Chapter Ten Assignments

1877 Painting based on 1616 Folio Portrait of William Shakespeare, Barcelona Spain CC

William Shakespeare’s adapted dramas rival leading authors in today’s global cinematic storytelling culture – Dante, Shikibu of Tale of Genji, Victor Hugo, Malinke of Sundiata, Leo Tolstoy, Jane Austen, Remarque, Alexandre Dumas, Jules Verne, Federico García Lorca, Alice Walker, García Márquez, Phillip K. Dick, Stephen King, Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, and Marvels Comics. Like One Thousand and One Nights, the variations of adaptations of his work are limitless and celebrate the spirit of older texts placed in different historical eras and cultures. The corpus of his works has become a target of banned books reading lists in libraries and schools throughout history. Set in Vienna – a Catholic stronghold against the Ottoman Empire and Protestantism – Shakespeare alludes to the allegory, King James Bible, and classical rhetoric in Measure for Measure to present themes on intersections between morality, gender inequality, capital punishment and social stability. The institution of marriage, among other institutions, is mocked in this ‘problem-play’.

He is dead, white, European, and male, and yet he appeals irresistibly to readers and theater audiences all over the world. In the eyes of many feminist critics, he portrays women with the kind of fullness and depth found in authors such as Virginia Woolf and George Eliot (Britannica on Literary Criticism of Shakespeare).

The Shakespearean sonnet follows an iambic pentameter throughout, with three quatrains, and an ending couplet. A quatrain has four lines. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, and GG. The sonnet is also known as the Elizabethan sonnet.

The level of complexity ranges from Assignment 1 to Assignment 4. and the ‘end of term’ sustainability project in small groups on a microtheme from the UNSDG (UNSDG). Recommended articles follow.

 READING LIST

• OER on vocabulary of key terms in “Measure for Measure”
• Gutenberg: Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure,” 1605
• OER Historical Content on “Measure for Measure”

SOURCES FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ON SUSTAINABILITY

• On the Human Condition and Ecocriticism: OER on “The Long-Term” Human Condition
• On Intersections between sexuality and health: OER Harvard University on Nature & Health by Jessica Schiff & Rebecca Senft 2021
• SHAKESPEARE’S MEASURE FOR MEASURE, Link to Folger.edu OER “Measure for Measure”

Synopsis:

Human nature and the law often collide in Measure for Measure. As the play begins, the Duke of Vienna announces he is going away and puts his deputy Angelo in charge of the state. Angelo immediately enforces a law prohibiting sex outside of marriage, sentencing Claudio to death for sleeping with Juliet, Claudio’s now-pregnant fiancée.

Claudio’s sister Isabella, a novice nun, appeals to Angelo to save her brother. But the supposedly pure Angelo demands that Isabella sleep with him to save Claudio. To Claudio’s dismay, Isabella refuses.

The duke, who has remained in Vienna disguised as a friar, suggests that Angelo’s jilted fiancée, Mariana, could take Isabella’s place. Although the trick succeeds, Angelo orders Claudio beheaded anyway. The duke saves Claudio, but he tells Isabella that Claudio is dead.

The duke, resuming his identity, sentences Angelo to wed Mariana and then be put to death. But Mariana and Isabella plead for Angelo’s life. Revealing that Claudio is alive, the duke pardons Angelo and proposes to Isabella.

p. 7

ACT 1

Scene 1

Enter Duke, Escalus, Lords, ⌜and Attendants.⌝

DUKE

Escalus.

ESCALUS

My lord.

DUKE

Of government the properties to unfold

Would seem in me t’ affect speech and discourse,

5

Since I am put to know that your own science

Exceeds, in that, the lists of all advice

My strength can give you. Then no more remains

But that, to your sufficiency, as your worth is able,

And let them work. The nature of our people,

10

Our city’s institutions, and the terms

For common justice, you’re as pregnant in

As art and practice hath enrichèd any

That we remember. There is our commission,

⌜He hands Escalus a paper.⌝

From which we would not have you warp.—Call

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hither,

I say, bid come before us Angelo.

⌜An Attendant exits.⌝

What figure of us think you he will bear?

For you must know, we have with special soul

Elected him our absence to supply,

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Lent him our terror, dressed him with our love,

p. 9

And given his deputation all the organs

Of our own power. What think you of it?

ESCALUS

If any in Vienna be of worth

To undergo such ample grace and honor,

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It is Lord Angelo.

Enter Angelo.

DUKE

Look where he comes.

ANGELO

Always obedient to your Grace’s will,

I come to know your pleasure.

DUKE

Angelo,

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There is a kind of character in thy life

That to th’ observer doth thy history

Fully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings

Are not thine own so proper as to waste

Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.

35

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,

Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues

Did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike

As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched

But to fine issues, nor nature never lends

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The smallest scruple of her excellence

But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines

Herself the glory of a creditor,

Both thanks and use. But I do bend my speech

To one that can my part in him advertise.

45

Hold, therefore, Angelo.

In our remove be thou at full ourself.

Mortality and mercy in Vienna

Live in thy tongue and heart. Old Escalus,

Though first in question, is thy secondary.

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Take thy commission.

⌜He hands Angelo a paper.⌝

ANGELO

Now, good my lord,

Let there be some more test made of my mettle

p. 11

Before so noble and so great a figure

Be stamped upon it.

DUKE

55

No more evasion.

We have with a leavened and preparèd choice

Proceeded to you. Therefore, take your honors.

Our haste from hence is of so quick condition

That it prefers itself and leaves unquestioned

60

Matters of needful value. We shall write to you,

As time and our concernings shall importune,

How it goes with us, and do look to know

What doth befall you here. So fare you well.

To th’ hopeful execution do I leave you

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Of your commissions.

ANGELO

Yet give leave, my lord,

That we may bring you something on the way.

DUKE

My haste may not admit it.

Nor need you, on mine honor, have to do

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With any scruple. Your scope is as mine own,

So to enforce or qualify the laws

As to your soul seems good. Give me your hand.

I’ll privily away. I love the people,

But do not like to stage me to their eyes.

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Though it do well, I do not relish well

Their loud applause and aves vehement,

Nor do I think the man of safe discretion

That does affect it. Once more, fare you well.

ANGELO

The heavens give safety to your purposes.

ESCALUS

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Lead forth and bring you back in happiness.

DUKE

I thank you. Fare you well.

He exits.

ESCALUS

, ⌜to Angelo⌝

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.

p. 13

85

A power I have, but of what strength and nature

I am not yet instructed.

ANGELO

’Tis so with me. Let us withdraw together,

And we may soon our satisfaction have

Touching that point.

ESCALUS

90

I’ll wait upon your Honor.

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter Lucio and two other Gentlemen.

LUCIO

If the Duke, with the other dukes, come not to

composition with the King of Hungary, why then all

the dukes fall upon the King.

FIRST GENTLEMAN

Heaven grant us its peace, but not

5

the King of Hungary’s!

SECOND GENTLEMAN

Amen.

LUCIO

Thou conclud’st like the sanctimonious pirate

that went to sea with the ten commandments but

scraped one out of the table.

SECOND GENTLEMAN

10

“Thou shalt not steal”?

LUCIO

Ay, that he razed.

FIRST GENTLEMAN

Why, ’twas a commandment to command

the Captain and all the rest from their functions!

They put forth to steal. There’s not a soldier of

15

us all that in the thanksgiving before meat do relish

the petition well that prays for peace.

SECOND GENTLEMAN

I never heard any soldier dislike it.

LUCIO

I believe thee, for I think thou never wast where

grace was said.

SECOND GENTLEMAN

20

No? A dozen times at least.

FIRST GENTLEMAN

What? In meter?

LUCIO

In any proportion or in any language.

FIRST GENTLEMAN

I think, or in any religion.

p. 15

LUCIO

Ay, why not? Grace is grace, despite of all

25

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

30

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

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feelingly now?

LUCIO

I think thou dost, and indeed with most painful

feeling of thy speech. I will, out of thine own

confession, learn to begin thy health, but, whilst I

live, forget to drink after thee.

FIRST GENTLEMAN

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I think I have done myself wrong,

have I not?

SECOND GENTLEMAN

Yes, that thou hast, whether thou

art tainted or free.

Enter ⌜Mistress Overdone, a⌝ Bawd.

LUCIO

Behold, behold, where Madam Mitigation

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comes! I have purchased as many diseases under

her roof as come to—

SECOND GENTLEMAN

To what, I pray?

LUCIO

Judge.

SECOND GENTLEMAN

To three thousand dolors a year.

FIRST GENTLEMAN

50

Ay, and more.

LUCIO

A French crown more.

FIRST GENTLEMAN

Thou art always figuring diseases in

me, but thou art full of error. I am sound.

LUCIO

Nay, not, as one would say, healthy, but so sound

55

as things that are hollow. Thy bones are hollow.

Impiety has made a feast of thee.

p. 17

FIRST GENTLEMAN

, ⌜to Bawd⌝

How now, which of your

hips has the most profound sciatica?

BAWD

Well, well. There’s one yonder arrested and

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carried to prison was worth five thousand of you all.

SECOND GENTLEMAN

Who’s that, I pray thee?

BAWD

Marry, sir, that’s Claudio, Signior Claudio.

FIRST GENTLEMAN

Claudio to prison? ’Tis not so.

BAWD

Nay, but I know ’tis so. I saw him arrested, saw

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him carried away; and, which is more, within these

three days his head to be chopped off.

LUCIO

But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so!

Art thou sure of this?

BAWD

I am too sure of it. And it is for getting Madam

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Julietta with child.

LUCIO

Believe me, this may be. He promised to meet

me two hours since, and he was ever precise in

promise-keeping.

SECOND GENTLEMAN

Besides, you know, it draws something

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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.

⌜Lucio and Gentlemen⌝ exit.

BAWD

Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat,

80

what with the gallows, and what with poverty, I am

custom-shrunk.

Enter ⌜Pompey.⌝

How now? What’s the news with you?

POMPEY

Yonder man is carried to prison.

BAWD

Well, what has he done?

POMPEY

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A woman.

BAWD

But what’s his offense?

POMPEY

Groping for trouts in a peculiar river.

BAWD

What? Is there a maid with child by him?

p. 19

POMPEY

No, but there’s a woman with maid by him.

90

You have not heard of the proclamation, have you?

BAWD

What proclamation, man?

POMPEY

All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be

plucked down.

BAWD

And what shall become of those in the city?

POMPEY

95

They shall stand for seed. They had gone down

too, but that a wise burgher put in for them.

BAWD

But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs

be pulled down?

POMPEY

To the ground, mistress.

BAWD

100

Why, here’s a change indeed in the commonwealth!

What shall become of me?

POMPEY

Come, fear not you. Good counselors lack no

clients. Though you change your place, you need

not change your trade. I’ll be your tapster still.

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Courage. There will be pity taken on you. You that

have worn your eyes almost out in the service, you

will be considered.

Enter Provost, Claudio, Juliet, ⌜and⌝ Officers.

BAWD

What’s to do here, Thomas Tapster? Let’s

withdraw.

POMPEY

110

Here comes Signior Claudio, led by the Provost

to prison. And there’s Madam Juliet.

⌜Bawd and Pompey⌝ exit.

CLAUDIO

, ⌜to Provost⌝

Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to th’ world?

Bear me to prison, where I am committed.

PROVOST

I do it not in evil disposition,

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But from Lord Angelo by special charge.

CLAUDIO

Thus can the demigod Authority

Make us pay down for our offense, by weight,

p. 21

The words of heaven: on whom it will, it will;

On whom it will not, so; yet still ’tis just.

Enter Lucio and Second Gentleman.

LUCIO

120

Why, how now, Claudio? Whence comes this

restraint?

CLAUDIO

From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty.

As surfeit is the father of much fast,

So every scope by the immoderate use

125

Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue,

Like rats that raven down their proper bane,

A thirsty evil, and when we drink, we die.

LUCIO

If I could speak so wisely under an arrest, I

would send for certain of my creditors. And yet, to

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say the truth, I had as lief have the foppery of

freedom as the mortality of imprisonment. What’s

thy offense, Claudio?

CLAUDIO

What but to speak of would offend again.

LUCIO

What, is ’t murder?

CLAUDIO

135

No.

LUCIO

Lechery?

CLAUDIO

Call it so.

PROVOST

Away, sir. You must go.

CLAUDIO

One word, good friend.—Lucio, a word with you.

LUCIO

140

A hundred, if they’ll do you any good. Is lechery

so looked after?

CLAUDIO

Thus stands it with me: upon a true contract

I got possession of Julietta’s bed.

You know the lady. She is fast my wife,

145

Save that we do the denunciation lack

Of outward order. This we came not to

p. 23

Only for propagation of a dower

Remaining in the coffer of her friends,

From whom we thought it meet to hide our love

150

Till time had made them for us. But it chances

The stealth of our most mutual entertainment

With character too gross is writ on Juliet.

LUCIO

With child, perhaps?

CLAUDIO

Unhappily, even so.

155

And the new deputy now for the Duke—

Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness,

Or whether that the body public be

A horse whereon the governor doth ride,

Who, newly in the seat, that it may know

160

He can command, lets it straight feel the spur;

Whether the tyranny be in his place

Or in his eminence that fills it up,

I stagger in—but this new governor

Awakes me all the enrollèd penalties

165

Which have, like unscoured armor, hung by th’ wall

So long that nineteen zodiacs have gone round,

And none of them been worn; and for a name

Now puts the drowsy and neglected act

Freshly on me. ’Tis surely for a name.

LUCIO

170

I warrant it is. And thy head stands so tickle on

thy shoulders that a milkmaid, if she be in love, may

sigh it off. Send after the Duke and appeal to him.

CLAUDIO

I have done so, but he’s not to be found.

I prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service:

175

This day my sister should the cloister enter

And there receive her approbation.

Acquaint her with the danger of my state;

Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends

To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him.

180

I have great hope in that, for in her youth

p. 25

There is a prone and speechless dialect

Such as move men. Besides, she hath prosperous art

When she will play with reason and discourse,

And well she can persuade.

LUCIO

185

I pray she may, as well for the encouragement of

the like, which else would stand under grievous

imposition, as for the enjoying of thy life, who I

would be sorry should be thus foolishly lost at a

game of tick-tack. I’ll to her.

CLAUDIO

190

I thank you, good friend Lucio.

LUCIO

Within two hours.

CLAUDIO

Come, officer, away.

They exit.

⌜Scene 3⌝

Enter Duke and Friar Thomas.

DUKE

No, holy father, throw away that thought.

Believe not that the dribbling dart of love

Can pierce a complete bosom. Why I desire thee

To give me secret harbor hath a purpose

5

More grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends

Of burning youth.

FRIAR THOMAS

May your Grace speak of it?

