Act 2, Scene 4

A Room in ANGELO'S house.

[Enter ANGELO.]
Angelo
941 When I would pray and think, I think and pray
942 To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words;
943 Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
944 Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth,
945 As if I did but only chew his name;
946 And in my heart the strong and swelling evil
947 Of my conception. The state whereon I studied
948 Is, like a good thing, being often read,
949 Grown sear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity,
950 Wherein—let no man hear me—I take pride,
951 Could I with boot change for an idle plume,
952 Which the air beats for vain. O place! O form!
953 How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
954 Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
955 To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood:
956 Let's write good angel on the devil's horn,
957 'Tis not the devil's crest.
[Enter Servant.]
Angelo
958 How now, who's there?
Servant
959 One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.
Angelo
960 Teach her the way.
[Exit SERVANT.]
Angelo
961 O heavens!
962 Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,
963 Making both it unable for itself
964 And dispossessing all the other parts
965 Of necessary fitness?
966 So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;
967 Come all to help him, and so stop the air
968 By which he should revive: and even so
969 The general, subject to a well-wished king
970 Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
971 Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
972 Must needs appear offence.
[Enter ISABELLA.]
Angelo
973 How now, fair maid?
Isabella
974 I am come to know your pleasure.
Angelo
975 That you might know it, would much better please me
976 Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live.
Isabella
977 Even so?—Heaven keep your honour!
[Retiring.]
Angelo
978 Yet may he live awhile: and, it may be,
979 As long as you or I: yet he must die.
Isabella
980 Under your sentence?
Angelo
981 Yea.
Isabella
982 When? I beseech you? that in his reprieve,
983 Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted
984 That his soul sicken not.
Angelo
985 Ha! Fie, these filthy vices! It were as good
986 To pardon him that hath from nature stolen
987 A man already made, as to remit
988 Their saucy sweetness that do coin heaven's image
989 In stamps that are forbid; 'tis all as easy
990 Falsely to take away a life true made
991 As to put metal in restrained means
992 To make a false one.
Isabella
993 'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.
Angelo
994 Say you so? then I shall pose you quickly.
995 Which had you rather,—that the most just law
996 Now took your brother's life; or, to redeem him,
997 Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness
998 As she that he hath stain'd?
Isabella
999 Sir, believe this,
1000 I had rather give my body than my soul.
Angelo
1001 I talk not of your soul; our compell'd sins
1002 Stand more for number than for accompt.
Isabella
1003 How say you?
Angelo
1004 Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak
1005 Against the thing I say. Answer to this;—
1006 I, now the voice of the recorded law,
1007 Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life:
