Act I, Scene 1

An apartment in the DUKE’S palace.

[Enter DUKE VINCENTIO, ESCALUS, Lords and] [p]Attendants]

• Vincentio. Escalus.

• Escalus. My lord.

• Vincentio. Of government the properties to unfold, 5
  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 [—] 10
  [—] 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 15
  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? 20
  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? 25

• Escalus. If any in Vienna be of worth
  To undergo such ample grace and honour,
  It is Lord Angelo.

• Vincentio. Look where he comes.

[Enter ANGELO]

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

• Vincentio. Angelo,
  There is a kind of character in thy life,
  That to the observer doth thy history 35
  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 40
  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 45
  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; 50
  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, 55
  Let there be some more test made of my metal,
  Before so noble and so great a figure
  Be stamp'd upon it.

• Vincentio. No more evasion:
  We have with a leaven'd and prepared choice 60
  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, 65
  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, 70
  That we may bring you something on the way.

• 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 75
  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; 80
  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!

• Vincentio. I thank you. Fare you well. 85

[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 90
  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. 95

[Exeunt]

Act I, Scene 2

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. 100

• 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 105
  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 110
  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 115
  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. 120

• 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 125
  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 130
  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. 135

• 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? 140

• 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 145
  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. 155

• 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. 160
  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 165
  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. 170

[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] 175
  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? 180

• 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? 185

• 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 190
  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 195
  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. 200

• 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 210
  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? 215

• 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, 220
  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 225
  offence, Claudio?

• Claudio. What but to speak of would offend again.

• Lucio. What, is't murder?

• Claudio. No.

• Lucio. Lechery? 230

• 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? 235

• 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, 240
  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 245
  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, 250
  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, 255
  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 260
  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, 265
  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 270
  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 275
  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 280
  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. 285

• Lucio. Within two hours.

• Claudio. Come, officer, away!

[Exeunt]

Act I, Scene 3

A monastery.

[Enter DUKE VINCENTIO and FRIAR THOMAS]

• Vincentio. No, holy father; throw away that thought; 290
  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. 295

• Friar Thomas. May your grace speak of it?

• 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. 300
  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, 305
  And so it is received. Now, pious sir,
  You will demand of me why I do this?

• Friar Thomas. Gladly, my lord.

• Vincentio. We have strict statutes and most biting laws.
  The needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds, 310
  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 315
  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 320
  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. 325

• 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 330
  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, 335
  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 340
  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, 345
  If power change purpose, what our seemers be.

[Exeunt]

Act I, Scene 4

A nunnery.

[Enter ISABELLA and FRANCISCA]

• Isabella. And have you nuns no farther privileges?

• Francisca. Are not these large enough? 350

• 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? 355

• 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: 360
  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 365

[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 370
  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: 375
  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. 380

• 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: 385
  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. 390

• 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 395
  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. 400

• 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, 405
  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, 410
  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. 415
  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; 420
  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. 425

• 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 430
  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 435
  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. 440

• 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: 445
  Commend me to my brother: soon at night
  I'll send him certain word of my success.

• Lucio. I take my leave of you.

• Isabella. Good sir, adieu.

[Exeunt]

Act II, Scene 1

A hall In ANGELO’s house.

[Enter ANGELO, ESCALUS, and a Justice, Provost,] [p]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 455
  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! 460
  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 465
  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, 470
  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 475
  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 480
  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. 485

• 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; 490
  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: 495
  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. 500

• 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. 505

• 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 510
  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. 515

• 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. 520

• 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? 525

• 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 530
  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. 535

• 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, 540
  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 545
  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 550
  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 555
  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. 560

• 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. 565

• 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. 570

• 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, 575
  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 580
  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. 585
  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? 590

• 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. 595
  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. 600

• 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 605
  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 610
  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 615
  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 620
  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. 625

• 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 630
  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 635
  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. 640

• Escalus. So. What trade are you of, sir?

• Pompey. Tapster; a poor widow's tapster.

• Escalus. Your mistress' name?

• Pompey. Mistress Overdone.