DUKE

My holy sir, none better knows than you

How I have ever loved the life removed,

10

And held in idle price to haunt assemblies

Where youth and cost witless bravery keeps.

I have delivered to Lord Angelo,

A man of stricture and firm abstinence,

My absolute power and place here in Vienna,

15

And he supposes me traveled to Poland,

For so I have strewed it in the common ear,

p. 27

And so it is received. Now, pious sir,

You will demand of me why I do this.

FRIAR THOMAS

Gladly, my lord.

DUKE

20

We have strict statutes and most biting laws,

The needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds,

Which for this fourteen years we have let slip,

Even like an o’ergrown lion in a cave

That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers,

25

Having bound up the threat’ning twigs of birch

Only to stick it in their children’s sight

For terror, not to use—in time the rod

More mocked than feared—so our decrees,

Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead,

30

And liberty plucks justice by the nose,

The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart

Goes all decorum.

FRIAR THOMAS

It rested in your Grace

To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleased,

35

And it in you more dreadful would have seemed

Than in Lord Angelo.

DUKE

I do fear, too dreadful.

Sith ’twas my fault to give the people scope,

’Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall them

40

For what I bid them do; for we bid this be done

When evil deeds have their permissive pass

And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my

father,

I have on Angelo imposed the office,

45

Who may in th’ ambush of my name strike home,

And yet my nature never in the fight

To do in slander. And to behold his sway

I will, as ’twere a brother of your order,

Visit both prince and people. Therefore I prithee

50

Supply me with the habit, and instruct me

How I may formally in person bear

p. 29

Like a true friar. More reasons for this action

At our more leisure shall I render you.

Only this one: Lord Angelo is precise,

55

Stands at a guard with envy, scarce confesses

That his blood flows or that his appetite

Is more to bread than stone. Hence shall we see,

If power change purpose, what our seemers be.

⌜They⌝ exit.

⌜Scene 4⌝

Enter Isabella and Francisca, a Nun.

ISABELLA

And have you nuns no farther privileges?

NUN

Are not these large enough?

ISABELLA

Yes, truly. I speak not as desiring more,

But rather wishing a more strict restraint

5

Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.

LUCIO

, within

Ho, peace be in this place!

ISABELLA

Who’s that which calls?

NUN

It is a man’s voice. Gentle Isabella,

Turn you the key and know his business of him.

10

You may; I may not. You are yet unsworn.

When you have vowed, you must not speak with men

But in the presence of the Prioress.

Then, if you speak, you must not show your face;

Or if you show your face, you must not speak.

15

He calls again. I pray you answer him.

ISABELLA

Peace and prosperity! Who is ’t that calls?

⌜Enter Lucio.⌝

p. 31

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,

20

A novice of this place and the fair sister

To her unhappy brother, Claudio?

ISABELLA

Why “her unhappy brother”? Let me ask,

The rather for I now must make you know

I am that Isabella, and his sister.

LUCIO

25

Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you.

Not to be weary with you, he’s in prison.

ISABELLA

Woe me, for what?

LUCIO

For that which, if myself might be his judge,

He should receive his punishment in thanks:

30

He hath got his friend with child.

ISABELLA

Sir, make me not your story.

LUCIO

’Tis true.

I would not, though ’tis my familiar sin

With maids to seem the lapwing and to jest,

35

Tongue far from heart, play with all virgins so.

I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted,

By your renouncement an immortal spirit,

And to be talked with in sincerity

As with a saint.

ISABELLA

40

You do blaspheme the good in mocking me.

LUCIO

Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, ’tis thus:

Your brother and his lover have embraced;

As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time

That from the seedness the bare fallow brings

p. 33

45

To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb

Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.

ISABELLA

Someone with child by him? My cousin Juliet?

LUCIO

Is she your cousin?

ISABELLA

Adoptedly, as schoolmaids change their names

50

By vain though apt affection.

LUCIO

She it is.

ISABELLA

O, let him marry her!

LUCIO

This is the point.

The Duke is very strangely gone from hence;

55

Bore many gentlemen, myself being one,

In hand, and hope of action; but we do learn,

By those that know the very nerves of state,

His ⌜givings-out⌝ were of an infinite distance

From his true-meant design. Upon his place,

60

And with full line of his authority,

Governs Lord Angelo, a man whose blood

Is very snow-broth; one who never feels

The wanton stings and motions of the sense,

But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge

65

With profits of the mind: study and fast.

He—to give fear to use and liberty,

Which have for long run by the hideous law

As mice by lions—hath picked out an act

Under whose heavy sense your brother’s life

70

Falls into forfeit. He arrests him on it,

And follows close the rigor 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

75

’Twixt you and your poor brother.

ISABELLA

Doth he so

Seek his life?

p. 35

LUCIO

Has censured him already,

And, as I hear, the Provost hath a warrant

80

For ’s execution.

ISABELLA

Alas, what poor ability’s in me

To do him good?

LUCIO

Assay the power you have.

ISABELLA

My power? Alas, I doubt—

LUCIO

85

Our doubts are traitors

And makes us lose the good we oft might win

By fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo

And let him learn to know, when maidens sue

Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,

90

All their petitions are as freely theirs

As they themselves would owe them.

ISABELLA

I’ll see what I can do.

LUCIO

But speedily!

ISABELLA

I will about it straight,

95

No longer staying but to give the Mother

Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you.

Commend me to my brother. Soon at night

I’ll send him certain word of my success.

LUCIO

I take my leave of you.

ISABELLA

100

Good sir, adieu.

They exit.

p. 39

ACT 2

Scene 1

Enter Angelo, Escalus, Servants, ⌜and a⌝ Justice.

ANGELO

We must not make a scarecrow of the law,

Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,

And let it keep one shape till custom make it

Their perch and not their terror.

ESCALUS

5

Ay, but yet

Let us be keen and rather cut a little

Than fall and bruise to death. Alas, this gentleman

Whom I would save had a most noble father.

Let but your Honor know,

10

Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue,

That, in the working of your own affections,

Had time cohered with place, or place with wishing,

Or that the resolute acting of ⌜your⌝ blood

Could have attained th’ effect of your own purpose,

15

Whether you had not sometime in your life

Erred in this point which now you censure him,

And pulled the law upon you.

ANGELO

’Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,

Another thing to fall. I not deny

20

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,

p. 41

That justice seizes. What knows the laws

25

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 offense

30

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.

Enter Provost.

ESCALUS

Be it as your wisdom will.

ANGELO

35

Where is the Provost?

PROVOST

Here, if it like your Honor.

ANGELO

See that Claudio

Be executed by nine tomorrow morning.

Bring him his confessor, let him be prepared,

40

For that’s the utmost of his pilgrimage.

⌜Provost exits.⌝

ESCALUS

Well, heaven forgive him and forgive us all.

Some rise by sin and some by virtue fall.

Some run from brakes of ice and answer none,

And some condemnèd for a fault alone.

Enter Elbow ⌜and⌝ Officers, ⌜with⌝ Froth

⌜and Pompey.⌝

ELBOW

, ⌜to Officers⌝

45

Come, bring them away. If these

be good people in a commonweal that do nothing

but use their abuses in common houses, I know no

law. Bring them away.

ANGELO

How now, sir, what’s your name? And what’s

50

the matter?

p. 43

ELBOW

If it please your Honor, 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

Honor two notorious benefactors.

ANGELO

55

Benefactors? Well, what benefactors are they?

Are they not malefactors?

ELBOW

If it please your Honor, 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

60

good Christians ought to have.

ESCALUS

, ⌜to Angelo⌝

This comes off well. Here’s a wise

officer.

ANGELO

, ⌜to Elbow⌝

Go to. What quality are they of?

Elbow is your name? Why dost thou not speak,

65

Elbow?

POMPEY

He cannot, sir. He’s out at elbow.

ANGELO

What are you, sir?

ELBOW

He, sir? A tapster, sir, parcel bawd; one that

serves a bad woman, whose house, sir, was, as they

70

say, plucked down in the suburbs, and now she

professes a hothouse, which I think is a very ill

house too.

ESCALUS

How know you that?

ELBOW

My wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and

75

your Honor—

ESCALUS

How? Thy wife?

ELBOW

Ay, sir, whom I thank heaven is an honest

woman—

ESCALUS

Dost thou detest her therefore?

ELBOW

80

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

85

woman cardinally given, might have been accused

p. 45

in fornication, adultery, and all uncleanliness

there.

ESCALUS

By the woman’s means?

ELBOW

Ay, sir, by Mistress Overdone’s means; but as

90

she spit in his face, so she defied him.

POMPEY

, ⌜to Escalus⌝

Sir, if it please your Honor, this is

not so.

ELBOW

Prove it before these varlets here, thou honorable

man, prove it.

ESCALUS

, ⌜to Angelo⌝

95

Do you hear how he misplaces?

POMPEY

Sir, she came in great with child, and longing,

saving your Honor’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

100

of some threepence; your Honors have seen such

dishes; they are not china dishes, but very good

dishes—

ESCALUS

Go to, go to. No matter for the dish, sir.

POMPEY

No, indeed, sir, not of a pin; you are therein in

105

the right. But to the point: as I say, this Mistress

Elbow, being, as I say, with child, and being great-bellied,

and longing, as I said, for prunes; and

having but two in the dish, as I said, Master Froth

here, this very man, having eaten the rest, as I said,

110

and, as I say, paying for them very honestly—for, as

you know, Master Froth, I could not give you threepence

again—

FROTH

No, indeed.

POMPEY

Very well. You being then, if you be remembered,

115

cracking the stones of the foresaid prunes—

FROTH

Ay, so I did indeed.

POMPEY

Why, very well. I telling you then, if you be

remembered, that such a one and such a one were

past cure of the thing you wot of, unless they kept

120

very good diet, as I told you—

FROTH

All this is true.

p. 47

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

125

complain of? Come me to what was done to her.

POMPEY

Sir, your Honor cannot come to that yet.

ESCALUS

No, sir, nor I mean it not.

POMPEY

Sir, but you shall come to it, by your Honor’s

leave. And I beseech you, look into Master Froth

130

here, sir, a man of fourscore pound a year, whose

father died at Hallowmas—was ’t not at Hallowmas,

Master Froth?

FROTH

All-hallond Eve.

POMPEY

Why, very well. I hope here be truths.—He,

135

sir, sitting, as I say, in a lower chair, sir—⌜To Froth.⌝

’Twas in the Bunch of Grapes, where indeed you

have a delight to sit, have you not?

FROTH

I have so, because it is an open room, and good

for winter.

POMPEY

140

Why, very well then. I hope here be truths.

ANGELO

, ⌜to Escalus⌝

This will last out a night in Russia

When nights are longest there. I’ll take my leave,

And leave you to the hearing of the cause,

Hoping you’ll find good cause to whip them all.

ESCALUS

145

I think no less. Good morrow to your Lordship

⌜Angelo⌝ exits.

Now, sir, come on. What was done to Elbow’s wife,

once more?

POMPEY

Once, sir? There was nothing done to her

once.

ELBOW

, ⌜to Escalus⌝

150

I beseech you, sir, ask him what

this man did to my wife.

POMPEY

, ⌜to Escalus⌝

I beseech your Honor, ask me.

ESCALUS

Well, sir, what did this gentleman to her?

POMPEY

I beseech you, sir, look in this gentleman’s

p. 49

155

face.—Good Master Froth, look upon his Honor.

’Tis for a good purpose.—Doth your Honor mark

his face?

ESCALUS

Ay, sir, very well.

POMPEY

Nay, I beseech you, mark it well.

ESCALUS

160

Well, I do so.

POMPEY

Doth your Honor 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

165

worst thing about him, how could Master Froth do

the Constable’s wife any harm? I would know that

of your Honor.

ESCALUS

He’s in the right, constable. What say you to

it?

ELBOW

170

First, an it like you, the house is a respected

house; next, this is a respected fellow, and his

mistress is a respected woman.

POMPEY

By this hand, sir, his wife is a more respected

person than any of us all.

ELBOW

175

Varlet, thou liest; thou liest, wicked varlet! The

time is yet to come that she was ever respected with

man, woman, or child.

POMPEY

Sir, she was respected with him before he

married with her.

ESCALUS

180

Which is the wiser here, Justice or Iniquity?

Is this true?

ELBOW

, ⌜to Pompey⌝

O thou caitiff! O thou varlet! O

thou wicked Hannibal! I respected with her before I

was married to her?—If ever I was respected with

185

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 batt’ry on thee.

ESCALUS

If he took you a box o’ th’ ear, you might have

your action of slander too.

ELBOW

190

Marry, I thank your good Worship for it. What

p. 51

is ’t your Worship’s pleasure I shall do with this

wicked caitiff?

ESCALUS

Truly, officer, because he hath some offenses

in him that thou wouldst discover if thou couldst,

195

let him continue in his courses till thou know’st

what they are.

ELBOW

Marry, I thank your Worship for it. ⌜To Pompey.⌝

Thou seest, thou wicked varlet, now, what’s

come upon thee. Thou art to continue now, thou

200

varlet, thou art to continue.

ESCALUS

, ⌜to Froth⌝

Where were you born, friend?

FROTH

Here in Vienna, sir.

ESCALUS

Are you of fourscore pounds a year?

FROTH

Yes, an ’t please you, sir.

ESCALUS

205

So. ⌜To Pompey.⌝ What trade are you of, sir?

POMPEY

A tapster, a poor widow’s tapster.

ESCALUS

Your mistress’ name?

POMPEY

Mistress Overdone.

ESCALUS

Hath she had any more than one husband?

POMPEY

210

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

215

more of you.

FROTH

I thank your Worship. For mine own part, I

never come into any room in a taphouse but I am

drawn in.

ESCALUS

Well, no more of it, Master Froth. Farewell.

⌜Froth exits.⌝

220

Come you hither to me, Master Tapster. What’s your

name, Master Tapster?

POMPEY

Pompey.

ESCALUS

What else?

POMPEY

Bum, sir.

p. 53

ESCALUS

225

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 color it in being a tapster,

are you not? Come, tell me true. It shall be the

230

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

235

If the law would allow it, sir.

ESCALUS

But the law will not allow it, Pompey, nor it

shall not be allowed in Vienna.

POMPEY

Does your Worship mean to geld and splay all

the youth of the city?

ESCALUS

240

No, Pompey.

POMPEY

Truly, sir, in my poor opinion, they will to ’t

then. If your Worship will take order for the drabs

and the knaves, you need not to fear the bawds.

ESCALUS

There is pretty orders beginning, I can tell

245

you. It is but heading and hanging.

POMPEY

If you head and hang all that offend that way

but for ten year together, you’ll be glad to give out a

commission for more heads. If this law hold in

Vienna ten year, I’ll rent the fairest house in it after

250

threepence a bay. If you live to see this come to

pass, say Pompey told you so.

