Page 1119 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

He’s sentenc’d, ’tis too late. [55]

LUCIO
[to Isabella]
You are too cold.

ISABELLA
Too late? Why, no. I that do speak a word
May call it again. − Well, believe this:

No ceremony that to great ones longs,
Not the king’s crown, nor the deputed sword, [60]
The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace

As mercy does.
If he had been as you, and you as he,
You would have slipp’d like him, but he like you [65]
Would not have been so stern.

ANGELO
Pray you be gone.

ISABELLA
I would to heaven I had your potency,
And you were Isabel! Should it then be thus?
No; I would tell what ’twere to be a judge,
And what a prisoner.

LUCIO

[to Isabella]
Ay, touch him: there’s the vein. [70]

ANGELO
Your brother is a forfeit of the law,
And you but waste your words.

ISABELLA
Alas, alas!