MEASURE FOR MEASURE
By William Shakespeare
Dramatis Personae.
Vincentio, the DUKE of Vienna, sometimes disguised as Friar Lodowick.
ANGELO, the Duke's deputy.
A SERVANT to Angelo.
MARIANA, betrothed to Angelo.
A BOY, servant to Mariana.
ESCALUS, an old Lord, assistant to Angelo.
CLAUDIO, a young gentleman.
ISABELLA, sister to Claudio.
JULIET, beloved of Claudio.
LUCIO, a Fantastic.
1st GENTLEMAN, 2nd GENTLEMEN, associates of Lucio.
A PROVOST.
A JUSTICE.
ELBOW, a simple constable.
FROTH, a foolish gentleman.
Mistress OVERDONE, a bawd.
POMPEY, a clown, tapster to Mistress Overdone.
FRIAR PETER.
FRANCISCA, a nun.
ABHORSON, an executioner.
BARNARDINE, a dissolute condemned murderer.
VARRIUS, a gentleman, friend to the Duke.
A MESSENGER.
Lords, Attendants, Officers, Citizens.
Scene: Vienna.
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++
ACT 1.
Scene 1. A Room in the Duke's Palace.
Enter DUKE, ESCALUS, LORDS and ATTENDANTS.
Duke Escalus.
Escalus My lord.
Duke Of government the properties to unfold
Would seem in me t' affect speech and discourse,
Since I am put to know that your own science
Exceeds, in that, the lists of all advice
My strength can give you. Then no more remains
But that, to your sufficiency, as your worth is able,
And let them work. The nature of our people,
Our city's institutions, and the terms
For common justice, you're as pregnant in
As art and practice hath enriched any
That we remember. There is our commission,
[Giving him papers.
From which we would not have you warp. Call hither,
I say bid come before us Angelo.
[Exit an ATTENDANT.
What figure of us, think you, he will bear?
For you must know we have with special soul
Elected him our absence to supply,
Lent him our terror, dressed him with our love,
And given his deputation all the organs
Of our own power. What think you of it?
Escalus If any in Vienna be of worth
To undergo such ample grace and honour,
It is Lord Angelo.
Enter ANGELO.
Duke Look where he comes.
Angelo Always obedient to your grace's will,
I come to know your pleasure.
Duke Angelo,
There is a kind of character in thy life
That to th' observer doth thy history
Fully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings
Are not thine own so proper as to waste
Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.
Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched
But to fine issues; nor nature never lends
The smallest scruple of her excellence,
But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Herself the glory of a creditor,
Both thanks and use. But I do bend my speech
To one that can my part in him advertise.
Hold therefore, Angelo.
In our remove be thou at full ourself.
Mortality and mercy in Vienna
Live in thy tongue, and heart. Old Escalus,
Though first in question, is thy secondary.
Take thy commission.
Angelo Now, good my lord,
Let there be some more test made of my metal,
Before so noble and so great a figure
Be stamped upon it.
Duke No more evasion.
We have with a leavened and prepared choice
Proceeded to you; therefore take your honours.
Our haste from hence is of so quick condition
That it prefers itself, and leaves unquestioned
Matters of needful value. We shall write to you,
As time and our concernings shall importune,
How it goes with us; and do look to know
What doth befall you here. So, fare you well:
To th' hopeful execution do I leave you
Of your commissions.
Angelo Yet give leave, my lord,
That we may bring you something on the way.
Duke My haste may not admit it;
Nor need you, on mine honour, have to do
With any scruple. Your scope is as mine own,
So to enforce or qualify the laws
As to your soul seems good. Give me your hand;
I'll privily away: I love the people,
But do not like to stage me to their eyes.
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause and Aves vehement,
Nor do I think the man of safe discretion
That does affect it. Once more, fare you well.
Angelo The heavens give safety to your purposes!
Escalus Lead forth and bring you back in happiness!
Duke I thank you. Fare you well.
[Exit.
Escalus I shall desire you, sir, to give me leave
To have free speech with you; and it concerns me
To look into the bottom of my place.
A power I have, but of what strength and nature
I am not yet instructed.
Angelo 'Tis so with me. Let us withdraw together,
And we may soon our satisfaction have
Touching that point.
Escalus I'll wait upon your honour.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 2. A Street.
Enter LUCIO and two other GENTLEMEN.
Lucio If the duke, with the other dukes, come not to composition with the
King of Hungary, why then, all the dukes fall upon the king.
1st Gentleman Heaven grant us its peace, but not the King of Hungary's!
2nd Gentleman Amen.
Lucio Thou conclud'st like the sanctimonious pirate that went to sea with
the Ten Commandments, but scraped one out of the table.
2nd Gentleman Thou shalt not steal?
Lucio Ay, that he razed.
1st Gentleman Why, 'twas a commandment to command the captain and all the
rest from their functions: they put forth to steal. There's not a soldier of
us all that, in the thanksgiving before meat, do relish the petition well that
prays for peace.
2nd Gentleman I never heard any soldier dislike it.
Lucio I believe thee, for I think thou never wast where grace was said.
2nd Gentleman No? A dozen times at least.
1st Gentleman What, in metre?
Lucio In any proportion, or in any language.
1st Gentleman I think, or in any religion.
Lucio Ay, why not? Grace is grace despite of all controversy; as for
example, thou thyself art a wicked villain, despite of all grace.
1st Gentleman Well, there went but a pair of shears between us.
Lucio I grant; as there may between the lists and the velvet -thou art the
list.
1st Gentleman And thou the velvet. Thou art good velvet; thou'rt a
three-piled piece, I warrant thee. I had as lief be a list of an English
kersey as be piled, as thou art piled, for a French velvet. Do I speak
feelingly now?
Lucio I think thou dost, and indeed with most painful feeling of thy
speech. I will, out of thine own confession, learn to begin thy health, but
whilst I live forget to drink after thee.
1st Gentleman I think I have done myself wrong, have I not?
2nd Gentleman Yes, that thou hast, whether thou art tainted or free.
Enter MISTRESS OVERDONE.
Lucio Behold, behold, where Madam Mitigation comes! I have purchased as
many diseases under her roof as come to -
2nd Gentleman To what, I pray?
Lucio Judge.
2nd Gentleman To three thousand dolours a year.
1st Gentleman Ay, and more.
Lucio A French crown more.
1st Gentleman Thou art always figuring diseases in me; but thou art full of
error: I am sound.
Lucio Nay, not, as one would say, healthy, but so sound as things that are
hollow; thy bones are hollow, impiety has made a feast of thee.
1st Gentleman How now, which of your hips has the most profound sciatica?
Overdone Well, well; there's one yonder arrested and carried to prison was
worth five thousand of you all.
2nd Gentleman Who's that, I pray thee?
Overdone Marry sir, that's Claudio, Signor Claudio.
1st Gentleman Claudio to prison? 'Tis not so.
Overdone Nay, but I know 'tis so. I saw him arrested, saw him carried away,
and, which is more, within these three days his head to be chopped off.
Lucio But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so. Art thou sure of
this?
Overdone I am too sure of it; and it is for getting Madam Julietta with
child.
Lucio Believe me, this may be: he promised to meet me two hours since, and
he was ever precise in promise-keeping.
2nd Gentleman Besides, you know, it draws something near to the speech we
had to such a purpose.
1st Gentleman But most of all agreeing with the proclamation.
Lucio Away! Let's go learn the truth of it.
[Exeunt LUCIO and GENTLEMEN.
Overdone Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what with the
gallows, and what with poverty, I am custom-shrunk.
Enter POMPEY.
How now! What's the news with you?
Pompey Yonder man is carried to prison.
Overdone Well, what has he done?
Pompey A woman.
Overdone But what's his offence?
Pompey Groping for trouts in a peculiar river.
Overdone What? Is there a maid with child by him?
Pompey No, but there's a woman with maid by him. You have not heard of the
proclamation, have you?
Overdone What proclamation, man?
Pompey All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be plucked down.
Overdone And what shall become of those in the city?
Pompey They shall stand for seed; they had gone down too, but that a wise
burgher put in for them.
Overdone But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be pulled down?
Pompey To the ground, mistress.
Overdone Why, here's a change indeed in the commonwealth! What shall become
of me?
Pompey Come, fear not you. Good counsellors lack no clients: though you
change your place, you need not change your trade; I'll be your tapster still.
Courage, there will be pity taken on you; you that have worn your eyes almost
out in the service, you will be considered.
Overdone What's to do here, Thomas Tapster? Let's withdraw.
Pompey Here comes Signor Claudio, led by the Provost to prison. And there's
Madam Juliet.
[Exeunt.
Enter PROVOST, CLAUDIO, JULIET, and OFFICERS; LUCIO and the two GENTLEMEN.
Claudio Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to th' world?
Bear me to prison, where I am committed.
Provost I do it not in evil disposition,
But from Lord Angelo by special charge.
Claudio Thus can the demigod Authority
Make us pay down for our offence by weight.
The words of heaven -on whom it will, it will;
On whom it will not, so; yet still 'tis just.
Lucio Why, how now, Claudio? Whence comes this restraint?
Claudio From too much liberty, my Lucio. Liberty,
As surfeit, is the father of much fast,
So every scope by the immoderate use
Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue,
Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,
A thirsty evil; and when we drink, we die.
Lucio If I could speak so wisely under an arrest, I would send for certain
of my creditors; and yet, to say the truth, I had as lief have the foppery of
freedom as the morality of imprisonment. What's thy offence, Claudio?
Claudio What but to speak of would offend again.
Lucio What, is't murder?
Claudio No.
Lucio Lechery?
Claudio Call it so.
Provost Away, sir; you must go.
Claudio One word, good friend? Lucio, a word with you.
Lucio A hundred, if they'll do you any good.
Is lechery so looked after?
Claudio Thus stands it with me: upon a true contract
I got possession of Julietta's bed.
You know the lady; she is fast my wife,
Save that we do the denunciation lack
Of outward order. This we came not to
Only for propagation of a dower
Remaining in the coffer of her friends,
From whom we thought it meet to hide our love
Till time had made them for us. But it chances
The stealth of our most mutual entertainment
With character too gross is writ on Juliet.
Lucio With child, perhaps?
Claudio Unhappily, even so.
And the new deputy now for the duke -
Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness,
Or whether that the body public be
A horse whereon the governor doth ride,
Who, newly in the seat, that it may know
He can command, lets it straight feel the spur;
Whether the tyranny be in his place,
Or in his eminence that fills it up,
I stagger in. But this new governor
Awakes me all the enrolled penalties
Which have, like unscoured armour, hung by the wall
So long that nineteen zodiacs have gone round
And none of them been worn; and, for a name,
Now puts the drowsy and neglected act
Freshly on me. 'Tis surely for a name.
Lucio I warrant it is; and thy head stands so tickle on thy shoulders that
a milkmaid, if she be in love, may sigh it off. Send after the duke, and
appeal to him.
Claudio I have done so, but he's not to be found.
I prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service:
This day my sister should the cloister enter,
And there receive her approbation.
Acquaint her with the danger of my state;
Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends
To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him.
I have great hope in that, for in her youth
There is a prone and speechless dialect
Such as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art
When she will play with reason and discourse,
And well she can persuade.
Lucio I pray she may; as well for the encouragement of the like, which else
would stand under grievous imposition, as for the enjoying of thy life, who I
would be sorry should be thus foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack. I'll to
her.
Claudio I thank you, good friend Lucio.
Lucio Within two hours.
Claudio Come, officer, away.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 3. A Monastery.
Enter DUKE and FRIAR PETER.
Duke No, holy father, throw away that thought.
Believe not that the dribbling dart of love
Can pierce a complete bosom. Why I desire thee
To give me secret harbour hath a purpose
More grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends
Of burning youth.
Friar Peter May your grace speak of it?
Duke My holy sir, none better knows than you
How I have ever loved the life removed,
And held in idle price to haunt assemblies
Where youth, and cost, witless bravery keeps.
I have delivered to Lord Angelo
- A man of stricture and firm abstinence -
My absolute power and place here in Vienna,
And he supposes me travelled to Poland;
For so I have strewed it in the common ear,
And so it is received. Now, pious sir,
You will demand of me, why I do this.
Friar Peter Gladly, my lord.
Duke We have strict statutes and most biting laws,
The needful bits and curbs to headstrong jades,
Which for this fourteen years we have let slip;
Even like an o'ergrown lion in a cave
That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers,
Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch,
Only to stick it in their children's sight
For terror, not to use, in time the rod
Becomes more mocked than feared; so our decrees,
Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead;
And Liberty plucks Justice by the nose,
The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart
Goes all decorum.
Friar Peter It rested in your grace
To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleased,
And it in you more dreadful would have seemed
Than in Lord Angelo.
Duke I do fear, too dreadful.
Sith 'twas my fault to give the people scope,
'Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall them
For what I bid them do; for we bid this be done
When evil deeds have their permissive pass,
And not the punishment. Therefore indeed, my father,
I have on Angelo imposed the office,
Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home,
And yet my nature never in the fight
To do in slander. And to behold his sway,
I will, as 'twere a brother of your order,
Visit both prince and people. Therefore, I prithee,
Supply me with the habit, and instruct me
How I may formally in person bear
Like a true friar. More reasons for this action
At our more leisure shall I render you;
Only this one: Lord Angelo is precise,
Stands at a guard with envy, scarce confesses
That his blood flows, or that his appetite
Is more to bread than stone. Hence shall we see
If power change purpose, what our seemers be.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 4. A Nunnery.