• Escalus. Hath she had any more than one husband? 645

• 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 650
  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. 655
  [Exit FROTH]
  Come you hither to me, Master tapster. What's your
  name, Master tapster?

• Pompey. Pompey.

• Escalus. What else? 660

• 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 665
  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. 670

• 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. 675

• 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. 680

• 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 685
  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, 690
  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] 695
  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? 705

• 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 710
  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. 715

• 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. 720

• 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. 725

• 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. 730

[Exeunt]

Act II, Scene 2

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. 735
  [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 740
  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? 745
  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. 750

• 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? 755
  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 760
  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. 765

• 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. 770

[Enter ISABELLA and LUCIO]

• Provost. God save your honour!

• Angelo. Stay a little while.
  [To ISABELLA]
  You're welcome: what's your will? 775

• 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; 780
  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: 785
  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: 790
  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! 795

• 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: 800
  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. 805

• 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 810
  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, 815
  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. 820
  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, 825
  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. 830

• 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 835
  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. 840

• 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! 845
  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? 850
  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 855
  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, 860
  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, 865
  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, 870
  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 875
  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 880
  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, 885
  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; 890
  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. 895

• 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? 900

• 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 905
  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. 910

• 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. 915

• 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 920
  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! 925

• 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 930
  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! 935
  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, 940
  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 945
  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 950
  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 955
  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, 960
  When men were fond, I smiled and wonder'd how.

[Exit]

Act II, Scene 3

A room in a prison.

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

• Vincentio. Hail to you, provost! so I think you are. 965

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

• 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 970
  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, 975
  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. 980

• 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. 985

• Vincentio. Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?

• Juliet. I do; and bear the shame most patiently.

• Vincentio. I'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,
  And try your penitence, if it be sound,
  Or hollowly put on. 990

• Juliet. I'll gladly learn.

• Vincentio. Love you the man that wrong'd you?

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

• Vincentio. So then it seems your most offenceful act
  Was mutually committed? 995

• Juliet. Mutually.

• Vincentio. Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.

• Juliet. I do confess it, and repent it, father.

• Vincentio. 'Tis meet so, daughter: but lest you do repent,
  As that the sin hath brought you to this shame, 1000
  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. 1005

• 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]

Act II, Scene 4

A room in ANGELO’s house.

[Enter ANGELO]

• Angelo. When I would pray and think, I think and pray
  To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words;
  Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
  Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth, 1020
  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, 1025
  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 1030
  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? 1035

• 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, 1040
  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 1045
  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. 1050
  [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. 1055

• 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. 1060

• 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 1065
  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 1070
  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, 1075
  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 1080
  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, 1085
  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, 1090
  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, 1095
  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, 1100
  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 1105
  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. 1110

• 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, 1115
  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 1120
  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: 1125
  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. 1130

• 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. 1135

• 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. 1140

• 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: 1145
  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 1150
  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 1155
  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,— 1160
  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 1165
  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. 1170

• 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, 1175
  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! 1180
  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? 1185
  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, 1190
  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; 1195
  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, 1200
  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, 1205
  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, 1210
  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. 1215
  Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:
  More than our brother is our chastity.
  I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,
  And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest.

[Exit]

Act III, Scene 1

A room in the prison.

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

• Vincentio. So then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?

• Claudio. The miserable have no other medicine
  But only hope: 1225
  I've hope to live, and am prepared to die.

• 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, 1230
  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; 1235
  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 1240
  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; 1245
  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; 1250
  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, 1255
  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 1260
  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; 1265
  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.

• Vincentio. Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again.

• Claudio. Most holy sir, I thank you. 1270

[Enter ISABELLA]

• Isabella. My business is a word or two with Claudio.

• Provost. And very welcome. Look, signior, here's your sister.

• Vincentio. Provost, a word with you.

