Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

THE BROTHER AND SISTER.

CLAUDIO. NOW, sister, what's the comfort? ISABELLA. Why, as all comforts are; most good in deed:

Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,
Intends you for his swift embassador,

Where you shall be an everlasting lieger: Therefore your best appointment make with speed;

[blocks in formation]

Is there no remedy?

ISAB. None, but such remedy, as, to save a

head,

To cleave a heart in twain.

CLAUD.

But is there any?

ISAB. 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.

CLAUD.

Perpetual durance ? ISAB. Ay, just, perpetual durance; a restraint, Though all the world's vastidity you had,

To a determin'd scope.

CLAUD.

But in what nature?

ISAB. In such a one as (you consenting to't) Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear,

And leave

CLAUD.

you naked.

Let me know the point. ISAB. O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake, Lest thou a feverous life should'st entertain, And six or seven winters more respect Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st 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.

CLAUD.

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.

ISAB. 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 enmew,
As falcon doth the fowl,-is yet a devil;
His filth within being cast, he would appear
A pond as deep as hell.

CLAUD.

The princely Angelo? ISAB. O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell, The damned'st body to invest and cover

In princely guards! Dost thou think, Claudio, If I would yield him my virginity,

Thou might'st be freed?

CLAUD.

O, heavens! it cannot be.

ISAB. Yes, he would give it 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.

CLAUD.

Thou shalt not do't.

ISAB. O, were it but my life,

I'd throw it down for your deliverance

As frankly as a pin.

CLAUD.

Thanks, dear Isabel.

ISAB. Be ready, Claudio, for your death to

morrow.

CLAUD. 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.

ISAB.

Which is the least?

CLAUD. If it were damnable, he, being so

wise,

Why, would he for the momentary trick

Be perdurably fin'd ?-O Isabel!
ISAB. What says my brother?
CLAUD.

Death is a fearful thing.

ISAB. And shamed life a hateful.

CLAUD. 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 regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendant world; or to be worse than worst
Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts
Imagine howling!-'tis too horrible!

The weariest and most loathed worldly life,
That age, ach, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise

To what we fear of death.

ISAB. Alas! alas!

CLAUD.

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.

ISAB.

0, 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.

[blocks in formation]

THE BROTHER SINGLE, AND THE BROTHER MARRIED.

HECTOR. Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost

The holding.

TROILUS. What is aught, but as 'tis valued? НЕСТ. But value dwells not in particular will;

It holds his estimate and dignity

As well wherein 'tis precious of itself

As in the prizer: 'tis mad idolatry,

To make the service greater than the god;
And the will dotes, that is attributive
To what infectiously itself affects,

Without some image of the affected merit.

TRO. I take to-day a wife, and my election Is led on in the conduct of my will;

My will enkindled by mine eyes

and ears,

Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores
Of will and judgment: How may I avoid,
Although my will distaste what it elected,
The wife I chose? there can be no evasion
To blench from this, and to stand firm by honour:
We turn not back the silks upon the merchant,
When we have soil'd them: nor the remainder
viands

We do not throw in unrespective sieve,

Because we now are full. It was thought meet, Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks: Your breath with full consent bellied his sails; The seas and winds (old wranglers) took a truce, And did him service: he touch'd the ports desir'd;

And, for an old aunt, whom the Greeks held captive,

He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness

Wrinkles Apollo's, and makes pale the morning. Why keep we her? the Grecians keep our aunt: Is she worth keeping? why, she is a pearl, Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships,

And turn'd crown'd kings to merchants.

If you'll avouch, 'twas wisdom Paris went,
(As you must needs, for you all cried,—Go, go;)
If you'll confess, he brought home noble prize,
(As you must needs, for you all clapp'd your
hands,

And cried-Inestimable!) why do you now
The issue of your proper wisdoms rate,
And do a deed that fortune never did,

« AnteriorContinua »