Enter ISABELLA and FRANCISCA.
Isabella And have you nuns no further privileges?
Francisca Are not these large enough?
Isabella Yes, truly. I speak not as desiring more,
But rather wishing a more strict restraint
Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.
Lucio [Within.] Ho! Peace be in this place!
Isabella Who's that which calls?
Francisca It is a man's voice. Gentle Isabella,
Turn you the key, and know his business of him;
You may, I may not; you are yet unsworn.
When you have vowed, you must not speak with men
But in the presence of the prioress;
Then, if you speak, you must not show your face,
Or, if you show your face, you must not speak.
He calls again; I pray you, answer him.
[FRANCISCA withdraws.
Isabella Peace and prosperity! Who is't that calls?
Enter LUCIO.
Lucio Hail virgin, if you be -as those cheek-roses
Proclaim you are no less. Can you so stead me
As bring me to the sight of Isabella,
A novice of this place, and the fair sister
To her unhappy brother Claudio?
Isabella Why her unhappy brother? -let me ask;
The rather for I now must make you know
I am that Isabella, and his sister.
Lucio Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you.
Not to be weary with you, he's in prison.
Isabella Woe me! For what?
Lucio For that which, if myself might be his judge,
He should receive his punishment in thanks.
He hath got his friend with child.
Isabella Sir, make me not your story.
Lucio 'Tis true.
I would not -though 'tis my familiar sin
With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest
Tongue far from heart -play with all virgins so.
I hold you as a thing enskyed and sainted
By your renouncement, an immortal spirit,
And to be talked with in sincerity,
As with a saint.
Isabella You do blaspheme the good in mocking me.
Lucio Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, 'tis thus:
Your brother and his lover have embraced.
As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time
That from the seedness the bare fallow brings
To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb
Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.
Isabella Someone with child by him? My cousin Juliet?
Lucio Is she your cousin?
Isabella Adoptedly, as schoolmaids change their names
By vain though apt affection.
Lucio She it is.
Isabella O, let him marry her.
Lucio This is the point.
The duke is very strangely gone from hence;
Bore many gentlemen -myself being one -
In hand and hope of action; but we do learn
By those that know the very nerves of state,
His giving out were of an infinite distance
From his true-meant design. Upon his place,
And with full line of his authority,
Governs Lord Angelo; a man whose blood
Is very snow-broth; one who never feels
The wanton stings and motions of the sense,
But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
With profits of the mind, study and fast.
He -to give fear to use and liberty,
Which have for long run by the hideous law
As mice by lions -hath picked out an act
Under whose heavy sense your brother's life
Falls into forfeit; he arrests him on it,
And follows close the rigour of the statute
To make him an example. All hope is gone
Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer
To soften Angelo. And that's my pith
Of business 'twixt you and your poor brother.
Isabella Doth he so seek his life?
Lucio Has censured him
Already, and, as I hear, the Provost hath
A warrant for's execution.
Isabella Alas, what poor ability's in me
To do him good.
Lucio Assay the power you have.
Isabella My power? Alas, I doubt.
Lucio Our doubts are traitors,
And makes us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo,
And let him learn to know, when maidens sue,
Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,
All their petitions are as freely theirs
As they themselves would owe them.
Isabella I'll see what I can do.
Lucio But speedily.
Isabella I will about it straight;
No longer staying but to give the Mother
Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you.
Commend me to my brother. Soon at night
I'll send him certain word of my success.
Lucio I take my leave of you.
Isabella Good sir, adieu.
[Exeunt.
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++
ACT 2.
Scene 1. A Hall in Angelo's House.
Enter ANGELO, ESCALUS, SERVANTS, and a JUSTICE.
Angelo We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape till custom make it
Their perch, and not their terror.
Escalus Ay, but yet
Let us be keen, and rather cut a little,
Than fall and bruise to death. Alas, this gentleman
Whom I would save had a most noble father.
Let but your honour know
- Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue -
That in the working of your own affections,
Had time cohered with place, or place with wishing,
Or that the resolute acting of your blood
Could have attained the effect of your own purpose,
Whether you had not sometime in your life
Erred in this point which now you censure him,
And pulled the law upon you.
Angelo 'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
Another thing to fall. I not deny
The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,
May in the sworn twelve have a thief, or two,
Guiltier than him they try. What's open made to justice,
That justice seizes. What knows the laws
That thieves do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant,
The jewel that we find, we stoop and take't
Because we see it; but what we do not see
We tread upon, and never think of it.
You may not so extenuate his offence
For I have had such faults, but, rather tell me
When I that censure him do so offend,
Let mine own judgement pattern out my death,
And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.
Enter PROVOST.
Escalus Be it as your wisdom will.
Angelo Where is the Provost?
Provost Here, if it like your honour.
Angelo See that Claudio
Be executed by nine tomorrow morning.
Bring him his confessor, let him be prepared,
For that's the utmost of his pilgrimage.
[Exit PROVOST.
Escalus Well, heaven forgive him, and forgive us all!
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall;
Some run from brakes of vice, and answer none;
And some condemned for a fault alone.
Enter ELBOW, FROTH, POMPEY, and OFFICERS.
Elbow Come, bring them away. If these be good people in a commonweal that
do nothing but use their abuses in common houses, I know no law. Bring them
away.
Angelo How now sir! What's your name, and what's the matter?
Elbow If it please your honour, I am the poor duke's constable, and my name
is Elbow. I do lean upon justice, sir, and do bring in here before your good
honour two notorious benefactors.
Angelo Benefactors? Well, what benefactors are they? Are they not
malefactors?
Elbow If it please your honour, I know not well what they are; but precise
villains they are, that I am sure of, and void of all profanation in the world
that good Christians ought to have.
Escalus [To ANGELO.] This comes off well. Here's a wise officer!
Angelo Go to; what quality are they of? Elbow is your name? Why dost thou
not speak, Elbow?
Pompey He cannot, sir; he's out at elbow.
Angelo What are you, sir?
Elbow He, sir? A tapster, sir, parcel bawd; one that serves a bad woman,
whose house, sir, was, as they say, plucked down in the suburbs; and now she
professes a hothouse, which I think is a very ill house too.
Escalus How know you that?
Elbow My wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour -
Escalus How! Thy wife?
Elbow Ay, sir, whom I thank heaven is an honest woman -
Escalus Dost thou detest her therefore?
Elbow I say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as she, that this
house, if it be not a bawd's house, it is pity of her life, for it is a
naughty house.
Escalus How dost thou know that, constable?
Elbow Marry, sir, by my wife, who, if she had been a woman cardinally
given, might have been accused in fornication, adultery, and all uncleanliness
there.
Escalus By the woman's means?
Elbow Ay, sir, by Mistress Overdone's means; but as she spit in his face,
so she defied him.
Pompey Sir, if it please your honour, this is not so.
Elbow Prove it before these varlets here, thou honourable man, prove it.
Escalus [To ANGELO.] Do you hear how he misplaces?
Pompey Sir, she came in great with child, and longing, saving your honours'
reverence, for stewed prunes. Sir, we had but two in the house, which at that
very distant time stood, as it were, in a fruit dish, a dish of some
threepence; your honours have seen such dishes; they are not china dishes, but
very good dishes.
Escalus Go to, go to; no matter for the dish, sir.
Pompey No, indeed, sir, not of a pin; you are therein in the right; but to
the point. As I say, this Mistress Elbow, being, as I say, with child, and
being great-bellied, and longing, as I said, for prunes; and having but two in
the dish, as I said, Master Froth here, this very man, having eaten the rest,
as I said, and, as I say, paying for them very honestly; for, as you know,
Master Froth, I could not give you threepence again -
Froth No, indeed.
Pompey Very well; you being then, if you be remembered, cracking the stones
of the foresaid prunes -
Froth Ay, so I did indeed.
Pompey Why, very well; I, telling you then, if you be remembered, that such
a one and such a one were past cure of the thing you wot of, unless they kept
very good diet, as I told you -
Froth All this is true.
Pompey Why, very well then -
Escalus Come, you are a tedious fool. To the purpose: what was done to
Elbow's wife that he hath cause to complain of? Come me to what was done to her.
Pompey Sir, your honour cannot come to that yet.
Escalus No, sir, nor I mean it not.
Pompey Sir, but you shall come to it, by your honour's leave. And I beseech
you look into Master Froth here, sir; a man of fourscore pound a year, whose
father died at Hallowmas -was't not at Hallowmas, Master Froth?
Froth All-hallond eve.
Pompey Why, very well -I hope here be truths -he, sir, sitting, as I say,
in a lower chair, sir -'twas in the Bunch of Grapes, where, indeed, you have a
delight to sit, have you not?
Froth I have so; because it is an open room, and good for winter.
Pompey Why, very well then -I hope here be truths.
Angelo This will last out a night in Russia
When nights are longest there. I'll take my leave,
And leave you to the hearing of the cause,
Hoping you'll find good cause to whip them all.
Escalus I think no less. Good morrow to your lordship.
[Exit ANGELO.
Now, sir, come on. What was done to Elbow's wife, once more?
Pompey Once, sir? There was nothing done to her once.
Elbow I beseech you, sir, ask him what this man did to my wife.
Pompey I beseech your honour, ask me.
Escalus Well, sir, what did this gentleman to her?
Pompey I beseech you, sir, look in this gentleman's face. Good Master
Froth, look upon his honour -'tis for a good purpose. Doth your honour mark
his face?
Escalus Ay, sir, very well.
Pompey Nay, I beseech you, mark it well.
Escalus Well, I do so.
Pompey Doth your honour see any harm in his face?
Escalus Why, no.
Pompey I'll be supposed upon a book his face is the worst thing about him.
Good then; if his face be the worst thing about him, how could Master Froth do
the constable's wife any harm? I would know that of your honour.
Escalus He's in the right, constable; what say you to it?
Elbow First, and it like you, the house is a respected house; next, this is
a respected fellow; and his mistress is a respected woman.
Pompey By this hand, sir, his wife is a more respected person than any of
us all.
Elbow Varlet, thou liest! Thou liest, wicked varlet! The time is yet to
come that she was ever respected with man, woman, or child.
Pompey Sir, she was respected with him before he married with her.
Escalus Which is the wiser here, Justice or Iniquity? Is this true?
Elbow O thou caitiff! O thou varlet! O thou wicked Hannibal! I respected
with her before I was married to her? If ever I was respected with her, or she
with me, let not your worship think me the poor duke's officer. Prove this,
thou wicked Hannibal, or I'll have mine action of battery on thee.
Escalus If he took you a box o'th' ear, you might have your action of
slander too.
Elbow Marry, I thank your good worship for it. What is't your worship's
pleasure I shall do with this wicked caitiff?
Escalus Truly, officer, because he hath some offences in him that thou
wouldst discover if thou couldst, let him continue in his courses till thou
know'st what they are.
Elbow Marry, I thank your worship for it. Thou seest, thou wicked varlet,
now what's come upon thee. Thou art to continue now, thou varlet, thou art to
continue.
Escalus [To FROTH.] Where were you born, friend?
Froth Here in Vienna, sir.
Escalus Are you of fourscore pounds a year?
Froth Yes, and't please you, sir.
Escalus So. [To POMPEY.] What trade are you of, sir?
Pompey A tapster, a poor widow's tapster.
Escalus Your mistress' name?
Pompey Mistress Overdone.
Escalus Hath she had any more than one husband?
Pompey Nine, sir; Overdone by the last.
Escalus Nine? Come hither to me, Master Froth. Master Froth, I would not
have you acquainted with tapsters; they will draw you, Master Froth, and you
will hang them. Get you gone, and let me hear no more of you.
Froth I thank your worship. For mine own part, I never come into any room
in a taphouse but I am drawn in.
Escalus Well, no more of it, Master Froth. Farewell.
[Exit FROTH.
Come you hither to me, Master Tapster. What's your name, Master Tapster?
Pompey Pompey.
Escalus What else?
Pompey Bum, sir.
Escalus Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you; so that, in
the beastliest sense, you are Pompey the Great. Pompey, you are partly a bawd,
Pompey, howsoever you colour it in being a tapster, are you not? Come, tell me
true; it shall be the better for you.
Pompey Truly, sir, I am a poor fellow that would live.
Escalus How would you live, Pompey? By being a bawd? What do you think of
the trade, Pompey? Is it a lawful trade?
Pompey If the law would allow it, sir.
Escalus But the law will not allow it, Pompey; nor it shall not be allowed
in Vienna.
Pompey Does your worship mean to geld and splay all the youth of the city?
Escalus No, Pompey.
Pompey Truly, sir, in my poor opinion, they will to't then. If your worship
will take order for the drabs and the knaves, you need not to fear the bawds.
Escalus There is pretty orders beginning, I can tell you. It is but heading
and hanging.