ESCALUS

Thank you, good Pompey. And in requital of

your prophecy, hark you: I advise you let me not

find you before me again upon any complaint

255

whatsoever; no, not for dwelling where you do. If I

do, Pompey, I shall beat you to your tent and prove

a shrewd Caesar to you. In plain dealing, Pompey, I

shall have you whipped. So, for this time, Pompey,

fare you well.

POMPEY

260

I thank your Worship for your good counsel.

p. 55

⌜Aside.⌝ But I shall follow it as the flesh and fortune

shall better determine.

Whip me? No, no, let carman whip his jade.

The valiant heart’s not whipped out of his trade.

He exits.

ESCALUS

265

Come hither to me, Master Elbow. Come

hither, Master Constable. How long have you been

in this place of constable?

ELBOW

Seven year and a half, sir.

ESCALUS

I thought, by the readiness in the office, you

270

had continued in it some time. You say seven years

together?

ELBOW

And a half, sir.

ESCALUS

Alas, it hath been great pains to you. They do

you wrong to put you so oft upon ’t. Are there not

275

men in your ward sufficient to serve it?

ELBOW

Faith, sir, few of any wit in such matters. As

they are chosen, they are glad to choose me for

them. I do it for some piece of money and go

through with all.

ESCALUS

280

Look you bring me in the names of some six

or seven, the most sufficient of your parish.

ELBOW

To your Worship’s house, sir?

ESCALUS

To my house. Fare you well.

⌜Elbow and Officers exit.⌝

⌜To Justice.⌝ What’s o’clock, think you?

JUSTICE

285

Eleven, sir.

ESCALUS

I pray you home to dinner with me.

JUSTICE

I humbly thank you.

ESCALUS

It grieves me for the death of Claudio,

But there’s no remedy.

JUSTICE

290

Lord Angelo is severe.

ESCALUS

It is but needful.

Mercy is not itself that oft looks so.

p. 57

Pardon is still the nurse of second woe.

But yet, poor Claudio. There is no remedy.

295

Come, sir.

They exit.

Scene 2

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.

⌜Servant exits.⌝

I’ll know

5

His pleasure. Maybe he will relent. Alas,

He hath but as offended in a dream.

All sects, all ages smack of this vice, and he

To die for ’t?

Enter Angelo.

ANGELO

Now, what’s the matter, provost?

PROVOST

10

Is it your will Claudio shall die tomorrow?

ANGELO

Did not I tell thee yea? Hadst thou not order?

Why dost thou ask again?

PROVOST

Lest I might be too rash.

Under your good correction, I have seen

15

When, after execution, judgment hath

Repented o’er his doom.

ANGELO

Go to. Let that be mine.

Do you your office, or give up your place

And you shall well be spared.

PROVOST

20

I crave your Honor’s pardon.

p. 59

What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet?

She’s very near her hour.

ANGELO

Dispose of her

To some more fitter place, and that with speed.

⌜Enter Servant.⌝

SERVANT

25

Here is the sister of the man condemned

Desires access to you.

ANGELO

Hath he a sister?

PROVOST

Ay, my good lord, a very virtuous maid,

And to be shortly of a sisterhood,

30

If not already.

ANGELO

, ⌜to Servant⌝

Well, let her be admitted.

⌜Servant exits.⌝

See you the fornicatress be removed.

Let her have needful but not lavish means.

There shall be order for ’t.

Enter Lucio and Isabella.

PROVOST

, ⌜beginning to exit⌝

35

Save your Honor.

ANGELO

Stay a little while. ⌜To Isabella.⌝ You’re welcome.

What’s your will?

ISABELLA

I am a woeful suitor to your Honor,

Please but your Honor hear me.

ANGELO

40

Well, what’s your

suit?

ISABELLA

There is a vice that most I do abhor,

And most desire should meet the blow of justice,

For which I would not plead, but that I must;

p. 61

45

For which I must not plead, but that I am

At war ’twixt will and will not.

ANGELO

Well, the matter?

ISABELLA

I have a brother is condemned to die.

I do beseech you let it be his fault

50

And not my brother.

PROVOST

, ⌜aside⌝

Heaven give thee moving

graces.

ANGELO

Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?

Why, every fault’s condemned ere it be done.

55

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 Honor.

LUCIO

, ⌜aside to Isabella⌝

60

Give ’t not o’er so. To him again, entreat him,

Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown.

You are too cold. If you should need a pin,

You could not with more tame a tongue desire it.

To him, I say.

ISABELLA

, ⌜to Angelo⌝

65

Must he needs die?

ANGELO

Maiden, no remedy.

ISABELLA

Yes, I do think that you might pardon him,

And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.

ANGELO

I will not do ’t.

ISABELLA

70

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

p. 63

If so your heart were touched with that remorse

As mine is to him?

ANGELO

75

He’s sentenced. ’Tis too late.

LUCIO

, ⌜aside to Isabella⌝

You are too cold.

ISABELLA

Too late? Why, no. I that do speak a word

May call it ⌜back⌝ again. Well believe this:

No ceremony that to great ones longs,

80

Not the king’s crown, nor the deputed sword,

The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe

Become them with one half so good a grace

As mercy does.

If he had been as you, and you as he,

85

You would have slipped like him, but he like you

Would not have been so stern.

ANGELO

Pray you begone.

ISABELLA

I would to heaven I had your potency,

And you were Isabel. Should it then be thus?

90

No. I would tell what ’twere to be a judge

And what a prisoner.

LUCIO

, ⌜aside to Isabella⌝

Ay, touch him; there’s the

vein.

ANGELO

Your brother is a forfeit of the law,

95

And you but waste your words.

ISABELLA

Alas, alas!

Why all the souls that were were forfeit once,

And He that might the vantage best have took

Found out the remedy. How would you be

100

If He which is the top of judgment should

But judge you as you are? O, think on that,

And mercy then will breathe within your lips

Like man new-made.

ANGELO

Be you content, fair maid.

105

It is the law, not I, condemn your brother.

p. 65

Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,

It should be thus with him. He must die tomorrow.

ISABELLA

Tomorrow? O, that’s sudden! Spare him, spare him.

He’s not prepared for death. Even for our kitchens

110

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 offense?

115

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 th’ edict infringe

120

Had answered for his deed. Now ’tis awake,

Takes note of what is done, and, like a prophet,

Looks in a glass that shows what future evils—

Either now, or by remissness new-conceived,

And so in progress to be hatched and born—

125

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,

130

Which a dismissed offense would after gall,

And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,

Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;

Your brother dies tomorrow; be content.

ISABELLA

So you must be the first that gives this sentence,

135

And he that suffers. O, it is excellent

To have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous

To use it like a giant.

p. 67

LUCIO

, ⌜aside to Isabella⌝

That’s well said.

ISABELLA

Could great men thunder

140

As Jove himself does, Jove would never 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

145

Splits the unwedgeable and gnarlèd oak,

Than the soft myrtle. But man, proud man,

Dressed in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,

His glassy essence, like an angry ape

150

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven

As makes the angels weep, who with our spleens

Would all themselves laugh mortal.

LUCIO

, ⌜aside to Isabella⌝

O, to him, to him, wench. He will relent.

He’s coming. I perceive ’t.

PROVOST

, ⌜aside⌝

155

Pray heaven she win him.

ISABELLA

We cannot weigh our brother with ourself.

Great men may jest with saints; ’tis wit in them,

But in the less, foul profanation.

LUCIO

, ⌜aside to Isabella⌝

Thou ’rt i’ th’ right, girl. More o’ that.

ISABELLA

160

That in the captain’s but a choleric word

Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

LUCIO

, ⌜aside to Isabella⌝

Art avised o’ that? More on ’t.

ANGELO

Why do you put these sayings upon me?

ISABELLA

Because authority, though it err like others,

165

Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself

p. 69

That skins the vice o’ th’ top. Go to your bosom,

Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know

That’s like my brother’s fault. If it confess

A natural guiltiness such as is his,

170

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.

⌜He begins to exit.⌝

Fare you well.

ISABELLA

175

Gentle my lord, turn back.

ANGELO

I will bethink me. Come again tomorrow.

ISABELLA

Hark how I’ll bribe you. Good my lord, turn back.

ANGELO

How? Bribe me?

ISABELLA

Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.

LUCIO

, ⌜aside to Isabella⌝

180

You had marred all else.

ISABELLA

Not with fond sicles of the tested gold,

Or stones whose rate are either rich or poor

As fancy values them, but with true prayers

That shall be up at heaven and enter there

185

Ere sunrise, prayers from preservèd souls,

From fasting maids whose minds are dedicate

To nothing temporal.

ANGELO

Well, come to me tomorrow.

LUCIO

, ⌜aside to Isabella⌝

Go to, ’tis well; away.

ISABELLA

190

Heaven keep your Honor safe.

ANGELO

, ⌜aside⌝

Amen.

For I am that way going to temptation

Where prayers cross.

ISABELLA

At what hour tomorrow

195

Shall I attend your Lordship?

ANGELO

At any time ’fore noon.

p. 71

ISABELLA

Save your Honor.

⌜She exits, with Lucio and Provost.⌝

ANGELO

From thee, even from thy virtue.

What’s this? What’s this? Is this her fault or mine?

200

The tempter or the tempted, who sins most, ha?

Not she, nor doth she tempt; but it is I

That, lying by the violet in the sun,

Do as the carrion does, not as the flower,

Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be

205

That modesty may more betray our sense

Than woman’s lightness? Having waste ground

enough,

Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary

And pitch our evils there? O fie, fie, fie!

210

What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?

Dost thou desire her foully for those things

That make her good? O, let her brother live.

Thieves for their robbery have authority

When judges steal themselves. What, do I love her

215

That I desire to hear her speak again

And feast upon her eyes? What is ’t I dream on?

O cunning enemy that, to catch a saint,

With saints dost bait thy hook. Most dangerous

Is that temptation that doth goad us on

220

To sin in loving virtue. Never could the strumpet

With all her double vigor, art and nature,

Once stir my temper, but this virtuous maid

Subdues me quite. Ever till now

When men were fond, I smiled and wondered how.

He exits.

p. 73

Scene 3

Enter Duke, ⌜disguised as a Friar,⌝ and Provost.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Hail to you, provost, so I think you are.

PROVOST

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

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Bound by my charity and my blest order,

I come to visit the afflicted spirits

5

Here in the prison. Do me the common right

To let me see them, and to make me know

The nature of their crimes, that I may minister

To them accordingly.

PROVOST

I would do more than that if more were needful.

Enter Juliet.

10

Look, here comes one, a gentlewoman of mine,

Who, falling in the flaws of her own youth,

Hath blistered her report. She is with child,

And he that got it, sentenced—a young man,

More fit to do another such offense

15

Than die for this.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

When must he die?

PROVOST

As I do think, tomorrow.

⌜To Juliet.⌝ I have provided for you. Stay awhile

And you shall be conducted.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar, to Juliet⌝

20

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

JULIET

I do; and bear the shame most patiently.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

I’ll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,

p. 75

And try your penitence, if it be sound

Or hollowly put on.

JULIET

25

I’ll gladly learn.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Love you the man that wronged you?

JULIET

Yes, as I love the woman that wronged him.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

So then it seems your most offenseful act

Was mutually committed?

JULIET

30

Mutually.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.

JULIET

I do confess it and repent it, father.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

’Tis meet so, daughter; but lest you do repent

As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,

35

Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not

heaven,

Showing we would not spare heaven as we love it,

But as we stand in fear—

JULIET

I do repent me as it is an evil,

40

And take the shame with joy.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

There rest.

Your partner, as I hear, must die tomorrow,

And I am going with instruction to him.

Grace go with you. Benedicite.

He exits.

JULIET

45

Must die tomorrow? O injurious love

That respites me a life, whose very comfort

Is still a dying horror.

PROVOST

’Tis pity of him.

They exit.

p. 77

Scene 4

Enter Angelo.

ANGELO

When I would pray and think, I think and pray

To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words,

Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,

Anchors on Isabel. ⌜God⌝ in my mouth,

5

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 ⌜sere⌝ and tedious. Yea, my gravity,

10

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

15

To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood.

Let’s write “good angel” on the devil’s horn.

’Tis not the devil’s crest. ⌜Knock within.⌝ How now,

who’s there?

Enter Servant.

SERVANT

One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.

ANGELO

20

Teach her the way. ⌜Servant exits.⌝ O heavens,

Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,

Making both it unable for itself

And dispossessing all my other parts

Of necessary fitness?

25

So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons,

Come all to help him, and so stop the air

By which he should revive. And even so

The general subject to a well-wished king

p. 79

Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness

30

Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love

Must needs appear offense.

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

35

Than to demand what ’tis. Your brother cannot live.

ISABELLA

Even so. Heaven keep your Honor.

ANGELO

Yet may he live a while. And it may be

As long as you or I. Yet he must die.

ISABELLA

Under your sentence?

ANGELO

40

Yea.

ISABELLA

When, I beseech you? That in his reprieve,

Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted

That his soul sicken not.

ANGELO

Ha! Fie, these filthy vices! It were as good

45

To pardon him that hath from nature stolen

A man already made, as to remit

Their saucy sweetness that do coin ⌜God’s⌝ image

In stamps that are forbid. ’Tis all as easy

Falsely to take away a life true made

50

As to put metal in restrainèd means

To make a false one.

ISABELLA

’Tis set down so in heaven, but not in Earth.

ANGELO

Say you so? Then I shall pose you quickly:

Which had you rather, that the most just law

55

Now took your brother’s life, ⌜or,⌝ to redeem him,

p. 81

Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness

As she that he hath stained?

ISABELLA

Sir, believe this:

I had rather give my body than my soul.

ANGELO

60

I talk not of your soul. Our compelled sins

Stand more for number than for accompt.

ISABELLA

How say you?

ANGELO

Nay, I’ll not warrant that, for I can speak

Against the thing I say. Answer to this:

65

I, now the voice of the recorded law,

Pronounce a sentence on your brother’s life.

Might there not be a charity in sin

To save this brother’s life?

ISABELLA

Please you to do ’t,

70

I’ll take it as a peril to my soul,

It is no sin at all, but charity.

ANGELO

Pleased you to do ’t, at peril of your soul,

Were equal poise of sin and charity.

ISABELLA

That I do beg his life, if it be sin

75

Heaven let me bear it. You granting of my suit,

If that be sin, I’ll make it my morn prayer

To have it added to the faults of mine

And nothing of your answer.

ANGELO

Nay, but hear me.

80

Your sense pursues not mine. Either you are

ignorant,

Or seem so, crafty, and that’s not good.

ISABELLA

Let ⌜me⌝ be ignorant and in nothing good,

But graciously to know I am no better.

ANGELO

85

Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright

p. 83

When it doth tax itself, as these black masks

Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder

Than beauty could, displayed. But mark me.

