William Shakespeare - Ultimate Collection: Complete Plays & Poetry in One Volume. William Shakespeare

ISABELLA.

       Justice, O royal duke! Vail your regard

       Upon a wrong’d, I’d fain have said, a maid!

       O worthy prince, dishonour not your eye

       By throwing it on any other object

       Till you have heard me in my true complaint,

       And given me justice, justice, justice, justice!

       DUKE.

       Relate your wrongs. In what? By whom? Be brief:

       Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice.

       Reveal yourself to him.

       ISABELLA.

       O worthy duke,

       You bid me seek redemption of the devil:

       Hear me yourself; for that which I must speak

       Must either punish me, not being believ’d,

       Or wring redress from you; hear me, O, hear me here!

       ANGELO.

       My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm:

       She hath been a suitor to me for her brother,

       Cut off by course of justice.

       ISABELLA.

       By course of justice!

       ANGELO.

       And she will speak most bitterly and strange.

       ISABELLA.

       Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak:

       That Angelo’s forsworn, is it not strange?

       That Angelo’s a murderer, is’t not strange?

       That Angelo is an adulterous thief,

       An hypocrite, a virgin-violator,

       Is it not strange and strange?

       DUKE.

       Nay, it is ten times strange.

       ISABELLA.

       It is not truer he is Angelo

       Than this is all as true as it is strange:

       Nay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth

       To the end of reckoning.

       DUKE.

       Away with her!—Poor soul,

       She speaks this in the infirmity of sense.

       ISABELLA.

       O prince! I conjure thee, as thou believ’st

       There is another comfort than this world,

       That thou neglect me not with that opinion

       That I am touch’d with madness: make not impossible

       That which but seems unlike; ‘tis not impossible

       But one, the wicked’st caitiff on the ground,

       May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute,

       As Angelo; even so may Angelo,

       In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms,

       Be an arch-villain; believe it, royal prince,

       If he be less, he’s nothing; but he’s more,

       Had I more name for badness.

       DUKE.

       By mine honesty,

       If she be mad, as I believe no other,

       Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense,

       Such a dependency of thing on thing,

       As e’er I heard in madness.

       ISABELLA.

       O gracious duke,

       Harp not on that: nor do not banish reason

       For inequality; but let your reason serve

       To make the truth appear where it seems hid

       And hide the false seems true.

       DUKE.

       Many that are not mad

       Have, sure, more lack of reason.—What would you say?

       ISABELLA.

       I am the sister of one Claudio,

       Condemn’d upon the act of fornication

       To lose his head; condemn’d by Angelo:

       I, in probation of a sisterhood,

       Was sent to by my brother: one Lucio

       As then the messenger;—

       LUCIO.

       That’s I, an’t like your grace:

       I came to her from Claudio, and desir’d her

       To try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo

       For her poor brother’s pardon.

       ISABELLA.

       That’s he, indeed.

       DUKE.

       You were not bid to speak.

       LUCIO.

       No, my good lord;

       Nor wish’d to hold my peace.

       DUKE.

       I wish you now, then;

       Pray you take note of it: and when you have

       A business for yourself, pray Heaven you then

       Be perfect.

       LUCIO.

       I warrant your honour.

       DUKE.

       The warrant’s for yourself; take heed to it.

       ISABELLA.

       This gentleman told somewhat of my tale.

       LUCIO.

       Right.

       DUKE.

       It may be right; but you are in the wrong

       To speak before your time.—Proceed.

       ISABELLA.

       I went

       To this pernicious caitiff deputy.

       DUKE.

       That’s somewhat madly spoken.

       ISABELLA.

       Pardon it;

       The phrase is to the matter.

       DUKE.

       Mended again. The matter;—proceed.

       ISABELLA.

       In brief,—to set the needless process by,

       How I persuaded, how I pray’d, and kneel’d,

       How he refell’d me, and how I replied,—

       For this was of much length,—the vile conclusion

       I now begin with grief and shame to utter:

       He would not, but by gift of my chaste body

       To his concupiscible intemperate lust,

       Release my brother; and, after much debatement,

       My sisterly remorse confutes mine honour,

       And I did yield to him. But the next morn betimes,

       His purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant

       For my poor brother’s head.

       DUKE.

       This is most likely!

       ISABELLA.

       O, that it were as like as it is true!

       DUKE.

       By heaven, fond wretch, thou know’st not what thou speak’st,

       Or else thou art suborn’d against his honour