The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 355
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.