_law_ Hanmer.

SCENE IV. _A room in ANGELO'S house._

_Enter ANGELO._

_Ang._ When I would pray and think, I think and pray
To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words;
Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth,
As if I did but only chew his name; 5
And in my heart the strong and swelling evil
Of my conception. The state, whereon I studied,
Is like a good thing, being often read,
Grown fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity,
Wherein--let no man hear me--I take pride, 10
Could I with boot change for an idle plume,
Which the air beats for vain. O place, O form,
How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood: 15
Let's write good angel on the devil's horn;
'Tis not the devil's crest.

_Enter a _Servant_._

How now! who's there?

_Serv._ One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.

_Ang._ Teach her the way. O heavens!
Why does my blood thus muster to my heart, 20
Making both it unable for itself,
And dispossessing all my other parts
Of necessary fitness?
So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons:
Come all to help him, and so stop the air 25
By which he should revive: and even so
The general, subject to a well-wish'd king,
Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence.

_Enter ISABELLA._

How now, fair maid? 30

_Isab._ I am come to know your pleasure.

_Ang._ That you might know it, would much better please me
Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live.

_Isab._ Even so.--Heaven keep your honour!

_Ang._ Yet may he live awhile; and, it may be, 35
As long as you or I: yet he must die.

_Isab._ Under your sentence?

_Ang._ Yea.
_Isab._ When, I beseech you? that in his reprieve,
Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted 40
That his soul sicken not.

_Ang._ 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 45
In stamps that are forbid: 'tis all as easy
Falsely to take away a life tru