'Do not use it for impure ends'
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Pode despedaçal-o, meo senhor; bem o sei; mas por piedade não queira usar delle para fins impuros e vergonhosos.
You may shatter it, my lord; I know it well; but for pity's sake do not seek to use it for impure and shameful ends.
Isaura accepts the terms of the metaphor and then splits it in two. She grants him the power to destroy — 'pode despedaçal-o' — because under the law he truly has it; her life is forfeit to his cruelty. What she denies is the other use: 'não queira usar delle para fins impuros.' She will die a vessel before she is a defiled one. The distinction is the whole of her freedom: he may end her, but he cannot make her consent, and consent is the one thing his 'right' cannot reach. She would rather be broken clay than dishonoured clay, and in choosing so she takes back from him the only power that was ever really hers to keep.
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