Love you the man that wrong’d you?
JULIET.
Yes, as I love the woman that wrong’d 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 would 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 tomorrow,
And I am going with instruction to him.—
Grace go with you!
DUKE.
Benedicite!
[Exit.]
JULIET.
Must die tomorrow! O, injurious law,
That respites me a life whose very comfort
Is still a dying horror!
PROVOST.
‘Tis pity of him.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE IV. A Room in ANGELO’S house.
[Enter ANGELO.]
ANGELO.
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 sear’d 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 art blood:
Let’s write good angel on the devil’s horn,
‘Tis not the devil’s crest.
[Enter Servant.]
How now, who’s there?
SERVANT.
One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.
ANGELO.
Teach her the way.
[Exit SERVANT.]
O heavens!
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.
[Enter ISABELLA.]
How now, fair maid?
ISABELLA.
I am come to know your pleasure.
ANGELO.
That you might know it, would much better please me
Than to demand what ‘tis. Your brother cannot live.
ISABELLA.
Even so?—Heaven keep your honour!
[Retiring.]
ANGELO.
Yet may he live awhile: and, it may be,
As long as you or I: yet he must die.
ISABELLA.
Under your sentence?
ANGELO.
Yea.
ISABELLA.
When? I beseech you? that in his reprieve,
Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted
That his soul sicken not.
ANGELO.
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 metal in restrained means
To make a false one.
ISABELLA.
‘Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.
ANGELO.
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 stain’d?
ISABELLA.
Sir, believe this,
I had rather give my body than my soul.
ANGELO.
I talk not of your soul; our compell’d sins
Stand more for number than for accompt.
ISABELLA.
How say you?
ANGELO.
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?
ISABELLA.
Please you to do’t,
I’ll take it as a peril to my soul
It is no sin at all, but charity.
ANGELO.
Pleas’d you to do’t at