Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue

  Against my brother’s life.

  ANGELO [aside] She speaks, and ’tis such sens

  That my sense breeds with it. – Fare you well.

  [going]

  ISABELLA Gentle my lord, turn back.

  ANGELO I will bethink me. Come again tomorrow.

  145

  [going]

  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 sickles of the tested gold,

  150

  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 sunrise: prayers from preserved souls,

  From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate

  155

  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 prayer’s cross’d.

  ISABELLA At what hour tomorrow

  160

  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

  165

  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,

  170

  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!

  175

  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,

  180

  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

  185

  Subdues me quite. Ever till now

  When men were fond, I smil’d, and wonder’d how.

  Exit.

  2.3 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 bless’d order,

  I come to visit the afflicted spirits

  Here in the prison. Do me the common right

  5

  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,

  10

  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.

  15

  DUKE When must he die?r />
  PROVOST As I do think, tomorrow.

  [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 same most patiently.

  20

  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.

  25

  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,

  30

  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,

  35

  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 to-morrow! O injurious love,

  40

  That respites me a life, whose very comfort

  Is still a dying horror!

  PROVOST ’Tis pity of him. Exeunt.

  2.4 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,

  5

  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,

  10

  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.

  15

  Let’s write good angel on the devil’s horn –

  ’Tis not the devil’s crest.

  [knock] How now! Who’s there?

  Enter Servant.

  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,

  20

  Making both it unable for itself

  And dispossessing all my other parts

  Of necessary fitness?

  So play the foolish throngs with one that swounds,

  Come all to help him, and so stop the air

  25

  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?

  30

  ISABELLA I am come to know your pleasure.

  ANGELO [aside]

  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 a while; and, it may be,

  35

  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

  40

  That his soul sicken not.

  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

  45

  In stamps that are forbid. ’Tis all as easy

  Falsely to take away a life true made,

  As to put mettle in restrained means

 

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