ANGELO. Nay, I’ll not warrant that, for I can speak Against the thing I say. Answer to this: I, now the voice of the recorded law, Pronounce a sentence on your brother’s life. Might there not be a charity in sin To save this brother’s life? ISABELLA. Please you to do’t, I’ll take it as a peril to my soul; It is no sin at all, but charity. ANGELO. Pleased you to do’t at peril of your soul, Were equal poise of sin and charity. ISABELLA. That I do beg his life, if it be sin, Heaven let me bear it. You granting of my suit, If that be sin, I’ll make it my morn prayer To have it added to the faults of mine, And nothing of your answer. ANGELO. Nay, but hear me. Your sense pursues not mine. Either you are ignorant, Or seem so, crafty; and that’s not good. ISABELLA. Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, But graciously to know I am no better. ANGELO. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright When it doth tax itself, as these black masks Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder Than beauty could, displayed. But mark me; To be received plain, I’ll speak more gross. Your brother is to die. ISABELLA. So. ANGELO. And his offence is so, as it appears, Accountant to the law upon that pain. ISABELLA. True. ANGELO. Admit no other way to save his life— As I subscribe not that, nor any other, But, in the loss of question, that you, his sister, Finding yourself desired of such a person Whose credit with the judge, or own great place, Could fetch your brother from the manacles Of the all-binding law; and that there were No earthly mean to save him but that either You must lay down the treasures of your body To this supposed, or else to let him suffer, What would you do? ISABELLA. As much for my poor brother as myself. That is, were I under the terms of death, Th’ impression of keen whips I’d wear as rubies, And strip myself to death as to a bed That longing have been sick for, ere I’d yield My body up to shame. ANGELO. Then must your brother die. ISABELLA. And ’twere the cheaper way. Better it were a brother died at once Than that a sister, by redeeming him, Should die for ever. ANGELO. Were not you then as cruel as the sentence That you have slandered so? ISABELLA. Ignominy in ransom and free pardon Are of two houses. Lawful mercy Is nothing kin to foul redemption. ANGELO. You seemed of late to make the law a tyrant, And rather proved the sliding of your brother A merriment than a vice. ISABELLA. O, pardon me, my lord. It oft falls out, To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean. I something do excuse the thing I hate For his advantage that I dearly love. ANGELO. We are all frail. ISABELLA. Else let my brother die, If not a feodary but only he Owe and succeed by weakness. ANGELO. Nay, women are frail too.