Measure for Measure: ACT II , SCENE IV. A room in ANGELO's house.

Measure for Measure: ACT II


	Introduction

	ACT I

	ACT II

		SCENE I. A hall In ANGELO's house.

		SCENE II. Another room in the same.

		SCENE III. A room in a prison.

		SCENE IV. A room in ANGELO's house.

	ACT III

	ACT IV

	ACT V

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SCENE IV. A room in ANGELO's house.

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,
5     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 fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity,
10    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
15    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 a Servant

How now! who's there?

Servant

One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.

ANGELO

20 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 my other parts
25    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-wish'd king,
30    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

35 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!

ANGELO

Yet may he live awhile; and, it may be,
As long as you or I yet he must die.

ISABELLA

40 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

45    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
50    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.
55    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,
60 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
65    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

70    Please you to do't,
      I'll take it as a peril to my soul,
      It is no sin at all, but charity.

ANGELO

Pleased you to do't at peril of your soul,
Were equal poise of sin and charity.

ISABELLA

75    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

80    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

85    Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright
      When it doth tax itself; as these black masks
      Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder
      Than beauty could, display'd. But mark me;
      To be received plain, I'll speak more gross:
90    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

95    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 desired of such a person,
      Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,
100   Could fetch your brother from the manacles
      Of the all-building 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 supposed, or else to let him suffer;
105   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'ld wear as rubies,
      And strip myself to death, as to a bed
110   That longing have been sick for, ere I'ld 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,
115   Than that a sister, by redeeming him,
      Should die for ever.

ANGELO

Were not you then as cruel as the sentence
That you have slander'd so?

ISABELLA

      Ignomy in ransom and free pardon
120   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 proved the sliding of your brother
      A merriment than a vice.

ISABELLA

125   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

130   Else let my brother die,
      If not a feodary, but only he
      Owe and succeed thy weakness.

ANGELO

Nay, women are frail too.

ISABELLA

      Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves;
135   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

140   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,
145   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 destined livery.

ISABELLA

I have no tongue but one: gentle my lord,
150 Let me entreat 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

155   I know your virtue hath a licence 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

160   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
165   What man thou art.

ANGELO

      Who will believe thee, Isabel?
      My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life,
      My vouch against you, and my place i' the state,
      Will so your accusation overweigh,
170   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,
175   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,
180   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 I tell this,
      Who would believe me? O perilous mouths,
185   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:
190   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'ld yield them up,
      Before his sister should her body stoop
195   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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