WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Duke. Of government the properties to unfold,

Would seem in me to 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,

10 And let them work. The nature of our people,

Our city’s institutions, and the terms

For common justice, you’re as pregnant in

As art and practice hath enriched any

That we remember. There is our commission,

15 From which we would not have you warp. Call hither,

I say, bid come before us Angelo.

Exit an Attendant.

What figure of us think you he will bear?

For you must know, we have with special soul

Elected him our absence to supply;

20 Lent him our terror, dress’d him with our love,

And given his deputation all the organs

Of our own power: what think you of it?

Escal. If any in Vienna be of worth

To undergo such ample grace and honour,

It is Lord Angelo.

Ang. Always obedient to your Grace’s will,

I come to know your pleasure.

Duke.

Angelo,

There is a kind of character in thy life,

That to th’ observer doth thy history

30 Fully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings

Are not thine own so proper, as to waste

Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,

Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues

35 Did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike

As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch’d

But to fine issues; nor Nature never lends

The smallest scruple of her excellence,

But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines

40 Herself the glory of a creditor,

Both thanks and use. But I do bend my speech

To one that can my part in him advertise;

Hold therefore, Angelo:—

In our remove be thou at full ourself;

45 Mortality and mercy in Vienna

Live in thy tongue and heart: old Escalus,

Though first in question, is thy secondary.

Take thy commission.

Ang.

Now, good my lord,

Let there be some more test made of my metal,

I. 1.
50 Before so noble and so great a figure

Be stamp’d upon it.

Duke.

No more evasion:

We have with a leaven’d and prepared choice

Proceeded to you; therefore take your honours.

Our haste from hence is of so quick condition,

55 That it prefers itself, and leaves unquestion’d

Matters of needful value. We shall write to you,

As time and our concernings shall importune,

How it goes with us; and do look to know

What doth befall you here. So, fare you well:

60 To the hopeful execution do I leave you

Of your commissions.

Ang.

Yet, give leave, my lord,

That we may bring you something on the way.

Duke. My haste may not admit it;

Nor need you, on mine honour, have to do

65 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:

70 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.

Escal. 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:

80 A power I have, but of what strength and nature

I am not yet instructed.

Ang. ’Tis so with me. Let us withdraw together,

And we may soon our satisfaction have

Touching that point.

Mrs Ov. I am too sure of it: and it is for getting

Madam Julietta with child.

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

You have not heard of the proclamation, have you?

110 Claud. Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to the world?

Bear me to prison, where I am committed.

Prov. I do it not in evil disposition,

But from Lord Angelo by special charge.

Claud. Thus can the demigod Authority

115 Make us pay down for our offence by weight

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

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

Claud. From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty:

120 As surfeit is the father of much fast,

So every scope by the immoderate use

Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue,

Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,

A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die.

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

Is lechery so look’d after?

Claud. Thus stands it with me:—upon a true contract

I got possession of Julietta’s bed:

140 You know the lady; she is fast my wife,

Save that we do the denunciation lack

Of outward order: this we came not to,

Only for propagation of a dower

Remaining in the coffer of her friends;

145 From whom we thought it meet to hide our love

Till time had made them for us. But it chances

The stealth of our most mutual entertainment

With character too gross is writ on Juliet.

Claud.

Unhappily, even so.

I. 2.
150 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

155 He can command, lets it straight feel the spur;

Whether the tyranny be in his place,

Or in his eminence that fills it up.

I stagger in:—but this new governor

Awakes me all the enrolled penalties

160 Which have, like unscour’d armour, hung by the wall

So long, that nineteen zodiacs have gone round,

And none of them been worn; and, for a name,

Now puts the drowsy and neglected act

Freshly on me: ’tis surely for a name.

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

I prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service:

170 This day my sister should the cloister enter

And there receive her approbation:

Acquaint her with the danger of my state;

Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends

To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him:

I. 2.
175 I have great hope in that; for in her youth

There is a prone and speechless dialect,

Such as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art

When she will play with reason and discourse,

And well she can persuade.

