MEASURE FOR MEASURE. William Shakespeare
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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 tomorrow.
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 tomorrow.
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