ISABELLA.
I am come to know your pleasure.
ANGELO.
That you might know it, would much better please me
Than to demand what ’tis. Your brother cannot live.
ISABELLA.
Even so. Heaven keep your honour.
ANGELO.
Yet may he live a while. And, it may be,
As long as you or I. Yet he must die.
ISABELLA.
Under your sentence?
ANGELO.
Yea.
ISABELLA.
When, I beseech you? That in his reprieve,
Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted
That his soul sicken not.
ANGELO.
Ha! Fie, these filthy vices! It were as good
To pardon him that hath from nature stolen
A man already made, as to remit
Their saucy sweetness that do coin heaven’s image
In stamps that are forbid. ’Tis all as easy
Falsely to take away a life true made
As to put metal in restrained means
To make a false one.
ISABELLA.
’Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.
ANGELO.
Say you so? Then I shall pose you quickly.
Which had you rather, that the most just law
Now took your brother’s life; or, to redeem him,
Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness
As she that he hath stained?