Duke. No, holy father; throw away that thought;

Believe not that the dribbling dart of love

Can pierce a complete bosom. Why I desire thee

To give me secret harbour, hath a purpose

5 More grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends

Of burning youth.

Duke. My holy sir, none better knows than you

How I have ever loved the life removed,

And held in idle price to haunt assemblies

10 Where youth, and cost, and witless bravery keeps.

I have deliver’d to Lord Angelo,

A man of stricture and firm abstinence,

My absolute power and place here in Vienna,

And he supposes me travell’d to Poland;

15 For so I have strew’d it in the common ear,

And so it is received. Now, pious sir,

You will demand of me why I do this?

Duke. We have strict statutes and most biting laws,

20 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,

Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch,

I. 3.
25 Only to stick it in their children’s sight

For terror, not to use, in time the rod

Becomes more mock’d than fear’d; so our decrees.

Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead;

And liberty plucks justice by the nose;

30 The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart

Goes all decorum.

Fri. T.

It rested in your Grace

To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleased:

And it in you more dreadful would have seem’d

Than in Lord Angelo.

Duke.

I do fear, too dreadful:

35 Sith ’twas my fault to give the people scope,

’Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall them

For what I bid them do: for we bid this be done,

When evil deeds have their permissive pass,

And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my father,

40 I have on Angelo imposed the office;

Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home,

And yet my nature never in the fight

To do in slander. And to behold his sway,

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

45 Visit both prince and people: therefore, I prithee,

Supply me with the habit, and instruct me

How I may formally in person bear me

Like a true friar. More reasons for this action

At our more leisure shall I render you;

I. 3.
50 Only, this one: Lord Angelo is precise;

Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses

That his blood flows, or that his appetite

Is more to bread than stone: hence shall we see,

If power change purpose, what our seemers be.

Isab. Yes, truly: I speak not as desiring more;

But rather wishing a more strict restraint

5 Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.

Fran. It is a man’s voice. Gentle Isabella,

Turn you the key, and know his business of him;

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

10 When you have vow’d, you must not speak with men

But in the presence of the prioress:

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

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

He calls again; I pray you, answer him. Exit.

Lucio. Hail, virgin, if you be, as those cheek-roses

Proclaim you are no less! Can you so stead me

As bring me to the sight of Isabella,

A novice of this place, and the fair sister

20 To her unhappy brother Claudio?

Isab. Why, ‘her unhappy brother’? let me ask

The rather, for I now must make you know

I am that Isabella and his sister.

Lucio. Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you:

I. 4.
25 Not to be weary with you, he’s in prison.

Lucio. For that which, if myself might be his judge,

He should receive his punishment in thanks:

He hath got his friend with child.

30 Lucio.

It is true.

I would not—though ’tis my familiar sin

With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest,

Tongue far from heart—play with all virgins so:

I hold you as a thing ensky’d and sainted;

35 By your renouncement, an immortal spirit;

And to be talk’d with in sincerity,

As with a saint.

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

40 Your brother and his lover have embraced:

As those that feed grow full,—as blossoming time,

That from the seedness the bare fallow brings

To teeming foison,—even so her plenteous womb

Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.

Isab. Adoptedly; as school-maids change their names

By vain, though apt, affection.

Lucio.

This is the point.

I. 4.
50 The duke is very strangely gone from hence;

Bore many gentlemen, myself being one,

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

By those that know the very nerves of state,

His givings-out were of an infinite distance

55 From his true-meant design. Upon his place,

And with full line of his authority,

Governs Lord Angelo; a man whose blood

Is very snow-broth; one who never feels

The wanton stings and motions of the sense,

60 But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge

With profits of the mind, study and fast.

He—to give fear to use and liberty,

Which have for long run by the hideous law,

As mice by lions—hath pick’d out an act,

65 Under whose heavy sense your brother’s life

Falls into forfeit: he arrests him on it;

And follows close the rigour of the statute,

To make him an example. All hope is gone,

Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer

70 To soften Angelo: and that’s my pith of business

’Twixt you and your poor brother.

Lucio.

Has censured him

Already; and, as I hear, the provost hath

A warrant for his execution.

