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,
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:
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,
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 vigor, art and nature,
Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
Subdues me quite;-ever, till now,

When men were fond, I smiled, and wondered how! [Exit.

SCENE III. A Room in a Prison.

Enter Duke, habited like a friar, and Provost. Duke. Hail to you, provost! so I think you are. Prov. I am the provost: what's your will, good friar? Duke. Bound by my charity, and my blest order,

I come to visit the afflicted spirits

Here in the prison: do me the common right

To let me see them; and to make me know

The nature of their crimes, that I may minister

To them accordingly.

Prov. I would do more than that, if more were needful.

Enter JULIET.

Look, here comes one a gentlewoman of mine,
Who, falling in the flames of her own youth,
Hath blistered her report: she is with child;
And he that got it, sentenced; -a young man
More fit to do another such offence,

Than die for this.

Duke.

Prov. As I do think, to-morrow.

When must he die?

[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 shame most patiently.
Duke. I'll teach you how you shall arraign your con-
science,

And try your penitence, if it be sound,

Or hollowly put on.
Juliet.

I'll gladly learn.

Duke. Love you the man that wronged you?

Juliet. Yes, as I love the woman that wronged him. 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,
As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,-
Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not heaven;
Showing, we'd not spare heaven as we love it,
But as we stand in fear,-

Juliet. I do repent me, as it is an evil; And take the shame with joy.

Duke.

There rest.

Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,
And I am going with instruction to him.-

Grace go with you! Benedicite!

Juliet. Must die to-morrow! O, injurious love, That respites me a life, whose very comfort

Is still a dying horror!

Prov.

[Exit.

SCENE IV. A Room in Angelo's House.

Enter ANGelo.

Ang. 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;

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 feared and tedious; yea, my gravity,
Wherein (let no man hear me) I take pride,
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 still art blood!
Let's write good angel on the devil's horn,
'Tis not the devil's crest.

Enter Servant.

One Isabel, a sister,

How now: who's there?

Serv.

Desires access to you.
Ang.

O heavens!

Teach her the way. [Exit Serv.

Why does my blood thus muster to my heart;
Making both it unable for itself,

And dispossessing all the other parts

Of necessary fitness?

So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;
Come all to help him, and so stop the air

By which he should revive: and even so

The general, subject to a well-wished king,
Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence.

How now, fair maid?

Enter ISABELLA.

Isab. I am come to know your pleasure.

Ang. That you might know it, would much better please

me,

Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live. Isab. Even so?-Heaven keep your honor!

[Retiring.

Ang. Yet may he live awhile; and it may be,

As long as you, or I: yet he must die.
Isab. Under your sentence?

Ang. Yea.

Isab. When, I beseech you? That in his reprieve, Longer, or shorter, he may be so fitted,

That his soul sicken not.

Ang. 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

In stamps that are forbid: 'tis all as easy

Falsely to take away a life true made,
As to put mettle in restrained means,
To make a false one.

Isab. 'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth. Ang. Say you so? Then I shall pose you quickly. Which had you rather, that the most just law Now took your brother's life; or, to redeem him, Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness, As she that he hath stained?

Isab. Sir, believe this, I had rather give my body than my soul. Ang. I talk not of your soul: our compelled sins Stand more for number than account.

Isab.
How say you?
Ang. Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak
Against the thing I say, Answer to this:-

I, now the voice of the recorded law,
Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life:
Might there not be a charity in sin,

To save this brother's life?

Isab.

Please you to do't, I'll take it as a peril to my soul,

It is no sin at all, but charity.

Ang. Pleased you to do't, at peril of your soul,
Were equal poise of sin and charity.

Isab. That I do beg his life, if it be sin,
Heaven, let me bear it! you granting of my suit,
If that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer
To have it added to the faults of mine,

And nothing of your answer.

Nay, but hear me:

Ang. Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant, Or seem so, craftily; and that's not good.

Isab. Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good,

But graciously to know I am no better.

Ang. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright, When it doth tax itself! as these black masks Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder Than beauty could displayed. But mark me; To be received plain, I'll speak more gross: Your brother is to die.

Isab. So.

Ang. And his offence is so, as it appears Accountant to the law upon that pain.

Isab. True.

Ang. Admit no other way to save his life,
(As I subscribe not that, nor any other,
But in the loss of question,) that you, his sister,
Finding yourself desired of such a person,

Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,
Could fetch your brother from the manacles
Of the all-binding law; and that there were
No earthly mean to save him, but that either
You must lay down the treasures of your body
To this supposed, or else to let him suffer;
What would you do.

Isab. As much for my poor brother, as myself:
That is, were I under the terms of death,

The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death, as to a bed

That longing I have been sick for, ere I'd yield
My body up to shame.

Ang.

Then must your brother die.
Isab. And 'twere the cheaper way:
Better it were, a brother died at once,
Than that a sister, by redeeming him,
Should die forever.

Ang. Were not you then as cruel as the sentence That you have slandered so?

Isab. Ignominy in ransom, and free pardon, Are of two houses: lawful mercy is

Nothing akin to foul redemption.

Ang. You seemed of late to make the law a tyrant ;
And rather proved the sliding of your brother
A merriment than a vice.

Isab. O pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out,
To have what we'd have, we speak not what we mean:
I something do excuse the thing I hate,

For his advantage that I dearly love.

Ang. We are all frail.

Isab.

Else let my brother die,

Nay, women are frail, too.

If not a feodary, but only he,
Owe, and succeed by weakness.
Ang.
Isab. 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.

Ang.

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,