ISABELLA. Yes, brother, you may live. There is a devilish mercy in the judge, If you’ll implore it, that will free your life, But fetter you till death. CLAUDIO. Perpetual durance? ISABELLA. Ay, just; perpetual durance; a restraint, Though all the world’s vastidity you had, To a determined scope. CLAUDIO. But in what nature? ISABELLA. In such a one as, you consenting to’t, Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear, And leave you naked. CLAUDIO. Let me know the point. ISABELLA. O, I do fear thee, Claudio, and I quake, Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain, And six or seven winters more respect Than a perpetual honour. Dar’st thou die? The sense of death is most in apprehension; And the poor beetle that we tread upon In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies. CLAUDIO. Why give you me this shame? Think you I can a resolution fetch From flowery tenderness? If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride And hug it in mine arms. ISABELLA. There spake my brother! There my father’s grave Did utter forth a voice. Yes, thou must die. Thou art too noble to conserve a life In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy, Whose settled visage and deliberate word Nips youth i’ th’ head, and follies doth enew As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil. His filth within being cast, he would appear A pond as deep as hell. CLAUDIO. The precise Angelo? ISABELLA. O, ’tis the cunning livery of hell The damned’st body to invest and cover In precise guards! Dost thou think, Claudio, If I would yield him my virginity Thou mightst be freed? CLAUDIO. O heavens, it cannot be. ISABELLA. Yes, he would give it thee, from this rank offence, So to offend him still. This night’s the time That I should do what I abhor to name, Or else thou diest tomorrow. CLAUDIO. Thou shalt not do’t. ISABELLA. O, were it but my life, I’d throw it down for your deliverance As frankly as a pin. CLAUDIO. Thanks, dear Isabel. ISABELLA. Be ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow. CLAUDIO. Yes. Has he affections in him That thus can make him bite the law by th’ nose When he would force it? Sure it is no sin; Or of the deadly seven it is the least. ISABELLA. Which is the least? CLAUDIO. If it were damnable, he being so wise, Why would he for the momentary trick Be perdurably fined? O Isabel! ISABELLA. What says my brother? CLAUDIO. Death is a fearful thing. ISABELLA. And shamed life a hateful.