To be receivèd plain, I’ll speak more gross:

90

Your brother is to die.

ISABELLA

So.

ANGELO

And his offense is so, as it appears,

Accountant to the law upon that pain.

ISABELLA

True.

ANGELO

95

Admit no other way to save his life—

As I subscribe not that, nor any other—

But, in the loss of question, that you, his sister,

Finding yourself desired of such a person

Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,

100

Could fetch your brother from the manacles

Of the all-⌜binding⌝ law, and that there were

No earthly mean to save him but that either

You must lay down the treasures of your body

To this supposed, or else to let him suffer,

105

What would you do?

ISABELLA

As much for my poor brother as myself.

That is, were I under the terms of death,

Th’ impression of keen whips I’d wear as rubies

And strip myself to death as to a bed

110

That longing have been sick for, ere I’d yield

My body up to shame.

ANGELO

Then must your brother die.

ISABELLA

And ’twere the cheaper way.

Better it were a brother died at once

115

Than that a sister, by redeeming him,

Should die forever.

ANGELO

Were not you then as cruel as the sentence

That you have slandered so?

p. 85

ISABELLA

Ignomy in ransom and free pardon

120

Are of two houses. Lawful mercy

Is nothing kin to foul redemption.

ANGELO

You seemed of late to make the law a tyrant,

And rather proved the sliding of your brother

A merriment than a vice.

ISABELLA

125

O, pardon me, my lord. It oft falls out,

To have what we would have, we speak not what we

mean.

I something do excuse the thing I hate

For his advantage that I dearly love.

ANGELO

130

We are all frail.

ISABELLA

Else let my brother die,

If not a fedary but only he

Owe and succeed thy weakness.

ANGELO

Nay, women are frail too.

ISABELLA

135

Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves,

Which are as easy broke as they make forms.

Women—help, heaven—men their creation mar

In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail,

For we are soft as our complexions are,

140

And credulous to false prints.

ANGELO

I think it well.

And from this testimony of your own sex,

Since I suppose we are made to be no stronger

Than faults may shake our frames, let me be bold.

145

I do arrest your words. Be that you are—

That is, a woman. If you be more, you’re none.

If you be one, as you are well expressed

By all external warrants, show it now

By putting on the destined livery.

p. 87

ISABELLA

150

I have no tongue but one. Gentle my lord,

Let me entreat you speak the former language.

ANGELO

Plainly conceive I love you.

ISABELLA

My brother did love Juliet,

And you tell me that he shall die for ’t.

ANGELO

155

He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.

ISABELLA

I know your virtue hath a license in ’t

Which seems a little fouler than it is

To pluck on others.

ANGELO

Believe me, on mine honor,

160

My words express my purpose.

ISABELLA

Ha! Little honor to be much believed,

And most pernicious purpose. Seeming, seeming!

I will proclaim thee, Angelo, look for ’t.

Sign me a present pardon for my brother

165

Or with an outstretched throat I’ll tell the world

aloud

What man thou art.

ANGELO

Who will believe thee, Isabel?

My unsoiled name, th’ austereness of my life,

170

My vouch against you, and my place i’ th’ state

Will so your accusation overweigh

That you shall stifle in your own report

And smell of calumny. I have begun,

And now I give my sensual race the rein.

175

Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;

Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes

That banish what they sue for. Redeem thy brother

By yielding up thy body to my will,

Or else he must not only die the death,

180

But thy unkindness shall his death draw out

To ling’ring sufferance. Answer me tomorrow,

p. 89

Or by the affection that now guides me most,

I’ll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,

Say what you can, my false o’erweighs your true.

He exits.

ISABELLA

185

To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,

Who would believe me? O, perilous mouths,

That bear in them one and the selfsame tongue,

Either of condemnation or approof,

Bidding the law make curtsy to their will,

190

Hooking both right and wrong to th’ appetite,

To follow as it draws. I’ll to my brother.

Though he hath fall’n by prompture of the blood,

Yet hath he in him such a mind of honor

That, had he twenty heads to tender down

195

On twenty bloody blocks, he’d yield them up

Before his sister should her body stoop

To such abhorred pollution.

Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die.

More than our brother is our chastity.

200

I’ll tell him yet of Angelo’s request,

And fit his mind to death, for his soul’s rest.

She exits.

p. 93

ACT 3

Scene 1

Enter Duke ⌜as a Friar,⌝ Claudio, and Provost.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

So then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?

CLAUDIO

The miserable have no other medicine

But only hope.

I have hope to live and am prepared to die.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

5

Be absolute for death. Either death or life

Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

That none but fools would keep. A breath thou art,

Servile to all the skyey influences

10

That ⌜doth⌝ this habitation where thou keep’st

Hourly afflict. Merely, thou art death’s fool,

For him thou labor’st by thy flight to shun,

And yet runn’st toward him still. Thou art not noble,

For all th’ accommodations that thou bear’st

15

Are nursed by baseness. Thou ’rt by no means

valiant,

For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork

Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,

And that thou oft provok’st, yet grossly fear’st

20

Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself,

For thou exists on many a thousand grains

p. 95

That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not,

For what thou hast not, still thou striv’st to get,

And what thou hast, forget’st. Thou art not certain,

25

For thy complexion shifts to strange effects

After the moon. If thou art rich, thou ’rt poor,

For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,

Thou bear’st thy heavy riches but a journey,

And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none,

30

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,

35

But as it were an after-dinner’s sleep

Dreaming on both, for all thy blessèd youth

Becomes as agèd and doth beg the alms

Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,

Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty

40

To make thy riches pleasant. What’s yet in this

That bears the name of life? Yet in this life

Lie hid more thousand deaths; yet death we fear,

That makes these odds all even.

CLAUDIO

I humbly thank you.

45

To sue to live, I find I seek to die,

And seeking death, find life. Let it come on.

ISABELLA

, ⌜within⌝

What ho! Peace here, grace, and good company.

PROVOST

Who’s there? Come in. The wish deserves a welcome.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar, to Claudio⌝

Dear sir, ere long I’ll visit you again.

CLAUDIO

50

Most holy sir, I thank you.

Enter Isabella.

ISABELLA

, ⌜to Provost⌝

My business is a word or two with Claudio.

p. 97

PROVOST

And very welcome.—Look, signior, here’s your

sister.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Provost, a word with you.

PROVOST

55

As many as you please.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar, aside to Provost⌝

Bring ⌜me⌝ to hear ⌜them⌝ speak, where I may be

concealed.

⌜Duke and Provost exit.⌝

CLAUDIO

Now, sister, what’s the comfort?

ISABELLA

Why,

60

As all comforts are, most good, most good indeed.

Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,

Intends you for his swift ambassador,

Where you shall be an everlasting leiger;

Therefore your best appointment make with speed.

65

Tomorrow you set on.

CLAUDIO

Is there no remedy?

ISABELLA

None but such remedy as, to save a head,

To cleave a heart in twain.

CLAUDIO

But is there any?

ISABELLA

70

Yes, brother, you may live.

There is a devilish mercy in the judge,

If you’ll implore it, that will free your life

But fetter you till death.

CLAUDIO

Perpetual durance?

ISABELLA

75

Ay, just; perpetual durance, a restraint,

⌜Though⌝ all the world’s vastidity you had,

To a determined scope.

CLAUDIO

But in what nature?

ISABELLA

In such a one as, you consenting to ’t,

80

Would bark your honor from that trunk you bear

And leave you naked.

p. 99

CLAUDIO

Let me know the point.

ISABELLA

O, I do fear thee, Claudio, and I quake

Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain,

85

And six or seven winters more respect

Than a perpetual honor. Dar’st thou die?

The sense of death is most in apprehension,

And the poor beetle that we tread upon

In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great

90

As when a giant dies.

CLAUDIO

Why give you me this shame?

Think you I can a resolution fetch

From flowery tenderness? If I must die,

I will encounter darkness as a bride,

95

And hug it in mine arms.

ISABELLA

There spake my brother! There my father’s grave

Did utter forth a voice. Yes, thou must die.

Thou art too noble to conserve a life

In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy—

100

Whose settled visage and deliberate word

Nips youth i’ th’ head, and follies doth ⌜enew⌝

As falcon doth the fowl—is yet a devil.

His filth within being cast, he would appear

A pond as deep as hell.

CLAUDIO

105

The prenzie Angelo?

ISABELLA

O, ’tis the cunning livery of hell

The damned’st body to invest and cover

In prenzie guards. Dost thou think, Claudio,

If I would yield him my virginity

110

Thou mightst be freed?

CLAUDIO

O heavens, it cannot be!

ISABELLA

Yes, he would give ’t thee; from this rank offense,

So to offend him still. This night’s the time

p. 101

That I should do what I abhor to name,

115

Or else thou diest tomorrow.

CLAUDIO

Thou shalt not do ’t.

ISABELLA

O, were it but my life,

I’d throw it down for your deliverance

As frankly as a pin.

CLAUDIO

120

Thanks, dear Isabel.

ISABELLA

Be ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow.

CLAUDIO

Yes. Has he affections in him

That thus can make him bite the law by th’ nose,

When he would force it? Sure it is no sin,

125

Or of the deadly seven it is the least.

ISABELLA

Which is the least?

CLAUDIO

If it were damnable, he being so wise,

Why would he for the momentary trick

Be perdurably fined? O, Isabel—

ISABELLA

130

What says my brother?

CLAUDIO

Death is a fearful thing.

ISABELLA

And shamèd life a hateful.

CLAUDIO

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where,

To lie in cold obstruction and to rot,

135

This sensible warm motion to become

A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside

In thrilling region of thick-ribbèd ice,

To be imprisoned in the viewless winds

140

And blown with restless violence round about

The pendent world; or to be worse than worst

Of those that lawless and incertain thought

Imagine howling—’tis too horrible.

The weariest and most loathèd worldly life

145

That age, ache, ⌜penury,⌝ and imprisonment

p. 103

Can lay on nature is a paradise

To what we fear of death.

ISABELLA

Alas, alas!

CLAUDIO

Sweet sister, let me live.

150

What sin you do to save a brother’s life,

Nature dispenses with the deed so far

That it becomes a virtue.

ISABELLA

O, you beast!

O faithless coward, O dishonest wretch,

155

Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?

Is ’t not a kind of incest to take life

From thine own sister’s shame? What should I think?

Heaven shield my mother played my father fair,

For such a warpèd slip of wilderness

160

Ne’er issued from his blood. Take my defiance;

Die, perish. Might but my bending down

Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed.

I’ll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,

No word to save thee.

CLAUDIO

165

Nay, hear me, Isabel—

ISABELLA

O, fie, fie, fie!

Thy sin’s not accidental, but a trade.

Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd.

’Tis best that thou diest quickly.

CLAUDIO

170

O, hear me, Isabella—

⌜Enter Duke as a Friar.⌝

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar, to Isabella⌝

Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.

ISABELLA

What is your will?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Might you dispense with your leisure, I

would by and by have some speech with you. The

175

satisfaction I would require is likewise your own

benefit.

ISABELLA

I have no superfluous leisure. My stay must

p. 105

be stolen out of other affairs, but I will attend you

awhile.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar, taking Claudio aside⌝

180

Son, I have overheard

what hath passed between you and your

sister. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her;

only he hath made an assay of her virtue, to practice

his judgment with the disposition of natures. She,

185

having the truth of honor in her, hath made him

that gracious denial which he is most glad to

receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I know this

to be true. Therefore prepare yourself to death. Do

not satisfy your resolution with hopes that are

190

fallible. Tomorrow you must die. Go to your knees

and make ready.

CLAUDIO

Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of

love with life that I will sue to be rid of it.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Hold you there. Farewell.—Provost, a

195

word with you.

⌜Enter Provost.⌝

PROVOST

What’s your will, father?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

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

200

my company.

PROVOST

In good time.

He exits, ⌜with Claudio.⌝

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar, to Isabella⌝

The hand that hath made

you fair hath made you good. The goodness that is

cheap in beauty makes beauty brief in goodness,

205

but grace, being the soul of your complexion, shall

keep the body of it ever fair. The assault that Angelo

hath made to you, fortune hath conveyed to my

understanding; and but that frailty hath examples

for his falling, I should wonder at Angelo. How will

210

you do to content this substitute and to save your

brother?

p. 107

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

215

duke deceived in Angelo! If ever he return, and I

can speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or

discover his government.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

That shall not be much amiss. Yet, as

the matter now stands, he will avoid your accusation:

220

he made trial of you only. Therefore, fasten

your ear on my advisings. To the love I have in doing

good, a remedy presents itself. I do make myself

believe that you may most uprighteously do a poor

wronged lady a merited benefit, redeem your brother

225

from the angry law, do no stain to your own

gracious person, and much please the absent duke,

if peradventure he shall ever return to have hearing

of this business.

ISABELLA

Let me hear you speak farther. I have spirit to

230

do anything that appears not foul in the truth of my

spirit.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Virtue is bold, and goodness never

fearful. Have you not heard speak of Mariana, the

sister of Frederick, the great soldier who miscarried

235

at sea?

ISABELLA

I have heard of the lady, and good words

went with her name.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

She should this Angelo have married,

was affianced to her oath, and the nuptial appointed.

240

Between which time of the contract and

limit of the solemnity, her brother Frederick was

wracked at sea, having in that perished vessel the

dowry of his sister. But mark how heavily this befell

to the poor gentlewoman. There she lost a noble

245

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

p. 109

both, her combinate husband, this well-seeming

Angelo.

ISABELLA

250

Can this be so? Did Angelo so leave her?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Left her in her tears and dried not one

of them with his comfort, swallowed his vows

whole, pretending in her discoveries of dishonor; in

few, bestowed her on her own lamentation, which

255

she yet wears for his sake; and he, a marble to her

tears, is washed with them but relents not.

ISABELLA

What a merit were it in death to take this

poor maid from the world! What corruption in this

life, that it will let this man live! But how out of this

260

can she avail?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

It is a rupture that you may easily heal,

and the cure of it not only saves your brother, but

keeps you from dishonor in doing it.

ISABELLA

Show me how, good father.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

265

This forenamed maid hath yet in her

the continuance of her first affection. His unjust

unkindness, that in all reason should have

quenched her love, hath, like an impediment in the

current, made it more violent and unruly. Go you to

270

Angelo, answer his requiring with a plausible obedience,

agree with his demands to the point. Only

refer yourself to this advantage: first, that your stay

with him may not be long, that the time may have all

shadow and silence in it, and the place answer to

275

convenience. This being granted in course, and

now follows all: we shall advise this wronged maid

to stead up your appointment, go in your place. If

the encounter acknowledge itself hereafter, it may

compel him to her recompense; and here, by this, is

280

your brother saved, your honor untainted, the poor

Mariana advantaged, and the corrupt deputy

scaled. The maid will I frame and make fit for his

attempt. If you think well to carry this as you may,

p. 111

the doubleness of the benefit defends the deceit

285

from reproof. What think you of it?

