1605 Measure For Measure
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Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Next page PROVOST. Lest I might be too rash; Under your good correction, I have seen When, after execution, judgment hath Repented o'er his doom. ANGELO. Go to; let that be mine. Do you your office, or give up your place, And you shall well be spar'd. PROVOST. I crave your honour's pardon. What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet? She's very near her hour. ANGELO. Dispose of her To some more fitter place, and that with speed. Re-enter SERVANT SERVANT. Here is the sister of the man condemn'd Desires access to you. ANGELO. Hath he a sister? PROVOST. Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid, And to be shortly of a sisterhood, If not already. ANGELO. Well, let her be admitted. Exit SERVANT See you the fornicatress be remov'd; Let her have needful but not lavish means; There shall be order for't. Enter Lucio and ISABELLA PROVOST. [Going] Save your honour! ANGELO. Stay a little while. [To ISABELLA] Y'are welcome; what's your will? ISABELLA. I am a woeful suitor to your honour, Please but your honour hear me. ANGELO. Well; what's your suit? ISABELLA. There is a vice that most I do abhor, And most desire should meet the blow of justice; For which I would not plead, but that I must; For which I must not plead, but that I am At war 'twixt will and will not. ANGELO. Well; the matter? ISABELLA. I have a brother is condemn'd to die; I do beseech you, let it be his fault, And not my brother. PROVOST. [Aside] Heaven give thee moving graces. ANGELO. Condemn the fault and not the actor of it! Why, every fault's condemn'd ere it be done; Mine were the very cipher of a function, To fine the faults whose fine stands in record, And let go by the actor. ISABELLA. O just but severe law! I had a brother, then. Heaven keep your honour! LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Give't not o'er so; to him again, entreat him, Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown; You are too cold: if you should need a pin, You could not with more tame a tongue desire it. To him, I say. ISABELLA. Must he needs die? ANGELO. Maiden, no remedy. ISABELLA. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him. And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy. ANGELO. I will not do't. ISABELLA. But can you, if you would? ANGELO. Look, what I will not, that I cannot do. ISABELLA. But might you do't, and do the world no wrong, If so your heart were touch'd with that remorse As mine is to him? ANGELO. He's sentenc'd; 'tis too late. LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] You are too cold. ISABELLA. Too late? Why, no; I, that do speak a word, May call it back again. Well, believe this: No ceremony that to great ones longs, Not the king's crown nor the deputed sword, The marshal's truncheon nor the judge's robe, Become them with one half so good a grace As mercy does. If he had been as you, and you as he, You would have slipp'd like him; but he, like you, Would not have been so stern. ANGELO. Pray you be gone. ISABELLA. I would to heaven I had your potency, And you were Isabel! Should it then be thus? No; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge And what a prisoner. LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Ay, touch him; there's the vein. ANGELO. Your brother is a forfeit of the law, And you but waste your words. ISABELLA. Alas! Alas! Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once; And He that might the vantage best have took Found out the remedy. How would you be If He, which is the top of judgment, should But judge you as you are? O, think on that; And mercy then will breathe within your lips, Like man new made. ANGELO. Be you content, fair maid. It is the law, not I condemn your brother. Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son, It should be thus with him. He must die to-morrow. ISABELLA. To-morrow! O, that's sudden! Spare him, spare him. He's not prepar'd for death. Even for our kitchens We kill the fowl of season; shall we serve heaven With less respect than we do minister To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you. Who is it that hath died for this offence? There's many have committed it. LUCIO. [Aside] Ay, well said. ANGELO. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept. Those many had not dar'd to do that evil If the first that did th' edict infringe Had answer'd for his deed. Now 'tis awake, Takes note of what is done, and, like a prophet, Looks in a glass that shows what future evils- Either now or by remissness new conceiv'd, And so in progress to be hatch'd and born- Are now to have no successive degrees, But here they live to end. ISABELLA. Yet show some pity. ANGELO. I show it most of all when I show justice; For then I pity those I do not know, Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall, And do him right that, answering one foul wrong, Lives not to act another. Be satisfied; Your brother dies to-morrow; be content. ISABELLA. So you must be the first that gives this sentence, And he that suffers. O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength! But it is tyrannous To use it like a giant. LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] That's well said. ISABELLA. Could great men thunder As Jove himself does, Jove would never be quiet, For every pelting petty officer Would use his heaven for thunder, Nothing but thunder. Merciful Heaven, Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak Than the soft myrtle. But man, proud man, Dress'd in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd, His glassy essence, like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As makes the angels weep; who, with our speens, Would all themselves laugh mortal. LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] O, to him, to him, wench! He will relent; He's coming; I perceive 't. PROVOST. [Aside] Pray heaven she win him. ISABELLA. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself. Great men may jest with saints: 'tis wit in them; But in the less foul profanation. LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Thou'rt i' th' right, girl; more o' that. ISABELLA. That in the captain's but a choleric word Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy. LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Art avis'd o' that? More on't. ANGELO. Why do you put these sayings upon me? ISABELLA. Because authority, though it err like others, Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself That skins the vice o' th' top. Go to your bosom, Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know That's like my brother's fault. If it confess A natural guiltiness such as is his, Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue Against my brother's life. ANGELO. [Aside] She speaks, and 'tis Such sense that my sense breeds with it.- Fare you well. ISABELLA. Gentle my lord, turn back. ANGELO. I will bethink me. Come again to-morrow. ISABELLA. Hark how I'll bribe you; good my lord, turn back. ANGELO. How, bribe me? ISABELLA. Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you. LUCIO. [To ISABELLA) You had marr'd all else. ISABELLA. Not with fond sicles of the tested gold, Or stones, whose rate are either rich or poor As fancy values them; but with true prayers That shall be up at heaven and enter there Ere sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls, From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate To nothing temporal. ANGELO. Well; come to me to-morrow. LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Go to; 'tis well; away. ISABELLA. Heaven keep your honour safe! ANGELO. [Aside] Amen; for I Am that way going to temptation Where prayers cross. ISABELLA. At what hour to-morrow Shall I attend your lordship? ANGELO. At any time 'fore noon. ISABELLA. Save your honour! Exeunt all but ANGELO ANGELO. From thee; even from thy virtue! What's this, what's this? Is this her fault or mine? The tempter or the tempted, who sins most? Ha! Not she; nor doth she tempt; but it is I That, lying by the violet in the sun, Do as the carrion does, not as the flow'r, 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? |
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