Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare
Act 3 - Scene 1
A room in the prison.
Vincentio : So then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?
Claudio : The miserable have no other medicine
[p]But only hope:
[p]I've hope to
live, and am prepared to die.
Vincentio : Be absolute for death; either death or life
[p]Shall thereby be the
sweeter. Reason thus with life:
[p]If I do lose thee, I do lose a
thing
[p]That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,
[p]Servile
to all the skyey influences,
[p]That dost this habitation, where thou
keep'st,
[p]Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool;
[p]For him
thou labour'st by thy flight to shun
[p]And yet runn'st toward him
still. Thou art not noble;
[p]For all the accommodations that thou
bear'st
[p]Are nursed by baseness. Thou'rt by no means valiant;
[p]For
thou dost fear the soft and tender fork
[p]Of a poor worm. Thy best of
rest is sleep,
[p]And that thou oft provokest; yet grossly
fear'st
[p]Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;
[p]For
thou exist'st on many a thousand grains
[p]That issue out of dust.
Happy thou art not;
[p]For what thou hast not, still thou strivest to
get,
[p]And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain;
[p]For
thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
[p]After the moon. If thou
art rich, thou'rt poor;
[p]For, like an ass whose back with ingots
bows,
[p]Thou bear's thy heavy riches but a journey,
[p]And death
unloads thee. Friend hast thou none;
[p]For thine own bowels, which do
call thee sire,
[p]The mere effusion of thy proper loins,
[p]Do curse
the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,
[p]For ending thee no sooner. Thou
hast nor youth nor age,
[p]But, as it were, an after-dinner's
sleep,
[p]Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth
[p]Becomes as
aged, and doth beg the alms
[p]Of palsied eld; and when thou art old
and rich,
[p]Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor
beauty,
[p]To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this
[p]That
bears the name of life? Yet in this life
[p]Lie hid moe thousand
deaths: yet death we fear,
[p]That makes these odds all even.
Claudio : I humbly thank you.
[p]To sue to live, I find I seek to die;
[p]And,
seeking death, find life: let it come on.
Isabella : [Within] What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company!
Provost : Who's there? come in: the wish deserves a welcome.
Vincentio : Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again.
Claudio : Most holy sir, I thank you.
Isabella : My business is a word or two with Claudio.
Provost : And very welcome. Look, signior, here's your sister.
Vincentio : Provost, a word with you.
Provost : As many as you please.
Vincentio : Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be concealed.
Claudio : Now, sister, what's the comfort?
Isabella : Why,
[p]As all comforts are; most good, most good indeed.
[p]Lord
Angelo, having affairs to heaven,
[p]Intends you for his swift
ambassador,
[p]Where you shall be an everlasting leiger:
[p]Therefore
your best appointment make with speed;
[p]To-morrow you set on.
Claudio : Is there no remedy?
Isabella : None, but such remedy as, to save a head,
[p]To cleave a heart in
twain.
Claudio : But is there any?
Isabella : Yes, brother, you may live:
[p]There is a devilish mercy in the
judge,
[p]If you'll implore it, that will free your life,
[p]But
fetter you till death.
Claudio : Perpetual durance?
Isabella : Ay, just; perpetual durance, a restraint,
[p]Though all the world's
vastidity you had,
[p]To a determined scope.
Claudio : But in what nature?
Isabella : In such a one as, you consenting to't,
[p]Would bark your honour from
that trunk you bear,
[p]And leave you naked.
Claudio : Let me know the point.
Isabella : O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,
[p]Lest thou a feverous life
shouldst entertain,
[p]And six or seven winters more respect
[p]Than a
perpetual honour. Darest thou die?
[p]The sense of death is most in
apprehension;
[p]And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,
[p]In
corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
[p]As when a giant dies.
Claudio : Why give you me this shame?
[p]Think you I can a resolution
fetch
[p]From flowery tenderness? If I must die,
[p]I will encounter
darkness as a bride,
[p]And hug it in mine arms.