ISABELLA

The image of it gives me content already, and

I trust it will grow to a most prosperous perfection.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

It lies much in your holding up. Haste

you speedily to Angelo. If for this night he entreat

290

you to his bed, give him promise of satisfaction. I

will presently to Saint Luke’s. There at the moated

grange resides this dejected Mariana. At that place

call upon me, and dispatch with Angelo that it may

be quickly.

ISABELLA

295

I thank you for this comfort. Fare you well,

good father.

She exits. ⌜The Duke remains.⌝

⌜Scene 2⌝

Enter Elbow, ⌜Pompey, and⌝ Officers.

ELBOW

, ⌜to Pompey⌝

Nay, if there be no remedy for it

but that you will needs buy and sell men and

women like beasts, we shall have all the world drink

brown and white bastard.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar, aside⌝

5

O heavens, what stuff is here?

POMPEY

’Twas never merry world since, of two usuries,

the merriest was put down, and the worser allowed

by order of law a furred gown to keep him warm,

and furred with fox and lambskins too, to signify

10

that craft, being richer than innocency, stands for

the facing.

ELBOW

Come your way, sir.—Bless you, good father

friar.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

And you, good brother father. What

15

offense hath this man made you, sir?

ELBOW

Marry, sir, he hath offended the law; and, sir,

we take him to be a thief too, sir, for we have found

p. 113

upon him, sir, a strange picklock, which we have

sent to the Deputy.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar, to Pompey⌝

20

Fie, sirrah, a bawd, a wicked bawd!

The evil that thou causest to be done,

That is thy means to live. Do thou but think

What ’tis to cram a maw or clothe a back

From such a filthy vice; say to thyself,

25

From their abominable and beastly touches

I drink, I eat, ⌜array⌝ myself, and live.

Canst thou believe thy living is a life,

So stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend.

POMPEY

Indeed, it does stink in some sort, sir. But yet,

30

sir, I would prove—

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

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

35

He must before the Deputy, sir; he has given

him warning. The Deputy cannot abide a whoremaster.

If he be a whoremonger and comes before

him, he were as good go a mile on his errand.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

That we were all, as some would seem to be,

40

From our faults, as faults from seeming, free.

ELBOW

His neck will come to your waist—a cord, sir.

Enter Lucio.

POMPEY

I spy comfort, I cry bail. Here’s a gentleman

and a friend of mine.

LUCIO

How now, noble Pompey? What, at the wheels of

45

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⌝ clutched? What reply, ha? What

p. 115

sayst thou to this tune, matter, and method? Is ’t not

50

drowned i’ th’ last rain, ha? What sayst thou, trot? Is

the world as it was, man? Which is the way? Is it sad

and few words? Or how? The trick of it?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar, aside⌝

Still thus, and thus; still worse.

LUCIO

, ⌜to Pompey⌝

How doth my dear morsel, thy

55

mistress? Procures she still, ha?

POMPEY

Troth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and

she is herself in the tub.

LUCIO

Why, ’tis good. It is the right of it. It must be so.

Ever your fresh whore and your powdered bawd, an

60

unshunned consequence; it must be so. Art going to

prison, Pompey?

POMPEY

Yes, faith, sir.

LUCIO

Why, ’tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell. Go say I

sent thee thither. For debt, Pompey? Or how?

ELBOW

65

For being a bawd, for being a bawd.

LUCIO

Well, then, imprison him. If imprisonment be

the due of a bawd, why, ’tis his right. Bawd is he,

doubtless, and of antiquity too. Bawd born.—

Farewell, good Pompey. Commend me to the prison,

70

Pompey. You will turn good husband now,

Pompey; you will keep the house.

POMPEY

I hope, sir, your good Worship will be my bail.

LUCIO

No, indeed, will I not, Pompey; it is not the

wear. I will pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage.

75

If you take it not patiently, why, your mettle is

the more. Adieu, trusty Pompey.—Bless you, friar.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

And you.

LUCIO

, ⌜to Pompey⌝

Does Bridget paint still, Pompey,

ha?

ELBOW

, ⌜to Pompey⌝

80

Come your ways, sir, come.

POMPEY

, ⌜to Lucio⌝

You will not bail me, then, sir?

LUCIO

Then, Pompey, nor now.—What news abroad,

friar? What news?

ELBOW

, ⌜to Pompey⌝

Come your ways, sir, come.

p. 117

LUCIO

85

Go to kennel, Pompey, go.

⌜Elbow, Pompey, and Officers exit.⌝

What news, friar, of the Duke?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

I know none. Can you tell me of any?

LUCIO

Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia;

other some, he is in Rome. But where is he, think

90

you?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

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

95

born to. Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence.

He puts transgression to ’t.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

He does well in ’t.

LUCIO

A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm

in him. Something too crabbed that way, friar.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

100

It is too general a vice, and severity

must cure it.

LUCIO

Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred;

it is well allied, but it is impossible to extirp it quite,

friar, till eating and drinking be put down. They say

105

this Angelo was not made by man and woman after

this downright way of creation. Is it true, think

you?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

How should he be made, then?

LUCIO

Some report a sea-maid spawned him; some,

110

that he was begot between two stockfishes. But it is

certain that when he makes water, his urine is

congealed ice; that I know to be true. And he is a

motion generative, that’s infallible.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

You are pleasant, sir, and speak apace.

LUCIO

115

Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the

rebellion of a codpiece to take away the life of a

man! Would the duke that is absent have done this?

Ere he would have hanged a man for the getting

a hundred bastards, he would have paid for the

p. 119

120

nursing a thousand. He had some feeling of the

sport, he knew the service, and that instructed him

to mercy.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

I never heard the absent duke much

detected for women. He was not inclined that way.

LUCIO

125

O, sir, you are deceived.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

’Tis not possible.

LUCIO

Who, not the Duke? Yes, your beggar of fifty;

and his use was to put a ducat in her clack-dish. The

Duke had crotchets in him. He would be drunk too,

130

that let me inform you.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

You do him wrong, surely.

LUCIO

Sir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the

Duke, and I believe I know the cause of his

withdrawing.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

135

What, I prithee, might be the cause?

LUCIO

No, pardon. ’Tis a secret must be locked within

the teeth and the lips. But this I can let you

understand: the greater file of the subject held the

Duke to be wise.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

140

Wise? Why, no question but he was.

LUCIO

A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Either this is envy in you, folly, or

mistaking. The very stream of his life and the

business he hath helmed must, upon a warranted

145

need, give him a better proclamation. Let him be

but testimonied in his own bringings-forth, and he

shall appear to the envious a scholar, a statesman,

and a soldier. Therefore you speak unskillfully. Or,

if your knowledge be more, it is much darkened in

150

your malice.

LUCIO

Sir, I know him, and I love him.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Love talks with better knowledge, and

knowledge with ⌜dearer⌝ love.

LUCIO

Come, sir, I know what I know.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

155

I can hardly believe that, since you

p. 121

know not what you speak. But if ever the Duke

return, as our prayers are he may, let me desire you

to make your answer before him. If it be honest you

have spoke, you have courage to maintain it. I am

160

bound to call upon you, and, I pray you, your name?

LUCIO

Sir, my name is Lucio, well known to the Duke.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

He shall know you better, sir, if I may

live to report you.

LUCIO

I fear you not.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

165

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,

170

friar. But no more of this. Canst thou tell if Claudio

die tomorrow or no?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Why should he die, sir?

LUCIO

Why? For filling a bottle with a tundish. I would

the Duke we talk of were returned again. This

175

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.

180

Marry, this Claudio is condemned for untrussing.

Farewell, good friar. I prithee pray for me. The

Duke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on

Fridays. He’s now past it, yet—and I say to thee—

he would mouth with a beggar though she smelt

185

brown bread and garlic. Say that I said so. Farewell.

He exits.

DUKE

No might nor greatness in mortality

Can censure scape. Back-wounding calumny

The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong

p. 123

Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?

190

But who comes here?

Enter Escalus, Provost, ⌜Officers,⌝ and ⌜Mistress

Overdone, a⌝ Bawd.

ESCALUS

, ⌜to Officers⌝

Go, away with her to prison.

BAWD

Good my lord, be good to me. Your Honor is

accounted a merciful man, good my lord.

ESCALUS

Double and treble admonition, and still forfeit

195

in the same kind? This would make mercy

swear and play the tyrant.

PROVOST

A bawd of eleven years’ continuance, may it

please your Honor.

BAWD

, ⌜to Escalus⌝

My lord, this is one Lucio’s information

200

against me. Mistress Kate Keepdown was

with child by him in the Duke’s time; he promised

her marriage. His child is a year and a quarter old

come Philip and Jacob. I have kept it myself, and see

how he goes about to abuse me.

ESCALUS

205

That fellow is a fellow of much license. Let

him be called before us. Away with her to prison.—

Go to, no more words.

⌜Officers exit with Bawd.⌝

Provost, my brother Angelo will not be altered.

Claudio must die tomorrow. Let him be furnished

210

with divines and have all charitable preparation. If

my brother wrought by my pity, it should not be so

with him.

PROVOST

So please you, this friar hath been with him,

and advised him for th’ entertainment of death.

ESCALUS

215

Good even, good father.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Bliss and goodness on you.

ESCALUS

Of whence are you?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Not of this country, though my chance is now

To use it for my time. I am a brother

p. 125

220

Of gracious order, late come from the See

In special business from his Holiness.

ESCALUS

What news abroad i’ th’ world?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

None but that there is so great a fever

on goodness that the dissolution of it must cure it.

225

Novelty is only in request, and it is as dangerous to

be aged in any kind of course as it is virtuous to be

constant in any undertaking. There is scarce truth

enough alive to make societies secure, but security

enough to make fellowships accursed. Much upon

230

this riddle runs the wisdom of the world. This news

is old enough, yet it is every day’s news. I pray you,

sir, of what disposition was the Duke?

ESCALUS

One that, above all other strifes, contended

especially to know himself.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

235

What pleasure was he given to?

ESCALUS

Rather rejoicing to see another merry than

merry at anything which professed to make him

rejoice—a gentleman of all temperance. But leave

we him to his events, with a prayer they may prove

240

prosperous, and let me desire to know how you find

Claudio prepared. I am made to understand that

you have lent him visitation.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

He professes to have received no

sinister measure from his judge but most willingly

245

humbles himself to the determination of justice. Yet

had he framed to himself, by the instruction of his

frailty, many deceiving promises of life, which I, by

my good leisure, have discredited to him, and now

is he resolved to die.

ESCALUS

250

You have paid the heavens your function and

the prisoner the very debt of your calling. I have

labored for the poor gentleman to the extremest

shore of my modesty, but my brother justice have I

found so severe that he hath forced me to tell him

255

he is indeed Justice.

p. 127

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

If his own life answer the straitness of

his proceeding, it shall become him well; wherein if

he chance to fail, he hath sentenced himself.

ESCALUS

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

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

260

Peace be with you.

⌜Escalus and Provost exit.⌝

⌜DUKE⌝

He who the sword of heaven will bear

Should be as holy as severe,

Pattern in himself to know,

Grace to stand, and virtue go;

265

More nor less to others paying

Than by self-offenses weighing.

Shame to him whose cruel striking

Kills for faults of his own liking.

Twice treble shame on Angelo,

270

To weed my vice, and let his grow.

O, what may man within him hide,

Though angel on the outward side!

How may likeness made in crimes,

Making practice on the times,

275

To draw with idle spiders’ strings

Most ponderous and substantial things.

Craft against vice I must apply.

With Angelo tonight shall lie

His old betrothèd but despisèd.

280

So disguise shall, by th’ disguisèd,

Pay with falsehood false exacting

And perform an old contracting.

He exits.

p. 131

ACT 4

Scene 1

Enter Mariana, and Boy singing.

Song.

Take, O take those lips away,

That so sweetly were forsworn,

And those eyes, the break of day,

Lights that do mislead the morn.

5

But my kisses bring again, bring again,

Seals of love, but sealed in vain, sealed in vain.

Enter Duke ⌜as a Friar.⌝

MARIANA

, ⌜to Boy⌝

Break off thy song and haste thee quick away.

Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice

Hath often stilled my brawling discontent.

⌜Boy exits.⌝

10

I cry you mercy, sir, and well could wish

You had not found me here so musical.

Let me excuse me, and believe me so,

My mirth it much displeased, but pleased my woe.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

’Tis good, though music oft hath such a charm

15

To make bad good and good provoke to harm.

I pray you tell me, hath anybody inquired for me

p. 133

here today? Much upon this time have I promised

here to meet.

MARIANA

You have not been inquired after. I have sat

20

here all day.

Enter Isabella.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

I do constantly believe you. The time is

come even now. I shall crave your forbearance a

little. Maybe I will call upon you anon for some

advantage to yourself.

MARIANA

25

I am always bound to you.

She exits.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Very well met, and welcome.

What is the news from this good deputy?

ISABELLA

He hath a garden circummured with brick,

Whose western side is with a vineyard backed;

30

And to that vineyard is a planchèd gate

That makes his opening with this bigger key.

This other doth command a little door

Which from the vineyard to the garden leads.

There have I made my promise, upon the

35

Heavy middle of the night, to call upon him.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

But shall you on your knowledge find this way?

ISABELLA

I have ta’en a due and wary note upon ’t.

With whispering and most guilty diligence,

In action all of precept, he did show me

40

The way twice o’er.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Are there no other tokens

Between you ’greed concerning her observance?

ISABELLA

No, none, but only a repair i’ th’ dark,

And that I have possessed him my most stay

45

Can be but brief, for I have made him know

I have a servant comes with me along

p. 135

That stays upon me, whose persuasion is

I come about my brother.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

’Tis well borne up.

50

I have not yet made known to Mariana

A word of this.—What ho, within; come forth.

Enter Mariana.

⌜To Mariana.⌝ I pray you be acquainted with this

maid.

She comes to do you good.

ISABELLA

55

I do desire the like.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar, to Mariana⌝

Do you persuade yourself that I respect you?

MARIANA

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

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Take then this your companion by the hand,

Who hath a story ready for your ear.

60

I shall attend your leisure. But make haste.

The vaporous night approaches.

MARIANA

, ⌜to Isabella⌝

Will ’t please you walk aside?

⌜Isabella and Mariana⌝ exit.

DUKE

O place and greatness, millions of false eyes

Are stuck upon thee; volumes of report

65

Run with these false, and, most contrarious, quest

Upon thy doings; thousand escapes of wit

Make thee the father of their idle dream

And rack thee in their fancies.

Enter Mariana and Isabella.

⌜DUKE

, as Friar⌝

Welcome. How agreed?

