Now, sister, what’s the comfort?
Claudio
Now, sister, what’s the comfort?
Isabella
Why,
As all comforts are, most good, most good indeed.Epizeuxis
Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,
Intends you for his swift ambassador,
Where you shall be an everlasting leiger;Metaphor
Therefore your best appointment make with speed.
Tomorrow you set on.
What sin you do to save a brother’s life,
Nature dispenses with the deed so far
That it becomes a virtue.
Claudio
Is there no remedy?
Isabella
None but such remedy as, to save a head,
To cleave a heart in twain.Simile
Claudio
But is there any?
Isabella
Yes, brother, you may live.
There is a devilish mercyOxymoron in the judge,
If you’ll implore it, that will free your life
But fetter you till death.Irony & Paradox
Claudio
Perpetual durance?Anapodoton
Isabella
Ay, just; perpetual durance, a restraint,
Though all the world’s vastidity you had,
To a determined scope.
Claudio
But in what nature?Anapodoton
Isabella
In such a one as, you consenting to ’t,
Would bark your honor from that trunk you bear
And leave you naked.Metaphor
Claudio
Let me know the point.
Isabella
O, I do fear thee, Claudio, and I quake
Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain,
And six or seven winters more respect
Than a perpetual honor.Metonymy Dar’st thou die?
The sense of death is most in apprehension,
And the poor beetle that we tread upon
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.Analogy
Claudio
Why give you me this shame?
Think you I can a resolution fetch
From flowery tenderness?Metaphor If I must die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride,
And hug it in mine arms.Personification
Isabella
There spake my brother! There my father’s grave
Did utter forth a voice.Metonymy Yes, thou must die.
Thou art too noble to conserve a life
In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy—
Whose settled visage and deliberate word
Nips youth i’ th’ headPersonification, and follies doth enew
As falcon doth the fowlSimile—is yet a devil.
His filth within being cast, he would appear
A pond as deep as hell.Metaphor
Claudio
The prenzie Angelo?Anapodoton
Isabella
O, ’tis the cunning livery of hell
The damned’st body to invest and cover
In prenzie guards.Metaphor Dost thou think, Claudio,
If I would yield him my virginity
Thou mightst be freed?
Claudio
O heavens, it cannot be!
Isabella
Yes, he would give ’t thee; from this rank offense,
So to offend him still. This night’s the time
That I should do what I abhor to name,
Or else thou diest tomorrow.
Claudio
Thou shalt not do ’t.
Isabella
O, were it but my life,
I’d throw it down for your deliverance
As frankly as a pin.Simile
Claudio
Thanks, dear Isabel.
Isabella
Be ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow.
Claudio
Yes. Has he affections in him
That thus can make him bite the law by th’ nose,Personification
When he would force it? Sure it is no sin,
Or of the deadly seven it is the least.
Isabella
Which is the least?
Claudio
If it were damnable, he being so wise,
Why would he for the momentary trick
Be perdurably fined? O, Isabel—
Isabella
What says my brother?
Claudio
Death is a fearful thing.
Isabella
And shamèd life a hateful.Dichotomy & Ellipsis
Claudio
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where,
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot,
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbèd ice,
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling—’tis too horrible.
DichotomyThe weariest and most loathèd worldly life
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.Synonymia
Isabella
Alas, alas!Epizeuxis
Claudio
Sweet sister, let me live.
What sin you do to save a brother’s life,
Nature dispenses with the deed so far
That it becomes a virtue.Paradox
Isabella
O, you beast!
O faithless coward, O dishonest wretch,Anaphora & Isocolon
Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?
Is ’t not a kind of incest to take life
From thine own sister’s shame? What should I think?Pysma of Rhetorical Questions
Heaven shield my mother played my father fair,
For such a warpèd slip of wildernessMetaphor
Ne’er issued from his blood.Synecdoche Take my defiance;
Die, perish. Might but my bending down
Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed.
I’ll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,
No word to save thee.Euphemism & Dichotomy
Claudio
Nay, hear me, Isabel—
Isabella
O, fie, fie, fie!Epizeuxis
Thy sin’s not accidental, but a trade.
Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd.Personification
’Tis best that thou diest quickly.
Claudio
O, hear me, Isabella—