DUKE.
You are pardoned, Isabel.
And now, dear maid, be you as free to us.
Your brother’s death, I know, sits at your heart,
And you may marvel why I obscured myself,
Labouring to save his life, and would not rather
Make rash remonstrance of my hidden power
Than let him so be lost. O most kind maid,
It was the swift celerity of his death,
Which I did think with slower foot came on,
That brained my purpose. But peace be with him.
That life is better life, past fearing death,
Than that which lives to fear. Make it your comfort,
So happy is your brother.
ISABELLA.
I do, my lord.
Enter Angelo, Mariana, Friar Peter and Provost.
DUKE.
For this new-married man approaching here,
Whose salt imagination yet hath wronged
Your well-defended honour, you must pardon
For Mariana’s sake. But as he adjudged your brother,
Being criminal in double violation
Of sacred chastity and of promise-breach
Thereon dependent, for your brother’s life,
The very mercy of the law cries out
Most audible, even from his proper tongue,
“An Angelo for Claudio, death for death.”
Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;
Like doth quit like, and measure still for measure.
Then, Angelo, thy fault’s thus manifested,
Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage.
We do condemn thee to the very block
Where Claudio stooped to death, and with like haste.
Away with him.
MARIANA.
O my most gracious lord,
I hope you will not mock me with a husband.
DUKE.
It is your husband mocked you with a husband.
Consenting to the safeguard of your honour,
I thought your marriage fit. Else imputation,
For that he knew you, might reproach your life,
And choke your good to come. For his possessions,
Although by confiscation they are ours,
We do instate and widow you with all
To buy you a better husband.
MARIANA.
O my dear lord,
I crave no other, nor no better man.
DUKE.
Never crave him; we are definitive.
MARIANA.
[Kneeling.] Gentle my liege—
DUKE.
You do but lose your labour.
Away with him to death. [To Lucio.] Now, sir, to you.