_Duke._ O, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it, To lock it in the wards of covert bosom, 10 When it deserves, with characters of brass, A forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time And razure of oblivion. Give me your hand, And let the subject see, to make them know That outward courtesies would fain proclaim 15 Favours that keep within. Come, Escalus; You must walk by us on our other hand: And good supporters are you. _FRIAR PETER and ISABELLA come forward._ _Fri. P._ Now is your time: speak loud, and kneel before him. _Isab._ Justice, O royal Duke! Vail your regard 20 Upon a wrong'd, I would fain have said, a maid! O worthy prince, dishonour not your eye By throwing it on any other object Till you have heard me in my true complaint, And given me justice, justice, justice, justice! 25 _Duke._ Relate your wrongs; in what? by whom? be brief. Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice: Reveal yourself to him. _Isab._ O worthy Duke, You bid me seek redemption of the devil: Hear me yourself; for that which I must speak 30 Must either punish me, not being believed, Or wring redress from you. Hear me, O hear me, here! _Ang._ My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm: She hath been a suitor to me for her brother Cut off by course of justice,-- _Isab._ By course of justice! 35 _Ang._ And she will speak most bitterly and strange. _Isab._ Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak: That Angelo's forsworn; is it not strange? That Angelo's a murderer; is't not strange? That Angelo is an adulterous thief, 40 An hypocrite, a virgin-violator; Is it not strange and strange? _Duke._ Nay, it is ten times strange. _Isab._ It is not truer he is Angelo Than this is all as true as it is strange: Nay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth 45 To th' end of reckoning. _Duke._ Away with her!--Poor soul, She speaks this in th' infirmity of sense. _Isab._ O prince, I conjure thee, as thou believest There is another comfort than this world, That thou neglect me not, with that opinion 50 That I am touch'd with madness! Make not impossible That which but seems unlike: 'tis not impossible But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground, May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute As Angelo; even so may Angelo, 55 In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms, Be an arch-villain; believe it, royal prince: If he be less, he's nothing; but he's more, Had I more name for badness. _Duke._ By mine honesty, If she be mad,--as I believe no other,-- 60 Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense, Such a dependency of thing on thing, As e'er I heard in madness.