Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear, And leave you naked.

Claud. Let me know the point.

Ifab. Oh, I do fear thee, Claudio, and I quake,
Left thou a fev'rous life should'st entertain,
And fix or seven winters more respect
Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die?
The sense of death is most in apprehenfion,
And the poor beetle that we tread upon,
In corp'ral sufferance finds a pang as great,
As when a giant dies.

Claud. Why give you me this shame?
Think you I can a resolution fetch
From flow'ry tenderness? if I must die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride,

And hug it in mine arms.

Ifab. There spake my brother; there my father's

grave

Did utter forth a voice. Yes, thou must die:
Thou art too noble to conferve a life

In base appliances. This outward-fainted deputy,
Whose fettled visage and delib'rate word
Nips youth i'th' head, and follies doth emmew
As faulcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil:
His filth within being caft he would appear
A pond as deep as hell.

Claud. The Princely Angelo ?

Ifab. Oh 'tis the cunning livery of hell,
The damned'ft body to invest and cover
In Princely guards. Doft thou think, Claudio,
If I would yield him my virginity,

Thou might'st be freed?

Claud. Oh heav'ns, it cannot be.

Ifab. Yes, he would give't thee; from this rank offence

So to offend him still. This night's the time
That I should do what I abhor to name,

Or else thou dy'st to-morrow.

Claud. Thou shalt not do't.

Isab. Oh, were it but my life,)

Wildn

Nildness of conceptionsk

I'd throw it down for your deliverance

As frankly as a pin.

Claud. Thanks, dearest Isabel.

Ifab. Be ready, Claudio, for your death to-morrow, Claud. Yes. Has he affections in him, That thus can make him bite the law by th' nose, When he would force it? sure it is no fin; Or of the deadly seven it is the least. Ifab. Which is the least?

Claud. If it were damnable, he being so wife,

Why would he for the momentary trick
Be perdurably fin'd? oh Isabel!

८

Ifab. What says my brother?
Claud. Death's a fearful thing.
Ifab. And fhamed life a hateful.

Claud. Ay but to die, and go we know not where;
To lye in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to refide
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice,
To be imprison'd in in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendant world; or to be worse than worft
• Of those, that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling; - 'tis too horrible!
• The weariest and most loathed worldly life,
That age, ach, penury, imprisonment
• Can lay on nature, is a paradife
• To what we fear of death.
Ifab. Alas! alas!

Claud. Sweet sister, let me live.
What fin you do to save a brother's life,
Nature dispenses with the deed so far,
That it becomes a virtue.

Ifab. Oh you beast!

Oh faithless coward! oh dishonest wretch!
Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?
Is't not a kind of incest, to take life

From thine own sister's shame? what should I think?

VOL. I.

S

Heay'

Heav'n grant my mother plaid my father fair :
For fuch a warped flip of wilderness
Ne'er issu'd from his blood. ( Take my defiance,
Die, perish! might my only bending down
Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed.
I'll pay a thousand prayers for thy death;
No word to save thee.

Claud. Hear me, Isabel.

Ifab. Oh, fie, fie, fie!

Thy fin's not accidental, but a trade;
Mercy to thee would prove it self a bawd;
Tis best that thou dy'st quickly.

1

Claud. Oh hear me, Isabella.

SCENE III.

To them, Enter Duke and Provost.

Duke. Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one

word.

Hab. What is your will?

Duke. Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and by have some speech with you: the fatisfaCtion I would require is likewise your own benefit.

Ifab. I have no fuperfluous leisure; my stay must be ftolen out of other affairs: but I will attend you a while.

Duke. Son, I have over-heard what hath past between you and your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her; only he hath made an essay of her virtue, to practise his judgment with the disposition of natures. She, having the truth of honour in her, hath made him that gracious denial, which he is most glad to receive: I am confeffor to Angelo, and I know this to be true; therefore prepare your self to death, Do not fatisfie your refolution with hopes that are fallible; to-morrow you must die; go to your knees, and make ready.

Claud. Let me ask my fister pardon; I am fo out of

love with life, that I will sue to be rid of it. [Ex.Claud.

Duke.

Duke. Hold you there; farewel. Provost, a word with you.

Prov. What's your will, father?

Duke. That now you are come, you will be gone; leave me a while with the maid: my mind promifes with my habit no loss shall touch her by my company.

Prov. In good time. [Exit Prov. Duke. The hand that hath made you fair, hath made you good; the goodness that is cheap in beauty, makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace being the foul of your complection, shall keep the body of it ever fair. The affault that Angelo hath made to you, fortune hath convey'd to my understanding; and but that frailty hath examples for his falling, I should wonder at Angelo: how will you do to content this substitute, and to save your brother?

Ifab. I am now going to refolve him: I had rather my brother die by the law, than my son should be unlawfully born. But oh, how much is the good Duke deceiv'd in Angelo? if ever he return, and I can speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or discover his government.

Duke. That shall not be much amiss; yet as the matter now stands, he will avoid your accufation; he made tryal of you only. Therefore fasten your ear on my advisings: to the love I have in doing good, a remedy presents it felf. I do make my felf believe that you may most uprightly do a poor wronged lady

a

merited benefit; redeem your brother from the angry law; do no stain to your own gracious person, and much please the abfent Duke, if peradventure he shall ever return to have hearing of this business.

Ifab. Let me hear you speak, father: I have spirit to do any thing that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.

Duke. Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful: have you not heard speak of Mariana, the fifter of Frederick, the great foldier who miscarried at fea?

Ifab. I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.

Duke. Her should this Angelo have marry'd; was affianc'd to her by oath, and the nuptial appointed: between which time of the contract, and limit of the folemnity, her brother Frederick was wrackt at sea, having in that perifh'd vessel the dowry of his sister. But mark how heavily this befel to the poor gentlewoman; there she loft a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward her ever most kind and natural; with him the portion and finew of her fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her combinate-husband, this well-feeming Angelo.

J

Σ

Ifab. Can this be so? did Angelo so leave her? Duke. Left her in her tears, and dry'd not one of them with his comfort; fwallow'd his vows whole, pretending in her discoveries of dishonour: in few words, bestow'd her on her own lamentation, which she yet wears for his fake; and he, a marble to her tears, is washed with them, but relents not.

Ifab. What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid from the world! what corruption in this life, that it will let this man live! but how out of this can the avail?

Duke. It is a rupture that you may easily heal, and the cure of it not only faves your brother; but keeps you from dishonour in doing it.

Ifab. Shew me how, good father.

Duke. This fore-nam'd maid hath yet in her the continuance of her first affection; his unjust kindneís, that in all reason should have quenched her love, hath, like an impediment in the current, made it more violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo, answer his requiring with a plausible obedience; agree with his demands to the point; only refer yourself to this advantage: first, that your stay with him may not be long; that the time may have all shadow and filence in it; and the place answer to convenience. This be ng granted, in course now follows all: we shall advise this wronged maid to stead up your ap pointment,