ISABELLA.
Yet show some pity.
ANGELO.
I show it most of all when I show justice;
For then I pity those I do not know,
Which a dismissed offence would after gall,
And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,
Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;
Your brother dies tomorrow; be content.
ISABELLA.
So you must be the first that gives this sentence,
And he that suffers. O, it is excellent
To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
LUCIO.
That’s well said.
ISABELLA.
Could great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne’er be quiet,
For every pelting petty officer
Would use his heaven for thunder.
Nothing but thunder. Merciful Heaven,
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,
Than the soft myrtle. But man, proud man,
Dressed in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.
LUCIO.
O, to him, to him, wench! He will relent;
He’s coming. I perceive ’t.
PROVOST.
Pray heaven she win him.
ISABELLA.
We cannot weigh our brother with ourself.
Great men may jest with saints; ’tis wit in them,
But in the less, foul profanation.
LUCIO.
Thou’rt i’ th’ right, girl; more o’ that.
ISABELLA.
That in the captain’s but a choleric word
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.