CLAUDIO Now, sister, what's the comfort...

CLAUDIO Now, sister, what's the comfort?

ISABELLA Why,

As all comforts are; most good, most good indeed.

Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,

Intends you for his swift ambassador,

Where you shall be an everlasting leiger:

Therefore your best appointment make with speed;

To-morrow you set on.

CLAUDIO Is there no remedy?

ISABELLA None, but such remedy as, to save a head,

To cleave a heart in twain.

CLAUDIO But is there any?

ISABELLA Yes, brother, you may live:

There is a devilish mercy in the judge,

If you'll implore it, that will free your life,

But fetter you till death.

CLAUDIO Perpetual durance?

ISABELLA Ay, just; perpetual durance, a restraint,

Though all the world's vastidity you had,

To a determined scope.

CLAUDIO But in what nature?

ISABELLA In such a one as, you consenting to't,

Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear,

And leave you naked.

CLAUDIO Let me know the point.

ISABELLA O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,

Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain,

And six or seven winters more respect

Than a perpetual honour. Darest thou die?

The sense of death is most in apprehension;

And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,

In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great

As when a giant dies.

CLAUDIO Why give you me this shame?

Think you I can a resolution fetch

From flowery tenderness? If I must die,

I will encounter darkness as a bride,

And hug it in mine arms.

ISABELLA There spake my brother; there my father's grave

Did utter forth a voice. Yes, thou must die:

Thou art too noble to conserve a life

In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,

Whose settled visage and deliberate word

Nips youth i' the head and follies doth emmew

As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil

His filth within being cast, he would appear

A pond as deep as hell.

CLAUDIO The prenzie Angelo!

ISABELLA O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell,

The damned'st body to invest and cover

In prenzie guards! Dost thou think, Claudio?

If I would yield him my virginity,

Thou mightst be freed.

CLAUDIO O heavens! it cannot be.

ISABELLA 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 diest to-morrow.

CLAUDIO Thou shalt not do't.

ISABELLA O, were it but my life,

I'ld throw it down for your deliverance

As frankly as a pin.

CLAUDIO Thanks, dear Isabel.

ISABELLA Be ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow.

CLAUDIO Yes. Has he affections in him,

That thus can make him bite the law by the nose,

When he would force it? Sure, it is no sin,

Or of the deadly seven, it is the least.

ISABELLA Which is the least?

CLAUDIO If it were damnable, he being so wise,

Why would he for the momentary trick

Be perdurably fined? O Isabel!

ISABELLA What says my brother?

CLAUDIO Death is a fearful thing.

ISABELLA And shamed life a hateful.

CLAUDIO Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;

To lie 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 reside

In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;

To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,

And blown with restless violence round about

The pendent world; or to be worse than worst

Of those that lawless and incertain thought

Imagine howling: 'tis too horrible!

The weariest and most loathed worldly life

That age, ache, penury and imprisonment

Can lay on nature is a paradise

To what we fear of death.

ISABELLA Alas, alas!

CLAUDIO Sweet sister, let me live:

What sin you do to save a brother's life,

Nature dispenses with the deed so far

That it becomes a virtue.

ISABELLA O you beast!

O faithless coward! O 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?

Heaven shield my mother play'd my father fair!

For such a warped slip of wilderness

Ne'er issued from his blood. Take my defiance!

Die, perish! Might but my bending down

Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed:

I'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,

No word to save thee.

CLAUDIO Nay, hear me, Isabel.

ISABELLA O, fie, fie, fie!

Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade.

Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd:

'Tis best thou diest quickly.

CLAUDIO O hear me, Isabella!