1    He's hearing of a cause; he will come straight
2    I'll tell him of you.

3    Pray you, do.
Exit Servant
4    I'll know
5    His pleasure; may be he will relent. Alas,
6    He hath but as offended in a dream!
7    All sects, all ages smack of this vice; and he
8    To die for't!

9    Now, what's the matter. Provost?

10   Is it your will Claudio shall die tomorrow?

11   Did not I tell thee yea? hadst thou not order?
12   Why dost thou ask again?

13   Lest I might be too rash:
14   Under your good correction, I have seen,
15   When, after execution, judgment hath
16   Repented o'er his doom.

17   Go to; let that be mine:
18   Do you your office, or give up your place,
19   And you shall well be spared.

20   I crave your honour's pardon.
21   What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet?
22   She's very near her hour.

23   Dispose of her
24   To some more fitter place, and that with speed.

25   Here is the sister of the man condemn'd
26   Desires access to you.

27   Hath he a sister?

28   Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid,
29   And to be shortly of a sisterhood,
30   If not already.

31   Well, let her be admitted.
Exit Servant
32   See you the fornicatress be removed:
33   Let have needful, but not lavish, means;
34   There shall be order for't.

35   God save your honour!

36   Stay a little while.
To ISABELLA
37   You're welcome: what's your will?

38   I am a woeful suitor to your honour,
39   Please but your honour hear me.

40   Well; what's your suit?

41   There is a vice that most I do abhor,
42   And most desire should meet the blow of justice;
43   For which I would not plead, but that I must;
44   For which I must not plead, but that I am
45   At war 'twixt will and will not.

46   Well; the matter?

47   I have a brother is condemn'd to die:
48   I do beseech you, let it be his fault,
49   And not my brother.

Aside
50    Heaven give thee moving graces!

51   Condemn the fault and not the actor of it?
52   Why, every fault's condemn'd ere it be done:
53   Mine were the very cipher of a function,
54   To fine the faults whose fine stands in record,
55   And let go by the actor.

56   O just but severe law!
57   I had a brother, then. Heaven keep your honour!

Aside to ISABELLA
58    Give't not o'er so: to him
59   again, entreat him;
60   Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown:
61   You are too cold; if you should need a pin,
62   You could not with more tame a tongue desire it:
63   To him, I say!

64   Must he needs die?

65   Maiden, no remedy.

66   Yes; I do think that you might pardon him,
67   And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.

68   I will not do't.

69   But can you, if you would?

70   Look, what I will not, that I cannot do.

71   But might you do't, and do the world no wrong,
72   If so your heart were touch'd with that remorse
73   As mine is to him?

74   He's sentenced; 'tis too late.

Aside to ISABELLA
75    You are too cold.

76   Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word.
77   May call it back again. Well, believe this,
78   No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,
79   Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
80   The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
81   Become them with one half so good a grace
82   As mercy does.
83   If he had been as you and you as he,
84   You would have slipt like him; but he, like you,
85   Would not have been so stern.

86   Pray you, be gone.

87   I would to heaven I had your potency,
88   And you were Isabel! should it then be thus?
89   No; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge,
90   And what a prisoner.

Aside to ISABELLA
91   Ay, touch him; there's the vein.

92   Your brother is a forfeit of the law,
93   And you but waste your words.

94   Alas, alas!
95   Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once;
96   And He that might the vantage best have took
97   Found out the remedy. How would you be,
98   If He, which is the top of judgment, should
99   But judge you as you are? O, think on that;
100  And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
101  Like man new made.

102  Be you content, fair maid;
103  It is the law, not I condemn your brother:
104  Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,
105  It should be thus with him: he must die tomorrow.

106  To-morrow! O, that's sudden! Spare him, spare him!
107  He's not prepared for death. Even for our kitchens
108  We kill the fowl of season: shall we serve heaven
109  With less respect than we do minister
110  To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you;
111  Who is it that hath died for this offence?
112  There's many have committed it.

Aside to ISABELLA
113   Ay, well said.

114  The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept:
115  Those many had not dared to do that evil,
116  If the first that did the edict infringe
117  Had answer'd for his deed: now 'tis awake
118  Takes note of what is done; and, like a prophet,
119  Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils,
120  Either new, or by remissness new-conceived,
121  And so in progress to be hatch'd and born,
122  Are now to have no successive degrees,
123  But, ere they live, to end.

124  Yet show some pity.

125  I show it most of all when I show justice;
126  For then I pity those I do not know,
127  Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall;
128  And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,
129  Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;
130  Your brother dies to-morrow; be content.

131  So you must be the first that gives this sentence,
132  And he, that suffer's. O, it is excellent
133  To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
134  To use it like a giant.

Aside to ISABELLA
135   That's well said.

136  Could great men thunder
137  As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,
138  For every pelting, petty officer
139  Would use his heaven for thunder;
140  Nothing but thunder! Merciful Heaven,
141  Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
142  Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
143  Than the soft myrtle: but man, proud man,
144  Drest in a little brief authority,
145  Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
146  His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
147  Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
148  As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
149  Would all themselves laugh mortal.

Aside to ISABELLA
150   O, to him, to him, wench! he
151  will relent;
152  He's coming; I perceive 't.

Aside
153   Pray heaven she win him!

154  We cannot weigh our brother with ourself:
155  Great men may jest with saints; 'tis wit in them,
156  But in the less foul profanation.

157  Thou'rt i' the right, girl; more o, that.

158  That in the captain's but a choleric word,
159  Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

Aside to ISABELLA
160   Art avised o' that? more on 't.

161  Why do you put these sayings upon me?

162  Because authority, though it err like others,
163  Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,
164  That skins the vice o' the top. Go to your bosom;
165  Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know
166  That's like my brother's fault: if it confess
167  A natural guiltiness such as is his,
168  Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
169  Against my brother's life.

Aside
170   She speaks, and 'tis
171  Such sense, that my sense breeds with it. Fare you well.

172  Gentle my lord, turn back.

173  I will bethink me: come again tomorrow.

174  Hark how I'll bribe you: good my lord, turn back.

175  How! bribe me?

176  Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.

Aside to ISABELLA
177   You had marr'd all else.

178  Not with fond shekels of the tested gold,
179  Or stones whose rates are either rich or poor
180  As fancy values them; but with true prayers
181  That shall be up at heaven and enter there
182  Ere sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls,
183  From fasting maids whose minds are dedicate
184  To nothing temporal.

185  Well; come to me to-morrow.

Aside to ISABELLA
186   Go to; 'tis well; away!

187  Heaven keep your honour safe!

Aside
188   Amen:
189  For I am that way going to temptation,
190  Where prayers cross.

191  At what hour to-morrow
192  Shall I attend your lordship?

193  At any time 'fore noon.

194  'Save your honour!

195  From thee, even from thy virtue!
196  What's this, what's this? Is this her fault or mine?
197  The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?
198  Ha!
199  Not she: nor doth she tempt: but it is I
200  That, lying by the violet in the sun,
201  Do as the carrion does, not as the flower,
202  Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be
203  That modesty may more betray our sense
204  Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough,
205  Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary
206  And pitch our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie!
207  What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?
208  Dost thou desire her foully for those things
209  That make her good? O, let her brother live!
210  Thieves for their robbery have authority
211  When judges steal themselves. What, do I love her,
212  That I desire to hear her speak again,
213  And feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on?
214  O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
215  With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous
216  Is that temptation that doth goad us on
217  To sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet,
218  With all her double vigour, art and nature,
219  Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
220  Subdues me quite. Even till now,
221  When men were fond, I smiled and wonder'd how.