And six or seven winters more respect

Than a perpetual honour. Dar’st 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.

CLAUDIO

Why give you me this shame?

Think you I can a resolution fetch

From flow’ry tenderness? If I must die,

I will encounter darkness as a bride,

And hug it in mine arms.

ISABELLA

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’th’ head and follies doth enew

As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil.

His filth within being cast, he would appear

A pond as deep as hell.

CLAUDIO

The precise Angelo?

ISABELLA

O, ‘tis the cunning livery of hell

The damnedest body to invest and cover

In precise guards! Dost thou think, Claudio:

If I would yield him my virginity,

Thou might’st be freed!

CLAUDIO

O heavens, it cannot be!

ISABELLA

Yes, he would give’t thee, from this rank offence,

So to offend him still. This night’s the time

That I should do what I abhor to name,

Or else thou diest tomorrow.

CLAUDIO Thou shalt not do’t.

ISABELLA O, were it but my life,

I’d throw it down for your deliverance

As frankly as a pin.

CLAUDIO

Thanks, dear Isabel.

ISABELLA

Be ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow.

CLAUDIO

Yes. Has he affections in him

That thus can make him bite the law by th’ nose

When he would force it? Sure it is no sin,

Or of the deadly seven it is the least.

ISABELLA Which is the least?

CLAUDIO

If it were damnable, he being so wise,

Why would he for the momentary trick

Be perdurably fined? O Isabel!

ISABELLA What says my brother?

CLAUDIO Death is a fearful thing.

ISABELLA And shamed life a hateful.

CLAUDIO

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;

To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;

This sensible warm motion to become

A kneaded clod, and the dilated spirit

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside

In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;

To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,

And blown with restless violence round about

The pendent world; or to be worse than worst

Of those that lawless and incertain thought

Imagine howling—’tis too horrible!

The weariest and most loathed worldly life

That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment

Can lay on nature is a paradise

To what we fear of death.

ISABELLA Alas, alas!

CLAUDIO Sweet sister, let me live.

What sin you do to save a brother’s life,

Nature dispenses with the deed so far

That it becomes a virtue.

ISABELLA

O, you beast!

O faithless coward, O dishonest wretch,

Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?

Is’t not a kind of incest to take life

From thine own sister’s shame? What should I think?

Heaven shield my mother played my father fair,

For such a warped slip of wilderness

Ne’er issued from his blood. Take my defiance,

Die, perish! Might but my bending down

Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed.

I’ll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,

No word to save thee.

CLAUDIO Nay, hear me, Isabel.

ISABELLA O fie, fie, fie!

Thy sin’s not accidental, but a trade.

Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd.

’Tis best that thou diest quickly.

She parts from Claudio

CLAUDIO O hear me, Isabella.

DUKE (coming forward to Isabella) Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.

ISABELLA What is your will?

DUKE Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and by have some speech with you. The satisfaction I would require is likewise your own benefit.

ISABELLA I have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be stolen out of other affairs; but I will attend you a while.

DUKE

standing aside with Claudio Son, I have overheard what hath passed between you and your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her; only he hath made an assay of her virtue, to practise his judgement with the disposition of natures. She, having the truth of honour in her, hath made him that gracious denial which he is most glad to receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I know this to be true. Therefore prepare yourself to death. Do not falsify your resolution with hopes that are fallible. Tomorrow you must die. Go to your knees and make ready.

CLAUDIO Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love with life that I will sue to be rid of it.

DUKE Hold you there. Farewell.

⌈Claudio joins Isabella⌉

Provost, a word with you.

PROVOST (coming forward) What’s your will, father?

DUKE That now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me a while with the maid. My mind promises with my habit no loss shall touch her by my company.

PROVOST In good time. Exit

with Claudio

DUKE The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good. The goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of your complexion, shall keep the body of it ever fair. The assault that Angelo hath made to you fortune hath conveyed to my understanding; and but that frailty hath examples for his falling, I should wonder at Angelo. How will you do to content this substitute, and to save your brother?