• Provost. As many as you please. 1275

• 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. 1280
  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. 1285

• 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: 1290
  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, 1295
  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, 1300
  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 1305
  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. 1310

• 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. 1315

• 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 1320
  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! 1325

• 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. 1330

• 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. 1335

• 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. 1340

• 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. 1345

• 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? 1350

• 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 1355
  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 1360
  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 1365
  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, 1370
  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? 1375
  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! 1380
  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. 1385

• 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! 1390

[Re-enter DUKE VINCENTIO]

• Vincentio. Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.

• Isabella. What is your will?

• Vincentio. Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and
  by have some speech with you: the satisfaction I 1395
  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]

• Vincentio. Son, I have overheard what hath passed between you 1400
  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 1405
  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. 1410

• Claudio. Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love
  with life that I will sue to be rid of it.

• Vincentio. Hold you there: farewell.
  [Exit CLAUDIO]
  Provost, a word with you! 1415

[Re-enter Provost]

• Provost. What's your will, father

• 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. 1420

• Provost. In good time.

[Exit Provost. ISABELLA comes forward]

• 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 1425
  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 1430
  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 1435
  speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or
  discover his government.

• 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 1440
  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 1445
  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. 1450

• 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.

• Vincentio. She should this Angelo have married; was affianced 1455
  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 1460
  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. 1465

• Isabella. Can this be so? did Angelo so leave her?

• 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 1470
  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? 1475

• 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.

• Vincentio. This forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance 1480
  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 1485
  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 1490
  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 1495
  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? 1500

• Isabella. The image of it gives me content already; and I
  trust it will grow to a most prosperous perfection.

• 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 1505
  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. 1510

[Exeunt severally]

Act III, Scene 2

The street before the prison.

[Enter, on one side, DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as] [p]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 1515
  shall have all the world drink brown and white bastard.

• 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 1520
  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.

• Vincentio. And you, good brother father. What offence hath
  this man made you, sir? 1525

• 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.

• Vincentio. Fie, sirrah! a bawd, a wicked bawd! 1530
  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 1535
  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— 1540

• 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 1545
  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.

• Vincentio. That we were all, as some would seem to be,
  From our faults, as faults from seeming, free! 1550

• 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 1555
  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 1560
  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?

• Vincentio. Still thus, and thus; still worse! 1565

• 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 1570
  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 1575
  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. 1580
  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. 1585
  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.

• Vincentio. And you.

• Lucio. Does Bridget paint still, Pompey, ha? 1590

• 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. 1595

• Lucio. Go to kennel, Pompey; go.
  [Exeunt ELBOW, POMPEY and Officers]
  What news, friar, of the duke?

• Vincentio. I know none. Can you tell me of any?

• Lucio. Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other 1600
  some, he is in Rome: but where is he, think you?

• 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 1605
  puts transgression to 't.

• 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.

• Vincentio. It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it. 1610

• 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 1615
  true, think you?

• 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 1620
  congealed ice; that I know to be true: and he is a
  motion generative; that's infallible.

• 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 1625
  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. 1630

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

• Lucio. O, sir, you are deceived.

• Vincentio. 'Tis not possible.

• Lucio. Who, not the duke? yes, your beggar of fifty; and 1635
  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.

• Vincentio. You do him wrong, surely.

• Lucio. Sir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the 1640
  duke: and I believe I know the cause of his
  withdrawing.

• 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 1645
  understand, the greater file of the subject held the
  duke to be wise.

• Vincentio. Wise! why, no question but he was.

• Lucio. A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.

• Vincentio. Either this is the envy in you, folly, or mistaking: 1650
  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. 1655
  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.

• Vincentio. Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with
  dearer love. 1660

• Lucio. Come, sir, I know what I know.

• 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, 1665
  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.

• Vincentio. He shall know you better, sir, if I may live to
  report you. 1670

• Lucio. I fear you not.

• 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, 1675
  friar. But no more of this. Canst thou tell if
  Claudio die to-morrow or no?

• 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 1680
  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! 1685
  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 1690
  bread and garlic: say that I said so. Farewell.

[Exit]

• Vincentio. No might nor greatness in mortality
  Can censure 'scape; back-wounding calumny
  The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong 1695
  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 1700
  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 1705
  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: 1710
  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] 1715
  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. 1720

• Provost. So please you, this friar hath been with him, and
  advised him for the entertainment of death.

