Measure for Measure

If he had been as you, and you as he,
You would have slipp'd like him; but he, like you,
Would not have been so stern.
ANGELO. Pray you be gone.
ISABELLA. I would to heaven I had your potency,
And you were Isabel! Should it then be thus?
No; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge
And what a prisoner.
LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Ay, touch him; there's the vein.
ANGELO. Your brother is a forfeit of the law,
And you but waste your words.
ISABELLA. Alas! Alas!
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.
ANGELO. Be you content, fair maid.
It is the law, not I condemn your brother.
Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,
It should be thus with him. He must die to-morrow.
ISABELLA. 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; 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.
ANGELO. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.
Those many had not dar'd to do that evil
If the first that did th' 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 successive degrees,
But here they live to end.
ISABELLA. Yet show some pity.
ANGELO. I show it most of all when I show justice;
For then I pity those I do not know,
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.
ISABELLA. 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. [To ISABELLA] That's well said.
ISABELLA. Could great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would never 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,
Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
Than the soft myrtle. But man, proud man,
Dress'd in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep; who, with our speens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.
LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] O, to him, to him, wench! He will relent;
He's coming; I perceive 't.
PROVOST. [Aside] 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. [To ISABELLA] Thou'rt i' th' right, girl; more o' that.
ISABELLA. That in the captain's but a choleric word
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.
LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Art avis'd 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' th' 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. [Aside] 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 to-morrow.
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. [To ISABELLA) You had marr'd all else.
ISABELLA. Not with fond sicles of the tested gold,
Or stones, whose rate are either rich or poor
As fancy values them; but with true prayers
That shall be up at heaven and enter there
Ere sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls,
From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate