MEASURE FOR MEASURE. William Shakespeare
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He’s coming; I perceive ‘t.
PROVOST.
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.
Thou’rt i’ the right, girl; more o’ that.
ISABELLA.
That in the captain’s but a choleric word
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.
LUCIO.
Art advised 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’ the 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.
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 tomorrow.
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.
You had marr’d all else.
ISABELLA.
Not with fond shekels of the tested gold,
Or stones, whose rates are either rich or poor
As fancy values them: but with true prayers,
That shall be up at heaven, and enter there,
Ere sunrise: prayers from preserved souls,
From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal.
ANGELO.
Well; come to me
Tomorrow.
LUCIO.
[Aside 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 tomorrow
Shall I attend your lordship?
ANGELO.
At any time ‘fore noon.
ISABELLA.
Save your honour!
[Exeunt LUCIO, ISABELLA, PROVOST.]
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 flower,
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?
Dost thou desire her foully for those things
That make her good? O, let her brother live;
Thieves for their robbery have authority
When judges steal themselves. What! do I love her,
That I desire to hear her speak again
And feast upon her eyes? What is’t I dream on?
O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous
Is that temptation that doth goad us on
To sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet,
With all her double vigour, art, and nature,
Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
Subdues me quite.—Ever till now,
When men were fond, I smil’d and wonder’d how.
[Exit.]
SCENE III. A Room in a prison.
[Enter DUKE, habited like a Friar, and PROVOST.]
DUKE.
Hail to you, provost! so I think you are.
PROVOST.
I am the provost. What’s your will, good friar?
DUKE.
Bound by my charity and my bless’d order,
I come to visit the afflicted spirits
Here in the prison: do me the common right
To let me see them, and to make me know
The nature of their crimes, that I may minister
To them accordingly.
PROVOST.
I would do more than that, if more were needful.
[Enter JULIET.]
Look, here comes one; a gentlewoman of mine,
Who, falling in the flaws of her own youth,
Hath blister’d her report. She is with child;
And he that got it, sentenc’d: a young man
More fit to do another such offence
Than die for this.
DUKE.
When must he die?
PROVOST.
As I do think, tomorrow.—
[To JULIET.] I have provided for you; stay awhile
And you shall be conducted.
DUKE.
Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?
JULIET.
I do; and bear the shame most patiently.
DUKE.
I’ll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,
And try your penitence, if it be sound
Or hollowly put on.
JULIET.