• Escalus. Good even, good father.

• Vincentio. Bliss and goodness on you!

• Escalus. Of whence are you? 1725

• 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? 1730

• 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 1735
  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? 1740

• Escalus. One that, above all other strifes, contended
  especially to know himself.

• 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 1745
  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. 1750

• 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 1755
  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 1760
  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.

• Vincentio. If his own life answer the straitness of his
  proceeding, it shall become him well; wherein if he 1765
  chance to fail, he hath sentenced himself.

• Escalus. I am going to visit the prisoner. Fare you well.

• Vincentio. Peace be with you!
  [Exeunt ESCALUS and Provost]
  He who the sword of heaven will bear 1770
  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. 1775
  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, 1780
  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! 1785
  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, 1790
  And perform an old contracting.

[Exit]

Act IV, Scene 1

The moated grange at ST. LUKE’s.

[Enter MARIANA and a Boy] [p][Boy sings] [p]Take, O, take those lips away, [p]That so sweetly were forsworn; [p]And those eyes, the break of day, [p]Lights that do mislead the morn: [p]But my kisses bring again, bring again; [p]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] 1805
  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.

• Vincentio. 'Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm 1810
  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: 1815
  I have sat here all day.

[Enter ISABELLA]

• 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. 1820

• Mariana. I am always bound to you.

[Exit]

• Vincentio. Very well met, and well come.
  What is the news from this good deputy?

• Isabella. He hath a garden circummured with brick, 1825
  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; 1830
  There have I made my promise
  Upon the heavy middle of the night
  To call upon him.

• Vincentio. But shall you on your knowledge find this way?

• Isabella. I have ta'en a due and wary note upon't: 1835
  With whispering and most guilty diligence,
  In action all of precept, he did show me
  The way twice o'er.

• Vincentio. Are there no other tokens
  Between you 'greed concerning her observance? 1840

• 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 1845
  I come about my brother.

• 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] 1850
  I pray you, be acquainted with this maid;
  She comes to do you good.

• Isabella. I do desire the like.

• Vincentio. Do you persuade yourself that I respect you?

• Mariana. Good friar, I know you do, and have found it. 1855

• 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? 1860

[Exeunt MARIANA and ISABELLA]

• 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 1865
  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, 1870
  If you advise it.

• 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, 1875
  'Remember now my brother.'

• Mariana. Fear me not.

• 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, 1880
  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]

Act IV, Scene 2

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 1890
  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 1895
  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 1900
  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? 1905

• 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. 1910

• 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 1915
  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, 1920
  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? 1925

• 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. 1930

[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. 1935

• 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 1940
  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, 1945
  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? 1950

• 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. 1955
  [Knocking within]
  But, hark, what noise?
  Heaven give your spirits comfort!
  [Exit CLAUDIO]
  By and by. 1960
  I hope it is some pardon or reprieve
  For the most gentle Claudio.
  [Enter DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as before]
  Welcome father.

• Vincentio. The best and wholesomest spirts of the night 1965
  Envelope you, good Provost! Who call'd here of late?

• Provost. None, since the curfew rung.

• Vincentio. Not Isabel?

• Provost. No.

• Vincentio. They will, then, ere't be long. 1970

• Provost. What comfort is for Claudio?

• Vincentio. There's some in hope.

• Provost. It is a bitter deputy.

• Vincentio. Not so, not so; his life is parallel'd
  Even with the stroke and line of his great justice: 1975
  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. 1980
  [Knocking within]
  Now are they come.
  [Exit Provost]
  This is a gentle provost: seldom when
  The steeled gaoler is the friend of men. 1985
  [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 1990
  Arise to let him in: he is call'd up.

• Vincentio. Have you no countermand for Claudio yet,
  But he must die to-morrow?

• Provost. None, sir, none.

• Vincentio. As near the dawning, provost, as it is, 1995
  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 2000
  Lord Angelo hath to the public ear
  Profess'd the contrary.
  [Enter a Messenger]
  This is his lordship's man.

