Isabella's Farewell

This day falls much afar from what I feared,

or hoped. Yet Claudio lives, reconciled with his suff'ring beloved;

Mariana, sweet maid, presented with her foolish dream;

But Lucio, condemned be married, whipped, hanged?

The wench which he invaded shall want none.

Our lofty duke, removed from my esteem

By his despicable duplicity,

the guise of a good friar;

Believes that he is mighty as our Lord

Who days ago my life was promised to.

This misled Duke is meddling in decisions of life and death,

Purity, chastity, duplicity. Much I do regret

Allowing Mariana to perform the sin which should be mine,

Yet glad I am to have retained mine own purity.

Far gone has Vienna into the irrevocable corruption

From which the Angelo's reform has no power.

I must go. Farewell, my brother, your own life awaits,

Farewell, birthplace, hometown, sisters who expected me.

I'll go I know not where, to death in the wilderness,

To my God in some distant convent, to whatever awaits me

Far from this soiled town.