Pompey If you head and hang all that offend that way but for ten year
together, you'll be glad to give out a commission for more heads. If this law
hold in Vienna ten year, I'll rent the fairest house in it after threepence a
bay. If you live to see this come to pass, say Pompey told you so.
Escalus Thank you, good Pompey; and, in requital of your prophecy, hark
you, I advise you let me not find you before me again upon any complaint
whatsoever; no, not for dwelling where you do. If I do, Pompey, I shall beat
you to your tent, and prove a shrewd Caesar to you. In plain dealing, Pompey,
I shall have you whipped. So, for this time, Pompey, fare you well.
Pompey I thank your worship for your good counsel; [Aside.] but I shall
follow it as the flesh and fortune shall better determine.
Whip me? No, no; let carman whip his jade;
The valiant heart's not whipped out of his trade.
[Exit.
Escalus Come hither to me, Master Elbow; come hither, Master Constable. How
long have you been in this place of constable?
Elbow Seven year and a half, sir.
Escalus I thought, by the readiness in the office, you had continued in it
some time. You say seven years together?
Elbow And a half, sir.
Escalus Alas, it hath been great pains to you; they do you wrong to put you
so oft upon't. Are there not men in your ward sufficient to serve it?
Elbow Faith, sir, few of any wit in such matters. As they are chosen, they
are glad to choose me for them. I do it for some piece of money, and go
through with all.
Escalus Look you bring me in the names of some six or seven, the most
sufficient of your parish.
Elbow To your worship's house, sir?
Escalus To my house. Fare you well.
[Exit ELBOW and OFFICERS.
What's o'clock, think you?
Justice Eleven, sir.
Escalus I pray you home to dinner with me.
Justice I humbly thank you.
Escalus It grieves me for the death of Claudio,
But there's no remedy.
Justice Lord Angelo is severe.
Escalus It is but needful.
Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so;
Pardon is still the nurse of second woe.
But yet, poor Claudio! There is no remedy.
Come, sir.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 2. Another Room in Angelo's House.
Enter PROVOST and a SERVANT.
Servant He's hearing of a cause; he will come straight.
I'll tell him of you.
Provost Pray you, do.
[Exit SERVANT.
I'll know
His pleasure; maybe he will relent. Alas,
He hath but as offended in a dream!
All sects, all ages, smack of this vice; -and he
To die for't!
Enter ANGELO.
Angelo Now, what's the matter, Provost?
Provost Is it your will Claudio shall die tomorrow?
Angelo Did I not tell thee yea? Hadst thou not order?
Why dost thou ask again?
Provost Lest I might be too rash.
Under your good correction, I have seen
When, after execution, judgement hath
Repented o'er his doom.
Angelo Go to; let that be mine.
Do you your office, or give up your place,
And you shall well be spared.
Provost I crave your honour's pardon.
What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet?
She's very near her hour.
Angelo Dispose of her
To some more fitter place; and that with speed.
Re-enter SERVANT.
Servant Here is the sister of the man condemned
Desires access to you.
Angelo Hath he a sister?
Provost Ay, my good lord, a very virtuous maid;
And to be shortly of a sisterhood,
If not already.
Angelo Well, let her be admitted.
[Exit SERVANT.
See you the fornicatress be removed;
Let her have needful but not lavish means;
There shall be order for't.
Enter LUCIO and ISABELLA.
Provost [Going.] Save your honour!
Angelo Stay a little while.
[To ISABELLA.] You're welcome. What's your will?
Isabella I am a woeful suitor to your honour,
Please but your honour hear me.
Angelo Well, what's your suit?
Isabella There is a vice that most I do abhor,
And most desire should meet the blow of justice,
For which I would not plead, but that I must;
For which I must not plead, but that I am
At war 'twixt will and will not.
Angelo Well, the matter?
Isabella I have a brother is condemned to die;
I do beseech you, let it be his fault,
And not my brother.
Provost [Aside.] Heaven give thee moving graces!
Angelo Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?
Why, every fault's condemned ere it be done.
Mine were the very cipher of a function
To fine the faults, whose fine stands in record,
And let go by the actor.
Isabella O just but severe law!
I had a brother, then. Heaven keep your honour.
Lucio [To ISABELLA.]
Give't not o'er so. To him again, entreat him,
Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown;
You are too cold. If you should need a pin,
You could not with more tame a tongue desire it.
To him, I say.
Isabella Must he needs die?
Angelo Maiden, no remedy.
Isabella Yes: I do think that you might pardon him,
And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.
Angelo I will not do't.
Isabella But can you if you would?
Angelo Look, what I will not, that I cannot do.
Isabella But might you do't, and do the world no wrong,
If so your heart were touched with that remorse
As mine is to him?
Angelo He's sentenced, 'tis too late.
Lucio [To ISABELLA.] You are too cold.
Isabella Too late? Why, no. I that do speak a word
May call it again. Well, believe this:
No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace
As mercy does.
If he had been as you, and you as he,
You would have slipped like him, but he like you
Would not have been so stern.
Angelo Pray you be gone.
Isabella I would to heaven I had your potency,
And you were Isabel! Should it then be thus?
No; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge,
And what a prisoner.
Lucio [To ISABELLA.] Ay, touch him; there's the vein.
Angelo Your brother is a forfeit of the law,
And you but waste your words.
Isabella Alas, alas!
Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once,
And He that might the vantage best have took
Found out the remedy. How would you be
If He, which is the top of judgement, should
But judge you as you are? O, think on that,
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made.
Angelo Be you content, fair maid.
It is the law, not I, condemn your brother:
Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,
It should be thus with him. He must die tomorrow.
Isabella Tomorrow? O, that's sudden. Spare him, spare him!
He's not prepared for death. Even for our kitchens
We kill the fowl of season: -shall we serve heaven
With less respect than we do minister
To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you:
Who is it that hath died for this offence?
There's many have committed it.
Lucio [To ISABELLA.] Ay, well said.
Angelo The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.
Those many had not dared to do that evil
If the first that did the edict infringe
Had answered for his deed. Now 'tis awake,
Takes note of what is done, and, like a prophet,
Looks in a glass that shows what future evils,
Either new, or by remissness new-conceived,
And so in progress to be hatched and born,
Are now to have no successive degrees,
But ere they live, to end.
Isabella Yet show some pity.
Angelo I show it most of all when I show justice,
For then I pity those I do not know,
Which a dismissed offence would after gall,
And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,
Lives not to act another. Be satisfied.
Your brother dies tomorrow. Be content.
Isabella So you must be the first that gives this sentence,
And he that suffers. O, it is excellent
To have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
Lucio [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,
Dressed 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 makes the angels weep, who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.
Lucio [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 [To ISABELLA.] Thou'rt i'th' right, girl; more o'that.
Isabella That in the captain's but a choleric word
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.
Lucio [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'th' 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.
[To ISABELLA.] Fare you well.
Isabella Gentle my lord, turn back.
Angelo I will bethink me. Come again tomorrow.
Isabella Hark how I'll bribe you; good my lord, turn back.
Angelo How, bribe me?
Isabella Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.
Lucio [To ISABELLA.] You had marred all else.
Isabella Not with fond sickles of the tested gold,
Or stones whose rate are either rich or poor
As fancy values them; but with true prayers
That shall be up at heaven and enter there
Ere sunrise: prayers from preserved souls,
From fasting maids whose minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal.
Angelo Well, come to me tomorrow.
Lucio [To ISABELLA.] Go to, 'tis well. Away.
Isabella Heaven keep your honour safe!
Angelo [Aside.] Amen;
For I am that way going to temptation,
Where prayer's crossed.
Isabella At what hour tomorrow
Shall I attend your lordship?
Angelo At any time 'fore noon.
Isabella Save your honour!
[Exeunt all but ANGELO.
Angelo From thee; even from thy virtue!
What's this, what's this? Is this her fault, or mine?
The tempter or the tempted, who sins most, ha?
Not she; nor doth she tempt; but it is I
That, lying by the violet in the sun,
Do as the carrion does, not as the flower,
Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be
That modesty may more betray our sense
Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough,
Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary
And pitch our evils there? O fie, fie, fie!
What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?
Dost thou desire her foully for those things
That make her good? O, let her brother live!
Thieves for their robbery have authority,
When judges steal themselves. What, do I love her,
That I desire to hear her speak again,
And feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on?
O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous
Is that temptation that doth goad us on
To sin in loving virtue. Never could the strumpet,
With all her double vigour, art and nature,
Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
Subdues me quite. Ever till now
When men were fond, I smiled, and wondered how.
[Exit.
+ + + + + +
Scene 3. A Room in a Prison.
Enter DUKE disguised as Friar Lodowick, and PROVOST.
Duke Hail to you, Provost! -so I think you are.
Provost I am the Provost. What's your will, good friar?
Duke Bound by my charity and my blessed order,
I come to visit the afflicted spirits
Here in the prison. Do me the common right
To let me see them, and to make me know
The nature of their crimes, that I may minister
To them accordingly.
Provost I would do more than that, if more were needful.
Enter JULIET.
Look, here comes one; a gentlewoman of mine,
Who, falling in the flaws of her own youth,
Hath blistered her report. She is with child,
And he that got it, sentenced: a young man
More fit to do another such offence
Than die for this.
Duke When must he die?
Provost As I do think, tomorrow.
[To JULIET.] I have provided for you; stay a while,
And you shall be conducted.
Duke Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?
Juliet I do, and bear the same most patiently.
Duke I'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience
And try your penitence, if it be sound,
Or hollowly put on.
Juliet I'll gladly learn.
Duke Love you the man that wronged you?
Juliet Yes, as I love the woman that wronged him.
Duke So then it seems your most offenceful act
Was mutually committed?
Juliet Mutually.
Duke Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.
Juliet I do confess it, and repent it, father.
Duke 'Tis meet so, daughter, but lest you do repent
As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,
Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not heaven,
Showing we would not spare heaven as we love it,
But as we stand in fear -
Juliet I do repent me as it is an evil,
And take the shame with joy.
Duke There rest.
Your partner, as I hear, must die tomorrow,
And I am going with instruction to him.
Grace go with you. Benedicite!
[Exit.
Juliet Must die tomorrow! O injurious law,
That respites me a life, whose very comfort
Is still a dying horror!
Provost 'Tis pity of him.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 4. A Room in Angelo's House.
Enter ANGELO.
Angelo When I would pray and think, I think and pray
To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words,
Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
Anchors on Isabel: God in my mouth
As if I did but only chew his name,
And in my heart the strong and swelling evil
Of my conception. The state whereon I studied
Is, like a good thing being often read,
Grown seared and tedious; yea, my gravity,
Wherein -let no man hear me -I take pride,
Could I with boot change for an idle plume
Which the air beats for vain. O place, O form,
How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood.
Let's write `good angel' on the devil's horn -
'Tis not the devil's crest.
Enter SERVANT.
How now, who's there?
Servant One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.
Angelo Teach her the way.
[Exit SERVANT.
O heavens,
Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,
Making both it unable for itself
And dispossessing all my other parts
Of necessary fitness?
So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;
Come all to help him, and so stop the air
By which he should revive; and even so
The general subject to a well-wished king
Quit their own part, and, in obsequious fondness,
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence.
Enter ISABELLA.
How now, fair maid?
Isabella I am come to know your pleasure.
Angelo That you might know it would much better please me
Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live.
Isabella Even so. Heaven keep your honour!
Angelo Yet may he live a while, and, it may be
As long as you or I; yet he must die.
Isabella Under your sentence?
Angelo Yea.
Isabella When, I beseech you? That in his reprieve,
Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted
That his soul sicken not.
Angelo Ha! Fie, these filthy vices! It were as good
To pardon him that hath from nature stolen
A man already made, as to remit
Their saucy sweetness that do coin God's image
In stamps that are forbid. 'Tis all as easy
Falsely to take away a life true made,
As to put mettle in restrained means
To make a false one.
Isabella 'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.
Angelo Say you so? Then I shall pose you quickly.
Which had you rather: that the most just law
Now took your brother's life, or, to redeem him,
Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness
As she that he hath stained?
Isabella Sir, believe this:
I had rather give my body than my soul.
Angelo I talk not of your soul: our compelled sins
Stand more for number than for account.
Isabella How say you?
Angelo Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak
Against the thing I say. Answer to this:
I, now the voice of the recorded law,
Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life:
Might there not be a charity in sin
To save this brother's life?
Isabella Please you to do't,
I'll take it as a peril to my soul
It is no sin at all, but charity.
Angelo Pleased you to do't at peril of your soul,
Were equal poise of sin and charity.
Isabella That I do beg his life, if it be sin,
Heaven let me bear it: you granting of my suit,
If that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer
To have it added to the faults of mine,
And nothing of your answer.
Angelo Nay, but hear me.
Your sense pursues not mine; either you are ignorant,
Or seem so, crafty; and that's not good.
Isabella Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good
But graciously to know I am no better.
Angelo Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright
When it doth tax itself: as these black masks
Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder
Than beauty could, displayed. But mark me;
To be received plain, I'll speak more gross.
Your brother is to die.
Isabella So.
Angelo And his offence is so, as it appears,
Accountant to the law upon that pain.
Isabella True.