I. 4.
75 Isab. Alas! what poor ability’s in me

To do him good?

Lucio.

Our doubts are traitors,

And make us lose the good we oft might win

By fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo,

80 And let him learn to know, when maidens sue,

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

All their petitions are as freely theirs

As they themselves would owe them.

85 Isab. I will about it straight;

No longer staying but to give the Mother

Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you:

Commend me to my brother: soon at night

I’ll send him certain word of my success.

Ang. 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.

Escal.

Ay, but yet

5 Let us be keen, and rather cut a little,

Than fall, and bruise to death. Alas, this gentleman,

Whom I would save, had a most noble father!

Let but your honour know,

Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue,

10 That, in the working of your own affections,

Had time cohered with place or place with wishing,

Or that the resolute acting of your blood

Could have attain’d the effect of your own purpose,

Whether you had not sometime in your life

15 Err’d in this point which now you censure him,

And pull’d the law upon you.

Ang. ’Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,

Another thing to fall. I not deny,

The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life,

20 May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two

Guiltier than him they try. What’s open made to justice,

That justice seizes: what know the laws

That theives do pass on thieves? ’Tis very pregnant,

The jewel that we find, we stoop and take’t,

II. 1.
25 Because we see it; but what we do not see

We tread upon, and never think of it.

You may not so extenuate his offence

For I have had such faults; but rather tell me,

When I, that censure him, do so offend,

30 Let mine own judgement pattern out my death,

And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.    

Ang.

See that Claudio

Be executed by nine to-morrow morning:

35 Bring him his confessor, let him be prepared;

For that’s the utmost of his pilgrimage.

Escal. [Aside] Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all!

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall:

Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none;

40 And some condemned for a fault alone.

Ang. This will last out a night in Russia,

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

130 And leave you to the hearing of the cause;

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

Whip me? No, no; let carman whip his jade:

240 The valiant heart is not whipt out of his trade. Exit.

Escal. To my house. Fare you well.

Exit Elbow.

What’s o’clock, think you?

Escal. It grieves me for the death of Claudio;

But there’s no remedy.

Escal.

It is but needful:

265 Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so;

Pardon is still the nurse of second woe:

But yet,—poor Claudio! There is no remedy.

Come, sir.

Serv. He’s hearing of a cause; he will come straight:

I’ll tell him of you.

Prov.

Pray you, do. [Exit Servant.] I’ll know

His pleasure; may be he will relent. Alas,

He hath but as offended in a dream!

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

To die for ’t!

Ang.

Now, what’s the matter, provost?

Ang. Did not I tell thee yea? hadst thou not order?

Why dost thou ask again?

Prov.

Lest I might be too rash:

10 Under your good correction, I have seen,

When, after execution, Judgement hath

Repented o’er his doom.

Ang.

Go to; let that be mine:

Do you your office, or give up your place,

And you shall well be spared.

Prov.

I crave your honour’s pardon.

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

She’s very near her hour.

Ang.

Dispose of her

To some more fitter place, and that with speed.

Serv. Here is the sister of the man condemn’d

Desires access to you.

20 Prov. Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid,

And to be shortly of a sisterhood,

If not already.

Ang.

Well, let her be admitted.

Exit Servant.

See you the fornicatress be removed:

Let her have needful, but not lavish, means;

There shall be order for ’t.

Isab. I am a woeful suitor to your honour,

Please but your honour hear me.

Isab. There is a vice that most I do abhor,

30 And most desire should meet the blow of justice;

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

For which I must not plead, but that I am

At war ’twixt will and will not.

Isab. I have a brother is condemn’d to die:

35 I do beseech you, let it be his fault,

And not my brother.

Ang. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?

Why, every fault’s condemn’d ere it be done:

Mine were the very cipher of a function,

40 To fine the faults whose fine stands in record,

And let go by the actor.

Isab.

O just but severe law!

I had a brother, then.—Heaven keep your honour!

Lucio. [Aside to Isab.] Give’t not o’er so: to him again, entreat him;

Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown:

45 You are too cold; if you should need a pin,

You could not with more tame a tongue desire it:

To him, I say!

