Ang.

Hath he a sister?

Prov. Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid, And to be shortly of a sisterhood,

If not already.

Ang. Well, let her be admitted. [Exit Serv.. See you the fornicatress be remov'd:

Let her have needful but not lavish means;

There shall be order for it.

Enter LUCIO and ISABELLA.

Prov. Save your honour. [Offering to retire. Ang. Stay a little while.-[To ISAB.] You are welcome: What's your will?

Isab. I am a woful suitor to your honour, Please but your honour hear me.

Ang.

Well; what's your suit?

Isab. 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.

Ang.

Well; the matter?

Isab. I have a brother is condemn'd to die:

I do beseech you, let it be his fault,

And not my brother.'

Prov.

Heaven give thee moving graces!

Ang. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it! Why, every fault's condemn'd, 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.

Isab.

O just, but severe law!

1 That is, let my brother's fault die, but let not him suffer.

2 That is, "to pronounce the fine or sentence of the law upon the crime, and let the delinquent escape."

VOL. II.

5

I had a brother then. Heaven keep your hon

our !

[Retiring. Lucio. [To ISAB.] Give't not o'er so: to him again, intreat 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.

Isab. Must he needs die?

Ang.

Maiden, no remedy.

Isab. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him, And neither Heaven, nor man, grieve at the mercy. Ang. I will not do't.

Isab.

But can you, if you would?

Ang. Look, what I will not, that I cannot do. Isab. But might you do't, and do the world no

wrong,

If so your heart were touch'd with that remorse
As mine is to him?

Ang.

He's sentenc'd: 'tis too late.

Lucio. [To ISAB.] You are too cold.

3

Isab. Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word,
May call it back again: Well, believe 3 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 slipt like him,
But he, like you, would not have been so stern.
Ang. Pray you, begone.

Isab. I would to Heaven I had your potency,
And you were Isabel! should it then be thus?

3 That is, be assured of it.

No; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge,
And what a prisoner.

Lucio. [Aside.] Ay, touch him: there's the vein.
Ang. Your brother is a forfeit of the law,
And you but waste your words.

Alas! alas!

Isab.
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 judgment, should
But judge you as you are?
O! think on that;
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made.1

Ang.

Be you content, fair maid: It is the law, not I, condemns your brother:

Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,

It should be thus with him: - he must die to-mor

row.

Isab. To-morrow? O, that's sudden! Spare him, spare him!

He's not prepar'd for death. Even for our kitchens We kill the fowl of season: 5 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.

[Aside.] Ay, well said.

Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath

Those many had not dar'd to do that evil,

4 "You will then be as tender-hearted and merciful as the first man was in his days of innocence."

That is, when in season.

"Dormiunt aliquando leges, moriuntur nunquam,” is a maxim of our law.

If the first that did the edict infringe

Had answer'd 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 now, or by remissness new-conceiv'd,
And so in progress to be hatch'd and born)
Are now to have no súccessive degrees,
But, where they live, to end.

Isab.

Yet show some pity.

Ang. I show it most of all, when I show justice; For then I pity those I do not know,

8

Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall;

And do him right, that, answering one foul wrong, Lives not to act another. Be satisfied:

Your brother dies to-morrow: be content.

Isab. 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.

[Aside.] That's well said.

Isab. 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 gnarled 10 oak, Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man! Dress'd in a little brief authority,

7 This alludes to the deceptions of the fortune-tellers, who pretended to see future events in a beryl, or crystal glass.

8 One of Judge Hale's Memorials is of the same tendency: "When I find myself swayed to mercy, let me remember that there is a mercy likewise due to the country."

9 Pelting for paltry.

10 Gnarled, knotted.

Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
His glassy essence,"1 like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven,
As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.'

12

Lucio. [To ISAB.] O, to him, to him, wench! he will relent:

He's coming, I perceive't.

Prov. [Aside.] Pray Heaven, she win him! Isab. We cannot weigh our brother with your

self:

Great men may jest with saints: 'tis wit in them; But in the less foul profanation.

Lucio. [To ISAB.] Thou'rt in the right, girl: more o' that.

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

Lucio. [Aside.] Art advis'd o' that? more on't. Ang. Why do you put these sayings upon me? Isab. Because authority, though it err like others, Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,

13

That skins the vice o' the 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 his,

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother's life.

Ang.

[Aside.] She speaks, and 'tis

11 That is, his brittle, fragile being.

H.

12 The notion of angels weeping for the sins of men is rabbinical. By spleens Shakespeare meant that peculiar turn of the human mind, which always inclines it to a spiteful and unseasonable mirth. Had the angels that, they would laugh themselves out of their immortality, by indulging a passion unworthy of that prerogative.

13 Shakespeare has used this indelicate metaphor again in Hamlet "It will but skin and film the ulcerous place."