READ STUDY GUIDE: Act III, Scene i |
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Act III, Scene i
| [Enter DUKE, CLAUDIO, and PROVOST.] |
| DUKE.: |
| So, then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo? |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| The miserable have no other medicine |
| But only hope: |
| I have hope to live, and am prepar'd to die. |
| DUKE.: |
| Be absolute for death; either death or life |
| Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life,— |
| If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing |
| That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art, |
| Servile to all the skiey influences, |
| That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st |
| Hourly afflict; mere'y, thou art death's fool; |
| For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun, |
| And yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble; |
| For all the accommodations that thou bear'st |
| Are nurs'd by baseness. Thou art by no means valiant; |
| For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork |
| Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep, |
| And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st |
| Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself: |
| For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains |
| That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not; |
| For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get; |
| And what thou hast, forgett'st. Thou art not certain; |
| For thy complexion shifts to strange effects, |
| After the moon. If thou art rich, thou art poor; |
| For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows, |
| Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey, |
| And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none; |
| For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire, |
| The mere effusion of thy proper loins, |
| Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum, |
| For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age, |
| But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, |
| Dreaming on both: for all thy blessed youth |
| Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms |
| Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich |
| Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty, |
| To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this |
| That bears the name of life? Yet in this life |
| Lie hid more thousand deaths: yet death we fear, |
| That makes these odds all even. |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| I humbly thank you. |
| To sue to live, I find I seek to die; |
| And, seeking death, find life. Let it come on. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| [Within.] What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company! |
| PROVOST.: |
| Who's there? come in: the wish deserves a welcome. |
| DUKE.: |
| Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again. |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| Most holy sir, I thank you. |
| [Enter ISABELLA.] |
| ISABELLA.: |
| My business is a word or two with Claudio. |
| PROVOST.: |
| And very welcome. Look, signior, here's your sister. |
| DUKE.: |
| Provost, a word with you. |
| PROVOST.: |
| As many as you please. |
| DUKE.: |
| Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be conceal'd. |
| [Exeunt DUKE and PROVOST.] |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| Now, sister, what's the comfort? |
| ISABELLA.: |
| Why, |
| As all comforts are; most good, most good, in deed: |
| Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven, |
| Intends you for his swift ambassador, |
| Where you shall be an everlasting leiger: |
| Therefore, your best appointment make with speed; |
| To-morrow you set on. |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| Is there no remedy? |
| ISABELLA.: |
| None, but such remedy as, to save a head, |
| To cleave a heart in twain. |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| But is there any? |
| ISABELLA.: |
| 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. |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| Perpetual durance? |
| ISABELLA.: |
| Ay, just; perpetual durance; a restraint, |
| Though all the world's vastidity you had, |
| To a determin'd scope. |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| But in what nature? |
| ISABELLA.: |
| In such a one as, you consenting to't, |
| Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear, |
| And leave you naked. |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| Let me know the point. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| 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 honour. Dar'st 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. |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| 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. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| There spake my brother; there my father's grave |
| 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 emmew |
| As falcon doth the fowl,—is yet a devil; |
| His filth within being cast, he would appear |
| A pond as deep as hell. |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| The precise Angelo? |
| ISABELLA.: |
| O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell |
| The damned'st body to invest and cover |
| In precise guards! Dost thou think, Claudio, |
| If I would yield him my virginity |
| Thou mightst be freed? |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| O heavens! it cannot be. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| 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. |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| Thou shalt not do't. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| O, were it but my life, |
| I'd throw it down for your deliverance |
| As frankly as a pin. |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| Thanks, dear Isabel. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| Be ready, Claudio, for your death to-morrow. |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| 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. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| Which is the least? |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| If it were damnable, he, being so wise, |
| Why would he for the momentary trick |
| Be perdurably fined?—O Isabel! |
| ISABELLA.: |
| What says my brother? |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| Death is a fearful thing. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| And shamed life a hateful. |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| 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 |
