2.3 Enter ⌈ at one door⌉ the Duke, disguised as a friar, and ⌈ at another door⌉ the 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 blest 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 blistered her report. She is with child,

And he that got it, sentenced—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 a while,

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 I’ll gladly learn.

DUKE Love you the man that wronged you?

JULIET

Yes, as I love the woman that wronged him.

DUKE

So then it seems your most offenceful act

Was mutually committed?

JULIET

Mutually.

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 would 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.

DUKE

There rest.

Your partner, as I hear, must die tomorrow,

And I am going with instruction to him.

Grace go with you. Benedicite! Exit

JULIET

Must die tomorrow? O injurious law,

That respites me a life whose very comfort

Is still a dying horror!

PROVOST

’Tis pity of him.

Exeunt

2.4 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; God 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 seared 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 in 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 art blood.

Let’s write ‘good angel’ on the devil’s horn—

’Tis now the devil’s crest.

Enter Servant

How now? Who’s there?

SERVANT One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.

ANGELO

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

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-wished king

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 (aside)

That you might know it would much better please me

Than to demand what ’tis. (To Isabella) Your brother

cannot live.

ISABELLA Even so. Heaven keep your honour.

ANGELO

Yet may he live a while, and it may be

As long as you or I. Yet he must die.

ISABELLA 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

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 God’s image

In stamps that are forbid. ’Tis all as easy

Falsely to take away a life true made

As to put metal in restrained moulds,

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.

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 stained?

ISABELLA

Sir, believe this.

I had rather give my body than my soul.

ANGELO

I talk not of your soul. Our compelled sins

Stand more for number than for account.

ISABELLA

How say you?

ANGELO

Nay, I’ll not warrant that, for I can speak

Against the thing I say. Answer to this.