MEASURE FOR MEASURE. William Shakespeare

Were equal poise of sin and charity.

       ISABELLA.

       That I do beg his life, if it be sin,

       Heaven let me bear it! You granting of my suit,

       If that be sin, I’ll make it my morn prayer

       To have it added to the faults of mine,

       And nothing of your answer.

       ANGELO.

       Nay, but hear me:

       Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant

       Or seem so, craftily; and that’s not good.

       ISABELLA.

       Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good

       But graciously to know I am no better.

       ANGELO.

       Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright

       When it doth tax itself: as these black masks

       Proclaim an enshielded beauty ten times louder

       Than beauty could, displayed.—But mark me;

       To be received plain, I’ll speak more gross:

       Your brother is to die.

       ISABELLA.

       So.

       ANGELO.

       And his offence is so, as it appears,

       Accountant to the law upon that pain.

       ISABELLA.

       True.

       ANGELO.

       Admit no other way to save his life,—

       As I subscribe not that, nor any other,

       But, in the loss of question,—that you, his sister,

       Finding yourself desir’d of such a person,

       Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,

       Could fetch your brother from the manacles

       Of the all-binding law; and that there were

       No earthly mean to save him but that either

       You must lay down the treasures of your body

       To this suppos’d, or else to let him suffer;

       What would you do?

       ISABELLA.

       As much for my poor brother as myself:

       That is, were I under the terms of death,

       The impression of keen whips I’d wear as rubies,

       And strip myself to death, as to a bed

       That longing have been sick for, ere I’d yield

       My body up to shame.

       ANGELO.

       Then must your brother die.

       ISABELLA.

       And ‘twere the cheaper way:

       Better it were a brother died at once

       Than that a sister, by redeeming him,

       Should die for ever.

       ANGELO.

       Were not you, then, as cruel as the sentence

       That you have slandered so?

       ISABELLA.

       Ignominy in ransom and free pardon

       Are of two houses; lawful mercy

       Is nothing kin to foul redemption.

       ANGELO.

       You seem’d of late to make the law a tyrant;

       And rather prov’d the sliding of your brother

       A merriment than a vice.

       ISABELLA.

       O, pardon me, my lord! It oft falls out,

       To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean:

       I something do excuse the thing I hate

       For his advantage that I dearly love.

       ANGELO.

       We are all frail.

       ISABELLA.

       Else let my brother die,

       If not a feodary, but only he,

       Owe, and succeed by weakness.

       ANGELO.

       Nay, women are frail too.

       ISABELLA.

       Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves;

       Which are as easy broke as they make forms.

       Women! Help heaven! men their creation mar

       In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail;

       For we are soft as our complexions are,

       And credulous to false prints.

       ANGELO.

       I think it well:

       And from this testimony of your own sex,—

       Since, I suppose, we are made to be no stronger

       Than faults may shake our frames,—let me be bold;—

       I do arrest your words. Be that you are,

       That is, a woman; if you be more, you’re none;

       If you be one,—as you are well express’d

       By all external warrants,—show it now

       By putting on the destin’d livery.

       ISABELLA.

       I have no tongue but one: gentle, my lord,

       Let me intreat you, speak the former language.

       ANGELO.

       Plainly conceive, I love you.

       ISABELLA.

       My brother did love Juliet; and you tell me

       That he shall die for it.

       ANGELO.

       He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.

       ISABELLA.

       I know your virtue hath a license in’t,

       Which seems a little fouler than it is,

       To pluck on others.

       ANGELO.

       Believe me, on mine honour,

       My words express my purpose.

       ISABELLA.

       Ha! little honour to be much believed,

       And most pernicious purpose!—Seeming, seeming!—

       I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for’t:

       Sign me a present pardon for my brother

       Or, with an outstretch’d throat, I’ll tell the world

       Aloud what man thou art.

       ANGELO.

       Who will believe thee, Isabel?

       My unsoil’d name, th’ austereness of my life,

       My vouch against you, and my place i’ the state,

       Will so your accusation overweigh

       That you shall stifle in your own report,

       And smell of calumny. I have begun,

       And now I give my sensual race the rein:

       Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;

       Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes

       That banish what they sue for: redeem thy brother

       By yielding up thy body to my will;

       Or else he must not only die the death,

       But