| 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 thought |
| 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. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| Alas, alas! |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| 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. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| 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 |
| 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. |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| Nay, hear me, Isabel. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| O fie, fie, fie! |
| Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade: |
| Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd: |
| 'Tis best that thou diest quickly. |
| [Going.] |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| O, hear me, Isabella. |
| [Re-enter DUKE.] |
| DUKE.: |
| Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| 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. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| 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 assay of her virtue to |
| practise his judgment with the disposition of natures; she, |
| having the truth of honour 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. |
| CLAUDIO.: |
| 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. Farewell. |
| [Exit CLAUDIO.] |
| [Re-enter PROVOST.] |
| Provost, a word with you. |
| PROVOST.: |
| What's your will, father? |
| DUKE.: |
| That, now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me a while with |
| the maid; my mind promises with my habit no loss shall touch her |
| by my company. |
| PROVOST.: |
| In good time. |
| [Exit PROVOST.] |
| DUKE.: |
| The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good; the goodness |
| that is cheap in beauty makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace, |
| being the soul of your complexion, shall keep the body of it ever |
| fair. The assault that Angelo hath made to you, fortune hath |
| conveyed to my understanding; and, but that frailty hath examples |
| for his falling, I should wonder at Angelo. How will you do to |
| content this substitute, and to save your brother? |
| ISABELLA.: |
| I am now going to resolve him; I had rather my brother die by the |
| law than my son should be unlawfully born. But, O, how much is the |
| good duke deceived in Angelo! If ever he return, and I can speak |
| to him, I will open my lips in vain, or discover his government. |
| DUKE.: |
| That shall not be much amiss: yet, as the matter now stands, he |
| will avoid your accusation; he made trial of you only.—Therefore |
| fasten your ear on my advisings; to the love I have in doing good |
| a remedy presents itself. I do make myself believe that you may |
| most uprighteously do a poor wronged lady a merited benefit; |
| redeem your brother from the angry law; do no stain to your own |
| gracious person; and much please the absent duke, if peradventure |
| he shall ever return to have hearing of this business. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| Let me hear you speak further; I have spirit to do anything that |
| appears not foul in the truth of my spirit. |
| DUKE.: |
| Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have you not heard |
| speak of Mariana, the sister of Frederick, the great soldier who |
| miscarried at sea? |
| ISABELLA.: |
| I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name. |
| DUKE.: |
| She should this Angelo have married; was affianced to her by |
| oath, and the nuptial appointed: between which time of the |
| contract and limit of the solemnity her brother Frederick was |
| wrecked at sea, having in that perished vessel the dowry of his |
| sister. But mark how heavily this befell to the poor gentlewoman: |
| there she lost a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward |
| her ever most kind and natural; with him the portion and sinew of |
| her fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her combinate husband, |
| this well-seeming Angelo. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| Can this be so? Did Angelo so leave her? |
| DUKE.: |
| Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them with his |
| comfort; swallowed his vows whole, pretending, in her, |
| discoveries of dishonour; in few, bestow'd her on her own |
| lamentation, which she yet wears for his sake; and he, a |
| marble to her tears, is washed with them, but relents not. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid from the |
| world! What corruption in this life that it will let this man |
| live!—But how out of this can she avail? |
| DUKE.: |
| It is a rupture that you may easily heal; and the cure of it not |
| only saves your brother, but keeps you from dishonour in doing it. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| Show me how, good father. |
| DUKE.: |
| This forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance of her first |
| affection; his unjust unkindness, that in all reason should have |
| quenched her love, hath, like an impediment in the current, made |
| it more violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his requiring |
| with a plausible obedience; agree with his demands to the point: |
| only refer yourself to this advantage,—first, that your stay with |
| him may not be long; that the time may have all shadow and silence |
| in it; and the place answer to convenience: this being granted in |
| course, and now follows all. We shall advise this wronged maid to |
| stead up your appointment, go in your place; if the encounter |
| acknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him to her recompense: |
| and here, by this, is your brother saved, your honour untainted, |
| the poor Mariana advantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled. The |
| maid will I frame and make fit for his attempt. If you think well |
| to carry this as you may, the doubleness of the benefit defends |
| the deceit from reproof. What think you of it? |
| ISABELLA.: |
| The image of it gives me content already; and I trust it will |
| grow to a most prosperous perfection. |
| DUKE.: |
| It lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily to Angelo; if |
| for this night he entreat you to his bed, give him promise of |
| satisfaction. I will presently to Saint Luke's; there, at the |
| moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana. At that place call |
| upon me; and despatch with Angelo, that it may be quickly. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| I thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father. |
| [Exeunt severally.] |
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