Another Room in Angelo's House.
 Enter PROVOST and a SERVANT.

Servant	He's hearing of a cause; he will come straight.
	I'll tell him of you.

Provost							Pray you, do.
													[Exit SERVANT.
											I'll know
	His pleasure; maybe he will relent. Alas,
	He hath but as offended in a dream!
	All sects, all ages, smack of this vice; - and he
	To die for't!

                              Enter ANGELO.

Angelo					Now, what's the matter, Provost?

Provost	Is it your will Claudio shall die tomorrow?

Angelo	Did I not tell thee yea? Hadst thou not order?
	Why dost thou ask again?

Provost								Lest I might be too rash.
	Under your good correction, I have seen
	When, after execution, judgement hath
	Repented o'er his doom.

Angelo							Go to; let that be mine.
	Do you your office, or give up your place,
	And you shall well be spared.

Provost									I crave your honour's pardon.
	What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet?
	She's very near her hour.

Angelo								Dispose of her
	To some more fitter place; and that with speed.

                            Re-enter SERVANT.

Servant	Here is the sister of the man condemned
	Desires access to you.

Angelo							Hath he a sister?

Provost	Ay, my good lord, a very virtuous maid;
	And to be shortly of a sisterhood,
	If not already.

Angelo					Well, let her be admitted.
													[Exit SERVANT.
	See you the fornicatress be removed;
	Let her have needful but not lavish means;
	There shall be order for't.

                        Enter LUCIO and ISABELLA.

Provost							[Going.] Save your honour!

Angelo	Stay a little while.
			[To ISABELLA.] You're welcome. What's your will?

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

Angelo									Well, what's your suit?

Isabella	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.

Angelo										Well, the matter?

Isabella	I have a brother is condemned to die;
	I do beseech you, let it be his fault,
	And not my brother.

Provost				[Aside.] Heaven give thee moving graces!

Angelo	Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?
	Why, every fault's condemned ere it be done.
	Mine were the very cipher of a function
	To fine the faults, whose fine stands in record,
	And let go by the actor.

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

Lucio	[To ISABELLA.]
	Give't not o'er so. To him again, entreat 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.

Isabella	Must he needs die?

Angelo						Maiden, no remedy.

Isabella	Yes: I do think that you might pardon him,
	And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.

Angelo	I will not do't.

Isabella						But can you if you would?

Angelo	Look, what I will not, that I cannot do.

Isabella	But might you do't, and do the world no wrong,
	If so your heart were touched with that remorse
	As mine is to him?

Angelo	He's sentenced, 'tis too late.

Lucio						[To ISABELLA.] You are too cold.

Isabella	Too late? Why, no. I that do speak a word
	May call it 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 slipped like him, but he like you
	Would not have been so stern.

Angelo									Pray you be gone.

Isabella	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,
	And what a prisoner.

Lucio			[To ISABELLA.] Ay, touch him; there's the vein.

Angelo	Your brother is a forfeit of the law,
	And you but waste your words.

Isabella									Alas, alas!
	Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once,
	And He that might the vantage best have took
	Found out the remedy. How would you be
	If He, which is the top of judgement, should
	But judge you as you are? O, think on that,
	And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
	Like man new made.

Angelo						Be you content, fair maid.
	It is the law, not I, condemn your brother:
	Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,
	It should be thus with him. He must die tomorrow.

Isabella	Tomorrow? O, that's sudden. Spare him, spare him!
	He's not prepared for death. Even for our kitchens
	We kill the fowl of season: - shall we serve heaven
	With less respect than we do minister
	To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you:
	Who is it that hath died for this offence?
	There's many have committed it.

Lucio						[To ISABELLA.] Ay, well said.

Angelo	The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.
	Those many had not dared to do that evil
	If the first that did the edict infringe
	Had answered 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 new, or by remissness new-conceived,
	And so in progress to be hatched and born,
	Are now to have no successive degrees,
	But ere they live, to end.

Isabella								Yet show some pity.

Angelo	I show it most of all when I show justice,
	For then I pity those I do not know,
	Which a dismissed offence would after gall,
	And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,
	Lives not to act another. Be satisfied.
	Your brother dies tomorrow. Be content.

Isabella	So you must be the first that gives this sentence,
	And he that suffers. O, it is excellent
	To have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous
	To use it like a giant.

Lucio	[To ISABELLA.] That's well said.

Isabella	Could great men thunder
	As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,
	For every pelting petty officer
	Would use his heaven for thunder,
	Nothing but thunder. Merciful heaven,
	Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt,
	Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarld oak
	Than the soft myrtle. But man, proud man,
	Dressed in a little brief authority,
	Most ignorant of what he's most assured-
	His glassy essence - like an angry ape
	Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
	As makes the angels weep, who, with our spleens,
	Would all themselves laugh mortal.

Lucio	[To ISABELLA.]
	O, to him, to him, wench! He will relent.
	He's coming, I perceive't.

Provost							[Aside.] Pray heaven she win him!

Isabella	We cannot weigh our brother with ourself.
	Great men may jest with saints, 'tis wit in them,
	But in the less, foul profanation.

Lucio	[To ISABELLA.] Thou'rt i'th' right, girl; more o'that.

Isabella	That in the captain's but a choleric word
	Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

Lucio	[To ISABELLA.] Art avised o'that? More on't.

Angelo	Why do you put these sayings upon me?

Isabella	Because authority, though it err like others,
	Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself
	That skins the vice o'th' 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.

Angelo						[Aside.] She speaks, and 'tis
	Such sense that my sense breeds with it.
									[To ISABELLA.] Fare you well.

Isabella	Gentle my lord, turn back.

Angelo	I will bethink me. Come again tomorrow.

Isabella	Hark how I'll bribe you; good my lord, turn back.

Angelo	How, bribe me?

Isabella	Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.

Lucio	[To ISABELLA.] You had marred all else.

Isabella	Not with fond sickles of the tested gold,
	Or stones whose rate are either rich or poor
	As fancy values them; but with true prayers
	That shall be up at heaven and enter there
	Ere sunrise: prayers from preservd souls,
	From fasting maids whose minds are dedicate
	To nothing temporal.

Angelo							Well, come to me tomorrow.

Lucio	[To ISABELLA.] Go to, 'tis well. Away.

Isabella	Heaven keep your honour safe!

Angelo	[Aside.] Amen;
	For I am that way going to temptation,
	Where prayer's crossed.

Isabella							At what hour tomorrow
	Shall I attend your lordship?

Angelo								At any time 'fore noon.

Isabella	Save your honour!
													[Exeunt all but ANGELO.

Angelo	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 fie, fie, fie!
	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,
	Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
	Subdues me quite. Ever till now
	When men were fond, I smiled, and wondered how.
													[Exit.
