READ STUDY GUIDE: Act II, Scenes ii-iv | Act II, Scene iv |
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Act II, Scene iv
| [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 peril of your soul, |
| Were equal poise of sin and charity. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| That I do beg his life, if it be sin, |
| Heaven let me bear it! You granting of my suit, |
| If that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer |
| To have it added to the faults of mine, |
| And nothing of your answer. |
| ANGELO.: |
| Nay, but hear me: |
| Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant |
| Or seem so, craftily; and that's not good. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good |
| But graciously to know I am no better. |
| ANGELO.: |
| Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright |
| When it doth tax itself: as these black masks |
| Proclaim an enshielded beauty ten times louder |
| Than beauty could, displayed.—But mark me; |
| To be received plain, I'll speak more gross: |
| Your brother is to die. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| So. |
| ANGELO.: |
| And his offence is so, as it appears, |
| Accountant to the law upon that pain. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| True. |
| ANGELO.: |
| Admit no other way to save his life,— |
| As I subscribe not that, nor any other, |
| But, in the loss of question,—that you, his sister, |
| Finding yourself desir'd of such a person, |
| Whose credit with the judge, or own great place, |
| Could fetch your brother from the manacles |
| Of the all-binding law; and that there were |
| No earthly mean to save him but that either |
| You must lay down the treasures of your body |
| To this suppos'd, or else to let him suffer; |
| What would you do? |
| ISABELLA.: |
| As much for my poor brother as myself: |
| That is, were I under the terms of death, |
| The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies, |
| And strip myself to death, as to a bed |
| That longing have been sick for, ere I'd yield |
| My body up to shame. |
| ANGELO.: |
| Then must your brother die. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| And 'twere the cheaper way: |
| Better it were a brother died at once |
| Than that a sister, by redeeming him, |
| Should die for ever. |
| ANGELO.: |
| Were not you, then, as cruel as the sentence |
| That you have slandered so? |
| ISABELLA.: |
| Ignominy in ransom and free pardon |
| Are of two houses; lawful mercy |
| Is nothing kin to foul redemption. |
| ANGELO.: |
| You seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant; |
| And rather prov'd the sliding of your brother |
| A merriment than a vice. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| O, pardon me, my lord! It oft falls out, |
| To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean: |
| I something do excuse the thing I hate |
| For his advantage that I dearly love. |
| ANGELO.: |
| We are all frail. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| Else let my brother die, |
| If not a feodary, but only he, |
| Owe, and succeed by weakness. |
| ANGELO.: |
| Nay, women are frail too. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves; |
| Which are as easy broke as they make forms. |
| Women! Help heaven! men their creation mar |
| In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail; |
| For we are soft as our complexions are, |
| And credulous to false prints. |
| ANGELO.: |
| I think it well: |
| And from this testimony of your own sex,— |
| Since, I suppose, we are made to be no stronger |
| Than faults may shake our frames,—let me be bold;— |
| I do arrest your words. Be that you are, |
| That is, a woman; if you be more, you're none; |
| If you be one,—as you are well express'd |
| By all external warrants,—show it now |
| By putting on the destin'd livery. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| I have no tongue but one: gentle, my lord, |
| Let me intreat you, speak the former language. |
| ANGELO.: |
| Plainly conceive, I love you. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| My brother did love Juliet; and you tell me |
| That he shall die for it. |
| ANGELO.: |
| He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| I know your virtue hath a license in't, |
| Which seems a little fouler than it is, |
| To pluck on others. |
| ANGELO.: |
| Believe me, on mine honour, |
| My words express my purpose. |
| ISABELLA.: |
| Ha! little honour to be much believed, |
| And most pernicious purpose!—Seeming, seeming!— |
| I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't: |
| Sign me a present pardon for my brother |
| Or, with an outstretch'd throat, I'll tell the world |
| Aloud what man thou art. |
| ANGELO.: |
| Who will believe thee, Isabel? |
| My unsoil'd name, th' austereness of my life, |
| My vouch against you, and my place i' the state, |
| Will so your accusation overweigh |
| That you shall stifle in your own report, |
| And smell of calumny. I have begun, |
| And now I give my sensual race the rein: |
| Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite; |
| Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes |
| That banish what they sue for: redeem thy brother |
| By yielding up thy body to my will; |
| Or else he must not only die the death, |
| But thy unkindness shall his death draw out |
| To lingering sufferance: answer me to-morrow, |
| Or, by the affection that now guides me most, |
| I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you, |
| Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true. |
| [Exit.] |
| ISABELLA.: |
| To whom should I complain? Did tell this, |
| Who would believe me? O perilous mouths |
| That bear in them one and the self-same tongue |
| Either of condemnation or approof! |
| Bidding the law make court'sy to their will; |
| Hooking both right and wrong to the appetite, |
| To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother: |
| Though he hath fallen by prompture of the blood, |
| Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour |
| That, had he twenty heads to tender down |
| On twenty bloody blocks, he'd yield them up |
| Before his sister should her body stoop |
| To such abhorr'd pollution. |
| Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die: |
| More than our brother is our chastity. |
| I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request, |
| And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest. |
| [Exit.] |
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