Angelo Admit no other way to save his life,
As I subscribe not that, nor any other,
But, in the loss of question, that you, his sister,
Finding yourself desired of such a person
Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,
Could fetch your brother from the manacles
Of the all-binding law; and that there were
No earthly mean to save him but that either
You must lay down the treasures of your body
To this supposed, or else let him suffer;
What would you do?
Isabella As much for my poor brother as myself:
That is, were I under the terms of death,
The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death as to a bed
That longing have been sick for, ere I'd yield
My body up to shame.
Angelo Then must your brother die.
Isabella And 'twere the cheaper way.
Better it were a brother died at once
Than that a sister, by redeeming him,
Should die for ever.
Angelo Were you not then as cruel as the sentence
That you have slandered so?
Isabella Ignomy in ransom and free pardon
Are of two houses: lawful mercy
Is nothing kin to foul redemption.
Angelo You seemed of late to make the law a tyrant,
And rather proved the sliding of your brother
A merriment than a vice.
Isabella O pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out
To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean.
I something do excuse the thing I hate
For his advantage that I dearly love.
Angelo We are all frail.
Isabella Else let my brother die,
If not a feudary, but only he
Owe and succeed thy weakness.
Angelo Nay, women are frail too.
Isabella Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves,
Which are as easy broke as they make forms.
Women! Help, heaven! Men their creation mar
In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail,
For we are soft as our complexions are,
And credulous to false prints.
Angelo I think it well;
And from this testimony of your own sex -
Since I suppose we are made to be no stronger
Than faults may shake our frames -let me be bold.
I do arrest your words. Be that you are,
That is, a woman; if you be more, you're none.
If you be one, as you are well expressed
By all external warrants, show it now,
By putting on the destined livery.
Isabella I have no tongue but one; gentle my lord,
Let me entreat you speak the former language.
Angelo Plainly conceive, I love you.
Isabella My brother did love Juliet,
And you tell me that he shall die for it.
Angelo He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.
Isabella I know your virtue hath a license in't,
Which seems a little fouler than it is,
To pluck on others.
Angelo Believe me, on mine honour,
My words express my purpose.
Isabella Ha! Little honour to be much believed,
And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!
I will proclaim thee, Angelo, look for't.
Sign me a present pardon for my brother,
Or with an outstretched throat I'll tell the world aloud
What man thou art.
Angelo Who will believe thee, Isabel?
My unsoiled name, the austereness of my life,
My vouch against you, and my place i'th' state
Will so your accusation overweigh
That you shall stifle in your own report,
And smell of calumny. I have begun,
And now I give my sensual race the rein:
Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;
Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes
That banish what they sue for. Redeem thy brother
By yielding up thy body to my will,
Or else he must not only die the death,
But thy unkindness shall his death draw out
To lingering sufferance. Answer me tomorrow,
Or, by the affection that now guides me most,
I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,
Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true.
[Exit.
Isabella To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,
Who would believe me? O perilous mouths,
That bear in them one and the selfsame tongue
Either of condemnation or approof,
Bidding the law make curtsy to their will,
Hooking both right and wrong to the appetite,
To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother.
Though he hath fallen by prompture of the blood,
Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour
That, had he twenty heads to tender down
On twenty bloody blocks, he'd yield them up
Before his sister should her body stoop
To such abhorred pollution.
Then Isabel live chaste, and brother die:
More than our brother is our chastity.
I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,
And fit his mind to death for his soul's rest.
[Exit.
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++
ACT 3.
Scene 1. A Room in the Prison.
Enter DUKE as Friar Lodowick, CLAUDIO and PROVOST.
Duke So then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?
Claudio The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope;
I have hope to live, and am prepared to die.
Duke Be absolute for death; either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyey influences
That dost this habitation where thou keep'st
Hourly afflict. Merely thou art Death's fool;
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,
And yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble;
For all the accommodations that thou bear'st
Are nursed by baseness. Thou'rt by no means valiant;
For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork
Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,
And that thou oft provok'st, yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;
For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains
That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;
For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get,
And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain;
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor;
For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none;
For thine own bowels which do call thee sire,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,
Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,
For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age,
But as it were an after-dinner's sleep
Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty
To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this
That bears the name of life? Yet in this life
Lie hid more thousand deaths; yet death we fear
That makes these odds all even.
Claudio I humbly thank you.
To sue to live, I find I seek to die,
And seeking death, find life. Let it come on.
Isabella [Within.] What ho! Peace here, grace and good company!
Provost Who's there? Come in; the wish deserves a welcome.
Duke Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again.
Claudio Most holy sir, I thank you.
Enter ISABELLA.
Isabella My business is a word or two with Claudio.
Provost And very welcome. Look, signor, here's your sister.
Duke Provost, a word with you.
Provost As many as you please.
Duke Bring me to hear them speak where I may be concealed.
[DUKE and PROVOST withdraw.
Claudio Now, sister, what's the comfort?
Isabella Why, as all comforts are: most good, most good indeed.
Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,
Intends you for his swift ambassador,
Where you shall be an everlasting leiger:
Therefore your best appointment make with speed;
Tomorrow you set on.
Claudio Is there no remedy?
Isabella None but such remedy as, to save a head,
To cleave a heart in twain.
Claudio But is there any?
Isabella Yes, brother, you may live.
There is a devilish mercy in the judge,
If you'll implore it, that will free your life,
But fetter you till death.
Claudio Perpetual durance?
Isabella Ay, just, perpetual durance; a restraint,
Though all the world's vastidity you had,
To a determined scope.
Claudio But in what nature?
Isabella In such a one as, you consenting to't,
Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear,
And leave you naked.
Claudio Let me know the point.
Isabella O, I do fear thee, Claudio, and I quake
Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain,
Aud six or seven winters more respect
Than a perpetual honour. 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.
Claudio Why give you me this shame?
Think you I can a resolution fetch
From flowery tenderness? If I must die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride,
And hug it in mine arms.
Isabella There spake my brother; there my father's grave
Did utter forth a voice. 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' head, and follies doth enew
As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil;
His filth within being cast, he would appear
A pond as deep as hell.
Claudio The precise Angelo!
Isabella O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell
The damned'st body to invest and cover
In precise guards! 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 offence,
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.
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 the nose
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 shamed life a hateful.
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 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!
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.
Isabella Alas, alas!
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.
Isabella O, you beast!
O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!
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?
Heaven shield my mother played my father fair,
For such a warped slip of wilderness
Ne'er issued from his blood. 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.
Claudio Nay, hear me, Isabel.
Isabella O fie, fie, fie!
Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade;
Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd.
'Tis best that thou diest quickly.
Claudio O hear me, Isabella.
Duke [Advancing.] Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.
Isabella What is your will?
Duke Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and by have some
speech with you: the satisfaction I would require is likewise your own benefit.
Isabella I have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be stolen out of other
affairs; but I will attend you a while.
Duke [Aside to CLAUDIO.] Son, I have overheard what hath passed between you
and your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her, only he hath
made an assay of her virtue to practise his judgement with the disposition of
natures. She, having the truth of honour in her, hath made him that gracious
denial which he is most glad to receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I know
this to be true; therefore prepare yourself to death. Do not satisfy your
resolution with hopes that are fallible: tomorrow you must die. Go to your
knees and make ready.
Claudio Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love with life that I
will sue to be rid of it.
Duke Hold you there. Farewell.
[Exit CLAUDIO.
Provost, a word with you.
Provost [Advancing.] What's your will, father?
Duke That, now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me a while with the
maid; my mind promises with my habit no loss shall touch her by my company.
Provost In good time.
[Exit.
Duke The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good. The goodness that
is cheap in beauty makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul
of your complexion, shall keep the body of it ever fair. The assault that
Angelo hath made to you, fortune hath conveyed to my understanding; and but
that frailty hath examples for his falling, I should wonder at Angelo. How
will you do to content this substitute, and to save your brother?
Isabella I am now going to resolve him. I had rather my brother die by the
law than my son should be unlawfully born. But O, how much is the good duke
deceived in Angelo! If ever he return and I can speak to him, I will open my
lips in vain, or discover his government.
Duke That shall not be much amiss. Yet, as the matter now stands, he will
avoid your accusation: he made trial of you only. Therefore fasten your ear on
my advisings; to the love I have in doing good, a remedy presents itself. I do
make myself believe that you may most uprighteously do a poor wronged lady a
merited benefit, redeem your brother from the angry law, do no stain to your
own gracious person, and much please the absent duke, if peradventure he shall
ever return to have hearing of this business.
Isabella Let me hear you speak further. I have spirit to do anything that
appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.
Duke Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have you not heard speak
of Mariana, the sister of Frederick, the great soldier who miscarried at sea?
Isabella I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.
Duke She should this Angelo have married, was affianced to her oath, and
the nuptial appointed; between which time of the contract and limit of the
solemnity, her brother Frederick was wracked at sea, having in that perished
vessel the dowry of his sister. But mark how heavily this befell to the poor
gentlewoman. There she lost a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward
her ever most kind and natural; with him, the portion and sinew of her
fortune, her marriage dowry; with both, her combinate husband, this
well-seeming Angelo.
Isabella Can this be so? Did Angelo so leave her?
Duke Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them with his comfort;
swallowed his vows whole, pretending in her discoveries of dishonour; in few,
bestowed her on her own lamentation, which she yet wears for his sake; and he,
a marble to her tears, is washed with them, but relents not.
Isabella What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid from the
world! What corruption in this life that it will let this man live! But how
out of this can she avail?
Duke It is a rupture that you may easily heal, and the cure of it not only
saves your brother, but keeps you from dishonour in doing it.
Isabella Show me how, good father.
Duke This forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance of her first
affection. His unjust unkindness, that in all reason should have quenched her
love, hath, like an impediment in the current, made it more violent and
unruly. Go you to Angelo, answer his requiring with a plausible obedience,
agree with his demands to the point; only refer yourself to this advantage:
first, that your stay with him may not be long; that the place may have all
shadow and silence in it; and the time answer to convenience. This being
granted in course, and now follows all. We shall advise this wronged maid to
stead up your appointment, go in your place. If the encounter acknowledge
itself hereafter, it may compel him to her recompense; and here, by this is
your brother saved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, and
the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid will I frame and make fit for his attempt.
If you think well to carry this as you may, the doubleness of the benefit
defends the deceit from reproof. What think you of it?
Isabella The image of it gives me content already, and I trust it will grow
to a most prosperous perfection.
Duke It lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily to Angelo; if for
this night he entreat you to his bed, give him promise of satisfaction. I will
presently to Saint Luke's; there at the moated grange resides this dejected
Mariana. At that place call upon me; and dispatch with Angelo, that it may be
quickly.
Isabella I thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father.
[Exit.
ITALIC ON[ + + + + + + Scene 2. ]
Enter ELBOW, POMPEY and OFFICERS.
Elbow Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will needs buy and
sell men and women like beasts, we shall have all the world drink brown and
white bastard.
Duke O heavens, what stuff is here!
Pompey 'Twas never merry world since, of two usuries, the merriest was put
down, and the worser allowed by order of law -a furred gown to keep him warm;
and furred with fox on lambskins too, to signify that craft, being richer than
innocency, stands for the facing.
Elbow Come your way, sir. -Bless you, good father friar.
Duke And you, good brother father. What offence hath this man made you, sir?
Elbow Marry, sir, he hath offended the law, and, sir, we take him to be a
thief too, sir, for we have found upon him, sir, a strange picklock, which we
have sent to the deputy.
Duke Fie, sirrah; a bawd, a wicked bawd!
The evil that thou causest to be done,
That is thy means to live. Do thou but think
What 'tis to cram a maw or clothe a back
From such a filthy vice. Say to thyself,
From their abominable and beastly touches
I drink, I eat, array myself, and live.
Canst thou believe thy living is a life,
So stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend.
Pompey Indeed it does stink in some sort, sir; but yet, sir, I would prove -
Duke Nay, if the devil have given thee proofs for sin,
Thou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer.
Correction and instruction must both work
Ere this rude beast will profit.
Elbow He must before the deputy, sir; he has given him warning. The deputy
cannot abide a whoremaster. If he be a whoremonger and comes before him, he
were as good go a mile on his errand.
Duke That we were all, as some would seem to be,
From our faults, as faults from seeming, free!
Elbow His neck will come to your waist -a cord, sir.
Enter LUCIO.
Pompey I spy comfort, I cry bail! Here's a gentleman, and a friend of mine.
Lucio How now, noble Pompey! What, at the wheels of Caesar? Art thou led in
triumph? What, is there none of Pygmalion's images newly made woman to be had
now, for putting the hand in the pocket and extracting clutched? What reply,
ha? What sayst thou to this tune, matter, and method? Is't not drowned i'th'
last rain, ha? What sayst thou, trot? Is the world as it was, man? Which is
the way? Is it sad, and few words? Or how? The trick of it?
Duke Still thus and thus, still worse.
Lucio How doth my dear morsel, thy mistress? Procures she still, ha?
Pompey Troth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she is herself in
the tub.
Lucio Why, 'tis good; it is the right of it, it must be so. Ever your fresh
whore and your powdered bawd; an unshunned consequence, it must be so. Art
going to prison, Pompey?
Pompey Yes, faith, sir.