Isab. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him,

II. 2.
50 And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.

Isab. But might you do’t, and do the world no wrong,

If so your heart were touch’d with that remorse

As mine is to him.

Isab. 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,

60 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,

65 You would have slipt like him; but he, like you,

Would not have been so stern.

Isab. I would to heaven I had your potency,

And you were Isabel! should it then be thus?

No; I would tell what ’twere to be a judge,

And what a prisoner.

Ang. Your brother is a forfeit of the law,

And you but waste your words.

Isab.

Alas, alas!

Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once;

And He that might the vantage best have took

II. 2.
75 Found out the remedy. How would you be,

If He, which is the top of judgement, should

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

And mercy then will breathe within your lips,

Like man new made.

Ang.

Be you content, fair maid;

80 It is the law, not I condemn your brother:

Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,

It should be thus with him: he must die to-morrow.

Isab. To-morrow! O, that’s sudden! Spare him, spare him!

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

85 We kill the fowl of season: shall we serve heaven

With less respect than we do minister

To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you;

Who is it that hath died for this offence?

There’s many have committed it.

90 Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept:

Those many had not dared to do that evil,

If the first that did the edict infringe

Had answer’d for his deed: now ’tis awake,

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

95 Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils,

Either now, or by remissness new-conceived,

And so in progress to be hatch’d and born,

Are now to have no successive degrees,

But, ere they live, to end.

II. 2.
100 Ang. I show it most of all when I show justice;

For then I pity those I do not know,

Which a dismiss’d offence would after gall;

And do him right that, answering one foul wrong.

Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;

105 Your brother dies to-morrow; be content.

Isab. So you must be the first that gives this sentence.

And he, that suffers. O, it is excellent

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

To use it like a giant.

110 Isab. Could great men thunder

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne’er be quiet,

For every pelting, petty officer

Would use his heaven for thunder.

Nothing but thunder! Merciful Heaven,

115 Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt

Split’st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak

Than the soft myrtle: but man, proud man,

Drest in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,

120 His glassy essence, like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven

As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,

Would all themselves laugh mortal.

Lucio. [Aside to Isab.] O, to him, to him, wench! he will relent;

He’s coming; I perceive’t.

Isab. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself:

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

But in the less foul profanation.

130 Isab. That in the captain’s but a choleric word,

Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

Isab. Because authority, though it err like others.

135 Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,

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

Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know

That’s like my brother’s fault: if it confess

A natural guiltiness such as is his,

140 Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue

Against my brother’s life.

Ang.

[Aside] She speaks, and ’tis

Such sense, that my sense breeds with it. Fare you well.

Isab. Not with fond shekels of the tested gold,

II. 2.
150 Or stones whose rates are either rich or poor

As fancy values them; but with true prayers

That shall be up at heaven and enter there

Ere sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls,

From fasting maids whose minds are dedicate

To nothing temporal.

Ang.

[Aside] Amen:

For I am that way going to temptation,

Where prayers cross.

Isab.

At what hour to-morrow

Shall I attend your lordship?

Ang.

From thee,—even from thy virtue!

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

The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?

Ha!

165 Not she; nor doth she tempt: but it is I

That, lying by the violet in the sun,

Do as the carrion does, not as the flower,

Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be

That modesty may more betray our sense

170 Than woman’s lightness? Having waste ground enough,

Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,

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

What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?

Dost thou desire her foully for those things

II. 2.
175 That make her good? O, let her brother live:

Thieves for their robbery have authority

When judges steal themselves. What, do I love her,

That I desire to hear her speak again,

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

180 O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,

With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous

Is that temptation that doth goad us on

To sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet,

With all her double vigour, art and nature,

185 Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid

Subdues me quite. Ever till now,

When men were fond, I smiled, and wonder’d how. Exit.

Duke. 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.

10 Look, here comes one: a gentlewoman of mine,

Who, falling in the flaws of her own youth,

Hath blister’d her report: she is with child;

And he that got it, sentenced; a young man

More fit to do another such offence

15 Than die for this.

Prov.