Isabella : There spake my brother; there my father's grave
[p]Did utter forth a
voice. Yes, thou must die:
[p]Thou art too noble to conserve a
life
[p]In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,
[p]Whose
settled visage and deliberate word
[p]Nips youth i' the head and
follies doth emmew
[p]As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil
[p]His
filth within being cast, he would appear
[p]A pond as deep as hell.
Claudio : The prenzie Angelo!
Isabella : O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell,
[p]The damned'st body to invest
and cover
[p]In prenzie guards! Dost thou think, Claudio?
[p]If I
would yield him my virginity,
[p]Thou mightst be freed.
Claudio : O heavens! it cannot be.
Isabella : Yes, he would give't thee, from this rank offence,
[p]So to offend him
still. This night's the time
[p]That I should do what I abhor to
name,
[p]Or else thou diest to-morrow.
Claudio : Thou shalt not do't.
Isabella : O, were it but my life,
[p]I'ld throw it down for your
deliverance
[p]As frankly as a pin.
Claudio : Thanks, dear Isabel.
Isabella : Be ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow.
Claudio : Yes. Has he affections in him,
[p]That thus can make him bite the law
by the nose,
[p]When he would force it? Sure, it is no sin,
[p]Or of
the deadly seven, it is the least.
Isabella : Which is the least?
Claudio : If it were damnable, he being so wise,
[p]Why would he for the
momentary trick
[p]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;
[p]To lie in cold
obstruction and to rot;
[p]This sensible warm motion to become
[p]A
kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
[p]To bathe in fiery floods, or
to reside
[p]In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
[p]To be
imprison'd in the viewless winds,
[p]And blown with restless violence
round about
[p]The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
[p]Of
those that lawless and incertain thought
[p]Imagine howling: 'tis too
horrible!
[p]The weariest and most loathed worldly life
[p]That age,
ache, penury and imprisonment
[p]Can lay on nature is a paradise
[p]To
what we fear of death.
Isabella : Alas, alas!
Claudio : Sweet sister, let me live:
[p]What sin you do to save a brother's
life,
[p]Nature dispenses with the deed so far
[p]That it becomes a
virtue.
Isabella : O you beast!
[p]O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!
[p]Wilt thou
be made a man out of my vice?
[p]Is't not a kind of incest, to take
life
[p]From thine own sister's shame? What should I think?
[p]Heaven
shield my mother play'd my father fair!
[p]For such a warped slip of
wilderness
[p]Ne'er issued from his blood. Take my defiance!
[p]Die,
perish! Might but my bending down
[p]Reprieve thee from thy fate, it
should proceed:
[p]I'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,
[p]No
word to save thee.
Claudio : Nay, hear me, Isabel.
Isabella : O, fie, fie, fie!
[p]Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade.
[p]Mercy
to thee would prove itself a bawd:
[p]'Tis best thou diest quickly.
Claudio : O hear me, Isabella!
Vincentio : Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.
Isabella : What is your will?
Vincentio : Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and
[p]by have some
speech with you: the satisfaction I
[p]would require is likewise your
own benefit.
Isabella : I have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be
[p]stolen out of other
affairs; but I will attend you awhile.
Vincentio : Son, I have overheard what hath passed between you
[p]and your sister.
Angelo had never the purpose to
[p]corrupt her; only he hath made an
essay of her
[p]virtue to practise his judgment with the
disposition
[p]of natures: she, having the truth of honour in
her,
[p]hath made him that gracious denial which he is most
[p]glad to
receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I
[p]know this to be true;
therefore prepare yourself to
[p]death: do not satisfy your resolution
with hopes
[p]that are fallible: tomorrow you must die; go to
[p]your
knees and make ready.
Claudio : Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love
[p]with life that I
will sue to be rid of it.
Vincentio : Hold you there: farewell.
[p][Exit CLAUDIO]
[p]Provost, a word with
you!
Provost : What's your will, father
Vincentio : That now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me
[p]awhile with the
maid: my mind promises with my
[p]habit no loss shall touch her by my
company.
Provost : In good time.
