The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 355

by William Shakespeare


  Though all the world’s vastidity you had,

  To a determin’d scope.

  CLAUDIO But in what nature?

  ISABELLA In such a one as, you consenting to’t,

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  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

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  Than a perpetual honour. 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.

  CLAUDIO Why give you me this shame?

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  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

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  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 settl’d visage and deliberate word

  Nips youth i’th’ head and follies doth enew

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  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 precise Angelo!

  ISABELLA O, ’tis the cunning livery of hell

  The damnedst body to invest and cover

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  In precise 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

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  That I should do what I abhor to name;

  Or else thou diest tomorrow.

  CLAUDIO Thou shalt not do’t.

  ISABELLA O, were it but my life,

  I’d throw it down for your deliverance

  As frankly as a pin.

  CLAUDIO Thanks, dear Isabel.

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  ISABELLA Be ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow.

  CLAUDIO Yes. – Has he affections in him,

  That thus can make him bite the law by th’nose

  When he would force it? – Sure, it is no sin;

  Or of the deadly seven it is the least.

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  ISABELLA Which is the least?

  CLAUDIO If it were damnable, he being so wise,

  Why would he for the momentary trick

  Be perdurably fin’d? – O Isabel!

  ISABELLA What says my brother?

  CLAUDIO Death is a fearful thing.

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  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

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  To bath 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

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  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

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  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!

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  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:

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  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;

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  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 that thou diest quickly. [going]

  CLAUDIO O hear me, Isabella.

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  DUKE [advancing]

  Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.

  ISABELLA What is your will?

  DUKE 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.

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  ISABELLA I have no superfluous leisure; my stay must

  be stolen out of other affairs: but I will attend you a

  while. [Waits behind.]

  DUKE Son, I have overheard what hath passed between

  you and your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to

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  corrupt her; only he hath made an assay of her virtue,

  to practise his judgement 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

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  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

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  love with life that I will sue to be rid of it.

  DUKE Hold you there: farewell. – [Claudio retires.]

  Provost, a word with you.

  PROVOST [advancing] What’s your will, father?

  DUKE That, now you are come, you will be gone. Leave

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  me a while with the maid; my mind promises with my

  habit no loss shall touch her by my company.

  PROVOST In good time.

  Exit with Claudio. Isabella comes forward.

  DUKE The hand that hath made you fair hath made you

  good. The goodness that is cheap in beauty makes

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  beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of

  your complexion, shall keep the body of it ever fair.

  The assault that Angelo hath made to you, fortune

  hath conveyed to my understanding; and, but that

  frailty hath examples for his falling, I should wonder

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  at Angelo. How will you do to content this substitute,

  and to save your brother?

  ISABELLA I am now going to resolve him. I had rather

  my brother die by the law, than my son should be

  unlawfully born. But O, how much is the good Duke

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  deceived in Angelo! If ever he return, and I can speak

  to him, I will open my lips in vain, or discover his

  g
overnment.

  DUKE That shall not be much amiss. Yet, as the matter

  now stands, he will avoid your accusation – he made

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  trial of you only. Therefore fasten your ear on my

  advisings, to the love I have in doing good; a remedy

  presents itself. I do make myself believe that you may

  most uprighteously do a poor wronged lady a merited

  benefit; redeem your brother from the angry law; do

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  no stain to your own gracious person; and much please

  the absent Duke, if peradventure he shall ever return

  to have hearing of this business.

  ISABELLA Let me hear you speak farther. I have spirit to

  do anything that appears not foul in the truth of my

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  spirit.

  DUKE Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have

  you not heard speak of Mariana, the sister of

  Frederick, the great soldier who miscarried at sea?

  ISABELLA I have heard of the lady, and good words went

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  with her name.

  DUKE She should this Angelo have married: was

  affianced to her oath, and the nuptial appointed.

  Between which time of the contract and limit of the

  solemnity, her brother Frederick was wracked at sea,

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  having in that perished vessel the dowry of his sister.

  But mark how heavily this befell to the poor

  gentlewoman. There she lost a noble and renowned

  brother, in his love toward her ever most kind and

  natural; with him, the portion and sinew of her

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  fortune, her marriage dowry; with both, her

  combinate husband, this well-seeming Angelo.

  ISABELLA Can this be so? Did Angelo so leave her?

  DUKE Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them

  with his comfort: swallowed his vows whole,

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  pretending in her discoveries of dishonour: in few,

  bestowed her on her own lamentation, which she yet

  wears for his sake; and he, a marble to her tears, is

  washed with them, but relents not.

  ISABELLA What a merit were it in death to take this poor

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  maid from the world! What corruption in this life, that

  it will let this man live! But how out of this can she

  avail?

  DUKE It is a rupture that you may easily heal: and the

  cure of it not only saves your brother, but keeps you

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  from dishonour in doing it.

  ISABELLA Show me how, good father.

  DUKE This forenamed maid hath yet in her the

  continuance of her first affection. His unjust

  unkindness, that in all reason should have quenched

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  her love, hath, like an impediment in the current,

  made it more violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo;

  answer his requiring with a plausible obedience; agree

  with his demands to the point. Only refer yourself to

  this advantage: first, that your stay with him may not

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  be long; that the place may have all shadow and silence

  in it; and the time answer to convenience. This being

  granted in course, and now follows all. We shall advise

  this wronged maid to stead up your appointment, go

  in your place. If the encounter acknowledge itself

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  hereafter, it may compel him to her recompense; and

  hear, by this is your brother saved, your honour

  untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, and the

  corrupt deputy scaled. The maid will I frame, and

  make fit for his attempt. If you think well to carry this

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  as you may, the doubleness of the benefit defends the

  deceit from reproof. What think you of it?

  ISABELLA The image of it gives me content already, and

  I trust it will grow to a most prosperous perfection.

  DUKE It lies much in your holding up. Haste you

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  speedily to Angelo; if for this night he entreat you to

  his bed, give him promise of satisfaction. I will

  presently to Saint Luke’s; there at the moated grange

  resides this dejected Mariana; at that place call upon

  me; and dispatch with Angelo, that it may be quickly.

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  ISABELLA I thank you for this comfort. Fare you well,

  good father. Exit Isabella.

  3.2 Enter ELBOW and officers with POMPEY.

  ELBOW Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you

  will needs buy and sell men and women like beasts, we

  shall have all the world drink brown and white bastard.

 

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