• Vincentio. And here comes Claudio's pardon. 2005

• 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, 2010
  it is almost day.

• Provost. I shall obey him.

[Exit Messenger]

• Vincentio. [Aside] This is his pardon, purchased by such sin
  For which the pardoner himself is in. 2015
  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? 2020

• 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.

• Vincentio. Pray you, let's hear.

• Provost. [Reads] 2025
  '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 2030
  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?

• Vincentio. What is that Barnardine who is to be executed in the
  afternoon? 2035

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

• 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. 2040

• 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.

• Vincentio. It is now apparent?

• Provost. Most manifest, and not denied by himself. 2045

• 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 2050
  mortality, and desperately mortal.

• 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 2055
  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.

• Vincentio. More of him anon. There is written in your brow,
  provost, honesty and constancy: if I read it not 2060
  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 2065
  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?

• Vincentio. In the delaying death. 2070

• 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.

• Vincentio. By the vow of mine order I warrant you, if my 2075
  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.

• Vincentio. O, death's a great disguiser; and you may add to it.
  Shave the head, and tie the beard; and say it was 2080
  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. 2085

• Provost. Pardon me, good father; it is against my oath.

• Vincentio. Were you sworn to the duke, or to the deputy?

• Provost. To him, and to his substitutes.

• Vincentio. You will think you have made no offence, if the duke
  avouch the justice of your dealing? 2090

• Provost. But what likelihood is in that?

• 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. 2095
  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.

• Vincentio. The contents of this is the return of the duke: you 2100
  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 2105
  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 2110
  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]

Act IV, Scene 3

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 2120
  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 2125
  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 2130
  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.' 2135

[Enter ABHORSON]

• Abhorson. Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither.

• Pompey. Master Barnardine! you must rise and be hanged.
  Master Barnardine!

• Abhorson. What, ho, Barnardine! 2140

• 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. 2145

• 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. 2150

• 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 2155
  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 2160
  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]

• Vincentio. Sir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily 2165
  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 2170
  consent to die this day, that's certain.

• 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. 2175

• 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]

• Vincentio. Unfit to live or die: O gravel heart! 2180
  After him, fellows; bring him to the block.

[Exeunt ABHORSON and POMPEY]

[Re-enter Provost]

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

• Vincentio. A creature unprepared, unmeet for death; 2185
  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, 2190
  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? 2195

• 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. 2200

• 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? 2205

• 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. 2210

• Provost. I am your free dependant.

• 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 2215
  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, 2220
  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.

• Vincentio. Convenient is it. Make a swift return; 2225
  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! 2230

• 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. 2235

[Enter ISABELLA]

• Isabella. Ho, by your leave!

• 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? 2240

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

• Isabella. Nay, but it is not so.

• Vincentio. It is no other: show your wisdom, daughter,
  In your close patience. 2245

• Isabella. O, I will to him and pluck out his eyes!

• Vincentio. You shall not be admitted to his sight.

• Isabella. Unhappy Claudio! wretched Isabel!
  Injurious world! most damned Angelo!

• Vincentio. This nor hurts him nor profits you a jot; 2250
  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, 2255
  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, 2260
  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.

• Vincentio. This letter, then, to Friar Peter give; 2265
  '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 2270
  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, 2275
  If I pervert your course. Who's here?

[Enter LUCIO]

• Lucio. Good even. Friar, where's the provost?

• Vincentio. Not within, sir.

• Lucio. O pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart to see 2280
  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: 2285
  if the old fantastical duke of dark corners had been
  at home, he had lived.

[Exit ISABELLA]

• Vincentio. Sir, the duke is marvellous little beholding to your
  reports; but the best is, he lives not in them. 2290

• Lucio. Friar, thou knowest not the duke so well as I do:
  he's a better woodman than thou takest him for.

• 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. 2295

• 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.

• Vincentio. Did you such a thing?

• Lucio. Yes, marry, did I. but I was fain to forswear it; 2300
  they would else have married me to the rotten medlar.

