No More Learning

ANGELO. I will not do't.
ISABELLA. But can you, if you would?
ANGELO. Look, what I will not, that I cannot do.
ISABELLA. But might you do't, and do the world no wrong,
If so your heart were touch'd with that remorse
As mine is to him?
ANGELO. He's sentenc'd; 'tis too late.
LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] You are too cold.
ISABELLA. Too late? Why, no; I, that do speak a word,
May call it back again.
Well, believe this:
No ceremony that to great ones longs,
Not the king's crown nor the deputed sword,
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,
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.
ANGELO. Your brother is a forfeit of the law,
And you but waste your words.
ISABELLA. Alas! Alas!
Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once;
And He that might the vantage best have took
Found out the remedy.