Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare

Having appointed Angelo his deputy, the Duke went to a friar called Thomas and asked him for a friar’s dress and instruction in the art of giving religious counsel, for he did not intend to go to Poland, but to stay at home and see how Angelo governed. Angelo had not been a day in office when he condemned to death a young man named Claudio for an act of rash selfishness which nowadays would only be punished by severe reproof. Claudio had a queer friend called Lucio, and Lucio saw a chance of freedom for Claudio if Claudio’s beautiful sister Isabella would plead with Angelo. Isabella was at that time living in a nunnery. Nobody had won her heart, and she thought she would like to become a sister, or nun. Meanwhile Claudio did not lack an advocate. An ancient lord, Escalus, was for leniency. “Let us cut a little, but not kill,” he said. “This gentleman had a most noble father.” Angelo was unmoved. “If twelve men find me guilty, I ask no more mercy than is in the law.” Angelo then ordered the Provost to see that Claudio was executed at nine the next morning. After the issue of this order Angelo was told that the sister of the condemned man desired to see him. “Admit her,” said Angelo. On entering with Lucio, the beautiful girl said, “I am a woeful suitor to your Honor.” “Well?” said Angelo. She colored at his chill monosyllable and the ascending red increased the beauty of her face. “I have a brother who is condemned to die,” she continued. “Condemn the fault, I pray you, and spare my brother.” “Every fault,” said Angelo, “is condemned before it is committed. A fault cannot suffer. Justice would be void if the committer of a fault went free.” She would have left the court if Lucio had not whispered to her, “You are too cold; you could not speak more tamely if you wanted a pin.” So Isabella attacked Angelo again, and when he said, “I will not pardon him,” she was not discouraged, and when he said, “He’s sentenced; ‘tis too late,” she returned to the assault. But all her fighting was with reasons, and with reasons she could not prevail over the Deputy. She told him that nothing becomes power like mercy. She told him that humanity receives and requires mercy from Heaven, that it was good to have gigantic strength, and had to use it like a giant. She told him that lightning rives the oak and spares the myrtle. She bade him look for fault in his own breast, and if he found one, to refrain from making it an argument against her brother’s life. Angelo found a fault in his breast at that moment. He loved Isabella’s beauty, and was tempted to do for her beauty what he would not do for the love of man. He appeared to relent, for he said, “Come to me to-morrow before noon.” She had, at any rate, succeeded in prolonging her brother’s life for a few hours.’ In her absence Angelo’s conscience rebuked him for trifling with his judicial duty. When Isabella called on him the second time, he said, “Your brother cannot live.” Isabella was painfully astonished, but all she said was, “Even so. Heaven keep your Honor.” But as she turned to go, Angelo felt that his duty and honor were slight in comparison with the loss of her. “Give me your love,” he said, “and Claudio shall be freed.” “Before I would marry you, he should die if he had twenty heads to lay upon the block,” said Isabella, for she saw then that he was not the just man he pretended to be. So she went to her brother in prison, to inform him that he must die. At first he was boastful, and promised to hug the darkness of death. But when he clearly understood that his sister could buy his life by marrying Angelo, he felt his life more valuable than her happiness, and he exclaimed, “Sweet sister, let me live.” “O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!” she cried. At this moment the Duke came forward, in the habit of a friar, to request some speech with Isabella. He called himself Friar Lodowick. The Duke then told her that Angelo was affianced to Mariana, whose love-story he related. He then asked her to consider this plan. Let Mariana, in the dress of Isabella, go closely veiled to Angelo, and say, in a voice resembling Isabella’s, that if Claudio were spared she would marry him. Let her take the ring from Angelo’s little finger, that it might be afterwards proved that his visitor was Mariana. Isabella had, of course, a great respect for friars, who are as nearly like nuns as men can be. She agreed, therefore, to the Duke’s plan. They were to meet again at the moated grange, Mariana’s house. In the street the Duke saw Lucio, who, seeing a man dressed like a friar, called out, “What news of the Duke, friar?” “I have none,” said the Duke. Lucio then told the Duke some stories about Angelo. Then he told one about the Duke. The Duke contradicted him. Lucio was provoked, and called the Duke “a shallow, ignorant fool,” though he pretended to love him. “The Duke shall know you better if I live to report you,” said the Duke, grimly. Then he asked Escalus, whom he saw in the street, what he thought of his ducal master. Escalus, who imagined he was speaking to a friar, replied, “The Duke is a very temperate gentleman, who prefers to see another merry to being merry himself.” The Duke then proceeded to call on Mariana. Isabella arrived immediately afterwards, and the Duke introduced the two girls to one another, both of whom thought he was a friar. They went into a chamber apart from him to discuss the saving of Claudio, and while they talked in low and earnest tones, the Duke looked out of the window and saw the broken sheds and flower-beds black with moss, which betrayed Mariana’s indifference to her country dwelling. Some women would have beautified their garden: not she. She was for the town; she neglected the joys of the country. He was sure that Angelo would not make her unhappier. “We are agreed, father,” said Isabella, as she returned with Mariana. So Angelo was deceived by the girl whom he had dismissed from his love, and put on her finger a ring he wore, in which was set a milky stone which flashed in the light with secret colors. Hearing of her success, the Duke went next day to the prison prepared to learn that an order had arrived for Claudio’s release. It had not, however, but a letter was banded to the Provost while he waited. His amazement was great when the Provost read aloud these words, “Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let Claudio be executed by four of the clock. Let me have his head sent me by five.” But the Duke said to the Provost, “You must show the Deputy another head,” and he held out a letter and a signet. “Here,” he said, “are the hand and seal of the Duke. He is to return, I tell you, and Angelo knows it not. Give Angelo another head.” The Provost thought, “This friar speaks with power. I know the Duke’s signet and I know his hand.”