• 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. 2305

[Exeunt]

Act IV, Scene 4

A room in ANGELO’s house.

[Enter ANGELO and ESCALUS]

• Escalus. Every letter he hath writ hath disvouched other.

• Angelo. In most uneven and distracted manner. His actions
  show much like to madness: pray heaven his wisdom be 2310
  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, 2315
  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. 2320

• 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. 2325

• 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 2330
  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 2335
  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! 2340
  A lack, when once our grace we have forgot,
  Nothing goes right: we would, and we would not.

[Exit]

Act IV, Scene 5

Fields without the town.

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

• Vincentio. These letters at fit time deliver me 2345
  [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, 2350
  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. 2355

• Friar Peter. It shall be speeded well.

[Exit]

[Enter VARRIUS]

• Vincentio. I thank thee, Varrius; thou hast made good haste:
  Come, we will walk. There's other of our friends 2360
  Will greet us here anon, my gentle Varrius.

[Exeunt]

Act IV, Scene 6

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, 2365
  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, 2370
  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 2380
  The duke is entering: therefore, hence, away!

[Exeunt]

Act V, Scene 1

The city gate.

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

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

• Angelo. [with Escalus] Happy return be to your royal grace!

• Vincentio. Many and hearty thankings to you both. 2390
  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. 2395

• 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, 2400
  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. 2405

[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 2410
  By throwing it on any other object
  Till you have heard me in my true complaint
  And given me justice, justice, justice, justice!

• Vincentio. Relate your wrongs; in what? by whom? be brief.
  Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice: 2415
  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, 2420
  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! 2425

• 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, 2430
  An hypocrite, a virgin-violator;
  Is it not strange and strange?

• 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: 2435
  Nay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth
  To the end of reckoning.

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

• Isabella. O prince, I conjure thee, as thou believest 2440
  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, 2445
  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, 2450
  Had I more name for badness.

• 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, 2455
  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, 2460
  And hide the false seems true.

• 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 2465
  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: 2470
  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.

• Vincentio. You were not bid to speak. 2475

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

• Vincentio. I wish you now, then;
  Pray you, take note of it: and when you have
  A business for yourself, pray heaven you then 2480
  Be perfect.

• Lucio. I warrant your honour.

• Vincentio. The warrants for yourself; take heed to't.

• Isabella. This gentleman told somewhat of my tale,—

• Lucio. Right. 2485

• 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,—

• Vincentio. That's somewhat madly spoken. 2490

• Isabella. Pardon it;
  The phrase is to the matter.

• 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, 2495
  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, 2500
  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. 2505

• Vincentio. This is most likely!

• Isabella. O, that it were as like as it is true!

• 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 2510
  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: 2515
  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 2520
  Unfold the evil which is here wrapt up
  In countenance! Heaven shield your grace from woe,
  As I, thus wrong'd, hence unbelieved go!

• Vincentio. I know you'ld fain be gone. An officer!
  To prison with her! Shall we thus permit 2525
  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.

• Vincentio. A ghostly father, belike. Who knows that Lodowick? 2530

• 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.

• Vincentio. Words against me? this is a good friar, belike! 2535
  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. 2540

• 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 2545
  As she from one ungot.

• 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, 2550
  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; 2555
  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 2560
  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, 2565
  Her shall you hear disproved to her eyes,
  Till she herself confess it.

• Vincentio. Good friar, let's hear it.
  [ISABELLA is carried off guarded; and MARIANA comes forward]
  Do you not smile at this, Lord Angelo? 2570
  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. 2575

• Mariana. Pardon, my lord; I will not show my face
  Until my husband bid me.

• Vincentio. What, are you married?

• Mariana. No, my lord.

• Vincentio. Are you a maid? 2580

• Mariana. No, my lord.

• Vincentio. A widow, then?

• Mariana. Neither, my lord.

• Vincentio. Why, you are nothing then: neither maid, widow, nor wife?

• Lucio. My lord, she may be a punk; for many of them are 2585
  neither maid, widow, nor wife.

• 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; 2590
  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.