Lucio Why, 'tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell. Go. Say I sent thee thither.
For debt, Pompey, or how?
Pompey For being a bawd, for being a bawd.
Lucio Well then, imprison him. If imprisonment be the due of a bawd, why,
'tis his right. Bawd is he doubtless, and of antiquity, too -bawd born.
Farewell, good Pompey. Commend me to the prison, Pompey. You will turn good
husband now, Pompey; you will keep the house.
Pompey I hope, sir, your good worship will be my bail?
Lucio No, indeed will I not, Pompey; it is not the wear. I will pray,
Pompey, to increase your bondage; if you take it not patiently, why, your
mettle is the more. Adieu, trusty Pompey. -Bless you, friar.
Duke And you.
Lucio Does Bridget paint still, Pompey, ha?
Elbow Come your ways, sir; come.
Pompey You will not bail me then, sir?
Lucio Then, Pompey, nor now. -What news abroad, friar? What news?
Elbow Come your ways, sir; come.
Lucio Go to kennel, Pompey; go.
[Exeunt ELBOW, POMPEY, and OFFICERS.
What news, friar, of the duke?
Duke I know none. Can you tell me of any?
Lucio Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other some, he is in Rome.
But where is he, think you?
Duke I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well.
Lucio It was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from the state and
usurp the beggary he was never born to. Lord Angelo dukes it well in his
absence; he puts transgression to't.
Duke He does well in't.
Lucio A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in him. Something
too crabbed that way, friar.
Duke It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it.
Lucio Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred, it is well
allied; but it is impossible to extirp it quite, friar, till eating and
drinking be put down. They say this Angelo was not made by man and woman after
this downright way of creation: is it true, think you?
Duke How should he be made, then?
Lucio Some report, a sea-maid spawned him; some, that he was begot between
two stockfishes. But it is certain that when he makes water his urine is
congealed ice; that I know to be true. And he is a motion ungenerative; that's
infallible.
Duke You are pleasant, sir, and speak apace.
Lucio Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the rebellion of a
codpiece to take away the life of a man! Would the duke that is absent have
done this? Ere he would have hanged a man for the getting a hundred bastards,
he would have paid for the nursing a thousand. He had some feeling of the
sport; he knew the service; and that instructed him to mercy.
Duke I have never heard the absent duke much detected for women; he was not
inclined that way.
Lucio O sir, you are deceived.
Duke 'Tis not possible.
Lucio Who, not the duke? Yes, your beggar of fifty; and his use was to put
a ducat in her clack-dish; the duke had crotchets in him. He would be drunk
too, that let me inform you.
Duke You do him wrong, surely.
Lucio Sir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the duke; and I believe
I know the cause of his withdrawing.
Duke What, I prithee, might be the cause?
Lucio No, pardon; 'tis a secret must be locked within the teeth and the
lips. But this I can let you understand: the greater file of the subject held
the duke to be wise.
Duke Wise? Why, no question but he was.
Lucio A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.
Duke Either this is envy in you, folly, or mistaking. The very stream of
his life, and the business he hath helmed, must upon a warranted need give him
a better proclamation. Let him be but testimonied in his own bringings-forth,
and he shall appear to the envious a scholar, a statesman, and a soldier.
Therefore you speak unskilfully, or, if your knowledge be more, it is much
darkened in your malice.
Lucio Sir, I know him and I love him.
Duke Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer love.
Lucio Come, sir, I know what I know.
Duke I can hardly believe that, since you know not what you speak. But if
ever the duke return -as our prayers are he may -let me desire you to make
your answer before him. If it be honest you have spoke, you have courage to
maintain it. I am bound to call upon you, and I pray you, your name.
Lucio Sir, my name is Lucio, well known to the duke.
Duke He shall know you better, sir, if I may live to report you.
Lucio I fear you not.
Duke O, you hope the duke will return no more, or you imagine me too
unhurtful an opposite. But indeed, I can do you little harm. You'll forswear
this again?
Lucio I'll be hanged first. Thou art deceived in me, friar. But no more of
this. Canst thou tell if Claudio die tomorrow or no?
Duke Why should he die, sir?
Lucio Why? For filling a bottle with a tun-dish. I would the duke we talk
of were returned again. This ungenitured agent will unpeople the province with
continency. Sparrows must not build in his house-eaves, because they are
lecherous. The duke yet would have dark deeds darkly answered. He would never
bring them to light. Would he were returned! Marry, this Claudio is condemned
for untrussing. Farewell, good friar; I prithee pray for me. The duke, I say
to thee again, would eat mutton on Fridays. He's now past it; yet, and I say
to thee, he would mouth with a beggar though she smelt brown bread and garlic.
Say that I said so. Farewell.
[Exit.
Duke No might nor greatness in mortality
Can censure 'scape; back-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?
But who comes here?
Enter ESCALUS, PROVOST, and OFFICERS with MISTRESS OVERDONE.
Escalus Go, away with her to prison.
Overdone Good my lord, be good to me. Your honour is accounted a merciful
man, good my lord.
Escalus Double and treble admonition, and still forfeit in the same kind!
This would make mercy swear and play the tyrant.
Provost A bawd of eleven years' continuance, may it please your honour.
Overdone My lord, this is one Lucio's information against me. Mistress Kate
Keepdown was with child by him in the duke's time; he promised her marriage.
His child is a year and a quarter old come Philip and Jacob. I have kept it
myself; and see how he goes about to abuse me.
Escalus That fellow is a fellow of much license. Let him be called before
us. Away with her to prison. Go to; no more words.
[Exeunt OFFICERS with MISTRESS OVERDONE.
Provost, my brother Angelo will not be altered; Claudio must die tomorrow.
Let him be furnished with divines, and have all charitable preparation. If my
brother wrought by my pity it should not be so with him.
Provost So please you, this friar hath been with him and advised him for
the entertainment of death.
Escalus Good even, good father.
Duke Bliss and goodness on you!
Escalus Of whence are you?
Duke Not of this country, though my chance is now
To use it for my time. I am a brother
Of gracious order, late come from the See
In special business from his Holiness.
Escalus What news abroad i'th' world?
Duke None, but that there is so great a fever on goodness that the
dissolution of it must cure it. Novelty is only in request, and it is as
dangerous to be aged in any kind of course as it is virtuous to be constant in
any undertaking. There is scarce truth enough alive to make societies secure,
but security enough to make fellowships accurst. Much upon this riddle runs
the wisdom of the world. This news is old enough, yet it is every day's news.
I pray you, sir, of what disposition was the duke?
Escalus One that, above all other strifes, contended especially to know
himself.
Duke What pleasure was he given to?
Escalus Rather rejoicing to see another merry, than merry at anything which
professed to make him rejoice: a gentleman of all temperance. But leave we him
to his events, with a prayer they may prove prosperous, and let me desire to
know how you find Claudio prepared. I am made to understand that you have lent
him visitation.
Duke He professes to have received no sinister measure from his judge, but
most willingly humbles himself to the determination of justice. Yet had he
framed to himself, by the instruction of his frailty, many deceiving promises
of life, which I, by my good leisure, have discredited to him, and now is he
resolved to die.
Escalus You have paid the heavens your function and the prisoner the very
debt of your calling. I have laboured for the poor gentleman to the extremest
shore of my modesty, but my brother-justice have I found so severe that he
hath forced me to tell him he is indeed Justice.
Duke If his own life answer the straitness of his proceeding, it shall
become him well; wherein if he chance to fail, he hath sentenced himself.
Escalus I am going to visit the prisoner; fare you well.
Duke Peace be with you.
[Exeunt ESCALUS and PROVOST.
He who the sword of heaven will bear
Should be as holy as severe;
Pattern in himself to know,
Grace to stand, and virtue go;
More nor less to others paying
Than by self-offences weighing.
Shame to him whose cruel striking
Kills for faults of his own liking!
Twice treble shame on Angelo,
To weed my vice, and let his grow!
O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!
How may likeness made in crimes,
Making practice on the times
To draw with idle spiders' strings
Most pond'rous and substantial things!
Craft against vice I must apply.
With Angelo tonight shall lie
His old betrothed, but despisäd,
So disguise shall, by th' disguised,
Pay with falsehood false exacting,
And perform an old contracting.
[Exit.
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++
ACT 4.
Scene 1. The moated Grange at Saint Luke's.
Enter MARIANA, and a BOY singing.
Song
Boy [Sings.] Take, O take those lips away
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn;
But my kisses bring again, bring again;
Seals of love, but sealed in vain, sealed in vain.
Enter DUKE as Friar Lodowick.
Mariana Break off thy song, and haste thee quick away;
Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice
Hath often stilled my brawling discontent.
[Exit BOY.
I cry you mercy, sir, and well could wish
You had not found me here so musical.
Let me excuse me, and believe me so,
My mirth it much displeased, but pleased my woe.
Duke 'Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm
To make bad good, and good provoke to harm.
I pray you tell me, hath anybody enquired for me here today? Much upon
this time have I promised here to meet.
Mariana You have not been inquired after. I have sat here all day.
Enter ISABELLA.
Duke I do constantly believe you. The time is come even now. I shall crave
your forbearance a little; may be I will call upon you anon, for some
advantage to yourself.
Mariana I am always bound to you.
[Exit.
Duke Very well met, and welcome.
What is the news from this good deputy?
Isabella He hath a garden circummured with brick,
Whose western side is with a vineyard backed;
And to that vineyard is a planched gate,
That makes his opening with this bigger key.
This other doth command a little door
Which from the vineyard to the garden leads;
There have I made my promise
Upon the heavy middle of the night
To call upon him.
Duke But shall you on your knowledge find this way?
Isabella I have ta'en a due and wary note upon't;
With whispering and most guilty diligence,
In action all of precept, he did show me
The way twice o'er.
Duke Are there no other tokens
Between you 'greed concerning her observance?
Isabella No, none, but only a repair i'th' dark,
And that I have possessed him my most stay
Can be but brief, for I have made him know
I have a servant comes with me along,
That stays upon me, whose persuasion is
I come about my brother.
Duke 'Tis well borne up.
I have not yet made known to Mariana
A word of this. -What ho, within! Come forth.
Re-enter MARIANA.
[To MARIANA.] I pray you be acquainted with this maid;
She comes to do you good.
Isabella I do desire the like.
Duke Do you persuade yourself that I respect you?
Mariana Good friar, I know you do, and so have found it.
Duke Take, then, this your companion by the hand,
Who hath a story ready for your ear.
I shall attend your leisure; but make haste,
The vaporous night approaches.
Mariana [To ISABELLA.] Will't please you walk aside?
[MARIANA and ISABELLA withdraw.
Duke O place and greatness, millions of false eyes
Are stuck upon thee! Volumes of report
Run with these false and most contrarious quests
Upon thy doings! Thousand escapes of wit
Make thee the father of their idle dream
And rack thee in their fancies!
[MARIANA and ISABELLA advance.
Welcome. How agreed?
Isabella She'll take the enterprise upon her, father,
If you advise it.
Duke It is not my consent,
But my entreaty too.
Isabella Little have you to say
When you depart from him but, soft and low,
`Remember now my brother'.
Mariana Fear me not.
Duke Nor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all.
He is your husband on a pre-contract.
To bring you thus together 'tis no sin,
Sith that the justice of your title to him
Doth flourish the deceit. Come, let us go;
Our corn's to reap, for yet our tilth's to sow.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 2. The Prison.
Enter PROVOST and POMPEY.
Provost Come hither, sirrah. Can you cut off a man's head?
Pompey If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can; but if he be a married man,
he's his wife's head, and I can never cut off a woman's head.
Provost Come, sir, leave me your snatches and yield me a direct answer.
Tomorrow morning are to die Claudio and Barnardine. Here is in our prison a
common executioner who in his office lacks a helper; if you will take it on
you to assist him, it shall redeem you from your gyves; if not, you shall have
your full time of imprisonment, and your deliverance with an unpitied
whipping; for you have been a notorious bawd.
Pompey Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd time out of mind, but yet I will
be content to be a lawful hangman. I would be glad to receive some instruction
from my fellow partner.
Provost What ho, Abhorson! Where's Abhorson there?
Enter ABHORSON.
Abhorson Do you call, sir?
Provost Sirrah, here's a fellow will help you tomorrow in your execution.
If you think it meet, compound with him by the year, and let him abide here
with you; if not, use him for the present, and dismiss him. He cannot plead
his estimation with you; he hath been a bawd.
Abhorson A bawd, sir? Fie upon him, he will discredit our mystery.
Provost Go to, sir, you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale.
[Exit.
Pompey Pray, sir, by your good favour -for surely, sir, a good favour you
have, but that you have a hanging look -do you call, sir, your occupation a
mystery?
Abhorson Ay, sir, a mystery.
Pompey Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and your whores, sir,
being members of my occupation, using painting, do prove my occupation a
mystery; but what mystery there should be in hanging, if I should be hanged, I
cannot imagine.
Abhorson Sir, it is a mystery.
Pompey Proof?
Abhorson Every true man's apparel fits your thief. If it be too little for
your thief, your true man thinks it big enough; if it be too big for your
thief, your thief thinks it little enough. So every true man's apparel fits
your thief.
Re-enter PROVOST.