1008 Might there not be a charity in sin,
1009 To save this brother's life?
Isabella
1010 Please you to do't,
1011 I'll take it as a peril to my soul
1012 It is no sin at all, but charity.
Angelo
1013 Pleas'd you to do't at peril of your soul,
1014 Were equal poise of sin and charity.
Isabella
1015 That I do beg his life, if it be sin,
1016 Heaven let me bear it! You granting of my suit,
1017 If that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer
1018 To have it added to the faults of mine,
1019 And nothing of your answer.
Angelo
1020 Nay, but hear me:
1021 Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant
1022 Or seem so, craftily; and that's not good.
Isabella
1023 Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good
1024 But graciously to know I am no better.
Angelo
1025 Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright
1026 When it doth tax itself: as these black masks
1027 Proclaim an enshielded beauty ten times louder
1028 Than beauty could, displayed.—But mark me;
1029 To be received plain, I'll speak more gross:
1030 Your brother is to die.
Isabella
1031 So.
Angelo
1032 And his offence is so, as it appears,
1033 Accountant to the law upon that pain.
Isabella
1034 True.
Angelo
1035 Admit no other way to save his life,—
1036 As I subscribe not that, nor any other,
1037 But, in the loss of question,—that you, his sister,
1038 Finding yourself desir'd of such a person,
1039 Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,
1040 Could fetch your brother from the manacles
1041 Of the all-binding law; and that there were
1042 No earthly mean to save him but that either
1043 You must lay down the treasures of your body
1044 To this suppos'd, or else to let him suffer;
1045 What would you do?
Isabella
1046 As much for my poor brother as myself:
1047 That is, were I under the terms of death,
1048 The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,
1049 And strip myself to death, as to a bed
1050 That longing have been sick for, ere I'd yield
1051 My body up to shame.
Angelo
1052 Then must your brother die.
Isabella
1053 And 'twere the cheaper way:
1054 Better it were a brother died at once
1055 Than that a sister, by redeeming him,
1056 Should die for ever.
Angelo
1057 Were not you, then, as cruel as the sentence
1058 That you have slandered so?
Isabella
1059 Ignominy in ransom and free pardon
1060 Are of two houses; lawful mercy
1061 Is nothing kin to foul redemption.
Angelo
1062 You seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant;
1063 And rather prov'd the sliding of your brother
1064 A merriment than a vice.
Isabella
1065 O, pardon me, my lord! It oft falls out,
1066 To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean:
1067 I something do excuse the thing I hate
1068 For his advantage that I dearly love.
Angelo
1069 We are all frail.
Isabella
1070 Else let my brother die,
1071 If not a feodary, but only he,
1072 Owe, and succeed by weakness.
Angelo
1073 Nay, women are frail too.
Isabella
1074 Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves;
1075 Which are as easy broke as they make forms.
1076 Women! Help heaven! men their creation mar
1077 In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail;
1078 For we are soft as our complexions are,
1079 And credulous to false prints.
Angelo
1080 I think it well:
1081 And from this testimony of your own sex,—
1082 Since, I suppose, we are made to be no stronger
1083 Than faults may shake our frames,—let me be bold;—
1084 I do arrest your words. Be that you are,
1085 That is, a woman; if you be more, you're none;
1086 If you be one,—as you are well express'd
1087 By all external warrants,—show it now
1088 By putting on the destin'd livery.
Isabella
1089 I have no tongue but one: gentle, my lord,
1090 Let me intreat you, speak the former language.
Angelo
1091 Plainly conceive, I love you.
Isabella
1092 My brother did love Juliet; and you tell me
1093 That he shall die for it.
Angelo
1094 He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.
Isabella
1095 I know your virtue hath a license in't,
1096 Which seems a little fouler than it is,
1097 To pluck on others.
Angelo
1098 Believe me, on mine honour,
1099 My words express my purpose.
Isabella
1100 Ha! little honour to be much believed,
1101 And most pernicious purpose!—Seeming, seeming!—
1102 I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't:
1103 Sign me a present pardon for my brother
1104 Or, with an outstretch'd throat, I'll tell the world
1105 Aloud what man thou art.
Angelo
1106 Who will believe thee, Isabel?
1107 My unsoil'd name, th' austereness of my life,
1108 My vouch against you, and my place i' the state,
1109 Will so your accusation overweigh
1110 That you shall stifle in your own report,
1111 And smell of calumny. I have begun,
1112 And now I give my sensual race the rein:
1113 Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;
1114 Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes
1115 That banish what they sue for: redeem thy brother
1116 By yielding up thy body to my will;
1117 Or else he must not only die the death,
1118 But thy unkindness shall his death draw out
1119 To lingering sufferance: answer me to-morrow,
1120 Or, by the affection that now guides me most,
1121 I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,
1122 Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true.
[Exit.]
Isabella
1123 To whom should I complain? Did tell this,
1124 Who would believe me? O perilous mouths
1125 That bear in them one and the self-same tongue
1126 Either of condemnation or approof!
1127 Bidding the law make court'sy to their will;
1128 Hooking both right and wrong to the appetite,
1129 To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother:
1130 Though he hath fallen by prompture of the blood,
1131 Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour
1132 That, had he twenty heads to tender down
1133 On twenty bloody blocks, he'd yield them up
1134 Before his sister should her body stoop
1135 To such abhorr'd pollution.
1136 Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:
1137 More than our brother is our chastity.
1138 I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,
1139 And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest.
[Exit.]

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Notes

TLN 943archaic vocab
“my invention, hearing not my tongue, Anchors on Isabel”
'Invention' here means Angelo's imagination or inner mind, not a device he has made. He says his imagination ignores his outward prayers and fastens ('anchors') entirely on Isabella — a nautical metaphor for being held fast against his will.
TLN 949archaic vocab
“Grown sear'd and tedious”
'Sear'd' means dried out and deadened — as if scorched or withered. Angelo confesses that the serious business of government, once so important to him, has become dry and stale, the way a text loses meaning when read too often.
TLN 951archaic vocab
“could I with boot change for an idle plume, Which the air beats for vain”
'Boot' means profit or advantage — Angelo is saying: if he could get a good deal by trading his austere reputation for a frivolous decorative feather (a 'plume') that the wind tosses uselessly. The confession is radical: his famous gravity feels like a prison he would escape.
historical The 'precise' Puritan
TLN 952rhetorical device
“O place! O form! How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit, Wrench awe from fools”
Angelo exclaims against the power of high office ('place') and outward show ('form') to command respect it does not deserve. 'Case' and 'habit' both mean outward dress or covering — position and costume creating false authority that 'wrenches' (extorts) awe from the foolish and even traps the wise.
TLN 956cultural context
“write good angel on the devil's horn, 'Tis not the devil's crest”
Angelo reflects that labelling a devil's horn 'good angel' does not make it so — the outward inscription cannot change the thing's true nature. The pun on his own name ('Angelo' = angel) is deliberate: he is the devil wearing the label of an angel, and even he knows it.
historical The 'precise' Puritan
TLN 962cultural context
“my blood thus muster to my heart, Making both it unable for itself And dispossessing all the other parts Of necessary fitness”
Angelo describes his physical response to Isabella's arrival in the body's own terms: blood rushing to his heart (the seat of passion) disrupts its normal functioning, just as soldiers massing in one spot leave the rest of the field undefended. Renaissance medicine held that passionate emotion caused blood to flood the heart, leaving other organs cold and useless.
