LUCIO

[Aside to ISABELLA] That's well said.

ISABELLA

Could great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,
For every pelting, petty officer
Would use his heaven for thunder;
Nothing but thunder! Merciful Heaven,
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
Than the soft myrtle: but man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.

LUCIO

[Aside to ISABELLA] O, to him, to him, wench! he
will relent;
He's coming; I perceive 't.

Provost

[Aside] Pray heaven she win him!

ISABELLA

We cannot weigh our brother with ourself:
Great men may jest with saints; 'tis wit in them,
But in the less foul profanation.

LUCIO

Thou'rt i' the right, girl; more o, that.

ISABELLA

That in the captain's but a choleric word,
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

LUCIO

[Aside to ISABELLA] Art avised o' that? more on 't.

ANGELO

Why do you put these sayings upon me?

ISABELLA

Because authority, though it err like others,
Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,
That skins the vice o' the top. Go to your bosom;
Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know
That's like my brother's fault: if it confess
A natural guiltiness such as is his,
Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother's life.

ANGELO

[Aside] She speaks, and 'tis
Such sense, that my sense breeds with it. Fare you well.

ISABELLA

Gentle my lord, turn back.