Provost Are you agreed?
Pompey Sir, I will serve him, for I do find your hangman is a more penitent
trade than your bawd: he doth oftener ask forgiveness.
Provost You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe tomorrow four o'clock.
Abhorson Come on, bawd, I will instruct thee in my trade. Follow.
Pompey I do desire to learn, sir, and I hope, if you have occasion to use
me for your own turn, you shall find me yare; for truly, sir, for your
kindness I owe you a good turn.
Provost Call hither Barnardine and Claudio.
[Exeunt ABHORSON and POMPEY.
Th' one has my pity; not a jot the other,
Being a murderer, though he were my brother.
Enter CLAUDIO.
Look, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death.
'Tis now dead midnight, and by eight tomorrow
Thou must be made immortal. Where's Barnardine?
Claudio As fast locked up in sleep as guiltless labour
When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones.
He will not wake.
Provost Who can do good on him?
Well, go, prepare yourself.
[Knocking within.
But hark, what noise?
Heaven give your spirits comfort!
[Exit CLAUDIO.
[Knocking within.
By and by.
I hope it is some pardon or reprieve
For the most gentle Claudio.
Enter DUKE as Friar Lodowick.
Welcome, father.
Duke The best and wholesom'st spirits of the night
Envelop you, good Provost! Who called here of late?
Provost None since the curfew rung.
Duke Not Isabel?
Provost No.
Duke They will then, ere't be long.
Provost What comfort is for Claudio?
Duke There's some in hope.
Provost It is a bitter deputy.
Duke Not so, not so; his life is paralleled
Even with the stroke and line of his great justice.
He doth with holy abstinence subdue
That in himself which he spurs on his power
To qualify in others. Were he mealed with that
Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous;
But this being so, he's just.
[Knocking within.
[Exit PROVOST.
Now are they come.
This is a gentle provost: seldom when
The steeled gaoler is the friend of men.
[Knocking within.
How now, what noise! That spirit's possessed with haste
That wounds th' unsisting postern with these strokes.
Re-enter PROVOST.
Provost [Calling.] There must he stay until the officer
Arise to let him in. He is called up.
Duke Have you no countermand for Claudio yet,
But he must die tomorrow?
Provost None, sir, none.
Duke As near the dawning, Provost, as it is,
You shall hear more ere morning.
Provost Happily
You something know; yet I believe there comes
No countermand. No such example have we.
Besides, upon the very siege of justice
Lord Angelo hath to the public ear
Professed the contrary.
Enter a MESSENGER.
This is his lordship's man.
Duke And here comes Claudio's pardon.
Messenger My lord hath sent you this note, and by me this further charge:
that you swerve not from the smallest article of it, neither in time, matter,
or other circumstance. Good morrow; for as I take it, it is almost day.
Provost I shall obey him.
[Exit MESSENGER.
Duke [Aside.] This is his pardon, purchased by such sin
For which the pardoner himself is in:
Hence hath offence his quick celerity,
When it is borne in high authority.
When vice makes mercy, mercy's so extended
That for the fault's love is th' offender friended.
Now, sir, what news?
Provost I told you: Lord Angelo, belike thinking me remiss in mine office,
awakens me with this unwonted putting-on; methinks strangely, for he hath not
used it before.
Duke Pray you, let's hear.
Provost [Reads.] "Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let Claudio
be executed by four of the clock; and in the afternoon, Barnardine. For my
better satisfaction, let me have Claudio's head sent me by five. Let this be
duly performed, with a thought that more depends on it than we must yet
deliver. Thus fail not to do your office, as you will answer it at your peril."
What say you to this, sir?
Duke What is that Barnardine who is to be executed in the afternoon?
Provost A Bohemian born, but here nursed up and bred. One that is a
prisoner nine years old.
Duke How came it that the absent duke had not either delivered him to his
liberty or executed him? I have heard it was ever his manner to do so.
Provost His friends still wrought reprieves for him; and, indeed, his fact,
till now in the government of Lord Angelo, came not to an undoubtful proof.
Duke It is now apparent?
Provost Most manifest, and not denied by himself.
Duke Hath he borne himself penitently in prison? How seems he to be touched?
Provost A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but as a drunken
sleep: careless, reckless, and fearless of what's past, present, or to come;
insensible of mortality, and desperately mortal.
Duke He wants advice.
Provost He will hear none. He hath evermore had the liberty of the prison:
give him leave to escape hence, he would not. Drunk many times a day, if not
many days entirely drunk. We have very oft awaked him, as if to carry him to
execution, and showed him a seeming warrant for it; it hath not moved him at
all.
Duke More of him anon. There is written in your brow, Provost, honesty and
constancy. If I read it not truly, my ancient skill beguiles me; but in the
boldness of my cunning, I will lay myself in hazard. Claudio, whom here you
have warrant to execute, is no greater forfeit to the law than Angelo who hath
sentenced him. To make you understand this in a manifested effect, I crave but
four days' respite; for the which you are to do me both a present and a
dangerous courtesy.
Provost Pray sir, in what?
Duke In the delaying death.
Provost Alack, how may I do it? Having the hour limited, and an express
command under penalty to deliver his head in the view of Angelo? I may make my
case as Claudio's, to cross this in the smallest.
Duke By the vow of mine order, I warrant you, if my instructions may be
your guide, let this Barnardine be this morning executed, and his head borne
to Angelo.
Provost Angelo hath seen them both, and will discover the favour.
Duke O, death's a great disguiser; and you may add to it. Shave the head
and tie the beard, and say it was the desire of the penitent to be so bared
before his death -you know the course is common. If anything fall to you upon
this more than thanks and good fortune, by the saint whom I profess, I will
plead against it with my life.
Provost Pardon me, good father, it is against my oath.
Duke Were you sworn to the duke or to the deputy?
Provost To him and to his substitutes.
Duke You will think you have made no offence if the duke avouch the justice
of your dealing?
Provost But what likelihood is in that?
Duke Not a resemblance, but a certainty. Yet, since I see you fearful, that
neither my coat, integrity, nor persuasion can with ease attempt you, I will
go further than I meant, to pluck all fears out of you. Look you, sir, here is
the hand and seal of the duke. You know the character, I doubt not, and the
signet is not strange to you?
Provost I know them both.
Duke The contents of this is the return of the duke; you shall anon
overread it at your pleasure, where you shall find within these two days he
will be here. This is a thing that Angelo knows not, for he this very day
receives letters of strange tenor, perchance of the duke's death, perchance
entering into some monastery; but, by chance, nothing of what is writ. Look,
th' unfolding star calls up the shepherd. Put not yourself into amazement how
these things should be; all difficulties are but easy when they are known.
Call your executioner, and off with Barnardine's head. I will give him a
present shrift, and advise him for a better place. Yet you are amazed; but
this shall absolutely resolve you. Come away, it is almost clear dawn.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 3. The Prison.
Enter POMPEY.
Pompey I am as well acquainted here as I was in our house of profession:
one would think it were Mistress Overdone's own house, for here be many of her
old customers. First, here's young Master Rash; he's in for a commodity of
brown paper and old ginger, nine score and seventeen pounds, of which he made
five marks ready money; marry, then ginger was not much in request, for the
old women were all dead. Then is there here one Master Caper, at the suit of
Master Threepile the mercer, for some four suits of peach-coloured satin,
which now peaches him a beggar. Then have we here young Dizzy, and young
Master Deepvow, and Master Copperspur, and Master Starvelackey the rapier and
dagger man, and young Dropheir that killed lusty Pudding, and Master
Forthright the tilter, and brave Master Shoetie the great traveller, and wild
Halfcan that stabbed Pots, and I think forty more, all great doers in our
trade, and are now `for the Lord's sake'.
Enter ABHORSON.
Abhorson Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither.
Pompey [Calling.] Master Barnardine, you must rise and be hanged, Master
Barnardine!
Abhorson What ho, Barnardine!
Barnardine [Within.] A pox o' your throats! Who makes that noise there?
What are you?
Pompey Your friends, sir; the hangman. You must be so good, sir, to rise
and be put to death.
Barnardine [Within.] Away, you rogue, away; I am sleepy.
Abhorson Tell him he must awake, and that quickly too.
Pompey Pray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are executed, and sleep
afterwards.
Abhorson Go in to him, and fetch him out.
Pompey He is coming, sir, he is coming. I hear his straw rustle.
Enter BARNARDINE.
Abhorson Is the axe upon the block, sirrah?
Pompey Very ready, sir.
Barnardine How now, Abhorson, what's the news with you?
Abhorson Truly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your prayer, for, look
you, the warrant's come.
Barnardine You rogue, I have been drinking all night; I am not fitted for't.
Pompey O, the better, sir; for he that drinks all night and is hanged
betimes in the morning may sleep the sounder all the next day.
Enter DUKE as Friar Lodowick.
Abhorson Look you, sir, here comes your ghostly father. Do we jest now,
think you?
Duke Sir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily you are to depart,
I am come to advise you, comfort you, and pray with you.
Barnardine Friar, not I. I have been drinking hard all night, and I will
have more time to prepare me, or they shall beat out my brains with billets. I
will not consent to die this day, that's certain.
Duke O sir, you must; and therefore, I beseech you,
Look forward on the journey you shall go.
Barnardine I swear I will not die today for any man's persuasion.
Duke But hear you -
Barnardine Not a word. If you have anything to say to me, come to my ward;
for thence will not I today.
[Exit.
Enter PROVOST.
Duke Unfit to live or die. O gravel heart!
After him, fellows; bring him to the block.
[Exeunt ABHORSON and POMPEY.
Provost Now, sir, how do you find the prisoner?
Duke A creature unprepared, unmeet for death;
And to transport him in the mind he is
Were damnable.
Provost Here in the prison, father,
There died this morning of a cruel fever
One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate,
A man of Claudio's years, his beard and head
Just of his colour. What if we do omit
This reprobate till he were well inclined,
And satisfy the deputy with the visage
Of Ragozine, more like to Claudio?
Duke O, 'tis an accident that heaven provides!
Dispatch it presently; the hour draws on
Prefixed by Angelo. See this be done,
And sent according to command, whiles I
Persuade this rude wretch willingly to die.
Provost This shall be done, good father, presently.
But Barnardine must die this afternoon;
And how shall we continue Claudio,
To save me from the danger that might come
If he were known alive?
Duke Let this be done:
Put them in secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio.
Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting
To yonder generation, you shall find
Your safety manifested.
Provost I am your free dependant.
Duke Quick, dispatch, and send the head to Angelo.
[Exit PROVOST.
Now will I write letters to Angelo,
- The Provost, he shall bear them -whose contents
Shall witness to him I am near at home,
And that by great injunctions I am bound
To enter publicly. Him I'll desire
To meet me at the consecrated fount
A league below the city; and from thence,
By cold gradation and well-balanced form,
We shall proceed with Angelo.
Re-enter PROVOST.
Provost Here is the head; I'll carry it myself.
Duke Convenient is it. Make a swift return;
For I would commune with you of such things
That want no ear but yours.
Provost I'll make all speed.
[Exit.
Isabella [Within.] Peace, ho, be here!
Duke The tongue of Isabel. She's come to know
If yet her brother's pardon be come hither;
But I will keep her ignorant of her good,
To make her heavenly comforts of despair
When it is least expected.
Enter ISABELLA.
Isabella Ho, by your leave!
Duke Good morning to you, fair and gracious daughter.
Isabella The better, given me by so holy a man.
Hath yet the deputy sent my brother's pardon?
Duke He hath released him, Isabel, from the world:
His head is off, and sent to Angelo.
Isabella Nay, but it is not so.
Duke It is no other.
Show your wisdom, daughter, in your close patience.
Isabella O, I will to him and pluck out his eyes!
Duke You shall not be admitted to his sight.
Isabella Unhappy Claudio! Wretched Isabel!
Injurious world! Most damned Angelo!
Duke This nor hurts him nor profits you a jot;
Forbear it, therefore; give your cause to heaven.
Mark what I say, which you shall find
By every syllable a faithful verity.
The duke comes home tomorrow -nay, dry your eyes -
One of our covent, and his confessor,
Gives me this instance. Already he hath carried
Notice to Escalus and Angelo,
Who do prepare to meet him at the gates,
There to give up their power. If you can, pace your wisdom
In that good path that I would wish it go,
And you shall have your bosom on this wretch,
Grace of the duke, revenges to your heart,
And general honour.
Isabella I am directed by you.
Duke This letter then to Friar Peter give;
'Tis that he sent me of the duke's return.
Say, by this token, I desire his company
At Mariana's house tonight. Her cause and yours
I'll perfect him withal, and he shall bring you
Before the duke; and to the head of Angelo
Accuse him home and home. For my poor self,
I am combined by a sacred vow,
And shall be absent. Wend you with this letter.
Command these fretting waters from your eyes
With a light heart; trust not my holy order
If I pervert your course. Who's here?
Enter LUCIO.
Lucio Good even. Friar, where's the Provost?
Duke Not within, sir.
Lucio O pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart to see thine eyes so red
-thou must be patient. I am fain to dine and sup with water and bran; I dare
not for my head fill my belly: one fruitful meal would set me to't. But they
say the duke will be here tomorrow. By my troth, Isabel, I loved thy brother.