ISABELLA

70

She’ll take the enterprise upon her, father,

If you advise it.

p. 137

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

It is not my consent

But my entreaty too.

ISABELLA

, ⌜to Mariana⌝

Little have you to say

75

When you depart from him, but, soft and low,

“Remember now my brother.”

MARIANA

Fear me not.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Nor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all.

He is your husband on a precontract.

80

To bring you thus together ’tis no sin,

Sith that the justice of your title to him

Doth flourish the deceit. Come, let us go.

Our corn’s to reap, for yet our tithe’s to sow.

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter Provost, ⌜Pompey, and Officer.⌝

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

5

cut off a woman’s head.

PROVOST

Come, sir, leave me your snatches, and yield

me a direct answer. Tomorrow morning are to die

Claudio and Barnardine. Here is in our prison a

common executioner, who in his office lacks a

10

helper. If you will take it on you to assist him, it

shall redeem you from your gyves; if not, you shall

have your full time of imprisonment and your

deliverance with an unpitied whipping, for you have

been a notorious bawd.

POMPEY

15

Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd time out of

mind, but yet I will be content to be a lawful

p. 139

hangman. I would be glad to receive some instruction

from my fellow partner.

PROVOST

What ho, Abhorson!—Where’s Abhorson

20

there?

Enter Abhorson.

ABHORSON

Do you call, sir?

PROVOST

Sirrah, here’s a fellow will help you tomorrow

in your execution. If you think it meet, compound

with him by the year and let him abide here

25

with you; if not, use him for the present and dismiss

him. He cannot plead his estimation with you; he

hath been a bawd.

ABHORSON

A bawd, sir? Fie upon him! He will discredit

our mystery.

PROVOST

30

Go to, sir; you weigh equally. A feather will

turn the scale.

He exits.

POMPEY

Pray, sir, by your good favor—for surely, sir, a

good favor you have, but that you have a hanging

look—do you call, sir, your occupation a mystery?

ABHORSON

35

Ay, sir, a mystery.

POMPEY

Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery;

and your whores, sir, being members of my occupation,

using painting, do prove my occupation a

mystery; but what mystery there should be in hanging,

40

if I should be hanged, I cannot imagine.

ABHORSON

Sir, it is a mystery.

POMPEY

Proof?

ABHORSON

Every true man’s apparel fits your thief. If it

be too little for your thief, your true man thinks it

45

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.

Enter Provost.

PROVOST

Are you agreed?

p. 141

POMPEY

Sir, I will serve him, for I do find your hangman

50

is a more penitent trade than your bawd. He

doth oftener ask forgiveness.

PROVOST

, ⌜to Abhorson⌝

You, sirrah, provide your block

and your axe tomorrow, four o’clock.

ABHORSON

, ⌜to Pompey⌝

Come on, bawd. I will instruct

55

thee in my trade. Follow.

POMPEY

I do desire to learn, sir; and I hope, if you have

occasion to use me for your own turn, you shall find

me ⌜yare.⌝ For truly, sir, for your kindness, I owe

you a good turn.

⌜Pompey and Abhorson⌝ exit.

PROVOST

, ⌜to Officer⌝

60

Call hither Barnardine and Claudio.

⌜Officer exits.⌝

Th’ one has my pity; not a jot the other,

Being a murderer, though he were my brother.

Enter Claudio, ⌜with Officer.⌝

Look, here’s the warrant, Claudio, for thy death.

’Tis now dead midnight, and by eight tomorrow

65

Thou must be made immortal. Where’s Barnardine?

CLAUDIO

As fast locked up in sleep as guiltless labor

When it lies starkly in the traveler’s bones.

He will not wake.

PROVOST

Who can do good on him?

70

Well, go, prepare yourself. ⌜Knock within.⌝ But hark,

what noise?—

Heaven give your spirits comfort. ⌜Claudio exits,

with Officer. Knock within.⌝

By and by!—

I hope it is some pardon or reprieve

75

For the most gentle Claudio.

Enter Duke, ⌜as a Friar.⌝

Welcome, father.

p. 143

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

The best and wholesom’st spirits of the night

Envelop you, good provost. Who called here of late?

PROVOST

None since the curfew rung.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

80

Not Isabel?

PROVOST

No.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

They will, then, ere ’t be long.

PROVOST

What comfort is for Claudio?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

There’s some in hope.

PROVOST

85

It is a bitter deputy.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Not so, not so. His life is paralleled

Even with the stroke and line of his great justice.

He doth with holy abstinence subdue

That in himself which he spurs on his power

90

To qualify in others. Were he mealed with that

Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous,

But this being so, he’s just. ⌜Knock within.⌝ Now are

they come.

⌜Provost exits.⌝

This is a gentle provost. Seldom when

95

The steelèd jailer is the friend of men.

⌜Enter Provost. Knocking continues.⌝

How now, what noise? That spirit’s possessed with

haste

That wounds th’ unsisting postern with these strokes.

PROVOST

There he must stay until the officer

100

Arise to let him in. He is called up.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Have you no countermand for Claudio yet,

But he must die tomorrow?

PROVOST

None, sir, none.

p. 145

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

As near the dawning, provost, as it is,

105

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

110

Lord Angelo hath to the public ear

Professed the contrary.

Enter a Messenger.

This is his ⌜Lordship’s⌝ man.

⌜DUKE

, as Friar⌝

And here comes Claudio’s pardon.

MESSENGER

, ⌜giving Provost a paper⌝

My lord hath sent

115

you this note, and by me this further charge: that

you swerve not from the smallest article of it,

neither in time, matter, or other circumstance.

Good morrow, for, as I take it, it is almost day.

PROVOST

I shall obey him.

⌜Provost reads message.

Messenger exits.⌝

DUKE

, ⌜aside⌝

120

This is his pardon, purchased by such sin

For which the pardoner himself is in.

Hence hath offense his quick celerity

When it is borne in high authority.

When vice makes mercy, mercy’s so extended

125

That for the fault’s love is th’ offender friended.

⌜As Friar.⌝ Now, sir, what news?

PROVOST

I told you: Lord Angelo, belike thinking me

remiss in mine office, awakens me with this unwonted

putting-on, methinks strangely; for he hath

130

not used it before.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Pray you let’s hear.

⌜PROVOST

, reads⌝ the letter.

Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let Claudio

be executed by four of the clock, and in the afternoon

p. 147

Barnardine. For my better satisfaction, let me have

135

Claudio’s head sent me by five. Let this be duly

performed with a thought that more depends on it

than we must yet deliver. Thus fail not to do your

office, as you will answer it at your peril.

What say you to this, sir?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

140

What is that Barnardine who is to be

executed in th’ afternoon?

PROVOST

A Bohemian born, but here nursed up and

bred; one that is a prisoner nine years old.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

How came it that the absent duke had

145

not either delivered him to his liberty, or executed

him? I have heard it was ever his manner to do so.

PROVOST

His friends still wrought reprieves for him;

and indeed his fact, till now in the government of

Lord Angelo, came not to an undoubtful proof.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

150

It is now apparent?

PROVOST

Most manifest, and not denied by himself.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Hath he borne himself penitently in

prison? How seems he to be touched?

PROVOST

A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully

155

but as a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and

fearless of what’s past, present, or to come; insensible

of mortality and desperately mortal.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

He wants advice.

PROVOST

He will hear none. He hath evermore had the

160

liberty of the prison; give him leave to escape

hence, he would not. Drunk many times a day, if not

many days entirely drunk. We have very oft awaked

him, as if to carry him to execution, and showed

him a seeming warrant for it. It hath not moved him

165

at all.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

More of him anon. There is written in

your brow, provost, honesty and constancy; if I read

it not truly, my ancient skill beguiles me. But in the

boldness of my cunning, I will lay myself in hazard.

p. 149

170

Claudio, whom here you have warrant to execute, is

no greater forfeit to the law than Angelo, who hath

sentenced him. To make you understand this in a

manifested effect, I crave but four days’ respite, for

the which you are to do me both a present and a

175

dangerous courtesy.

PROVOST

Pray, sir, in what?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

In the delaying death.

PROVOST

Alack, how may I do it, having the hour

limited, and an express command, under penalty,

180

to deliver his head in the view of Angelo? I may

make my case as Claudio’s, to cross this in the

smallest.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

By the vow of mine order I warrant

you, if my instructions may be your guide. Let this

185

Barnardine be this morning executed and his head

borne to Angelo.

PROVOST

Angelo hath seen them both and will discover

the favor.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

O, death’s a great disguiser, and you

190

may add to it. Shave the head and tie the beard, and

say it was the desire of the penitent to be so bared

before his death. You know the course is common.

If anything fall to you upon this, more than thanks

and good fortune, by the saint whom I profess, I

195

will plead against it with my life.

PROVOST

Pardon me, good father, it is against my oath.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Were you sworn to the Duke or to the

Deputy?

PROVOST

To him and to his substitutes.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

200

You will think you have made no

offense if the Duke avouch the justice of your

dealing?

PROVOST

But what likelihood is in that?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Not a resemblance, but a certainty; yet

205

since I see you fearful, that neither my coat, integrity,

p. 151

nor persuasion can with ease attempt you, I will

go further than I meant, to pluck all fears out of

you. Look you, sir, here is the hand and seal of the

Duke. ⌜He shows the Provost a paper.⌝ You know the

210

character, I doubt not, and the signet is not strange

to you.

PROVOST

I know them both.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

The contents of this is the return of the

Duke; you shall anon overread it at your pleasure,

215

where you shall find within these two days he will

be here. This is a thing that Angelo knows not, for

he this very day receives letters of strange tenor,

perchance of the Duke’s death, perchance entering

into some monastery, but by chance nothing of

220

what is writ. Look, th’ unfolding star calls up the

shepherd. Put not yourself into amazement how

these things should be. All difficulties are but easy

when they are known. Call your executioner, and

off with Barnardine’s head. I will give him a present

225

shrift, and advise him for a better place. Yet you are

amazed, but this shall absolutely resolve you.

⌜He gives the Provost the paper.⌝

Come away; it is almost clear dawn.

⌜They⌝ exit.

Scene 3

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.

5

He’s in for a commodity of brown paper and old

ginger, ninescore and seventeen pounds, of which

he made five marks ready money. Marry, then

p. 153

ginger was not much in request, for the old women

were all dead. Then is there here one Master Caper,

10

at the suit of Master Three-pile the mercer, for some

four suits of peach-colored satin, which now

peaches him a beggar. Then have we here young

Dizzy and young Master Deep-vow, and Master

Copper-spur and Master Starve-lackey the rapier-and-dagger

15

man, and young Drop-heir that killed

lusty Pudding, and Master Forth-light the tilter, and

brave Master Shoe-tie the great traveler, and wild

Half-can that stabbed Pots, and I think forty more,

all great doers in our trade, and are now “for the

20

Lord’s sake.”

Enter Abhorson.

ABHORSON

Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither.

POMPEY

, ⌜calling⌝

Master Barnardine, you must rise

and be hanged, Master Barnardine.

ABHORSON

, ⌜calling⌝

What ho, Barnardine!

BARNARDINE

, within

25

A pox o’ your throats! Who makes

that noise there? What are you?

POMPEY

, ⌜calling to Barnardine offstage⌝

Your friends,

sir, the hangman. You must be so good, sir, to rise

and be put to death.

BARNARDINE

, ⌜within⌝

30

Away, you rogue, away! I am

sleepy.

ABHORSON

, ⌜to Pompey⌝

Tell him he must awake, and

that quickly too.

POMPEY

, ⌜calling⌝

Pray, Master Barnardine, awake till

35

you are executed, and sleep afterwards.

ABHORSON

Go in to him, and fetch him out.

POMPEY

He is coming, sir, he is coming. I hear his

straw rustle.

ABHORSON

Is the axe upon the block, sirrah?

POMPEY

40

Very ready, sir.

Enter Barnardine.

p. 155

BARNARDINE

How now, Abhorson? What’s the news

with you?

ABHORSON

Truly, sir, I would desire you to clap into

your prayers, for, look you, the warrant’s come.

BARNARDINE

45

You rogue, I have been drinking all night.

I am not fitted for ’t.

POMPEY

O, the better, sir, for he that drinks all night

and is hanged betimes in the morning may sleep the

sounder all the next day.

Enter Duke, ⌜as a Friar.⌝

ABHORSON

, ⌜to Barnardine⌝

50

Look you, sir, here comes

your ghostly father. Do we jest now, think you?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar, to Barnardine⌝

Sir, induced by my

charity, and hearing how hastily you are to depart, I

am come to advise you, comfort you, and pray with

55

you.

BARNARDINE

Friar, not I. I have been drinking hard all

night, and I will have more time to prepare me, or

they shall beat out my brains with billets. I will not

consent to die this day, that’s certain.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

60

O, sir, you must. And therefore I

beseech you look forward on the journey you shall

go.

BARNARDINE

I swear I will not die today for any man’s

persuasion.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

65

But hear you—

BARNARDINE

Not a word. If you have anything to say to

me, come to my ward, for thence will not I today.

He exits.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Unfit to live or die. O gravel heart!

After him, fellows; bring him to the block.

⌜Abhorson and Pompey exit.⌝

Enter Provost.

p. 157

PROVOST

70

Now, sir, how do you find the prisoner?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

A creature unprepared, unmeet for death,

And to transport him in the mind he is

Were damnable.

PROVOST

Here in the prison, father,

75

There died this morning of a cruel fever

One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate,

A man of Claudio’s years, his beard and head

Just of his color. What if we do omit

This reprobate till he were well inclined,

80

And satisfy the Deputy with the visage

Of Ragozine, more like to Claudio?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

O, ’tis an accident that heaven provides!

Dispatch it presently. The hour draws on

Prefixed by Angelo. See this be done

85

And sent according to command, whiles I

Persuade this rude wretch willingly to die.

PROVOST

This shall be done, good father, presently.

But Barnardine must die this afternoon,

And how shall we continue Claudio,

90

To save me from the danger that might come

If he were known alive?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Let this be done:

Put them in secret holds, both Barnardine and

Claudio.

95

Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting

To ⌜yonder⌝ generation, you shall find

Your safety manifested.

PROVOST

I am your free dependent.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Quick, dispatch, and send the head to Angelo.

⌜Provost⌝ exits.

p. 159

⌜DUKE⌝

100

Now will I write letters to Angelo—

The Provost he shall bear them—whose contents

Shall witness to him I am near at home

And that by great injunctions I am bound

To enter publicly. Him I’ll desire

105

To meet me at the consecrated fount

A league below the city; and from thence,

By cold gradation and well-balanced form,

We shall proceed with Angelo.

Enter Provost, ⌜carrying a head.⌝

PROVOST

Here is the head. I’ll carry it myself.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

110

Convenient is it. Make a swift return,

For I would commune with you of such things

That want no ear but yours.

PROVOST

I’ll make all speed.

