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.

Isab. To whom should I complain? Did I
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 fall'n 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
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.

160. race, disposition.

162. prolixious, superfluous, irrelevant.

168. affection, impulse.

хбо

170

180

ACT III.

SCENE I. A room in the prison.

Enter DUKE disguised as before, CLAUDIO,
and PROVOST.

Duke. So then you hope of pardon from Lord
Angelo ?

Claud. The miserable have no other medicine But only hope:

I've hope to live, and am prepared to die.

Duke. Be absolute for death; either death

or life

Shall thereby be the sweeter.

life:

Reason thus with

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

That none but fools would keep: a breath thou

art,

Servile to all the skyey influences,

That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st,
Hourly afflict: merely, 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 nursed by baseness.

valiant ;

Thou'rt by no means

For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork

Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,
And that thou oft provokest; yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more.

II. merely, absolutely.
14. accommodations, comforts.

Thou art not thyself;

ΤΟ

15. nursed by baseness, due to the labour of mean men.

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 strivest to
get,

And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not

certain ;

For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,

After the moon.

If thou art rich, thou 'rt 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.

That bears the name of life?

What's yet in this
Yet in this life

Lie hid moe thousand deaths: yet death we fear,
That makes these odds all even.

Claud

I humbly thank you.

let it come on.

To sue to live, I find I seek to die;
And, seeking death, find life:
Isab. [Within] What, ho!

and good company!

Peace here; grace

Prov. Who's there? come in the wish de

serves a welcome.

23. certain, stable.

24. effects, outward, visible symptoms.

31. serpigo, an eruption of the skin.

20

30

40

35. Becomes as aged, suffers privations through poverty, as age through failing strength.

40. moe thousand, a thousand

more.

Duke. Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again.
Claud. Most holy sir, I thank you.

Enter ISABELLA.

Claudio.

Isab. My business is a word or

two with

Look, signior,

Prov. And very welcome.

here's your sister.

Duke. Provost, a word with you.

Prov. As many as you please.

Duke. Bring me to hear them speak, where I

may be concealed.

[Exeunt Duke and Provost.

Claud. Now, sister, what's the comfort?

Isab.

Why,

As all comforts are; most good, most good indeed.
Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,

Intends you for his swift ambassador,

Where you shall be an everlasting leiger:

50

Therefore your best appointment make with speed; 60 To-morrow you set on.

Claud.

Is there no remedy?

Isab. None, but such remedy as, to save a

head,

To cleave a heart in twain.

Claud.

But is there any?

Isab. 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.

Claud.

Perpetual durance?

Isab. Ay, just; perpetual durance, a restraint, Though all the world's vastidity you had,

59. leiger, resident. The term was technically applied to ambassadors who 'lay,' or resided, long at one place, as opposed to envoys for a special

occasion.

60. appointment, equipment. 69. vastidity, vastness (apparently Shakespeare's

age).

coin

To a determined scope.

Claud.

But in what nature?

Isab. In such a one as, you consenting to 't, Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear

And leave you naked.

Claud.

Let me know the point.
Isab. 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. Darest 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.

Claud.

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.

Isah. 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;

i. e. do you think that, to make me resolute, I must be treated with this tender consideration for my supposed weakness?

88. conserve, preserve.

89. In base appliances, by base

means.

91. emmew, coop up, force to hide themselves (a technical term of falconry).