Might there not be a charity in sin
To save this brother's life?
Please you to do't,
I'll take it as a peril to my soul,
It is no sin at all, but charity.
Pleased you to do't at peril of your soul,
Were equal poise of sin and charity.
That I do beg his life, if it be sin,
Heaven let me bear it! you granting of my suit,
If that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer
To have it added to the faults of mine,
And nothing of your answer.
Nay, but hear me.
Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant,
Or seem so craftily; and that's not good.
Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good,
But graciously to know I am no better.
Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright
When it doth tax itself; as these black masks
Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder
Than beauty could, display'd. But mark me;
To be received plain, I'll speak more gross:
Your brother is to die.
So.
And his offence is so, as it appears,
Accountant to the law upon that pain.
True.
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,
Finding yourself desired of such a person,
Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,
Could fetch your brother from the manacles
Of the all-building law; and that there were
No earthly mean to save him, but that either
You must lay down the treasures of your body
To this supposed, or else to let him suffer;
What would you do?
As much for my poor brother as myself:
That is, were I under the terms of death,
The impression of keen whips I'ld wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death, as to a bed
That longing have been sick for, ere I'ld yield
My body up to shame.
Then must your brother die.
And 'twere the cheaper way:
Better it were a brother died at once,
Than that a sister, by redeeming him,
Should die for ever.
Were not you then as cruel as the sentence
That you have slander'd so?
Ignomy in ransom and free pardon
Are of two houses: lawful mercy
Is nothing kin to foul redemption.
You seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant;
And rather proved the sliding of your brother
A merriment than a vice.
O, pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out,
To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean: