BBS in a Box 2/BBS in a box - Trilogy II.iso/Files/Education/M/Measure.TXT

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[This PUBLIC DOMAIN Shakespeare text is courtesy of Moby Lexical Tools.]


    MEASURE FOR MEASURE


    DRAMATIS PERSONAE


VINCENTIO    the Duke. (DUKE VINCENTIO:)

ANGELO    Deputy.

ESCALUS    an ancient Lord.

CLAUDIO    a young gentleman.

LUCIO    a fantastic.

    Two other gentlemen.
    (First Gentleman:)
    (Second Gentleman:)
    Provost.


PETER    (FRIAR PETER:)    |
        |  two friars.
THOMAS    (FRIAR THOMAS:)    |


    A Justice.

VARRIUS:

ELBOW    a simple constable.

FROTH    a foolish gentleman.

POMPEY    servant to Mistress Overdone.

ABHORSON    an executioner.

BARNARDINE    a dissolute prisoner.

ISABELLA    sister to Claudio.

MARIANA    betrothed to Angelo.

JULIET    beloved of Claudio.

FRANCISCA    a nun.

MISTRESS OVERDONE    a bawd.

    Lords, Officers, Citizens, Boy, and Attendant.
    (Servant:)
    (Messenger:)


SCENE    Vienna.




    MEASURE FOR MEASURE


ACT I


SCENE I    An apartment in the DUKE'S palace.


    [Enter DUKE VINCENTIO, ESCALUS, Lords and
    Attendants]

DUKE VINCENTIO    Escalus.

ESCALUS    My lord.

DUKE VINCENTIO    Of government the properties to unfold,
    Would seem in me to 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 practise hath enriched any
    That we remember. There is our commission,
    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, dress'd 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.

DUKE VINCENTIO                      Look where he comes.

    [Enter ANGELO]

ANGELO    Always obedient to your grace's will,
    I come to know your pleasure.

DUKE VINCENTIO    Angelo,
    There is a kind of character in thy life,
    That to the 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 touch'd
    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 stamp'd upon it.

DUKE VINCENTIO    No more evasion:
    We have with a leaven'd 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 unquestion'd
    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 the 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 VINCENTIO    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:
    Through 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]




    MEASURE FOR MEASURE


ACT I


SCENE II    A Street.


    [Enter LUCIO and two 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.

First Gentleman    Heaven grant us its peace, but not the King of
    Hungary's!

Second Gentleman    Amen.

LUCIO    Thou concludest like the sanctimonious pirate, that
    went to sea with the Ten Commandments, but scraped
    one out of the table.

Second Gentleman    'Thou shalt not steal'?

LUCIO    Ay, that he razed.

First 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.

Second Gentleman    I never heard any soldier dislike it.

LUCIO    I believe thee; for I think thou never wast where
    grace was said.

Second Gentleman    No? a dozen times at least.

First Gentleman    What, in metre?

LUCIO    In any proportion or in any language.

First 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.

First 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.

First 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.

First Gentleman    I think I have done myself wrong, have I not?

Second Gentleman    Yes, that thou hast, whether thou art tainted or free.

LUCIO    Behold, behold. where Madam Mitigation comes! I
    have purchased as many diseases under her roof as come to--

Second Gentleman    To what, I pray?

LUCIO    Judge.

Second Gentleman    To three thousand dolours a year.

First Gentleman    Ay, and more.

LUCIO    A French crown more.

First 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.

    [Enter MISTRESS OVERDONE]

First Gentleman    How now! which of your hips has the most profound sciatica?

MISTRESS OVERDONE    Well, well; there's one yonder arrested and carried
    to prison was worth five thousand of you all.

Second Gentleman    Who's that, I pray thee?

MISTRESS OVERDONE    Marry, sir, that's Claudio, Signior Claudio.

First Gentleman    Claudio to prison? 'tis not so.

MISTRESS 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?

MISTRESS 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.

Second Gentleman    Besides, you know, it draws something near to the
    speech we had to such a purpose.

First Gentleman    But, most of all, agreeing with the proclamation.

LUCIO    Away! let's go learn the truth of it.

    [Exeunt LUCIO and Gentlemen]

MISTRESS 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.

MISTRESS OVERDONE    Well; what has he done?

POMPEY    A woman.

MISTRESS OVERDONE    But what's his offence?

POMPEY    Groping for trouts in a peculiar river.

MISTRESS 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?

MISTRESS OVERDONE    What proclamation, man?

POMPEY    All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be plucked down.

MISTRESS 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.

MISTRESS OVERDONE    But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be
    pulled down?

POMPEY    To the ground, mistress.

MISTRESS OVERDONE    Why, here's a change indeed in the commonwealth!
    What shall become of me?

POMPEY    Come; fear you not: 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.

MISTRESS OVERDONE    What's to do here, Thomas tapster? let's withdraw.

POMPEY    Here comes Signior Claudio, led by the provost to
    prison; and there's Madam Juliet.

    [Exeunt]

    [Enter Provost, CLAUDIO, JULIET, and Officers]

CLAUDIO    Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to the 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.

    [Re-enter LUCIO and two Gentlemen]

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 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 look'd 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 emmence that fills it up,
    I stagger in:--but this new governor
    Awakes me all the enrolled penalties
    Which have, like unscour'd 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]




    MEASURE FOR MEASURE


ACT I


SCENE III    A monastery.


    [Enter DUKE VINCENTIO and FRIAR THOMAS]

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 THOMAS                      May your grace speak of it?

DUKE VINCENTIO    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, and witless bravery keeps.
    I have deliver'd to Lord Angelo,
    A man of stricture and firm abstinence,
    My absolute power and place here in Vienna,
    And he supposes me travell'd to Poland;
    For so I have strew'd it in the common ear,
    And so it is received. Now, pious sir,
    You will demand of me why I do this?

FRIAR THOMAS    Gladly, my lord.

DUKE VINCENTIO    We have strict statutes and most biting laws.
    The needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds,
    Which for this nineteen 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 mock'd than fear'd; 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 THOMAS                      It rested in your grace
    To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleased:
    And it in you more dreadful would have seem'd
    Than in Lord Angelo.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 me
    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]




    MEASURE FOR MEASURE


ACT I


SCENE IV    A nunnery.


    [Enter ISABELLA and FRANCISCA]

ISABELLA    And have you nuns no farther 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 vow'd, 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.

    [Exit]

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    It is 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 ensky'd and sainted.
    By your renouncement an immortal spirit,
    And to be talk'd 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    Some one with child by him? My cousin Juliet?

LUCIO    Is she your cousin?

ISABELLA    Adoptedly; as school-maids 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 givings-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 pick'd 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 his 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 make 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]




    MEASURE FOR MEASURE


ACT II


SCENE I    A hall In ANGELO's house.


    [Enter ANGELO, ESCALUS, and a Justice, Provost,
    Officers, and other Attendants, behind]

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 attain'd the effect of your own purpose,
    Whether you had not sometime in your life
    Err'd in this point which now you censure him,
    And pull'd 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 know 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 judgment pattern out my death,
    And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.

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 to-morrow morning:
    Bring him his confessor, let him be prepared;
    For that's the utmost of his pilgrimage.

    [Exit Provost]

ESCALUS    [Aside]  Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all!
    Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall:
    Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none:
    And some condemned for a fault alone.

    [Enter ELBOW, and Officers with FROTH and POMPEY]

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    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 hot-house, 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    Do you hear how he misplaces?

POMPEY    Sir, she came in great with child; and longing,
    saving your honour's 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 three-pence; 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 three-pence 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 four-score 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, an 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 has 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' the 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 knowest 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    Where were you born, friend?

FROTH    Here in Vienna, sir.

ESCALUS    Are you of fourscore pounds a year?

FROTH    Yes, an't please you, sir.

ESCALUS    So. What trade are you of, sir?

POMPHEY    Tapster; a poor widow's tapster.

ESCALUS    Your mistress' name?

POMPHEY    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 tap-house, 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 are 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 three-pence 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 whipt: 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 is not whipt 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 your 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]

    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]




    MEASURE FOR MEASURE


ACT II


SCENE II    Another room in the same.


    [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; may be 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 not I 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, judgment 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 condemn'd
    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 have needful, but not lavish, means;
    There shall be order for't.

    [Enter ISABELLA and LUCIO]

Provost    God 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 condemn'd 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 condemn'd 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    [Aside 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 touch'd with that remorse
    As mine is to him?

ANGELO                      He's sentenced; 'tis too late.

LUCIO    [Aside to ISABELLA]  You are too cold.

ISABELLA    Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word.
    May call it back 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 slipt 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    [Aside 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 judgment, 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    To-morrow! 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    [Aside 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 answer'd 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 hatch'd 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 dismiss'd offence would after gall;
    And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,
    Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;
    Your brother dies to-morrow; be content.

ISABELLA    So you must be the first that gives this sentence,
    And he, that suffer's. O, it is excellent
    To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
    To use it like a giant.

LUCIO    [Aside to ISABELLA]   That's well said.

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

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

Provost    [Aside]  Pray heaven she win him!

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

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

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

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

ANGELO    Why do you put these sayings upon me?

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

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

ISABELLA    Gentle my lord, turn back.

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    [Aside to ISABELLA]  You had marr'd all else.

ISABELLA    Not with fond shekels of the tested gold,
    Or stones whose rates are either rich or poor
    As fancy values them; but with true prayers
    That shall be up at heaven and enter there
    Ere sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls,
    From fasting maids whose minds are dedicate
    To nothing temporal.

ANGELO    Well; come to me to-morrow.

LUCIO    [Aside 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 prayers cross.

ISABELLA    At what hour to-morrow
    Shall I attend your lordship?

ANGELO    At any time 'fore noon.

ISABELLA    'Save your honour!

    [Exeunt ISABELLA, LUCIO, and Provost]

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. Even till now,
    When men were fond, I smiled and wonder'd how.

    [Exit]




    MEASURE FOR MEASURE


ACT II


SCENE III    A room in a prison.


    [Enter, severally, DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as a
    friar, and Provost]

DUKE VINCENTIO    Hail to you, provost! so I think you are.

Provost    I am the provost. What's your will, good friar?

DUKE VINCENTIO    Bound by my charity and my blest 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 blister'd 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 VINCENTIO    When must he die?

Provost                      As I do think, to-morrow.
    I have provided for you: stay awhile,

    [To JULIET]

    And you shall be conducted.

DUKE VINCENTIO    Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?

JULIET    I do; and bear the shame most patiently.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    Love you the man that wrong'd you?

JULIET    Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him.

DUKE VINCENTIO    So then it seems your most offenceful act
    Was mutually committed?

JULIET    Mutually.

DUKE VINCENTIO    Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.

JULIET    I do confess it, and repent it, father.

DUKE VINCENTIO    'Tis meet so, daughter: but lest you do repent,
    As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,
    Which sorrow is always towards 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 VINCENTIO    There rest.
    Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,
    And I am going with instruction to him.
    Grace go with you, Benedicite!

    [Exit]

JULIET    Must die to-morrow! O injurious love,
    That respites me a life, whose very comfort
    Is still a dying horror!

Provost    'Tis pity of him.

    [Exeunt]




    MEASURE FOR MEASURE


ACT II


SCENE IV    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: Heaven 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 fear'd 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 a 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-wish'd 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 awhile; 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 heaven's image
    In stamps that are forbid: 'tis all as easy
    Falsely to take away a life true made
    As to put metal 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 stain'd?

ISABELLA    Sir, believe this,
    I had rather give my body than my soul.

ANGELO    I talk not of your soul: our compell'd sins
    Stand more for number than for accompt.

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 craftily; 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, display'd. 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-building 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 to 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'ld wear as rubies,
    And strip myself to death, as to a bed
    That longing have been sick for, ere I'ld 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 not you then as cruel as the sentence
    That you have slander'd so?

ISABELLA    Ignomy in ransom and free pardon
    Are of two houses: lawful mercy
    Is nothing kin to foul redemption.

ANGELO    You seem'd 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 feodary, 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 express'd
    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 licence 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 outstretch'd throat I'll tell the world aloud
    What man thou art.

ANGELO                      Who will believe thee, Isabel?
    My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life,
    My vouch against you, and my place i' the 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 to-morrow,
    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 self-same tongue,
    Either of condemnation or approof;
    Bidding the law make court'sy 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'ld yield them up,
    Before his sister should her body stoop
    To such abhorr'd 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]




    MEASURE FOR MEASURE


ACT III


SCENE I    A room in the prison.


    [Enter DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as before, CLAUDIO,
    and Provost]

DUKE VINCENTIO    So then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?

CLAUDIO    The miserable have no other medicine
    But only hope:
    I've hope to live, and am prepared to die.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 provokest; 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 strivest 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's 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 moe 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 VINCENTIO    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, signior, here's your sister.

DUKE VINCENTIO    Provost, a word with you.

Provost    As many as you please.

DUKE VINCENTIO    Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be concealed.

    [Exeunt DUKE VINCENTIO and Provost]

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;
    To-morrow 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,
    And six or seven winters more respect
    Than a perpetual honour. Darest 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' the head and follies doth emmew
    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 prenzie Angelo!

ISABELLA    O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell,
    The damned'st body to invest and cover
    In prenzie 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 to-morrow.

CLAUDIO    Thou shalt not do't.

ISABELLA    O, were it but my life,
    I'ld 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 imprison'd in the viewless winds,
    And blown with restless violence round about
    The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
    Of those that lawless and incertain thought
    Imagine howling: 'tis too horrible!
    The weariest and most loathed worldly life
    That age, ache, penury and imprisonment
    Can lay on nature is a paradise
    To what we fear of death.

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 play'd 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 thou diest quickly.

CLAUDIO    O hear me, Isabella!

    [Re-enter DUKE VINCENTIO]

DUKE VINCENTIO    Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.

ISABELLA    What is your will?

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 awhile.

    [Walks apart]

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 essay of her
    virtue to practise his judgment 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 VINCENTIO    Hold you there: farewell.

    [Exit CLAUDIO]

    Provost, a word with you!

    [Re-enter Provost]

Provost    What's your will, father

DUKE VINCENTIO    That now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me
    awhile with the maid: my mind promises with my
    habit no loss shall touch her by my company.

Provost    In good time.

    [Exit Provost. ISABELLA comes forward]

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 farther. I have spirit to do
    anything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    She should this Angelo have married; was affianced
    to her by oath, and the nuptial appointed: between
    which time of the contract and limit of the
    solemnity, her brother Frederick was wrecked 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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 time may have all shadow and
    silence in it; and the place 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 VINCENTIO    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.

    [Exeunt severally]




    MEASURE FOR MEASURE


ACT III



SCENE II    The street before the prison.


    [Enter, on one side, DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as
    before; on the other, ELBOW, and Officers with POMPEY]

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 VINCENTIO    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 and lamb-skins too, to signify, that
    craft, being richer than innocency, stands for the facing.

ELBOW    Come your way, sir. 'Bless you, good father friar.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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.

POMPEY    I spy comfort; I cry bail. Here's a gentleman and a
    friend of mine.

    [Enter LUCIO]

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 it clutch'd? What reply, ha? What
    sayest thou to this tune, matter and method? Is't
    not drowned i' the last rain, ha? What sayest
    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 VINCENTIO    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?

ELBOW    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    How should he be made, then?

LUCIO    Some report a sea-maid spawned him; some, that he
    was begot between two stock-fishes. 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 generative; that's infallible.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    I never heard the absent duke much detected for
    women; he was not inclined that way.

LUCIO    O, sir, you are deceived.

DUKE VINCENTIO    '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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    Wise! why, no question but he was.

LUCIO    A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.

DUKE VINCENTIO    Either this is the 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 VINCENTIO    Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with
    dearer love.

LUCIO    Come, sir, I know what I know.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    He shall know you better, sir, if I may live to
    report you.

LUCIO    I fear you not.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 to-morrow or no?

DUKE VINCENTIO    Why should he die, sir?

LUCIO    Why? For filling a bottle with a tundish. I would
    the duke we talk of were returned again: the
    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 not 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 VINCENTIO    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!

MISTRESS 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.

MISTRESS 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 licence: 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 to-morrow: 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 VINCENTIO    Bliss and goodness on you!

ESCALUS    Of whence are you?

DUKE VINCENTIO    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' the world?

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    What pleasure was he given to?

ESCALUS    Rather rejoicing to see another merry, than merry at
    any thing 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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 practise on the times,
    To draw with idle spiders' strings
    Most ponderous and substantial things!
    Craft against vice I must apply:
    With Angelo to-night shall lie
    His old betrothed but despised;
    So disguise shall, by the disguised,
    Pay with falsehood false exacting,
    And perform an old contracting.

    [Exit]




    MEASURE FOR MEASURE


ACT IV


SCENE I    The moated grange at ST. LUKE's.


    [Enter MARIANA and a Boy]

    [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.

MARIANA    Break off thy song, and haste thee quick away:
    Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice
    Hath often still'd my brawling discontent.

    [Exit Boy]

    [Enter DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as before]

    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 VINCENTIO    'Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm
    To make bad good, and good provoke to harm.
    I pray, you, tell me, hath any body inquired
    for me here to-day? 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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    Very well met, and well come.
    What is the news from this good deputy?

ISABELLA    He hath a garden circummured with brick,
    Whose western side is with a vineyard back'd;
    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    Are there no other tokens
    Between you 'greed concerning her observance?

ISABELLA    No, none, but only a repair i' the dark;
    And that I have possess'd 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 VINCENTIO    'Tis well borne up.
    I have not yet made known to Mariana
    A word of this. What, ho! within! come forth!

    [Re-enter MARIANA]

    I pray you, be acquainted with this maid;
    She comes to do you good.

ISABELLA    I do desire the like.

DUKE VINCENTIO    Do you persuade yourself that I respect you?

MARIANA    Good friar, I know you do, and have found it.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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    Will't please you walk aside?

    [Exeunt MARIANA and ISABELLA]

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 dreams
    And rack thee in their fancies.

    [Re-enter MARIANA and ISABELLA]

                  Welcome, how agreed?

ISABELLA    She'll take the enterprise upon her, father,
    If you advise it.

DUKE VINCENTIO                      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 VINCENTIO    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 tithe's to sow.

    [Exeunt]




    MEASURE FOR MEASURE


ACT IV


SCENE II    A room in 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. To-morrow 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 to-morrow 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
    to-morrow 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 POMPEY and ABHORSON]

    The 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 to-morrow
    Thou must be made immortal. Where's Barnardine?

CLAUDIO    As fast lock'd 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]

                          By and by.
    I hope it is some pardon or reprieve
    For the most gentle Claudio.

    [Enter DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as before]

               Welcome father.

DUKE VINCENTIO    The best and wholesomest spirts of the night
    Envelope you, good Provost! Who call'd here of late?

Provost    None, since the curfew rung.

DUKE VINCENTIO    Not Isabel?

Provost              No.

DUKE VINCENTIO                      They will, then, ere't be long.

Provost    What comfort is for Claudio?

DUKE VINCENTIO    There's some in hope.

Provost    It is a bitter deputy.

DUKE VINCENTIO    Not so, not so; his life is parallel'd
    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 meal'd with that
    Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous;
    But this being so, he's just.

    [Knocking within]

                Now are they come.

    [Exit Provost]

    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 the unsisting postern with these strokes.

    [Re-enter Provost]

Provost    There he must stay until the officer
    Arise to let him in: he is call'd up.

DUKE VINCENTIO    Have you no countermand for Claudio yet,
    But he must die to-morrow?

Provost    None, sir, none.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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
    Profess'd the contrary.

    [Enter a Messenger]

          This is his lordship's man.

DUKE VINCENTIO    And here comes Claudio's pardon.

Messenger    [Giving a paper]

    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 VINCENTIO    [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 born in high authority:
    When vice makes mercy, mercy's so extended,
    That for the fault's love is the 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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    What is that Barnardine who is to be executed in the
    afternoon?

Provost    A Bohemian born, but here nursed un and bred; one
    that is a prisoner nine years old.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    It is now apparent?

Provost    Most manifest, and not denied by himself.

DUKE VINCENTIO    Hath he born 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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    In the delaying death.

Provost    A lack, 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 VINCENTIO    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 born to Angelo.

Provost    Angelo hath seen them both, and will discover the favour.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 any thing
    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 VINCENTIO    Were you sworn to the duke, or to the deputy?

Provost    To him, and to his substitutes.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    The contents of this is the return of the duke: you
    shall anon over-read 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, the 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]




    MEASURE FOR MEASURE


ACT IV


SCENE III    Another room in the same.


    [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,
    ninescore 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 Three-pile the mercer, for some four suits of
    peach-coloured satin, which now peaches him a
    beggar. Then have we here young Dizy, and young
    Master Deep-vow, and Master Copperspur, and Master
    Starve-lackey the rapier and dagger man, and young
    Drop-heir that killed lusty Pudding, and Master
    Forthlight the tilter, and brave Master Shooty the
    great traveller, and wild Half-can 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    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.

ABHORSON    Is the axe upon the block, sirrah?

POMPEY    Very ready, sir.

    [Enter BARNARDINE]

BARNARDINE    How now, Abhorson? what's the news with you?

ABHORSON    Truly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your
    prayers; 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.

ABHORSON    Look you, sir; here comes your ghostly father: do
    we jest now, think you?

    [Enter DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as before]

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    O, sir, you must: and therefore I beseech you
    Look forward on the journey you shall go.

BARNARDINE    I swear I will not die to-day for any man's
    persuasion.

DUKE VINCENTIO    But hear you.

BARNARDINE    Not a word: if you have any thing to say to me,
    come to my ward; for thence will not I to-day.

    [Exit]

DUKE VINCENTIO    Unfit to live or die: O gravel heart!
    After him, fellows; bring him to the block.

    [Exeunt ABHORSON and POMPEY]

    [Re-enter Provost]

Provost    Now, sir, how do you find the prisoner?

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    O, 'tis an accident that heaven provides!
    Dispatch it presently; the hour draws on
    Prefix'd 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 VINCENTIO    Let this be done.
    Put them in secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio:
    Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting
    To the under generation, you shall find
    Your safety manifested.

Provost    I am your free dependant.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    He hath released him, Isabel, from the world:
    His head is off and sent to Angelo.

ISABELLA    Nay, but it is not so.

DUKE VINCENTIO    It is no other: show your wisdom, daughter,
    In your close patience.

ISABELLA    O, I will to him and pluck out his eyes!

DUKE VINCENTIO    You shall not be admitted to his sight.

ISABELLA    Unhappy Claudio! wretched Isabel!
    Injurious world! most damned Angelo!

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 to-morrow; nay, dry your eyes;
    One of our convent, 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 VINCENTIO    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 to-night. 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 VINCENTIO    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
    to-morrow. 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 VINCENTIO    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 takest him for.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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]




    MEASURE FOR MEASURE


ACT IV


SCENE IV    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' the 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 deflower'd 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 of a credent bulk,
    That no particular scandal once can touch
    But it confounds the breather. He should have lived,
    Save that riotous youth, with dangerous sense,
    Might in the times to come have ta'en revenge,
    By so receiving a dishonour'd life
    With ransom of such shame. Would yet he had lived!
    A lack, when once our grace we have forgot,
    Nothing goes right: we would, and we would not.

    [Exit]




    MEASURE FOR MEASURE


ACT IV


SCENE V    Fields without the town.


    [Enter DUKE VINCENTIO in his own habit, and FRIAR PETER]

DUKE VINCENTIO    These letters at fit time deliver me

    [Giving letters]

    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 VINCENTIO    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]




    MEASURE FOR MEASURE


ACT IV


SCENE VI    Street near the city gate.


    [Enter ISABELLA and MARIANA]

ISABELLA    To speak so indirectly I am loath:
    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.

MARIANA    I would Friar Peter--

ISABELLA    O, peace! the friar is come.

    [Enter FRIAR PETER]

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 entering: therefore, hence, away!

    [Exeunt]




    MEASURE FOR MEASURE


ACT V


SCENE I    The city gate.


    [MARIANA veiled, ISABELLA, and FRIAR PETER, at their
    stand. Enter DUKE VINCENTIO, VARRIUS, Lords,
    ANGELO, ESCALUS, LUCIO, Provost, Officers, and
    Citizens, at several doors]

DUKE VINCENTIO    My very worthy cousin, fairly met!
    Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you.


ANGELO    |
    |  Happy return be to your royal grace!
ESCALUS    |


DUKE VINCENTIO    Many and hearty thankings to you both.
    We have made inquiry 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 VINCENTIO    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 me your 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.

    [FRIAR PETER and ISABELLA come forward]

FRIAR PETER    Now is your time: speak loud and kneel before him.

ISABELLA    Justice, O royal duke! Vail your regard
    Upon a wrong'd, I would 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 VINCENTIO    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,
    An hypocrite, a virgin-violator;
    Is it not strange and strange?

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 reckoning.

DUKE VINCENTIO    Away with her! Poor soul,
    She speaks this in the infirmity of sense.

ISABELLA    O prince, I conjure thee, as thou believest
    There is another comfort than this world,
    That thou neglect me not, with that opinion
    That I am touch'd 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 all 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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    Many that are not mad
    Have, sure, more lack of reason. What would you say?

ISABELLA    I am the sister of one Claudio,
    Condemn'd upon the act of fornication
    To lose his head; condemn'd by Angelo:
    I, in probation of a sisterhood,
    Was sent to by my brother; one Lucio
    As then the messenger,--

LUCIO    That's I, an'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 VINCENTIO    You were not bid to speak.

LUCIO    No, my good lord;
    Nor wish'd to hold my peace.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    The warrants for yourself; take heed to't.

ISABELLA    This gentleman told somewhat of my tale,--

LUCIO    Right.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    That's somewhat madly spoken.

ISABELLA    Pardon it;
    The phrase is to the matter.

DUKE VINCENTIO    Mended again. The matter; proceed.

ISABELLA    In brief, to set the needless process by,
    How I persuaded, how I pray'd, and kneel'd,
    How he refell'd 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 VINCENTIO    This is most likely!

ISABELLA    O, that it were as like as it is true!

DUKE VINCENTIO    By heaven, fond wretch, thou knowist not what thou speak'st,
    Or else thou art suborn'd against his honour
    In hateful practise. 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 weigh'd thy brother by himself
    And not have cut him off. Some one hath set you on:
    Confess the truth, and say by whose advice
    Thou camest here to complain.

ISABELLA    And is this all?
    Then, O you blessed ministers above,
    Keep me in patience, and with ripen'd time
    Unfold the evil which is here wrapt up
    In countenance! Heaven shield your grace from woe,
    As I, thus wrong'd, hence unbelieved go!

DUKE VINCENTIO    I know you'ld 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 practise.
    Who knew of Your intent and coming hither?

ISABELLA    One that I would were here, Friar Lodowick.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    Words against me? this is 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 VINCENTIO    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 villanously; 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 VINCENTIO    Good friar, let's hear it.

    [ISABELLA is carried off guarded; and MARIANA comes forward]

    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. 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 VINCENTIO    What, are you married?

MARIANA    No, my lord.

DUKE VINCENTIO    Are you a maid?

MARIANA    No, my lord.

DUKE VINCENTIO    A widow, then?

MARIANA    Neither, my lord.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    For the benefit of silence, would thou wert so too!

LUCIO    Well, my lord.

DUKE VINCENTIO    This is no witness for Lord Angelo.

MARIANA    Now I come to't my lord
    She that accuses him of fornication,
    In self-same 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 the effect of love.

ANGELO    Charges she more than me?

MARIANA    Not that I know.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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    My husband bids me; now I will unmask.

    [Unveiling]

    This is that face, thou cruel Angelo,
    Which once thou sworest was worth the looking on;
    This is the hand which, with a vow'd contract,
    Was fast belock'd 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 VINCENTIO    Know you this woman?

LUCIO    Carnally, she says.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 touch'd. 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 practise out.

DUKE VINCENTIO    Ay, with my heart
    And punish them to 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 seal'd 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 VINCENTIO    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]

    Signior 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
    villanous 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.

ESCALUS    I will go darkly to work with her.

LUCIO    That's the way; for women are light at midnight.

    [Re-enter Officers with ISABELLA; and Provost with
    the DUKE VINCENTIO in his friar's habit]

ESCALUS    Come on, mistress: here's a gentlewoman denies all
    that you have said.

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 VINCENTIO    'Tis false.

ESCALUS    How! know you where you are?

DUKE VINCENTIO    Respect to your great place! and let the devil
    Be sometime honour'd 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 VINCENTIO    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 unhallow'd friar,
    Is't not enough thou hast suborn'd 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 the rack with him! We'll touse you
    Joint by joint, but we will know his purpose.
    What 'unjust'!

DUKE VINCENTIO                      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'er-run 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 the state! Away with him to prison!

ANGELO    What can you vouch against him, Signior 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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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 giglots too, and
    with the other confederate companion!

DUKE VINCENTIO    [To Provost]  Stay, sir; stay awhile.

ANGELO    What, resists he? Help him, Lucio.

LUCIO    Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you
    bald-pated, 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 DUKE
    VINCENTIO]

DUKE VINCENTIO    Thou art the first knave that e'er madest 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 VINCENTIO    [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 look'd 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 VINCENTIO    Come hither, Mariana.
    Say, wast thou e'er contracted to this woman?

ANGELO    I was, my lord.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    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
    Attorney'd at your service.

ISABELLA    O, give me pardon,
    That I, your vassal, have employ'd and pain'd
    Your unknown sovereignty!

DUKE VINCENTIO    You are pardon'd, 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 brain'd 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 VINCENTIO    For this new-married man approaching here,
    Whose salt imagination yet hath wrong'd
    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 stoop'd 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 VINCENTIO    It is your husband mock'd 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 withal,
    To buy you a better husband.

MARIANA    O my dear lord,
    I crave no other, nor no better man.

DUKE VINCENTIO    Never crave him; we are definitive.

MARIANA    Gentle my liege,--

    [Kneeling]

DUKE VINCENTIO                      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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    He dies for Claudio's death.

ISABELLA    Most bounteous sir,

    [Kneeling]

    Look, if it please you, on this man condemn'd,
    As if my brother lived: I partly think
    A due sincerity govern'd 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 perish'd by the way: thoughts are no subjects;
    Intents but merely thoughts.

MARIANA    Merely, my lord.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    Had you a special warrant for the deed?

Provost    No, my good lord; it was by private message.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    What's he?

Provost    His name is Barnardine.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 appear'd,
    Should slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood.
    And lack of temper'd judgment 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 VINCENTIO    Which is that Barnardine?

Provost    This, my lord.

DUKE VINCENTIO    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 squarest thy life according. Thou'rt condemn'd:
    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 VINCENTIO    [To ISABELLA]  If he be like your brother, for his sake
    Is he pardon'd; 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 whipt.

DUKE VINCENTIO    Whipt first, sir, and hanged after.
    Proclaim it, provost, round about the city.
    Is any woman wrong'd 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 finish'd,
    Let him be whipt and hang'd.

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 VINCENTIO    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 VINCENTIO    Slandering a prince deserves it.

    [Exit Officers with LUCIO]

    She, Claudio, that you wrong'd, look you restore.
    Joy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo:
    I have confess'd 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 shill employ thee in a worthier place.
    Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home
    The head of Ragozine for Claudio's:
    The 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]