but I shall follow it, as the flesh and fortune shall better determine.

Whip me? No, no; let carman whip his jade; The valiant heart's not whipt out of his trade. [Frit. Escal. Come hither to me, master Elbow; cole hither, master Constable. How long have you beer in this place of constable?

Elb. Seven year and a half, sir.

Escal. I thought, by your readiness in the office, you had continued in it some time: You say, seven years together?

Elb. And a half, sir.

Escal. Alas! it hath been great pains to you! They do you wrong to put you so oft upon't: Are there not men in your ward sufficient to serve it?

Elb. Faith, sir, few of any wit in such matters : as they are chosen, they are glad to choose me for them; I do it for some piece of money, and go through with all.

Escal. Look you, bring me in the names of some six or seven, the most sufficient of your parish.

Elb. To your worship's house, sir?

Escal. To my house: Fare you well. [Erit ELBOW. What's o'clock, think you ?

Just. Eleven, sir.

[Exit Servant.

See you, the fornicatress be remov'd;
Let her have needful, but not lavish, means
There shall be order for it.

Enter Lucio and ISABELLA.

Prov. Save your honour!
[Offering to retire.
Ang. Stay a little while. - [To ISAB.] You are
welcome: What's your will?

Isab. I am a woeful suitor to your honour,
Please but your honour hear me.
Ang.

Well; what's your suit?

Isab. There is a vice, that most I do abhor, And most desire should meet the blow of justice; For which I would not plead, but that I must; For which I must not plead, but that I am At war, 'twixt will, and will not. Ang.

Well; the matter?

Isab. I have a brother is condemn'd to die:

I do beseech you, let it be his fault,
And not my brother.

Prov.

Heaven give thee moving graces .

Ang. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it!

Why, every fault's condemn'd, ere it be done ;
Mine were the very cipher of a function,

To find the faults, whose fine stands in record,

And let go by the actor.

Isab.

O just, but severe law! I had a brother then. - Heaven keep your honour! [Retiring.

Lucio. [To ISAB.] Give't not o'er so: to him
again, intreat him;

Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown;
You are too cold if you should need a pin,
You could not with more tame a tongue desire it:
To him, I say.

Isab. Must he needs die ?
Ang.

Maiden, no remedy. Isab. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him,

And neither heaven, nor man, grieve at the mercy.
Ang. I will not do't.

Isab.
But can you, if you would?
Ang. Look, what I will not, that I cannot do.
Isab. But might you do't, and do the world no

Ang.

He's sentenc'd; 'tis too late.
[TO ISABELLA.

Lucio. You are too cold.
Isab. Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word,

May call it back again: Well, believe this,
No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,

Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace,
As mercy does. If he had been as you,
And you as he, you would have slipt like him;
But he, like you, would not have been so stern.
Ang. Pray you, begone.

Isab. I would to heaven I had your potency,
And you were Isabel? should it then be thus?
No; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge,

Lucio. Ay, touch him: there's the vein. [Aside.

Lucio. Thou'rt in the right, girl; more o' that. Isab. That in the captain's but a cholerick word Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

Lucio. Art advis'd o' that? more on't.
Ang. Why do you put these sayings upon me?
Isab. 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.
Ang.

She speaks, and 'tis
Such sense, that my sense breeds with it.

- Fare

morrow.

Isab. To-morrow? O, that's sudden! Spare him, spare him:

He's not prepar'd for death! Even for our kitchens We kill the fowl of season; shall we serve heaven With less respect than we do minister

Ang. I will bethink me: Come again to

morrow.

Isab. Hark, how I'll bribe you : Good my lord,

Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept :

Those many had not dar'd to do that evil,
If the first man that did the edict infringe,
Had answer'd for his deed: now, 'tis awake;
Takes note of what is done; and, like a prophet,
Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils,
(Either now, or by remissness new-conceiv'd,
And so in progress to be hatch'd and born,)
Are now to have no súccessive degrees,

But, where they live, to end.

Isab.

Yet show some pity.

Ang. I show it most of all, when I show justice;

For then I pity those I do not know,

Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall;

And do him right, that, answering one foul wrong,

Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;

Your brother dies to-morrow; be content.

Isab. So you must be the first, that gives this

Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt,
Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,
Than the soft myrtle; - O, but man, proud man!
Drest in a little brief authority;

Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,

His glassy essence, like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastick tricks before high heaven,

As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens, Would all themselves laugh mortal.

Lucio. O, to him, to him, wench: he will relent; He's coming, I perceive't.

Prov.

Pray heaven, she win him! Isab. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself: Great men may jest with saints: 'tis wit in them; But, in the less, foul profanation.

Lucio. You had marr'd all else.

Isab. 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 sun-rise: prayers from preserved souls, From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate To nothing temporal.

Shall I attend your lordship? Ang.

Isab. Save your honour!

At any time 'fore noon.

[Exeunt Lucio, ISABELLA, and Provost. Ang. 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, fy, fy, fy!
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,

Duke. Then was your sin of heavier kind than his. Juliet. I do confess it, and repent it, father.

Duke. 'Tis meet so, daughter: but lest you do repent,

As that the sin hath brought you to this shame, Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not heaven;

Showing, we'd not spare heaven, as we love it,
But as we stand in fear,

Juliet. I do repent me, as it is an evil;

And take the shame with joy.

'Tis pity of him. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV. - A Room in Angelo's House.
Enter ANGELO.

Ang. When I would pray and think, I think and

pray

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 fear'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 still art blood:
Let's write good angel on the devil's horn,
'Tis not the devil's crest.

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-wish'd king,
Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
Crotid to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence.

Enter ISABELLA.

How now, fair maid? Isab.

I am come to know your pleasure. Ang. That you might know it, would much better please me,

Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot

live.

Isab. Even so? - Heaven keep your honour! [Retiring.

Ang. Yet may he live a while; and it may be, As long as you, or I: yet he must die.

Isab. Under your sentence?

Ang. Yea.

Isab. When, I beseech you? that in his reprieve, Longer, or shorter, he may be so fitted, That his soul sicken not.

Ang. Ha! Fye, these filthy vices! It were as

good

To pardon him, that hath from nature stolen

A man already made, as to remit

Their sawcy 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 mettle in restrained means,

To make a false one.

Isab. 'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.

Ang. Say you so? then I shall poze 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?

Isab.

Sir, believe this,

Claud.

SCENE I. - Room in the Prison.
Enter DUKE, CLAUDIO, and Provost.

Duke. So, then you hope of pardon from lord
Angelo?

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

I have hope to live, and am prepar'd to die.

Duke. Be absolute for death; either death, or life, Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life,If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art, (Servile to all the skiey 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 run'st toward him still: Thou art not noble;
For all the accommodations that thou bear'st,

Are nurs'd by baseness: Thou art by no means

valiant;

For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork
Of a poor worm: Thy best of rest is sleep,
And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;
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 striv'st 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 art 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,

To sue to live, I find, I seek to die;

And, seeking death, find life: Let it come on.

Enter ISABELLA.

Now, sister, what's the comfort ? Isab. Why, as all comforts are; most good in

deed:

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.

Isab. 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 enmew,
As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil;
His filth within being cast, he would appear
A pond as deep as hell.

Claud.

The princely Angelo?

company!

Thou might'st be freed?