SCENE IV. A room in ANGELO's house. Measure for Measure  Shakespeare homepage  |  Measure for Measure  | Act 2, Scene 4 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE IV. A room in ANGELO's house. 

 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: 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 art blood: 

 Let's write good angel on the devil's horn: 

 'Tis not the devil's crest. 



 Enter a 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-wish'd 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  That you might know it, would much better please me 

 Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live. 

 ISABELLA  Even so. Heaven keep your honour! 

 ANGELO  Yet may he live awhile; 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 heaven'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 means 

 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 stain'd? 

 ISABELLA  Sir, believe this, 

 I had rather give my body than my soul. 

 ANGELO  I talk not of your soul: our compell'd sins 

 Stand more for number than for accompt. 

 ISABELLA  How say you? 

 ANGELO  Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak 

 Against the thing I say. Answer to this: 

 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, display'd. 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-building 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, 

 The impression of keen whips I'ld wear as rubies, 

 And strip myself to death, as to a bed 

 That longing have been sick for, ere I'ld 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 slander'd so? 

 ISABELLA  Ignomy in ransom and free pardon 

 Are of two houses: lawful mercy 

 Is nothing kin to foul redemption. 

 ANGELO  You seem'd 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 feodary, 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 express'd 

 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 outstretch'd throat I'll tell the world aloud 

 What man thou art. 

 ANGELO  Who will believe thee, Isabel? 

 My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life, 

 My vouch against you, and my place i' the 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 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  ISABELLA  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 fallen 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. 



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