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ISABELLA.

O, pardon me, my lord! It oft falls out,

To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean:

I something do excuse the thing I hate

For his advantage that I dearly love.

ANGELO.

We are all frail.

ISABELLA.

Else let my brother die,

If not a fedary but only he

Owe and succeed thy weakness.

ANGELO.

Nay, women are frail too.

ISABELLA.

Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves,

Which are as easy broke as they make forms.

Women, help heaven! Men their creation mar

In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail;

For we are soft as our complexions are,

And credulous to false prints.

ANGELO.

I think it well;

And from this testimony of your own sex,

Since I suppose we are made to be no stronger

Than faults may shake our frames, let me be bold.

I do arrest your words. Be that you are,

That is, a woman; if you be more, you're none;

If you be one, as you are well express'd

By all external warrants, show it now

By putting on the destin'd livery.

ISABELLA.

I have no tongue but one; gentle, my lord,

Let me intreat you speak the former language.

ANGELO.

Plainly conceive, I love you.

ISABELLA.

My brother did love Juliet,

And you tell me that he shall die for't.

ANGELO.

He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.

ISABELLA.

I know your virtue hath a license in't,

Which seems a little fouler than it is,

To pluck on others.

ANGELO.

Believe me, on mine honour,

My words express my purpose.

ISABELLA.

Ha! little honour to be much believ'd,

And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!

I will proclaim thee, Angelo, look for't.

Sign me a present pardon for my brother

Or, with an outstretch'd throat, I'll tell the world aloud

What man thou art.

ANGELO.

Who will believe thee, Isabel?

My unsoil'd name, th' austereness of my life,

My vouch against you, and my place i' th' state,

Will so your accusation overweigh

That you shall stifle in your own report,

And smell of calumny. I have begun,

And now I give my sensual race the rein:

Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;

Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes

That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother

By yielding up thy body to my will;

Or else he must not only die the death,

But thy unkindness shall his death draw out

To ling'ring sufferance. Answer me to-morrow,

Or, by the affection that now guides me most,

I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,

Say what you can: my false o'erweighs your true. Exit

ISABELLA. To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,

Who would believe me? O perilous mouths

That bear in them one and the self-same tongue

Either of condemnation or approof,

Bidding the law make curtsy to their will;

Hooking both right and wrong to th' appetite,

To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother.

Though he hath fall'n by prompture of the blood,

Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour

That, had he twenty heads to tender down

On twenty bloody blocks, he'd yield them up

Before his sister should her body stoop

To such abhorr'd pollution.

Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:

More than our brother is our chastity.

I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,

And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest. Exit

ACT III. SCENE I. The prison

Enter DUKE, disguised as before, CLAUDIO, and PROVOST

DUKE.

So, then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?

CLAUDIO.

The miserable have no other medicine

But only hope:

I have hope to Eve, and am prepar'd to die.

DUKE.

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 run'st toward him still. Thou art not noble;

For all th' accommodations that thou bear'st

Are nurs'd by baseness. Thou 'rt by no means valiant;

For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork

Of a poor worm. Thy best of