Vincentio : The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good:
[p]the goodness
that is cheap in beauty makes beauty
[p]brief in goodness; but grace,
being the soul of
[p]your complexion, shall keep the body of it
ever
[p]fair. The assault that Angelo hath made to you,
[p]fortune
hath conveyed to my understanding; and, but
[p]that frailty hath
examples for his falling, I should
[p]wonder at Angelo. How will you
do to content this
[p]substitute, and to save your brother?
Isabella : I am now going to resolve him: I had rather my
[p]brother die by the
law than my son should be
[p]unlawfully born. But, O, how much is the
good duke
[p]deceived in Angelo! If ever he return and I can
[p]speak
to him, I will open my lips in vain, or
[p]discover his government.
Vincentio : That shall not be much amiss: Yet, as the matter
[p]now stands, he
will avoid your accusation; he made
[p]trial of you only. Therefore
fasten your ear on my
[p]advisings: to the love I have in doing good
a
[p]remedy presents itself. I do make myself believe
[p]that you may
most uprighteously do a poor wronged
[p]lady a merited benefit; redeem
your brother from
[p]the angry law; do no stain to your own
gracious
[p]person; and much please the absent duke,
if
[p]peradventure he shall ever return to have hearing of
[p]this
business.
Isabella : Let me hear you speak farther. I have spirit to do
[p]anything that
appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.
Vincentio : Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have
[p]you not heard
speak of Mariana, the sister of
[p]Frederick the great soldier who
miscarried at sea?
Isabella : I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.
Vincentio : She should this Angelo have married; was affianced
[p]to her by oath,
and the nuptial appointed: between
[p]which time of the contract and
limit of the
[p]solemnity, her brother Frederick was wrecked at
sea,
[p]having in that perished vessel the dowry of his
[p]sister. But
mark how heavily this befell to the
[p]poor gentlewoman: there she
lost a noble and
[p]renowned brother, in his love toward her ever
most
[p]kind and natural; with him, the portion and sinew of
[p]her
fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her
[p]combinate husband, this
well-seeming Angelo.
Isabella : Can this be so? did Angelo so leave her?
Vincentio : Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them
[p]with his comfort;
swallowed his vows whole,
[p]pretending in her discoveries of
dishonour: in few,
[p]bestowed her on her own lamentation, which she
yet
[p]wears for his sake; and he, a marble to her tears,
[p]is washed
with them, but relents not.
Isabella : What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid
[p]from the
world! What corruption in this life, that
[p]it will let this man
live! But how out of this can she avail?
Vincentio : It is a rupture that you may easily heal: and the
[p]cure of it not
only saves your brother, but keeps
[p]you from dishonour in doing it.
Isabella : Show me how, good father.
Vincentio : This forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance
[p]of her first
affection: his unjust unkindness, that
[p]in all reason should have
quenched her love, hath,
[p]like an impediment in the current, made it
more
[p]violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his
[p]requiring
with a plausible obedience; agree with
[p]his demands to the point;
only refer yourself to
[p]this advantage, first, that your stay with
him may
[p]not be long; that the time may have all shadow
and
[p]silence in it; and the place answer to convenience.
[p]This
being granted in course,--and now follows
[p]all,--we shall advise
this wronged maid to stead up
[p]your appointment, go in your place;
if the encounter
[p]acknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him
to
[p]her recompense: and here, by this, is your brother
[p]saved,
your honour untainted, the poor Mariana
[p]advantaged, and the corrupt
deputy scaled. The maid
[p]will I frame and make fit for his attempt.
If you
[p]think well to carry this as you may, the doubleness
[p]of
the benefit defends the deceit from reproof.
[p]What think you of it?
Isabella : The image of it gives me content already; and I
[p]trust it will grow
to a most prosperous perfection.
Vincentio : It lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily
[p]to Angelo: if
for this night he entreat you to his
[p]bed, give him promise of
satisfaction. I will
[p]presently to Saint Luke's: there, at the
moated
[p]grange, resides this dejected Mariana. At that
[p]place call
upon me; and dispatch with Angelo, that
[p]it may be quickly.
Isabella : I thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father.
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Next: Act 3 - Scene 2