• Vincentio. For the benefit of silence, would thou wert so too! 2595

• Lucio. Well, my lord.

• 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, 2600
  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. 2605

• 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. 2610

• 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, 2615
  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.

• Vincentio. Know you this woman? 2620

• Lucio. Carnally, she says.

• 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 2625
  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 2630
  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, 2635
  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 2640
  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 2645
  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.

• Vincentio. Ay, with my heart 2650
  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 2655
  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. 2660

• 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.

• Vincentio. Go do it instantly. 2665
  [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; 2670
  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 2675
  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 2680
  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] 2685
  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, 2690
  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] 2695
  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. 2700

• 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. 2705

• Vincentio. 'Tis false.

• Escalus. How! know you where you are?

• 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. 2710

• Escalus. The duke's in us; and we will hear you speak:
  Look you speak justly.

• 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? 2715
  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. 2720

• 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 2725
  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'!

• Vincentio. Be not so hot; the duke 2730
  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 2735
  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! 2740

• 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?

• Vincentio. I remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice: I 2745
  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?

• 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? 2750

• 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? 2755

• 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 2760
  to prison! lay bolts enough upon him: let him
  speak no more. Away with those giglots too, and
  with the other confederate companion!

• Vincentio. [To Provost] Stay, sir; stay awhile.

• Angelo. What, resists he? Help him, Lucio. 2765

• 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? 2770

[Pulls off the friar's hood, and discovers DUKE VINCENTIO]

• 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 2775
  Must have a word anon. Lay hold on him.

• Lucio. This may prove worse than hanging.

• Vincentio. [To ESCALUS] What you have spoke I pardon: sit you down:
  We'll borrow place of him.
  [To ANGELO] 2780
  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. 2785

• 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, 2790
  But let my trial be mine own confession:
  Immediate sentence then and sequent death
  Is all the grace I beg.

• Vincentio. Come hither, Mariana.
  Say, wast thou e'er contracted to this woman? 2795

• Angelo. I was, my lord.

• 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.

• Vincentio. Come hither, Isabel.
  Your friar is now your prince: as I was then
  Advertising and holy to your business, 2805
  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! 2810

• 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 2815
  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! 2820
  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]

• 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 2830
  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!' 2835
  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 2840
  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.

• Vincentio. It is your husband mock'd you with a husband. 2845
  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, 2850
  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.

• Vincentio. Never crave him; we are definitive. 2855

• Mariana. Gentle my liege,—

[Kneeling]

• Vincentio. You do but lose your labour.
  Away with him to death!
  [To LUCIO] 2860
  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.

• Vincentio. Against all sense you do importune her: 2865
  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; 2870
  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? 2875

• 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 2880
  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, 2885
  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. 2890

• 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. 2895

• Vincentio. Had you a special warrant for the deed?

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

• Vincentio. For which I do discharge you of your office:
  Give up your keys.

• Provost. Pardon me, noble lord: 2900
  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. 2905

• Vincentio. What's he?

• Provost. His name is Barnardine.

• 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: 2915
  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] 2920

• Vincentio. Which is that Barnardine?

• Provost. This, my lord.

• 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, 2925
  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? 2930

• 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]

• Vincentio. [To ISABELLA] If he be like your brother, for his sake 2935
  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. 2940
  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] 2945
  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 2950
  trick. If you will hang me for it, you may; but I
  had rather it would please you I might be whipt.

• Vincentio. Whipt first, sir, and hanged after.
  Proclaim it, provost, round about the city.
  Is any woman wrong'd by this lewd fellow, 2955
  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. 2960
  Your highness said even now, I made you a duke:
  good my lord, do not recompense me in making me a cuckold.

• Vincentio. Upon mine honour, thou shalt marry her.
  Thy slanders I forgive; and therewithal
  Remit thy other forfeits. Take him to prison; 2965
  And see our pleasure herein executed.

• Lucio. Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death,
  whipping, and hanging.

• Vincentio. Slandering a prince deserves it.
  [Exit Officers with LUCIO] 2970
  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. 2975
  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, 2980
  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. 2985

[Exeunt]