184

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

ACT III.

Therefore your best appointment 1 make with speed: To-morrow you set on.

Clau.

Is there no remedy?

Isa. None, but such remedy, as, to save a head, To cleave a heart in twain.

Clau.

But is there any?

Isa. Yes, brother, you may live ;

There is a devilish mercy in the judge,

If you'll implore it, that will free your life,
But fetter you till death.

Clau.

Perpetual durance?

Isa. Ay, just, perpetual durance; a restraint, Though all the world's vastidity you had,

To a determined scope.3

Clau.

4

But in what nature?

Isa. In such a one as (you consenting to 't) Would bark your honor from that trunk you bear, And leave you

Clau.

naked.

Let me know the point.

Isa. O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake, Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain, And six or seven winters more respect Than a perpetual honor. Darest 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.

1 Preparation.

2 Extent.

4 Strip.

3 To one painful idea, i. e. to ignominy.

Clau.

Why give you me this shame ?

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.

Isa. There spake my brother; there my father's

grave

1

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 settled visage and deliberate word
Nips youth i' the head, and follies doth enmew,1
As falcon doth the fowl,-is yet a devil:

2

His filth within being cast, he would appear
A pond as deep as hell.

Clau.

The princely Angelo ?

Isa. O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell,

The damned'st body to invest and cover

In princely guards! 3 Dost thou think, Claudio,
If I would yield him my virginity,

Thou mightst be freed?

Clau.

O Heavens! it cannot be.

Isa. Yes, he would give it thee, from this rank

offence,

So to offend him still. This night's the time
That I should do what I abhor to name,

Or else thou diest to-morrow.

1 Forces follies to lie in cover, without daring to show

themselves.

2 Emptied.

3 Laced robes.

Clau.

Thou shalt not do 't.

Isa. O, were it but my life,

I'd throw it down for your deliverance

As frankly as a pin.

Clau.

Thanks, dear Isabel.

Isa. Be ready, Claudio, for your death to-morrow. Clau. Yes. Has he affections in him,

That thus can make him bite the law by the nose, When he would force it? Sure it is no sin,

Or of the deadly seven it is the least.

Isa. Which is the least?

Clau. If it were damnable, he, being so wise, Why, would he for the momentary trick 1

Be perdurably 2 fined?—O Isabel!

Isa. What says my brother?
Clau.

Death is a fearful thing.

Isa. And shamed life a hateful.

Clau. 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 3
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions 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
Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts

2 Lastingly.

'Indulgence of a vicious appetite.
The spirit accustomed here to ease and delights.

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

To what we fear of death.

Isa. Alas! alas !

Clau.

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.

Isa.

O, you beast!

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!
For such a warped slip of wilderness 1

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,
No word to save thee.

Clau. Nay, hear me, Isabel.

Isa.

O, fie, fie, fie!

Thy sin 's not accidental, but a trade: 3
Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd:

"Tis best that thou diest quickly.

Clau

2

[going.

O, hear me, Isabella.

1 Wildness.

2 Refusal.

3 An established habit.

Re-enter DUke.

Duke. Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.

Isa. 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.

Isa. I have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be stolen out of other affairs; but I will attend you awhile.

Duke. [to Claudio, aside.] Son, I have overheard what hath passed between you and your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her; only he hath made an essay of her virtue, to practise his judgment with the disposition of natures: she, having the truth of honor in her, hath made him that gracious denial which he is most glad to receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I know this to be true; therefore prepare yourself to death. Do not satisfy your resolution with hopes that are fallible to-morrow you must die; go to your knees, and make ready.

Clau. Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love with life, that I will sue to be rid of it. Duke. Hold you there:1 farewell. [Exit Claudio.

1 Continue in that resolution.