Back to main page
Measure for Measure - Act 2, scene 4
Cite
Download Measure for Measure
Last updated: Fri, Jul 31, 2015
- PDF Download as PDF
- DOC (for MS Word, Apple Pages, Open Office, etc.) without line numbers Download as DOC (for MS Word, Apple Pages, Open Office, etc.) without line numbers
- DOC (for MS Word, Apple Pages, Open Office, etc.) with line numbers Download as DOC (for MS Word, Apple Pages, Open Office, etc.) with line numbers
- HTML Download as HTML
- TXT Download as TXT
- XML Download as XML
- TEISimple XML (annotated with MorphAdorner for part-of-speech analysis) Download as TEISimple XML (annotated with MorphAdorner for part-of-speech analysis)
Navigate this work
Measure for Measure - Act 2, scene 4Act 2, scene 4
Scene 4
Synopsis:
Angelo tells Isabella that only if she sleeps with him will he set Claudio free; if she refuses, Claudio will be tortured to death. Isabella is certain that Claudio would not want her to commit a mortal sin. She therefore sets off to prepare him for his death.
Enter Angelo.ANGELO
1008 When I would pray and think, I think and pray
1009 To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words,
1010 Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
1011 Anchors on Isabel. ⌜God⌝ in my mouth,
1012 5 As if I did but only chew His name,
1013 And in my heart the strong and swelling evil
1014 Of my conception. The state whereon I studied
1015 Is, like a good thing being often read,
1016 Grown ⌜sere⌝ and tedious. Yea, my gravity,
1017 10 Wherein—let no man hear me—I take pride,
1018 Could I with boot change for an idle plume
1019 Which the air beats for vain. O place, O form,
1020 How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
1021 Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
1022 15 To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood.
1023 Let’s write “good angel” on the devil’s horn.
1024 ’Tis not the devil’s crest. ⌜Knock within.⌝ How now,
1025 who’s there?
Enter Servant.
SERVANT
1026 One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.
ANGELO
1027 20 Teach her the way. ⌜Servant exits.⌝ O heavens,
1028 Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,
1029 Making both it unable for itself
1030 And dispossessing all my other parts
1031 Of necessary fitness?
1032 25 So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons,
1033 Come all to help him, and so stop the air
1034 By which he should revive. And even so
1035 The general subject to a well-wished king
p.
79
1036
Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness1037 30 Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
1038 Must needs appear offense.
Enter Isabella.
1039 How now, fair maid?
ISABELLA 1040 I am come to know your pleasure.
ANGELO
1041 That you might know it would much better please me
1042 35 Than to demand what ’tis. Your brother cannot live.
ISABELLA 1043 Even so. Heaven keep your Honor.
ANGELO
1044 Yet may he live a while. And it may be
1045 As long as you or I. Yet he must die.
ISABELLA 1046 Under your sentence?
ANGELO 1047 40Yea.
ISABELLA
1048 When, I beseech you? That in his reprieve,
1049 Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted
1050 That his soul sicken not.
ANGELO
1051 Ha! Fie, these filthy vices! It were as good
1052 45 To pardon him that hath from nature stolen
1053 A man already made, as to remit
1054 Their saucy sweetness that do coin ⌜God’s⌝ image
1055 In stamps that are forbid. ’Tis all as easy
1056 Falsely to take away a life true made
1057 50 As to put metal in restrainèd means
1058 To make a false one.
ISABELLA
1059 ’Tis set down so in heaven, but not in Earth.
ANGELO
1060 Say you so? Then I shall pose you quickly:
1061 Which had you rather, that the most just law
1062 55 Now took your brother’s life, ⌜or,⌝ to redeem him,
p.
81
1063
Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness1064 As she that he hath stained?
ISABELLA 1065 Sir, believe this:
1066 I had rather give my body than my soul.
ANGELO
1067 60 I talk not of your soul. Our compelled sins
1068 Stand more for number than for accompt.
ISABELLA 1069 How say you?
ANGELO
1070 Nay, I’ll not warrant that, for I can speak
1071 Against the thing I say. Answer to this:
1072 65 I, now the voice of the recorded law,
1073 Pronounce a sentence on your brother’s life.
1074 Might there not be a charity in sin
1075 To save this brother’s life?
ISABELLA 1076 Please you to do ’t,
1077 70 I’ll take it as a peril to my soul,
1078 It is no sin at all, but charity.
ANGELO
1079 Pleased you to do ’t, at peril of your soul,
1080 Were equal poise of sin and charity.
ISABELLA
1081 That I do beg his life, if it be sin
1082 75 Heaven let me bear it. You granting of my suit,
1083 If that be sin, I’ll make it my morn prayer
1084 To have it added to the faults of mine
1085 And nothing of your answer.
ANGELO 1086 Nay, but hear me.
1087 80 Your sense pursues not mine. Either you are
1088 ignorant,
1089 Or seem so, crafty, and that’s not good.
ISABELLA
1090 Let ⌜me⌝ be ignorant and in nothing good,
1091 But graciously to know I am no better.
ANGELO
1092 85 Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright
p.
