Part 16

ANGELO.

What would you do?

ISABELLA.

As much for my poor brother as myself; That is, were I under the terms of death, The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies, And strip myself to death as to a bed That, longing, I have been sick for, ere I'd yield My body up to shame.

ANGELO.

Then must your brother die.

ISABELLA.

And 'twere the cheaper way; Better it were a brother died at once, Than that a sister, by redeeming him, Should die forever.

ANGELO.

Were you not then cruel as the sentence, That you have slander'd so!

ISABELLA.

Ignominy in ransom, and free pardon, Are of two houses: lawful mercy is Nothing akin to foul redemption.

ANGELO.

You seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant; And rather proved the sliding of your brother A merriment than a vice.

ISABELLA.

O pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out, To have what we'd have, we speak not what we mean: I something do excuse the thing I hate, For his advantage that I dearly love.

Towards the conclusion of the play we have another instance of that rigid sense of justice, which is a prominent part of Isabella's character, and almost silences her earnest intercession for her brother, when his fault is placed between her plea and her conscience. The Duke condemns the villain Angelo to death, and his wife Mariana entreats Isabella to plead for him.

Sweet Isabel, take my part, Lend me your knees, and all my life to come I'll lend you all my life to do you service.

Isabella remains silent, and Mariana reiterates her prayer.

MARIANA.

Sweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me, Hold up your hands, say nothing, I'll speak all! O Isabel! will you not lend a knee?

Isabella, thus urged, breaks silence and appeals to the Duke, not with supplication, or persuasion, but with grave argument, and a kind of dignified humility and conscious power, which are finely characteristic of the individual woman.

Most bounteous Sir, Look, if it please you, on this man condemn'd, As if my brother liv'd; I partly think A due sincerity govern'd his deeds Till he did look on me; since it is so Let him not die. My brother had but justice, In that he did the thing for which he died. For Angelo, His art did not o'ertake his bad intent, That perish'd by the way: thoughts are no subjects. Intents, but merely thoughts.

In this instance, as in the one before mentioned, Isabella's conscientiousness is overcome by the only sentiment which ought to temper justice into mercy, the power of affection and sympathy.

Isabella's confession of the general frailty of her sex, has a peculiar softness, beauty, and propriety. She admits the imputation with all the sympathy of woman for woman; yet with all the dignity of one who felt her own superiority to the weakness she acknowledges.

ANGELO.

Nay, women are frail too.

ISABELLA.