If the old fantastical duke of dark corners had been at home, he had lived.
[Exit ISABELLA.
Duke Sir, the duke is marvellous little beholding to your reports; but the
best is, he lives not in them.
Lucio Friar, thou knowest not the duke so well as I do. He's a better
woodman than thou tak'st him for.
Duke Well, you'll answer this one day. Fare ye well.
Lucio Nay tarry, I'll go along with thee. I can tell thee pretty tales of
the duke.
Duke You have told me too many of him already, sir, if they be true; if not
true, none were enough.
Lucio I was once before him for getting a wench with child.
Duke Did you such a thing?
Lucio Yes, marry, did I; but I was fain to forswear it; they would else
have married me to the rotten medlar.
Duke Sir, your company is fairer than honest. Rest you well.
Lucio By my troth, I'll go with thee to the lane's end. If bawdy talk
offend you, we'll have very little of it. Nay, friar, I am a kind of burr; I
shall stick.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 4. A Room in Angelo's House.
Enter ANGELO and ESCALUS.
Escalus Every letter he hath writ hath disvouched other.
Angelo In most uneven and distracted manner. His actions show much like to
madness; pray heaven his wisdom be not tainted. And why meet him at the gates,
and redeliver our authorities there?
Escalus I guess not.
Angelo And why should we proclaim it in an hour before his entering, that
if any crave redress of injustice, they should exhibit their petitions in the
street?
Escalus He shows his reason for that: to have a dispatch of complaints, and
to deliver us from devices hereafter, which shall then have no power to stand
against us.
Angelo Well, I beseech you, let it be proclaimed.
Betimes i'th' morn I'll call you at your house.
Give notice to such men of sort and suit
As are to meet him.
Escalus I shall, sir. Fare you well.
Angelo Good night.
[Exit ESCALUS.
This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant
And dull to all proceedings. A deflowered maid!
And by an eminent body that enforced
The law against it! But that her tender shame
Will not proclaim against her maiden loss,
How might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her no,
For my authority bears so credent bulk
That no particular scandal once can touch
But it confounds the breather. He should have lived,
Save that his riotous youth, with dangerous sense,
Might in the times to come have ta'en revenge
By so receiving a dishonoured life
With ransom of such shame. Would yet he had lived.
Alack, when once our grace we have forgot,
Nothing goes right; we would, and we would not.
[Exit.
+ + + + + +
Scene 5. A Monastery.
Enter DUKE in his own habit, and FRIAR PETER.
Duke These letters at fit time deliver me.
The Provost knows our purpose and our plot.
The matter being afoot, keep your instruction,
And hold you ever to our special drift,
Though sometimes you do blench from this to that
As cause doth minister. Go call at Flavius' house,
And tell him where I stay. Give the like notice
To Valentinus, Rowland, and to Crassus,
And bid them bring the trumpets to the gate;
But send me Flavius first.
Friar Peter It shall be speeded well.
[Exit.
Enter VARRIUS.
Duke I thank thee, Varrius, thou hast made good haste.
Come, we will walk. There's other of our friends
Will greet us here anon, my gentle Varrius.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 6. A Street near the City Gate.
Enter ISABELLA and MARIANA.
Isabella To speak so indirectly I am loth.
I would say the truth; but to accuse him so,
That is your part. Yet I am advised to do it,
He says, to veil full purpose.
Mariana Be ruled by him.
Isabella Besides, he tells me that if peradventure
He speak against me on the adverse side,
I should not think it strange, for 'tis a physic
That's bitter to sweet end.
Enter FRIAR PETER.
Mariana I would Friar Peter -
Isabella O peace, the friar is come.
Friar Peter Come, I have found you out a stand most fit,
Where you may have such vantage on the duke
He shall not pass you. Twice have the trumpets sounded.
The generous and gravest citizens
Have hent the gates, and very near upon
The duke is ent'ring; therefore hence, away.
[Exeunt.
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++
ACT 5.
Scene 1. The City Gate.
Enter, at one door, DUKE as himself, VARRIUS, and LORDS attending; at another
door, ANGELO, ESCALUS, LUCIO, PROVOST and CITIZENS.
Duke My very worthy cousin, fairly met.
Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you.
Angelo &
Escalus Happy return be to your royal grace!
Duke Many and hearty thankings to you both.
We have made enquiry of you, and we hear
Such goodness of your justice that our soul
Cannot but yield you forth to public thanks,
Forerunning more requital.
Angelo You make my bonds still greater.
Duke O, your desert speaks loud, and I should wrong it
To lock it in the wards of covert bosom,
When it deserves with characters of brass
A forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time
And razure of oblivion. Give we our hand,
And let the subject see, to make them know
That outward courtesies would fain proclaim
Favours that keep within. Come, Escalus,
You must walk by us on our other hand;
And good supporters are you.
Enter FRIAR PETER and ISABELLA.
Friar Peter Now is your time. Speak loud, and kneel before him.
Isabella [Kneeling.] Justice, O royal duke! Vail your regard
Upon a wronged -I'd fain have said a maid.
O worthy prince, dishonour not your eye
By throwing it on any other object
Till you have heard me in my true complaint
And given me justice, justice, justice, justice!
Duke Relate your wrongs. In what? By whom? Be brief.
Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice.
Reveal yourself to him.
Isabella O worthy duke,
You bid me seek redemption of the devil.
Hear me yourself, for that which I must speak
Must either punish me, not being believed,
Or wring redress from you. Hear me, O hear me, here!
Angelo My lord, her wits I fear me are not firm;
She hath been a suitor to me for her brother,
Cut off by course of justice.
Isabella By course of justice!
Angelo And she will speak most bitterly and strange.
Isabella Most strange, but yet most truly will I speak.
That Angelo's forsworn, is it not strange?
That Angelo's a murderer, is't not strange?
That Angelo is an adulterous thief,
A hypocrite, a virgin-violator,
Is it not strange, and strange?
Duke Nay, it is ten times strange.
Isabella It is not truer he is Angelo
Than this is all as true as it is strange.
Nay, it is ten times true, for truth is truth
To the end of reck'ning.
Duke Away with her. Poor soul,
She speaks this in th' infirmity of sense.
Isabella O prince, I conjure thee, as thou believ'st
There is another comfort than this world,
That thou neglect me not with that opinion
That I am touched with madness. Make not impossible
That which but seems unlike. 'Tis not impossible
But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground,
May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute,
As Angelo; even so may Angelo,
In his dressings, characts, titles, forms,
Be an arch-villain. Believe it, royal prince,
If he be less, he's nothing; but he's more,
Had I more name for badness.
Duke By mine honesty,
If she be mad, as I believe no other,
Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense,
Such a dependency of thing on thing,
As e'er I heard in madness.
Isabella O gracious duke,
Harp not on that, nor do not banish reason
For inequality; but let your reason serve
To make the truth appear where it seems hid,
And hide the false seems true.
Duke Many that are not mad
Have sure more lack of reason. What would you say?
Isabella I am the sister of one Claudio,
Condemned upon the act of fornication
To lose his head; condemned by Angelo.
I, in probation of a sisterhood,
Was sent to by my brother; one Lucio
As then the messenger.
Lucio That's I, and't like your grace.
I came to her from Claudio, and desired her
To try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo
For her poor brother's pardon.
Isabella That's he indeed.
Duke You were not bid to speak.
Lucio No, my good lord;
Nor wished to hold my peace.
Duke I wish you now, then.
Pray you take note of it; and when you have
A business for yourself, pray heaven you then
Be perfect.
Lucio I warrant your honour.
Duke The warrant's for yourself; take heed to't.
Isabella This gentleman told somewhat of my tale.
Lucio Right.
Duke It may be right, but you are i'the wrong
To speak before your time. Proceed.
Isabella I went
To this pernicious caitiff deputy -
Duke That's somewhat madly spoken.
Isabella Pardon it;
The phrase is to the matter.
Duke Mended again. The matter; proceed.
Isabella In brief, to set the needless process by,
How I persuaded, how I prayed and kneeled,
How he refelled me, and how I replied -
For this was of much length -the vile conclusion
I now begin with grief and shame to utter.
He would not, but by gift of my chaste body
To his concupiscible intemperate lust,
Release my brother; and after much debatement,
My sisterly remorse confutes mine honour,
And I did yield to him. But the next morn betimes,
His purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant
For my poor brother's head.
Duke This is most likely!
Isabella O, that it were as like as it is true.
Duke By heaven, fond wretch, thou know'st not what thou speakst,
Or else thou art suborned against his honour
In hateful practice. First, his integrity
Stands without blemish; next, it imports no reason
That with such vehemency he should pursue
Faults proper to himself. If he had so offended,
He would have weighed thy brother by himself,
And not have cut him off. Someone hath set you on.
Confess the truth, and say by whose advice
Thou cam'st here to complain.
Isabella And is this all?
Then, O you blessed ministers above,
Keep me in patience, and with ripened time
Unfold the evil which is here wrapped up
In countenance! Heaven shield your grace from woe,
As I, thus wronged, hence unbelieved go.
Duke I know you'd fain be gone. An officer!
To prison with her. Shall we thus permit
A blasting and a scandalous breath to fall
On him so near us? This needs must be a practice.
Who knew of your intent and coming hither?
Isabella One that I would were here, Friar Lodowick.
Duke A ghostly father, belike. Who knows that Lodowick?
Lucio My lord, I know him, 'tis a meddling friar;
I do not like the man. Had he been lay, my lord,
For certain words he spake against your grace
In your retirement, I had swinged him soundly.
Duke Words against me? This's a good friar belike!
And to set on this wretched woman here
Against our substitute! Let this friar be found.
Lucio But yesternight, my lord, she and that friar,
I saw them at the prison. A saucy friar,
A very scurvy fellow.
Friar Peter Blessed be your royal grace!
I have stood by, my lord, and I have heard
Your royal ear abused. First hath this woman
Most wrongfully accused your substitute,
Who is as free from touch or soil with her
As she from one ungot.
Duke We did believe no less.
Know you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of?
Friar Peter I know him for a man divine and holy;
Not scurvy, nor a temporary meddler,
As he's reported by this gentleman;
And, on my trust, a man that never yet
Did, as he vouches, misreport your grace.
Lucio My lord, most villainously, believe it.
Friar Peter Well, he in time may come to clear himself;
But at this instant he is sick, my lord,
Of a strange fever. Upon his mere request,
Being come to knowledge that there was complaint
Intended 'gainst Lord Angelo, came I hither
To speak, as from his mouth, what he doth know
Is true and false, and what he with his oath
And all probation will make up full clear
Whensoever he's convented. First, for this woman,
To justify this worthy nobleman,
So vulgarly and personally accused,
Her shall you hear disproved to her eyes,
Till she herself confess it.
Duke Good friar, let's hear it.
[Exit ISABELLA, guarded.
Do you not smile at this, Lord Angelo?
O heaven, the vanity of wretched fools!
Give us some seats. Come, cousin Angelo,
In this I'll be impartial; be you judge
Of your own cause.
Enter MARIANA veiled.
Is this the witness, friar?
First let her show her face, and after speak.
Mariana Pardon, my lord, I will not show my face
Until my husband bid me.
Duke What, are you married?
Mariana No, my lord.
Duke Are you a maid?
Mariana No, my lord.
Duke A widow, then?
Mariana Neither, my lord.
Duke Why, you are nothing then: neither maid, widow, nor wife.
Lucio My lord, she may be a punk, for many of them are neither maid, widow,
nor wife.
Duke Silence that fellow! I would he had some cause to prattle for himself.
Lucio Well, my lord.
Mariana My lord, I do confess I ne'er was married,
And I confess besides, I am no maid.
I have known my husband, yet my husband
Knows not that ever he knew me.
Lucio He was drunk then, my lord; it can be no better.
Duke For the benefit of silence, would thou wert so too.
Lucio Well, my lord.
Duke This is no witness for Lord Angelo.
Mariana Now I come to't, my lord.
She that accuses him of fornication
In selfsame manner doth accuse my husband,
And charges him, my lord, with such a time
When I'll depose I had him in mine arms
With all th' effect of love.
Angelo Charges she more than me?
Mariana Not that I know.
Duke No? You say your husband.
Mariana Why, just, my lord, and that is Angelo,
Who thinks he knows that he ne'er knew my body,
But knows, he thinks, that he knows Isabel's.
Angelo This is a strange abuse. Let's see thy face.
Mariana [Unveiling.] My husband bids me; now I will unmask.
This is that face, thou cruel Angelo,
Which once thou swor'st was worth the looking on;
This is the hand which, with a vowed contract,
Was fast belocked in thine; this is the body
That took away the match from Isabel,
And did supply thee at thy garden-house
In her imagined person.
Duke Know you this woman?
Lucio Carnally, she says.
Duke Sirrah, no more!
Lucio Enough, my lord.
Angelo My lord, I must confess I know this woman;
And five years since there was some speech of marriage
Betwixt myself and her, which was broke off,
Partly for that her promised proportions
Came short of composition, but in chief
For that her reputation was disvalued
In levity. Since which time of five years
I never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her,
Upon my faith and honour.