83
1093
When it doth tax itself, as these black masks1094 Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder
1095 Than beauty could, displayed. But mark me.
1096 To be receivèd plain, I’ll speak more gross:
1097 90 Your brother is to die.
ISABELLA 1098 So.
ANGELO
1099 And his offense is so, as it appears,
1100 Accountant to the law upon that pain.
ISABELLA 1101 True.
ANGELO
1102 95 Admit no other way to save his life—
1103 As I subscribe not that, nor any other—
1104 But, in the loss of question, that you, his sister,
1105 Finding yourself desired of such a person
1106 Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,
1107 100 Could fetch your brother from the manacles
1108 Of the all-⌜binding⌝ law, and that there were
1109 No earthly mean to save him but that either
1110 You must lay down the treasures of your body
1111 To this supposed, or else to let him suffer,
1112 105 What would you do?
ISABELLA
1113 As much for my poor brother as myself.
1114 That is, were I under the terms of death,
1115 Th’ impression of keen whips I’d wear as rubies
1116 And strip myself to death as to a bed
1117 110 That longing have been sick for, ere I’d yield
1118 My body up to shame.
ANGELO 1119 Then must your brother die.
ISABELLA 1120 And ’twere the cheaper way.
1121 Better it were a brother died at once
1122 115 Than that a sister, by redeeming him,
1123 Should die forever.
ANGELO
1124 Were not you then as cruel as the sentence
1125 That you have slandered so?
p.
85
ISABELLA 1126 Ignomy in ransom and free pardon
1127 120 Are of two houses. Lawful mercy
1128 Is nothing kin to foul redemption.
ANGELO
1129 You seemed of late to make the law a tyrant,
1130 And rather proved the sliding of your brother
1131 A merriment than a vice.
ISABELLA
1132 125 O, pardon me, my lord. It oft falls out,
1133 To have what we would have, we speak not what we
1134 mean.
1135 I something do excuse the thing I hate
1136 For his advantage that I dearly love.
ANGELO
1137 130 We are all frail.
ISABELLA 1138 Else let my brother die,
1139 If not a fedary but only he
1140 Owe and succeed thy weakness.
ANGELO 1141 Nay, women are frail too.
ISABELLA
1142 135 Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves,
1143 Which are as easy broke as they make forms.
1144 Women—help, heaven—men their creation mar
1145 In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail,
1146 For we are soft as our complexions are,
1147 140 And credulous to false prints.
ANGELO 1148 I think it well.
1149 And from this testimony of your own sex,
1150 Since I suppose we are made to be no stronger
1151 Than faults may shake our frames, let me be bold.
1152 145 I do arrest your words. Be that you are—
1153 That is, a woman. If you be more, you’re none.
1154 If you be one, as you are well expressed
1155 By all external warrants, show it now
1156 By putting on the destined livery.
p.
87
ISABELLA 1157 150 I have no tongue but one. Gentle my lord,
1158 Let me entreat you speak the former language.
ANGELO 1159 Plainly conceive I love you.
ISABELLA 1160 My brother did love Juliet,
1161 And you tell me that he shall die for ’t.
ANGELO
1162 155 He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.
ISABELLA
1163 I know your virtue hath a license in ’t
1164 Which seems a little fouler than it is
1165 To pluck on others.
ANGELO 1166 Believe me, on mine honor,
1167 160 My words express my purpose.
ISABELLA
1168 Ha! Little honor to be much believed,
1169 And most pernicious purpose. Seeming, seeming!
1170 I will proclaim thee, Angelo, look for ’t.
1171 Sign me a present pardon for my brother
1172 165 Or with an outstretched throat I’ll tell the world
1173 aloud
1174 What man thou art.
ANGELO 1175 Who will believe thee, Isabel?
1176 My unsoiled name, th’ austereness of my life,
1177 170 My vouch against you, and my place i’ th’ state
1178 Will so your accusation overweigh
1179 That you shall stifle in your own report
1180 And smell of calumny. I have begun,
1181 And now I give my sensual race the rein.
1182 175 Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;
1183 Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes
1184 That banish what they sue for. Redeem thy brother
1185 By yielding up thy body to my will,
1186 Or else he must not only die the death,
1187 180 But thy unkindness shall his death draw out
1188 To ling’ring sufferance. Answer me tomorrow,
p.
89
1189
Or by the affection that now guides me most,1190 I’ll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,
1191 Say what you can, my false o’erweighs your true.
He exits.
ISABELLA
1192 185 To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,
1193 Who would believe me? O, perilous mouths,
1194 That bear in them one and the selfsame tongue,
1195 Either of condemnation or approof,
1196 Bidding the law make curtsy to their will,
1197 190 Hooking both right and wrong to th’ appetite,
1198 To follow as it draws. I’ll to my brother.
1199 Though he hath fall’n by prompture of the blood,
1200 Yet hath he in him such a mind of honor
1201 That, had he twenty heads to tender down
1202 195 On twenty bloody blocks, he’d yield them up
1203 Before his sister should her body stoop
1204 To such abhorred pollution.
1205 Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die.
1206 More than our brother is our chastity.
1207 200 I’ll tell him yet of Angelo’s request,
1208 And fit his mind to death, for his soul’s rest.
She exits.