Thy sin's not accidental but a trade.

From Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare. Act 3, Scene 1.

Isabella: O, fie, fie, fie! Thy sin's not accidental but a trade.

Claudio (a young gentleman of Vienna) has married Juliet and she is now with child even though some of the paperwork related to the marriage has still not been completed. On a narrow reading of the law, Angelo (a harsh Judge ruling Vienna in the Duke's absence) has condemned Claudio to death for fornication.

Claudio's sister Isabella (a novice nun) is propositioned by Angelo; Angelo will spare Claudio if Isabella will sleep with Angelo.

Informed of this Claudio pleads with Isabella to sacrifice her virginity for his life. She rejects the argument. Were she to accede to Angelo, she would live in shame on earth, would sacrifice her immortal soul for this sin and indeed Claudio's soul would likewise be lost for suborning Isabella to commit such a sin.

I like this line. She is making the distinction between an accidental sin and a sin that is committed as a conscious choice. Measure for Measure is listed as a comedy but there are interesting moral questions throughout. In 1600, Britain was morphing into a modern state and the rule of law as applicable to all (instead of the rule of capricious monarchs) was a developing concept. Shakespeare is exploring the difficult terrain between legal justice and moral justice. Terrain which is still not fully settled.

"Thy sin's not accidental but a trade" is what occurs to me when one more or senior person in the news media or the entertainment industry issues an apology for the discovery of their decades-long exploitive behavior, facilitated by everyone else in the industry. Indeed, their sins are not accidental but standard operating procedure. They are sorry they have been caught, not sorry about their behavior.

Also striking in this scene is Claudio's description of his fear of death.

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-ribbed ice;
To be imprison’d 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!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.