Mariana Noble prince,
As there comes light from heaven and words from breath,
As there is sense in truth and truth in virtue,
I am affianced this man's wife as strongly
As words could make up vows. And, my good lord,
But Tuesday night last gone, in's garden-house,
He knew me as a wife. As this is true,
Let me in safety raise me from my knees,
Or else for ever be confixed here,
A marble monument.
Angelo I did but smile till now.
Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice;
My patience here is touched. I do perceive
These poor informal women are no more
But instruments of some more mightier member
That sets them on. Let me have way, my lord,
To find this practice out.
Duke Ay, with my heart;
And punish them unto your height of pleasure.
Thou foolish friar, and thou pernicious woman
Compact with her that's gone, think'st thou thy oaths,
Though they would swear down each particular saint,
Were testimonies against his worth and credit
That's sealed in approbation? You, Lord Escalus,
Sit with my cousin; lend him your kind pains
To find out this abuse, whence 'tis derived.
There is another friar that set them on;
Let him be sent for.
Friar Peter Would he were here, my lord, for he indeed
Hath set the women on to this complaint.
Your Provost knows the place where he abides,
And he may fetch him.
Duke Go, do it instantly.
[Exit PROVOST.
And you, my noble and well-warranted cousin,
Whom it concerns to hear this matter forth,
Do with your injuries as seems you best
In any chastisement. I for a while will leave you;
But stir not you till you have well determined
Upon these slanderers.
Escalus My lord, we'll do it throughly.
[Exit DUKE.
Signor Lucio, did not you say you knew that Friar Lodowick to be a
dishonest person?
Lucio Cucullus non facit monachum: honest in nothing but in his clothes,
and one that hath spoke most villainous speeches of the duke.
Escalus We shall entreat you to abide here till he come, and enforce them
against him. We shall find this friar a notable fellow.
Lucio As any in Vienna, on my word!
Escalus Call that same Isabel here once again; I would speak with her.
[Exit an ATTENDANT.
Pray you, my lord, give me leave to question; you shall see how I'll
handle her.
Lucio Not better than he, by her own report.
Escalus Say you?
Lucio Marry, sir, I think if you handled her privately she would sooner
confess; perchance publicly she'll be ashamed.
Re-enter ATTENDANT with ISABELLA.
Escalus I will go darkly to work with her.
Lucio That's the way, for women are light at midnight.
Escalus Come on, mistress, here's a gentlewoman denies all that you have
said.
Re-enter DUKE as Friar Lodowick, and PROVOST.
Lucio My lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of, here with the Provost.
Escalus In very good time. Speak not you to him till we call upon you.
Lucio Mum.
Escalus Come, sir, did you set these women on to slander Lord Angelo? They
have confessed you did.
Duke 'Tis false.
Escalus How? Know you where you are?
Duke Respect to your great place, and let the devil
Be sometime honoured for his burning throne!
Where is the duke? 'Tis he should hear me speak.
Escalus The duke's in us, and we will hear you speak;
Look you speak justly.
Duke Boldly, at least. But O, poor souls,
Come you to seek the lamb here of the fox,
Good night to your redress! Is the duke gone?
Then is your cause gone too. The duke's unjust
Thus to retort your manifest appeal,
And put your trial in the villain's mouth
Which here you come to accuse.
Lucio This is the rascal; this is he I spoke of.
Escalus Why, thou unreverend and unhallowed friar!
Is't not enough thou hast suborned these women
To accuse this worthy man, but, in foul mouth
And in the witness of his proper ear,
To call him villain? And then to glance from him
To the duke himself, to tax him with injustice?
Take him hence! To th' rack with him! We'll touse you
Joint by joint, but we will know his purpose.
What! Unjust?
Duke Be not so hot. The duke
Dare no more stretch this finger of mine than he
Dare rack his own. His subject am I not,
Nor here provincial. My business in this state
Made me a looker-on here in Vienna,
Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble
Till it o'errun the stew. Laws for all faults,
But faults so countenanced that the strong statutes
Stand like the forfeits in a barber's shop,
As much in mock as mark.
Escalus Slander to th' state! Away with him to prison!
Angelo What can you vouch against him, Signor Lucio?
Is this the man that you did tell us of?
Lucio 'Tis he, my lord. Come hither, goodman Baldpate; do you know me?
Duke I remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice. I met you at the
prison, in the absence of the duke.
Lucio O, did you so? And do you remember what you said of the duke?
Duke Most notedly, sir.
Lucio Do you so, sir? And was the duke a fleshmonger, a fool, and a coward,
as you then reported him to be?
Duke You must, sir, change persons with me ere you make that my report. You
indeed spoke so of him, and much more, much worse.
Lucio O, thou damnable fellow! Did not I pluck thee by the nose for thy
speeches?
Duke I protest I love the duke as I love myself.
Angelo Hark how the villain would close now, after his treasonable abuses!
Escalus Such a fellow is not to be talked withal. Away with him to prison!
Where is the Provost? Away with him to prison! Lay bolts enough upon him; let
him speak no more. Away with those giglets too, and with the other confederate
companion!
[The PROVOST lays hands on the DUKE.
Duke Stay, sir, stay a while.
Angelo What, resists he? Help him, Lucio.
Lucio Come, sir. Come, sir; come, sir! Foh, sir! Why, you baldpated, lying
rascal, you must be hooded, must you? Show your knave's visage, with a pox to
you! Show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour! Will't not off?
[Pulls off the friar's hood, and discovers the DUKE.
Duke Thou art the first knave that e'er mad'st a duke.
First, Provost, let me bail these gentle three.
[To LUCIO.] Sneak not away, sir, for the friar and you
Must have a word anon. Lay hold on him.
Lucio This may prove worse than hanging.
Duke [To ESCALUS.] What you have spoke I pardon; sit you down.
We'll borrow place of him.
[To ANGELO.] Sir, by your leave.
Hast thou or word or wit or impudence
That yet can do thee office? If thou hast,
Rely upon it till my tale be heard,
And hold no longer out.
Angelo O my dread lord,
I should be guiltier than my guiltiness
To think I can be undiscernible,
When I perceive your grace, like power divine,
Hath looked upon my passes. Then, good prince,
No longer session hold upon my shame,
But let my trial be mine own confession.
Immediate sentence then, and sequent death,
Is all the grace I beg.
Duke Come hither, Mariana.
Say, wast thou e'er contracted to this woman?
Angelo I was, my lord.
Duke Go, take her hence and marry her instantly.
Do you the office, friar; which consummate,
Return him here again. Go with him, Provost.
[Exeunt ANGELO, MARIANA, FRIAR PETER and PROVOST.
Escalus My lord, I am more amazed at his dishonour
Than at the strangeness of it.
Duke Come hither, Isabel.
Your friar is now your prince. As I was then
Advertising and holy to your business,
Not changing heart with habit, I am still
Attorneyed at your service.
Isabella O, give me pardon,
That I, your vassal, have employed and pained
Your unknown sovereignty.
Duke You are pardoned, Isabel.
And now, dear maid, be you as free to us.
Your brother's death, I know, sits at your heart;
And you may marvel why I obscured myself,
Labouring to save his life, and would not rather
Make rash remonstrance of my hidden power
Than let him so be lost. O most kind maid,
It was the swift celerity of his death,
Which I did think with slower foot came on,
That brained my purpose. But peace be with him!
That life is better life, past fearing death,
Than that which lives to fear. Make it your comfort,
So happy is your brother.
Isabella I do, my lord.
Re-enter ANGELO, MARIANA, FRIAR PETER, and PROVOST.
Duke For this new-married man approaching here,
Whose salt imagination yet hath wronged
Your well-defended honour, you must pardon
For Mariana's sake; but as he adjudged your brother -
Being criminal in double violation
Of sacred chastity and of promise-breach,
Thereon dependent, for your brother's life -
The very mercy of the law cries out
Most audible, even from his proper tongue,
"An Angelo for Claudio, death for death!
Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;
Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure".
Then, Angelo, thy fault's thus manifested,
Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage.
We do condemn thee to the very block
Where Claudio stooped to death, and with like haste.
Away with him.
Mariana O my most gracious lord,
I hope you will not mock me with a husband!
Duke It is your husband mocked you with a husband.
Consenting to the safeguard of your honour,
I thought your marriage fit; else imputation,
For that he knew you, might reproach your life,
And choke your good to come. For his possessions,
Although by confiscation they are ours,
We do instate and widow you with all,
To buy you a better husband.
Mariana O my dear lord,
I crave no other, nor no better man.
Duke Never crave him; we are definitive.
Mariana Gentle my liege -
[Kneeling.
Duke You do but lose your labour.
Away with him to death! [To LUCIO.] Now, sir, to you.
Mariana O my good lord! -Sweet Isabel, take my part;
Lend me your knees, and all my life to come
I'll lend you all my life to do you service.
Duke Against all sense you do importune her.
Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact,
Her brother's ghost his paved bed would break,
And take her hence in horror.
Mariana Isabel,
Sweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me.
Hold up your hands, say nothing -I'll speak all.
They say best men are moulded out of faults,
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad: so may my husband.
O Isabel, will you not lend a knee?
Duke He dies for Claudio's death.
Isabella [Kneeling.] Most bounteous sir,
Look, if it please you, on this man condemned
As if my brother lived. I partly think
A due sincerity governed his deeds
Till he did look on me. Since it is so,
Let him not die. My brother had but justice,
In that he did the thing for which he died;
For Angelo,
His act did not o'ertake his bad intent,
And must be buried but as an intent
That perished by the way. Thoughts are no subjects;
Intents but merely thoughts.
Mariana Merely, my lord.
Duke Your suit's unprofitable. Stand up, I say.
I have bethought me of another fault.
Provost, how came it Claudio was beheaded
At an unusual hour?
Provost It was commanded so.
Duke Had you a special warrant for the deed?
Provost No, my good lord, it was by private message.
Duke For which I do discharge you of your office;
Give up your keys.
Provost Pardon me, noble lord;
I thought it was a fault, but knew it not,
Yet did repent me after more advice;
For testimony whereof, one in the prison
That should by private order else have died,
I have reserved alive.
Duke What's he?
Provost His name is Barnardine.
Duke I would thou hadst done so by Claudio.
Go, fetch him hither; let me look upon him.
[Exit PROVOST.
Escalus I am sorry one so learned and so wise
As you, Lord Angelo, have still appeared,
Should slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood
And lack of tempered judgement afterward.
Angelo I am sorry that such sorrow I procure,
And so deep sticks it in my penitent heart
That I crave death more willingly than mercy;
'Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it.
Re-enter PROVOST with BARNARDINE, CLAUDIO muffled, and JULIET.
Duke Which is that Barnardine?
Provost This, my lord.
Duke There was a friar told me of this man.
Sirrah, thou art said to have a stubborn soul
That apprehends no further than this world,
And squar'st thy life according. Thou'rt condemned;
But, for those earthly faults, I quit them all,
And pray thee take this mercy to provide
For better times to come. Friar, advise him;
I leave him to your hand. What muffled fellow's that?
Provost This is another prisoner that I saved,
Who should have died when Claudio lost his head,
As like almost to Claudio as himself.
[Unmuffles CLAUDIO.
Duke [To ISABELLA.] If he be like your brother, for his sake
Is he pardoned; and for your lovely sake
Give me your hand and say you will be mine.
He is my brother too. But fitter time for that.
By this Lord Angelo perceives he's safe;
Methinks I see a quickening in his eye.
Well, Angelo, your evil quits you well.
Look that you love your wife; her worth worth yours.
I find an apt remission in myself;
And yet here's one in place I cannot pardon.
[To LUCIO.] You, sirrah, that knew me for a fool, a coward,
One all of luxury, an ass, a madman;
Wherein have I so deserved of you
That you extol me thus?
Lucio Faith, my lord, I spoke it but according to the trick. If you will
hang me for it, you may; but I had rather it would please you I might be
whipped.
Duke Whipped first, sir, and hanged after.
Proclaim it, Provost, round about the city,
If any woman wronged by this lewd fellow,
As I have heard him swear himself there's one
Whom he begot with child, let her appear,
And he shall marry her. The nuptial finished,
Let him be whipped and hanged.
Lucio I beseech your highness, do not marry me to a whore. Your highness
said even now I made you a duke; good my lord, do not recompense me in making
me a cuckold.
Duke Upon mine honour, thou shalt marry her.
Thy slanders I forgive, and therewithal
Remit thy other forfeits. Take him to prison,
And see our pleasure herein executed.
Lucio Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping, and hanging.
Duke Slandering a prince deserves it.
[Exeunt OFFICERS with LUCIO.
She, Claudio, that you wronged, look you restore.
Joy to you, Mariana. Love her, Angelo;
I have confessed her, and I know her virtue.
Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness;
There's more behind that is more gratulate.
Thanks, Provost, for thy care and secrecy;
We shall employ thee in a worthier place.
Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home
The head of Ragozine for Claudio's:
Th' offence pardons itself. Dear Isabel,
I have a motion much imports your good,
Whereto if you'll a willing ear incline,
What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.
So, bring us to our palace, where we'll show
What's yet behind that's meet you all should know.
[Exeunt.