TLN 988wordplay
“do coin heaven's image In stamps that are forbid”
Angelo compares fornication to counterfeiting: God created human beings ('heaven's image') and only lawful marriage is the authorised 'stamp' (the mint's official die) for producing more of them; sex outside marriage coins the same image using forged, illegal moulds. The metaphor runs through the entire speech: murder steals a 'made man,' fornication forges more.
TLN 1026historical topical
“these black masks Proclaim an enshielded beauty ten times louder Than beauty could, displayed”
Angelo argues that a woman who hides her beauty behind a mask only advertises it more powerfully than uncovered beauty would. He is using the fashionable Elizabethan practice of ladies wearing black velvet masks outdoors or in company to turn Isabella's very modesty into a provocation: her virtue, he claims, works on him like a mask — concealing and inflaming at once.
TLN 1036syntax grammar
“I subscribe not that, nor any other, But, in the loss of question”
This is one of Angelo's most convoluted sentences. 'I subscribe not that' means 'I do not assert this to be true'; 'in the loss of question' means 'just for the sake of argument' or 'for the purpose of discussion' — he is constructing a hypothetical while denying that he endorses any escape for Claudio. The whole passage (lines 1035-1045) is a lawyer's carefully hedged blackmail.
TLN 1048cultural context
“impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies, And strip myself to death, as to a bed”
Isabella says she would endure flogging willingly ('wear as rubies') and walk naked to her own execution ('strip myself to death') as if going joyfully to bed — rather than yield her chastity. The imagery draws on the language of Christian martyrdom: early saints were depicted wearing their wounds as crowns and jewels, counting suffering in the body as glory.
historical A woman's honour: chastity and the double standard
TLN 1054cultural context
“Better it were a brother died at once Than that a sister, by redeeming him, Should die for ever”
Isabella says it is literally better for Claudio to die ('at once' — bodily, in time) than for her to yield her chastity and thereby 'die for ever' — meaning lose her soul eternally. She is measuring a temporal death against spiritual damnation, and choosing the temporal for her brother rather than the eternal for herself.
historical A woman's honour: chastity and the double standard
TLN 1071archaic vocab
“If not a feodary, but only he, Owe, and succeed by weakness”
A 'feodary' (also spelled 'fedary') is a feudal tenant — a person who holds land in exchange for service to a lord, and who therefore shares the lord's fortunes. Isabella is saying: if Claudio were the only person, not a sharer in general human weakness, who is guilty of and must answer for ('owe and succeed by') frailty, then let him die. But since frailty is universal ('we are all frail'), singling him out for death is unjust.
TLN 1086cultural context
“if you be one,—as you are well express'd By all external warrants,—show it now By putting on the destin'd livery”
Angelo tells Isabella to 'show' she is a woman by 'putting on the destin'd livery' — i.e. by performing the role of compliance ('livery' is a servant's uniform, the dress of one's master's household) that her destiny as a woman supposedly requires. The phrase twists the vocabulary of feudal service into an argument for sexual submission: being a woman means wearing the 'uniform' of yielding to men.
historical A woman's honour: chastity and the double standard
TLN 1100rhetorical device
“little honour to be much believed, And most pernicious purpose!—Seeming, seeming!”
Isabella's repeated 'Seeming, seeming!' is a two-word summary of the play's central moral problem: Angelo's entire public persona is false appearance. 'Seeming' (from Anglo-French sembler, to appear) means the gap between outward show and inner reality. Her cry collapses the whole scene into one word and names the theme of the play — appearance, hypocrisy, the judge who is not what he seems.
TLN 1112archaic vocab
“I give my sensual race the rein: Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite”
'Race' here means headlong rushing or rush of passion (not a competition), and 'give the rein' means to let the horse run unchecked. Angelo says he is letting his sexual desire bolt like an uncontrolled horse. The equestrian metaphor for unleashed lust — giving the 'rein' to passion — was a standard figure for abandoning self-governance.
TLN 1114archaic vocab
“Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes That banish what they sue for”
'Nicety' means fastidious reserve or over-refinement of virtue; 'prolixious' (a Shakespearean coinage) means long-winded or drawn-out — here applied to the extended blushes of affected modesty. Angelo is telling Isabella to drop the 'teasing' performance of reluctance that, he claims, is really just advertising what she wants: the blushes 'banish what they sue for,' i.e. they drive away the very thing they secretly petition for.
TLN 1136cultural context
“Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die: More than our brother is our chastity”
In her final couplet Isabella resolves to let Claudio die rather than yield her body to Angelo. 'More than our brother is our chastity' states the play's hardest moral equation: for Isabella, chastity — her spiritual identity, her vows to the Order of Saint Clare, and her soul's salvation — outweighs even brotherly love. The line has been both the play's most admired and most contested.
historical A woman's honour: chastity and the double standardhistorical The bed-trick