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now stands, he will avoid your accusation; he made |
trial of you only. Therefore fasten your ear on my |
advisings: to the love I have in doing good a |
remedy presents itself. I do make myself believe |
that you may most uprighteously do a poor wronged |
lady a merited benefit; redeem your brother from |
the angry law; do no stain to your own gracious |
person; and much please the absent duke, if |
peradventure he shall ever return to have hearing of |
this business. |
ISABELLA: |
Let me hear you speak farther. I have spirit to do |
anything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit. |
DUKE VINCENTIO: |
Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have |
you not heard speak of Mariana, the sister of |
Frederick the great soldier who miscarried at sea? |
ISABELLA: |
I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name. |
DUKE VINCENTIO: |
She should this Angelo have married; was affianced |
to her by oath, and the nuptial appointed: between |
which time of the contract and limit of the |
solemnity, her brother Frederick was wrecked at sea, |
having in that perished vessel the dowry of his |
sister. But mark how heavily this befell to the |
poor gentlewoman: there she lost a noble and |
renowned brother, in his love toward her ever most |
kind and natural; with him, the portion and sinew of |
her fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her |
combinate husband, this well-seeming Angelo. |
ISABELLA: |
Can this be so? did Angelo so leave her? |
DUKE VINCENTIO: |
Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them |
with his comfort; swallowed his vows whole, |
pretending in her discoveries of dishonour: in few, |
bestowed her on her own lamentation, which she yet |
wears for his sake; and he, a marble to her tears, |
is washed with them, but relents not. |
ISABELLA: |
What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid |
from the world! What corruption in this life, that |
it will let this man live! But how out of this can she avail? |
DUKE VINCENTIO: |
It is a rupture that you may easily heal: and the |
cure of it not only saves your brother, but keeps |
you from dishonour in doing it. |
ISABELLA: |
Show me how, good father. |
DUKE VINCENTIO: |
This forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance |
of her first affection: his unjust unkindness, that |
in all reason should have quenched her love, hath, |
like an impediment in the current, made it more |
violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his |
requiring with a plausible obedience; agree with |
his demands to the point; only refer yourself to |
this advantage, first, that your stay with him may |
not be long; that the time may have all shadow and |
silence in it; and the place answer to convenience. |
This being granted in course,--and now follows |
all,--we shall advise this wronged maid to stead up |
your appointment, go in your place; if the encounter |
acknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him to |
her recompense: and here, by this, is your brother |
saved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana |
advantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid |
will I frame and make fit for his attempt. If you |
think well to carry this as you may, the doubleness |
of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof. |
What think you of it? |
ISABELLA: |
The image of it gives me content already; and I |
trust it will grow to a most prosperous perfection. |
DUKE VINCENTIO: |
It lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily |
to Angelo: if for this night he entreat you to his |
bed, give him promise of satisfaction. I will |
presently to Saint Luke's: there, at the moated |
grange, resides this dejected Mariana. At that |
place call upon me; and dispatch with Angelo, that |
it may be quickly. |
ISABELLA: |
I thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father. |
ELBOW: |
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