SCENE I. A room in the prison
Enter DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as before, CLAUDIO, and Provost
DUKE VINCENTIO
So then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?
CLAUDIO
The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope:
I've hope to live, and am prepared to die.
DUKE VINCENTIO
Be absolute for death; either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyey influences,
That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st,
Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool;
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun
And yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble;
For all the accommodations that thou bear'st
Are nursed by baseness. Thou'rt by no means valiant;
For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork
Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,
And that thou oft provokest; yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;
For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains
That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;
For what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get,
And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain;
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor;
For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear's thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none;
For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,
Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,
For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age,
But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,
Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this
That bears the name of life? Yet in this life
Lie hid moe thousand deaths: yet death we fear,
That makes these odds all even.
CLAUDIO
I humbly thank you.
To sue to live, I find I seek to die;
And, seeking death, find life: let it come on.
ISABELLA
[Within] What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company!
Provost
Who's there? come in: the wish deserves a welcome.
DUKE VINCENTIO
Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again.
CLAUDIO
Most holy sir, I thank you.
Enter ISABELLA
ISABELLA
My business is a word or two with Claudio.
Provost
And very welcome. Look, signior, here's your sister.
DUKE VINCENTIO
Provost, a word with you.
Provost
As many as you please.
DUKE VINCENTIO
Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be concealed.
Exeunt DUKE VINCENTIO and Provost
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.
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