Page 1117 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

[To Isabella]
Y’are welcome: what’s your will?

ISABELLA
I am a woeful suitor to your honour;
Please but your honour hear me.

ANGELO
Well: what’s your suit?

ISABELLA
There is a vice that most I do abhor,

And most desire should meet the blow of justice; [30]
For which I would not plead, but that I must;
For which I must not plead, but that I am

At war ’twixt will and will not.

ANGELO

Well: the matter?

ISABELLA
I have a brother is condemn’d to die;
I do beseech you, let it be his fault, [35]
And not my brother.

PROVOST
[aside]

Heaven give thee moving graces!

ANGELO
Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?
Why, every fault’s condemn’d ere it be done:
Mine were the very cipher of a function

To fine the faults, whose fine stands in record, [40]
And let go by the actor.

ISABELLA