He exits.

ISABELLA

, within

Peace, ho, be here.

DUKE

115

The tongue of Isabel. She’s come to know

If yet her brother’s pardon be come hither.

But I will keep her ignorant of her good

To make her heavenly comforts of despair

When it is least expected.

Enter Isabella.

ISABELLA

120

Ho, by your leave.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

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?

p. 161

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

He hath released him, Isabel, from the world.

125

His head is off, and sent to Angelo.

ISABELLA

Nay, but it is not so.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

It is no other.

Show your wisdom, daughter, in your close patience.

ISABELLA

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

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

130

You shall not be admitted to his sight.

ISABELLA

Unhappy Claudio, wretched Isabel,

Injurious world, most damnèd Angelo!

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

This nor hurts him nor profits you a jot.

Forbear it, therefore; give your cause to heaven.

135

Mark what I say, which you shall find

By every syllable a faithful verity.

The Duke comes home tomorrow—nay, dry your

eyes.

One of our convent, and his confessor,

140

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

145

In that good path that I would wish it go,

And you shall have your bosom on this wretch,

Grace of the Duke, revenges to your heart,

And general honor.

ISABELLA

I am directed by you.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar, showing her a paper⌝

150

This letter, then, to Friar Peter give.

’Tis that he sent me of the Duke’s return.

Say, by this token, I desire his company

p. 163

At Mariana’s house tonight. Her cause and yours

I’ll perfect him withal, and he shall bring you

155

Before the Duke, and to the head of Angelo

Accuse him home and home. For my poor self,

I am combinèd by a sacred vow

And shall be absent. Wend you with this letter.

⌜He hands her the paper.⌝

Command these fretting waters from your eyes

160

With a light heart. Trust not my holy order

If I pervert your course.—Who’s here?

Enter Lucio.

LUCIO

Good even, friar, where’s the Provost?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Not within, sir.

LUCIO

O, pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart to see

165

thine eyes so red. Thou must be patient. I am fain to

dine and sup with water and bran. I dare not for my

head fill my belly. One fruitful meal would set me to

’t. But they say the Duke will be here tomorrow. By

my troth, Isabel, I loved thy brother. If the old

170

fantastical duke of dark corners had been at home,

he had lived.

⌜Isabella exits.⌝

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Sir, the Duke is marvelous little beholding

to your reports, but the best is, he lives not

in them.

LUCIO

175

Friar, thou knowest not the Duke so well as I do.

He’s a better woodman than thou tak’st him for.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Well, you’ll answer this one day. Fare

you well.

LUCIO

Nay, tarry, I’ll go along with thee. I can tell thee

180

pretty tales of the Duke.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

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

185

child.

p. 165

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Did you such a thing?

LUCIO

Yes, marry, did I, but I was fain to forswear it.

They would else have married me to the rotten

medlar.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

190

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.

They exit.

Scene 4

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

5

wisdom be not tainted. And why meet him at the

gates and ⌜deliver⌝ 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

10

injustice, they should exhibit their petitions in the

street?

ESCALUS

He shows his reason for that: to have a dispatch

of complaints, and to deliver us from devices

hereafter, which shall then have no power to stand

15

against us.

ANGELO

Well, I beseech you let it be proclaimed.

Betimes i’ th’ morn, I’ll call you at your house. Give

notice to such men of sort and suit as are to meet

him.

ESCALUS

20

I shall, sir. Fare you well.

p. 167

ANGELO

Good night.

⌜Escalus⌝ exits.

This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant

And dull to all proceedings. A deflowered maid,

And by an eminent body that enforced

25

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

30

But it confounds the breather. He should have lived,

Save that his riotous youth with dangerous sense

Might in the times to come have ta’en revenge

By so receiving a dishonored life

With ransom of such shame. Would yet he had lived.

35

Alack, when once our grace we have forgot,

Nothing goes right. We would, and we would not.

He exits.

Scene 5

Enter Duke and Friar Peter.

DUKE

, ⌜giving the Friar papers.⌝

These letters at fit time deliver me.

The Provost knows our purpose and our plot.

The matter being afoot, keep your instruction

And hold you ever to our special drift,

5

Though sometimes you do blench from this to that

As cause doth minister. Go call at ⌜Flavius’⌝ house

And tell him where I stay. Give the like notice

To Valencius, Rowland, and to Crassus,

And bid them bring the trumpets to the gate.

10

But send me Flavius first.

FRIAR PETER

It shall be speeded well.

⌜He exits.⌝

Enter Varrius.

p. 169

DUKE

I thank thee, Varrius. Thou hast made good haste.

Come, we will walk. There’s other of our friends

Will greet us here anon. My gentle Varrius.

They exit.

Scene 6

Enter Isabella and Mariana.

ISABELLA

To speak so indirectly I am loath.

I would say the truth, but to accuse him so

That is your part; yet I am advised to do it,

He says, to veil full purpose.

MARIANA

5

Be ruled by him.

ISABELLA

Besides, he tells me that, if peradventure

He speak against me on the adverse side,

I should not think it strange, for ’tis a physic

That’s bitter to sweet end.

MARIANA

10

I would Friar Peter—

Enter ⌜Friar⌝ Peter.

ISABELLA

O peace, the Friar is come.

FRIAR PETER

Come, I have found you out a stand most fit,

Where you may have such vantage on the Duke

He shall not pass you. Twice have the trumpets

15

sounded.

The generous and gravest citizens

Have hent the gates, and very near upon

The Duke is entering. Therefore hence, away.

They exit.

p. 173

ACT 5

Scene 1

Enter Duke, Varrius, Lords, Angelo, Escalus, Lucio,

⌜Provost, Officers, and⌝ Citizens at several doors.

DUKE

, ⌜to Angelo⌝

My very worthy cousin, fairly met.

⌜To Escalus.⌝ Our old and faithful friend, we are

glad to see you.

ANGELO, ESCALUS

Happy return be to your royal Grace.

DUKE

5

Many and hearty thankings to you both.

We have made inquiry of you, and we hear

Such goodness of your justice that our soul

Cannot but yield you forth to public thanks,

Forerunning more requital.

ANGELO

10

You make my bonds still greater.

DUKE

O, your desert speaks loud, and I should wrong it

To lock it in the wards of covert bosom

When it deserves with characters of brass

A forted residence ’gainst the tooth of time

15

And razure of oblivion. Give ⌜me⌝ your hand

And let the subject see, to make them know

That outward courtesies would fain proclaim

Favors that keep within.—Come, Escalus,

p. 175

You must walk by us on our other hand.

20

And good supporters are you.

Enter ⌜Friar⌝ Peter and Isabella.

FRIAR PETER

, ⌜to Isabella⌝

Now is your time. Speak loud, and kneel before him.

ISABELLA

, ⌜kneeling⌝

Justice, O royal duke. Vail your regard

Upon a wronged—I would fain have said, a maid.

O worthy prince, dishonor not your eye

25

By throwing it on any other object

Till you have heard me in my true complaint

And given me justice, justice, justice, justice.

DUKE

Relate your wrongs. In what, by whom? Be brief.

Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice.

30

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,

35

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

, ⌜standing⌝

40

By course of justice!

ANGELO

And she will speak most bitterly and strange.

ISABELLA

Most strange, but yet most truly will I speak.

That Angelo’s forsworn, is it not strange?

That Angelo’s a murderer, is ’t not strange?

45

That Angelo is an adulterous thief,

p. 177

An hypocrite, a virgin-violator,

Is it not strange, and strange?

DUKE

Nay, it is ten times strange.

ISABELLA

It is not truer he is Angelo

50

Than this is all as true as it is strange.

Nay, it is ten times true, for truth is truth

To th’ end of reck’ning.

DUKE

Away with her. Poor soul,

She speaks this in th’ infirmity of sense.

ISABELLA

55

O prince, I conjure thee, as thou believest

There is another comfort than this world,

That thou neglect me not with that opinion

That I am touched with madness. Make not

impossible

60

That which but seems unlike. ’Tis not impossible

But one, the wicked’st caitiff on the ground,

May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute

As Angelo. Even so may Angelo,

In all his dressings, caracts, titles, forms,

65

Be an archvillain. Believe it, royal prince,

If he be less, he’s nothing, but he’s more,

Had I more name for badness.

DUKE

By mine honesty,

If she be mad—as I believe no other—

70

Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense,

Such a dependency of thing on thing,

As e’er I heard in madness.

ISABELLA

O gracious duke,

Harp not on that; nor do not banish reason

75

For inequality, but let your reason serve

To make the truth appear where it seems hid,

And hide the false seems true.

DUKE

Many that are not mad

Have, sure, more lack of reason. What would you

80

say?

p. 179

ISABELLA

I am the sister of one Claudio,

Condemned upon the act of fornication

To lose his head, condemned by Angelo.

I, in probation of a sisterhood,

85

Was sent to by my brother; one Lucio

As then the messenger—

LUCIO

, ⌜to Duke⌝

That’s I, an ’t like your Grace.

I came to her from Claudio and desired her

To try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo

90

For her poor brother’s pardon.

ISABELLA

, ⌜to Duke⌝

That’s he indeed.

DUKE

, ⌜to Lucio⌝

You were not bid to speak.

LUCIO

No, my good lord,

Nor wished to hold my peace.

DUKE

95

I wish you now, then.

Pray you take note of it, and when you have

A business for yourself, pray heaven you then

Be perfect.

LUCIO

I warrant your Honor.

DUKE

100

The warrant’s for yourself. Take heed to ’t.

ISABELLA

This gentleman told somewhat of my tale.

LUCIO

Right.

DUKE

It may be right, but you are i’ the wrong

To speak before your time.—Proceed.

ISABELLA

105

I went

To this pernicious caitiff deputy—

DUKE

That’s somewhat madly spoken.

ISABELLA

Pardon it;

The phrase is to the matter.

p. 181

DUKE

110

Mended again. The matter; proceed.

ISABELLA

In brief, to set the needless process by:

How I persuaded, how I prayed and kneeled,

How he refelled me, and how I replied—

For this was of much length—the vile conclusion

115

I now begin with grief and shame to utter.

He would not, but by gift of my chaste body

To his concupiscible intemperate lust,

Release my brother; and after much debatement,

My sisterly remorse confutes mine honor,

120

And I did yield to him. But the next morn betimes,

His purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant

For my poor brother’s head.

DUKE

This is most likely!

ISABELLA

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

DUKE

125

By heaven, fond wretch, thou know’st not what

thou speak’st,

Or else thou art suborned against his honor

In hateful practice. First, his integrity

Stands without blemish; next, it imports no reason

130

That with such vehemency he should pursue

Faults proper to himself. If he had so offended,

He would have weighed thy brother by himself

And not have cut him off. Someone hath set you on.

Confess the truth, and say by whose advice

135

Thou cam’st here to complain.

ISABELLA

And is this all?

Then, O you blessèd ministers above,

Keep me in patience, and with ripened time

Unfold the evil which is here wrapped up

140

In countenance. Heaven shield your Grace from

woe,

p. 183

As I, thus wronged, hence unbelievèd go.

DUKE

I know you’d fain be gone.—An officer!

⌜An Officer comes forward.⌝

To prison with her. Shall we thus permit

145

A blasting and a scandalous breath to fall

On him so near us? This needs must be a practice.—

Who knew of your intent and coming hither?

ISABELLA

One that I would were here, Friar Lodowick.

⌜Officer exits with Isabella.⌝

DUKE

A ghostly father, belike. Who knows that Lodowick?

LUCIO

150

My lord, I know him. ’Tis a meddling friar.

I do not like the man. Had he been lay, my lord,

For certain words he spake against your Grace

In your retirement, I had swinged him soundly.

DUKE

Words against me? This’ a good friar, belike.

155

And to set on this wretched woman here

Against our substitute! Let this friar be found.

LUCIO

But yesternight, my lord, she and that friar,

I saw them at the prison. A saucy friar,

A very scurvy fellow.

FRIAR PETER

, ⌜to Duke⌝

160

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

165

As she from one ungot.

DUKE

We did believe no less.

Know you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of?

FRIAR PETER

I know him for a man divine and holy,

p. 185

Not scurvy, nor a temporary meddler,

170

As he’s reported by this gentleman;

And on my trust, a man that never yet

Did, as he vouches, misreport your Grace.

LUCIO

My lord, most villainously, believe it.

FRIAR PETER

Well, he in time may come to clear himself;

175

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

180

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,

185

Her shall you hear disprovèd to her eyes

Till she herself confess it.

DUKE

Good friar, let’s hear it.—

Do you not smile at this, Lord Angelo?

O heaven, the vanity of wretched fools!—

190

Give us some seats.—Come, cousin Angelo,

In this I’ll be impartial. Be you judge

Of your own cause.

⌜Duke and Angelo are seated.⌝

Enter Mariana, ⌜veiled.⌝

Is this the witness, friar?

First, let her show ⌜her⌝ face, and after speak.

MARIANA

195

Pardon, my lord, I will not show my face

Until my husband bid me.

DUKE

What, are you married?

MARIANA

No, my lord.

DUKE

Are you a maid?

p. 187

MARIANA

200

No, my lord.

DUKE

A widow, then?

MARIANA

Neither, my lord.

DUKE

Why you are nothing, then, neither maid, widow,

nor wife?

LUCIO

205

My lord, she may be a punk, for many of them

are neither maid, widow, nor wife.

DUKE

Silence that fellow. I would he had some cause

to prattle for himself.

LUCIO

Well, my lord.

MARIANA

210

My lord, I do confess I ne’er was married,

And I confess besides I am no maid.

I have known my husband, yet my husband

Knows not that ever he knew me.

LUCIO

He was drunk, then, my lord; it can be no better.

DUKE

215

For the benefit of silence, would thou wert so

too.

LUCIO

Well, my lord.

DUKE

This is no witness for Lord Angelo.

MARIANA

Now I come to ’t, my lord.

220

She that accuses him of fornication

In selfsame manner doth accuse my husband,

And charges him, my lord, with such a time

When, I’ll depose, I had him in mine arms

With all th’ effect of love.

ANGELO

225

Charges she more than me?

MARIANA

Not that I know.

DUKE

No? You say your husband.

MARIANA

Why, just, my lord, and that is Angelo,

Who thinks he knows that he ne’er knew my body,

230

But knows, he thinks, that he knows Isabel’s.

ANGELO

This is a strange abuse. Let’s see thy face.

p. 189

MARIANA

My husband bids me. Now I will unmask.

⌜She removes her veil.⌝

This is that face, thou cruel Angelo,

Which once thou swor’st was worth the looking on.

235

This is the hand which, with a vowed contract,

Was fast belocked in thine. This is the body

That took away the match from Isabel

And did supply thee at thy garden house

In her imagined person.

DUKE

, ⌜to Angelo⌝

240

Know you this woman?

