MEASURE FOR MEASURE. William Shakespeare

He’s coming; I perceive ‘t.

       PROVOST.

       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.

       Thou’rt i’ the right, girl; more o’ that.

       ISABELLA.

       That in the captain’s but a choleric word

       Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

       LUCIO.

       Art advised 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’ 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 is his,

       Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue

       Against my brother’s life.

       ANGELO.

       She speaks, and ‘tis

       Such sense that my sense breeds with it.—

       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.

       You had marr’d all else.

       ISABELLA.

       Not with fond shekels of the tested gold,

       Or stones, whose rates 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 preserved souls,

       From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate

       To nothing temporal.

       ANGELO.

       Well; come to me

       Tomorrow.

       LUCIO.

       [Aside 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 prayers cross.

       ISABELLA.

       At what hour tomorrow

       Shall I attend your lordship?

       ANGELO.

       At any time ‘fore noon.

       ISABELLA.

       Save your honour!

       [Exeunt LUCIO, ISABELLA, PROVOST.]

       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 smil’d and wonder’d how.

       [Exit.]

      SCENE III. A Room in a prison.

       [Enter DUKE, habited like a Friar, and PROVOST.]

       DUKE.

       Hail to you, provost! so I think you are.

       PROVOST.

       I am the provost. What’s your will, good friar?

       DUKE.

       Bound by my charity and my bless’d order,

       I come to visit the afflicted spirits

       Here in the prison: do me the common right

       To let me see them, and to make me know

       The nature of their crimes, that I may minister

       To them accordingly.

       PROVOST.

       I would do more than that, if more were needful.

       [Enter JULIET.]

       Look, here comes one; a gentlewoman of mine,

       Who, falling in the flaws of her own youth,

       Hath blister’d her report. She is with child;

       And he that got it, sentenc’d: a young man

       More fit to do another such offence

       Than die for this.

       DUKE.

       When must he die?

       PROVOST.

       As I do think, tomorrow.—

       [To JULIET.] I have provided for you; stay awhile

       And you shall be conducted.

       DUKE.

       Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?

       JULIET.

       I do; and bear the shame most patiently.

       DUKE.

       I’ll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,

       And try your penitence, if it be sound

       Or hollowly put on.

       JULIET.