Page 1132 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

When it doth tax itself: as these black masks
Proclaim an enciel’d beauty ten times louder [80]
Than beauty could, display’d. But mark me;
To be received plain, I’ll speak more gross.

Your brother is to die.

ISABELLA
So.

ANGELO
And his offence is so, as it appears, [85]
Accountant to the law upon that pain.

ISABELLA
True.

ANGELO
Admit no other way to save his life −

As I subscribe not that, nor any other,
But in the loss of question − that you, his sister, [90]
Finding yourself desir’d of such a person
Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,

Could fetch your brother from the manacles
Of the all-binding law; and that there were
No earthly mean to save him, but that either [95]
You must lay down the treasures of your body

To this suppos’d, or else to let him suffer:
What would you do?

ISABELLA
As much for my poor brother as myself;
That is, were I under the terms of death, [100]
Th’impression of keen whips I’d wear as rubies,

And strip myself to death as to a bed
That longing have been sick for, ere I’d yield
My body up to shame.