Page 1137 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

ACT III IT

Scene I IT

[The Prison.]

Enter Duke [disguised] and Provost [with] Claudio.

DUKE
So then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?

CLAUDIO
The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope:
I have hope to live, and am prepar’d to die.

DUKE
Be absolute for death: either death or life [5]
Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep. A breath thou art,

Servile to all the skyey influences
That dost this habitation where thou keep’st [10]
Hourly afflict. Merely, thou art Death’s fool;
For him thou labour’st by thy flight to shun,

And yet run’st toward him still. Thou art not noble;
For all th’accommodations that thou bear’st
Are nurs’d by baseness. Thou’rt by no means valiant; [15]
For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork

Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep;
And that thou oft provok’st, yet grossly fear’st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;
For thou exists on many a thousand grains [20]