LUCIO

Carnally, she says.

DUKE

Sirrah, no more.

LUCIO

Enough, my lord.

ANGELO

My lord, I must confess I know this woman,

245

And five years since there was some speech of

marriage

Betwixt myself and her, which was broke off,

Partly for that her promisèd proportions

Came short of composition, but in chief

250

For that her reputation was disvalued

In levity. Since which time of five years

I never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her,

Upon my faith and honor.

MARIANA

, ⌜kneeling, to Duke⌝

Noble prince,

255

As there comes light from heaven and words from

breath,

As there is sense in truth and truth in virtue,

I am affianced this man’s wife as strongly

As words could make up vows. And, my good lord,

260

But Tuesday night last gone in ’s garden house

He knew me as a wife. As this is true,

Let me in safety raise me from my knees,

Or else forever be confixèd here

A marble monument.

p. 191

ANGELO

265

I did but smile till now.

Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice.

My patience here is touched. I do perceive

These poor informal women are no more

But instruments of some more mightier member

270

That sets them on. Let me have way, my lord,

To find this practice out.

DUKE

Ay, with my heart,

And punish them to your height of pleasure.—

Thou foolish friar, and thou pernicious woman,

275

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

280

That’s sealed in approbation?—You, Lord Escalus,

Sit with my cousin; lend him your kind pains

To find out this abuse, whence ’tis derived.

⌜The Duke rises. Escalus is seated.⌝

There is another friar that set them on.

Let him be sent for.

FRIAR PETER

285

Would he were here, my lord, for he indeed

Hath set the women on to this complaint;

Your provost knows the place where he abides,

And he may fetch him.

DUKE

, ⌜to Provost⌝

Go, do it instantly.

⌜Provost exits.⌝

290

⌜To Angelo.⌝ 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

295

Will leave you; but stir not you till you have

Well determined upon these slanderers.

ESCALUS

My lord, we’ll do it throughly.

⌜Duke⌝ exits.

p. 193

Signior Lucio, did not you say you knew that Friar

Lodowick to be a dishonest person?

LUCIO

300

Cucullus non facit monachum, honest in nothing

but in his clothes, and one that hath spoke most

villainous speeches of the Duke.

ESCALUS

We shall entreat you to abide here till he

come, and enforce them against him. We shall find

305

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.

⌜An Attendant exits.⌝

⌜To Angelo.⌝ Pray you, my lord, give me leave to

310

question. You shall see how I’ll handle her.

LUCIO

Not better than he, by her own report.

ESCALUS

Say you?

LUCIO

Marry, sir, I think, if you handled her privately,

she would sooner confess; perchance publicly she’ll

315

be ashamed.

ESCALUS

I will go darkly to work with her.

LUCIO

That’s the way, for women are light at midnight.

Enter Duke ⌜as a Friar,⌝ Provost, ⌜and⌝ Isabella,

⌜with Officers.⌝

ESCALUS

, ⌜to Isabella⌝

Come on, mistress. Here’s a gentlewoman

denies all that you have said.

LUCIO

320

My lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of, here

with the Provost.

ESCALUS

In very good time. Speak not you to him till

we call upon you.

LUCIO

Mum.

ESCALUS

, ⌜to disguised Duke⌝

325

Come, sir, did you set

these women on to slander Lord Angelo? They have

confessed you did.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

’Tis false.

ESCALUS

How? Know you where you are?

p. 195

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

330

Respect to your great place, and let the devil

Be sometime honored for his burning throne.

Where is the Duke? ’Tis he should hear me speak.

ESCALUS

The Duke’s in us, and we will hear you speak.

Look you speak justly.

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

335

Boldly, at least.—But, O, poor souls,

Come you to seek the lamb here of the fox?

Good night to your redress. Is the Duke gone?

Then is your cause gone too. The Duke’s unjust

Thus to retort your manifest appeal,

340

And put your trial in the villain’s mouth

Which here you come to accuse.

LUCIO

This is the rascal; this is he I spoke of.

ESCALUS

, ⌜to disguised Duke⌝

Why, thou unreverend and unhallowed friar,

Is ’t not enough thou hast suborned these women

345

To accuse this worthy man, but, in foul mouth

And in the witness of his proper ear,

To call him villain? And then to glance from him

To th’ Duke himself, to tax him with injustice?—

Take him hence. To th’ rack with him. We’ll touse

350

⌜him⌝

Joint by joint, but we will know his purpose.

What? “Unjust”?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Be not so hot. The Duke

Dare no more stretch this finger of mine than he

355

Dare rack his own. His subject am I not,

Nor here provincial. My business in this state

Made me a looker-on here in Vienna,

Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble

Till it o’errun the stew. Laws for all faults,

360

But faults so countenanced that the strong statutes

p. 197

Stand like the forfeits in a barber’s shop,

As much in mock as mark.

ESCALUS

Slander to th’ state!

Away with him to prison.

ANGELO

, ⌜to Lucio⌝

365

What can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio?

Is this the man that you did tell us of?

LUCIO

’Tis he, my lord.—Come hither, Goodman Baldpate.

Do you know me?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

I remember you, sir, by the sound of

370

your voice. I met you at the prison in the absence of

the Duke.

LUCIO

O, did you so? And do you remember what you

said of the Duke?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Most notedly, sir.

LUCIO

375

Do you so, sir? And was the Duke a fleshmonger,

a fool, and a coward, as you then reported him to

be?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

You must, sir, change persons with me

ere you make that my report. You indeed spoke so

380

of him, and much more, much worse.

LUCIO

O, thou damnable fellow! Did not I pluck thee by

the nose for thy speeches?

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

I protest I love the Duke as I love

myself.

ANGELO

385

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? ⌜Provost

comes forward.⌝

Away with him to prison. Lay bolts

390

enough upon him. Let him speak no more. Away

with those giglets too, and with the other confederate

companion.

⌜Provost seizes the disguised Duke.⌝

DUKE

, ⌜as Friar⌝

Stay, sir, stay awhile.

ANGELO

What, resists he?—Help him, Lucio.

LUCIO

, ⌜to the disguised Duke⌝

395

Come, sir, come, sir,

p. 199

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?

⌜He pulls off the friar’s hood, and reveals the Duke.

Angelo and Escalus stand.⌝

DUKE

400

Thou art the first knave that e’er mad’st a duke.—

First, provost, let me bail these gentle three.

⌜To Lucio.⌝ Sneak not away, sir, for the friar and

you

Must have a word anon.—Lay hold on him.

LUCIO

405

This may prove worse than hanging.

DUKE

, ⌜to Escalus⌝

What you have spoke I pardon. Sit you down.

We’ll borrow place of him. ⌜To Angelo.⌝ Sir, by your

leave.

Hast thou or word, or wit, or impudence

410

That yet can do thee office? If thou hast,

Rely upon it till my tale be heard,

And hold no longer out.

ANGELO

O my dread lord,

I should be guiltier than my guiltiness

415

To think I can be undiscernible,

When I perceive your Grace, like power divine,

Hath looked upon my passes. Then, good prince,

No longer session hold upon my shame,

But let my trial be mine own confession.

420

Immediate sentence then and sequent death

Is all the grace I beg.

DUKE

Come hither, Mariana.

⌜Mariana stands and comes forward.⌝

⌜To Angelo.⌝ Say, wast thou e’er contracted to this

woman?

ANGELO

425

I was, my lord.

DUKE

Go take her hence and marry her instantly.

p. 201

⌜To Friar Peter.⌝ Do you the office, friar, which

consummate,

Return him here again.—Go with him, provost.

⌜Angelo, Mariana, Friar Peter, and Provost⌝ exit.

ESCALUS

430

My lord, I am more amazed at his dishonor

Than at the strangeness of it.

DUKE

Come hither, Isabel.

Your friar is now your prince. As I was then

Advertising and holy to your business,

435

Not changing heart with habit, I am still

Attorneyed at your service.

ISABELLA

O, give me pardon

That I, your vassal, have employed and pained

Your unknown sovereignty.

DUKE

440

You are pardoned,

Isabel.

And now, dear maid, be you as free to us.

Your brother’s death, I know, sits at your heart,

And you may marvel why I obscured myself,

445

Laboring to save his life, and would not rather

Make rash remonstrance of my hidden power

Than let him so be lost. O most kind maid,

It was the swift celerity of his death,

Which I did think with slower foot came on,

450

That brained my purpose. But peace be with him.

That life is better life past fearing death

Than that which lives to fear. Make it your comfort,

So happy is your brother.

ISABELLA

I do, my lord.

Enter Angelo, ⌜Mariana,⌝ ⌜Friar⌝ Peter, ⌜and⌝ Provost.

DUKE

455

For this new-married man approaching here,

Whose salt imagination yet hath wronged

Your well-defended honor, you must pardon

p. 203

For Mariana’s sake. But as he adjudged your

brother—

460

Being criminal in double violation

Of sacred chastity and of promise-breach

Thereon dependent for your brother’s life—

The very mercy of the law cries out

Most audible, even from his proper tongue,

465

“An Angelo for Claudio, death for death.”

Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;

Like doth quit like, and measure still for

measure.—

Then, Angelo, thy fault’s thus manifested,

470

Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee

vantage.

We do condemn thee to the very block

Where Claudio stooped to death, and with like

haste.—

475

Away with him.

MARIANA

O my most gracious lord,

I hope you will not mock me with a husband.

DUKE

It is your husband mocked you with a husband.

Consenting to the safeguard of your honor,

480

I thought your marriage fit. Else imputation,

For that he knew you, might reproach your life

And choke your good to come. For his possessions,

Although by ⌜confiscation⌝ they are ours,

We do instate and widow you with all

485

To buy you a better husband.

MARIANA

O my dear lord,

I crave no other nor no better man.

DUKE

Never crave him. We are definitive.

MARIANA

, ⌜kneeling⌝

Gentle my liege—

DUKE

490

You do but lose your labor.—

p. 205

Away with him to death. ⌜To Lucio.⌝ Now, sir, to

you.

MARIANA

O, my good lord.—Sweet Isabel, take my part.

Lend me your knees, and all my life to come

495

I’ll lend you all my life to do you service.

DUKE

Against all sense you do importune her.

Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact,

Her brother’s ghost his pavèd bed would break

And take her hence in horror.

MARIANA

500

Isabel,

Sweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me,

Hold up your hands, say nothing. I’ll speak all.

They say best men are molded out of faults,

And, for the most, become much more the better

505

For being a little bad. So may my husband.

O Isabel, will you not lend a knee?

DUKE

He dies for Claudio’s death.

ISABELLA

, ⌜kneeling⌝

Most bounteous sir,

Look, if it please you, on this man condemned

510

As if my brother lived. I partly think

A due sincerity governed his deeds

Till he did look on me. Since it is so,

Let him not die. My brother had but justice,

In that he did the thing for which he died.

515

For Angelo,

His act did not o’ertake his bad intent,

And must be buried but as an intent

That perished by the way. Thoughts are no subjects,

Intents but merely thoughts.

MARIANA

520

Merely, my lord.

DUKE

Your suit’s unprofitable. Stand up, I say.

⌜They stand.⌝

I have bethought me of another fault.—

p. 207

Provost, how came it Claudio was beheaded

At an unusual hour?

PROVOST

525

It was commanded so.

DUKE

Had you a special warrant for the deed?

PROVOST

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

DUKE

For which I do discharge you of your office.

Give up your keys.

PROVOST

530

Pardon me, noble lord.

I thought it was a fault, but knew it not,

Yet did repent me after more advice,

For testimony whereof, one in the prison

That should by private order else have died,

535

I have reserved alive.

DUKE

What’s he?

PROVOST

His name is Barnardine.

DUKE

I would thou hadst done so by Claudio.

Go fetch him hither. Let me look upon him.

⌜Provost exits.⌝

ESCALUS

, ⌜to Angelo⌝

540

I am sorry one so learnèd and so wise

As you, Lord Angelo, have still appeared,

Should slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood

And lack of tempered judgment afterward.

ANGELO

I am sorry that such sorrow I procure;

545

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.

Enter Barnardine and Provost, Claudio, ⌜muffled,

and⌝ Juliet.

DUKE

, ⌜to Provost⌝

Which is that Barnardine?

p. 209

PROVOST

This, my lord.

DUKE

550

There was a friar told me of this man.—

Sirrah, thou art said to have a stubborn soul

That apprehends no further than this world,

And squar’st thy life according. Thou ’rt condemned.

But, for those earthly faults, I quit them all,

555

And pray thee take this mercy to provide

For better times to come.—Friar, advise him.

I leave him to your hand.—What muffled fellow’s

that?

PROVOST

This is another prisoner that I saved

560

Who should have died when Claudio lost his head,

As like almost to Claudio as himself.

⌜He unmuffles Claudio.⌝

DUKE

, ⌜to Isabella⌝

If he be like your brother, for his sake

Is he pardoned; and for your lovely sake,

Give me your hand and say you will be mine,

565

He is my brother too. But fitter time for that.

By this Lord Angelo perceives he’s safe;

Methinks I see a quick’ning in his eye.—

Well, Angelo, your evil quits you well.

Look that you love your wife, her worth worth

570

yours.

I find an apt remission in myself.

And yet here’s one in place I cannot pardon.

⌜To Lucio.⌝ You, sirrah, that knew me for a fool, a

coward,

575

One all of luxury, an ass, a madman.

Wherein have I so deserved of you

That you extol me thus?

LUCIO

Faith, my lord, I spoke it but according to the

trick. If you will hang me for it, you may, but I had

580

rather it would please you I might be whipped.

p. 211

DUKE

Whipped first, sir, and hanged after.—

Proclaim it, provost, round about the city,

If any woman wronged by this lewd fellow—

As I have heard him swear himself there’s one

585

Whom he begot with child—let her appear,

And he shall marry her. The nuptial finished,

Let him be whipped and hanged.

LUCIO

I beseech your Highness do not marry me to a

whore. Your Highness said even now I made you a

590

duke. Good my lord, do not recompense me in

making me a cuckold.

DUKE

Upon mine honor, thou shalt marry her.

Thy slanders I forgive and therewithal

Remit thy other forfeits.—Take him to prison,

595

And see our pleasure herein executed.

LUCIO

Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death,

whipping, and hanging.

DUKE

Slandering a prince deserves it.

⌜Officers take Lucio away.⌝

She, Claudio, that you wronged, look you restore.—

600

Joy to you, Mariana.—Love her, Angelo.

I have confessed her, and I know her virtue.—

Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness.

There’s more behind that is more gratulate.—

Thanks, provost, for thy care and secrecy.

605

We shall employ thee in a worthier place.—

Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home

The head of Ragozine for Claudio’s.

Th’ offense pardons itself.—Dear Isabel,

I have a motion much imports your good,

610

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.

⌜They exit.⌝