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 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

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

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

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, displayed. But mark me.

To be received plain, I’ll speak more gross.

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

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,

Could fetch your brother from the manacles

Of the all-binding 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—

What would you do?

ISABELLA

As much for my poor brother as myself.

That is, were I under the terms of death,

Th’impression of keen whips I’d wear as rubies,

And strip myself to death as to a bed

That longing have been sick for, ere I’d 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

Than that a sister, by redeeming him,

Should die for ever.

ANGELO

Were not you then as cruel as the sentence

That you have slandered so?

ISABELLA

Ignominy in ransom and free pardon

Are of two houses; lawful mercy

Is nothing kin to foul redemption.

ANGELO

You seemed of late to make the law a tyrant,

And rather proved the sliding of your brother

A merriment than a vice.

ISABELLA

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 Else let my brother die—

If not a federy, but only he,

Owe and succeed thy weakness.

ANGELO

Nay, women are frail too.

ISABELLA

Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves,

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

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;

That is, a woman. If you be more, you’re none.

If you be one, as you are well expressed

By all external warrants, show it now,

By putting on the destined livery.

ISABELLA

I have no tongue but one. Gentle my lord,

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

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

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 outstretched throat I’ll tell the world aloud

What man thou art.

ANGELO

Who will believe thee, Isabel?

My unsoiled name, th‘austereness of my life,

My vouch against you, and my place i’th’ state,

Will so your accusation overweigh

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 ling‘ring sufferance. Answer me tomorrow,