As I do think, to-morrow.

I have provided for you: stay awhile, To Juliet.

And you shall be conducted.

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

And try your penitence, if it be sound,

Or hollowly put on.

Duke. So, then, it seems your most offenceful act

Was mutually committed?

30 Duke. ’Tis meet so, daughter: but lest you do repent,

As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,

Which sorrow is always towards ourselves, not heaven,

Showing we would not spare heaven as we love it,

But as we stand in fear,—

35 Jul. I do repent me, as it is an evil,

And take the shame with joy.

Duke.

There rest.

Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,

And I am going with instruction to him.

Grace go with you, Benedicite! Exit.

40 Jul. Must die to-morrow! O injurious love,

That respites me a life, whose very comfort

Is still a dying horror!

Ang. When I would pray and think, I think and pray

To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words;

Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,

Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth,

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 fear’d 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.

Enter a Servant.

How now! who’s there?

Ang. Teach her the way. O heavens!

20 Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,

Making both it unable for itself,

And dispossessing all my other parts

Of necessary fitness?

So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons:

II. 4.
25 Come all to help him, and so stop the air

By which he should revive: and even so

The general, subject to a well-wish’d king,

Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness

Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love

Must needs appear offence.

Enter Isabella.

30 How now, fair maid?

Ang. That you might know it, would much better please me

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

35 Ang. Yet may he live awhile; and, it may be,

As long as you or I: yet he must die.

Isab. When, I beseech you? that in his reprieve,

40 Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted

That his soul sicken not.

Ang. Ha! fie, these filthy vices! It were as good

To pardon him that hath from nature stolen

A man already made, as to remit

45 Their saucy sweetness that do coin heaven’s image

In stamps that are forbid: ’tis all as easy

Falsely to take away a life true made,

As to put metal in restrained means

To make a false one.

Ang. Say you so? then I shall pose you quickly.

Which had you rather,—that the most just law

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

Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness

As she that he hath stain’d?

55 Isab.

Sir, believe this,

I had rather give my body than my soul.

Ang. I talk not of your soul: our compell’d sins

Stand more for number than for accompt.

Ang. Nay, I’ll not warrant that; for I can speak

60 Against the thing I say. Answer to this:—

I, now the voice of the recorded law,

Pronounce a sentence on your brother’s life:

Might there not be a charity in sin

To save this brother’s life?

Isab.

Please you to do’t,

65 I’ll take it as a peril to my soul,

It is no sin at all, but charity.

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

Were equal poise of sin and charity.

Isab. That I do beg his life, if it be sin,

70 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.

Ang.

Nay, but hear me.

Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant,

II. 4.
75 Or seem so, craftily; and that’s not good.

Isab. Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good,

But graciously to know I am no better.

Ang. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright

When it doth tax itself; as these black masks

80 Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder

Than beauty could, display’d. But mark me;

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

Your brother is to die.

85 Ang. And his offence is so, as it appears,

Accountant to the law upon that pain.

Ang. Admit no other way to save his life,—

As I subscribe not that, nor any other,

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

Finding yourself desired of such a person,

Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,

Could fetch your brother from the manacles

Of the all-building law; and that there were

95 No earthly mean to save him, but that either

You must lay down the treasures of your body

To this supposed, or else to let him suffer;

What would you do?

Isab. As much for my poor brother as myself:

II. 4.
100 That is, were I under the terms of death,

The impression of keen whips I’ld wear as rubies,

And strip myself to death, as to a bed

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

My body up to shame.

105 Isab. And ’twere the cheaper way:

Better it were a brother died at once,

Than that a sister, by redeeming him,

Should die for ever.

Ang. Were not you, then, as cruel as the sentence

110 That you have slander’d so?

Isab. Ignomy in ransom and free pardon

Are of two houses: lawful mercy

Is nothing kin to foul redemption.

Ang. You seem’d of late to make the law a tyrant;

115 And rather proved the sliding of your brother

A merriment than a vice.

Isab. 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,

120 For his advantage that I dearly love.

Isab.

Else let my brother die,

If not a feodary, but only he

Owe and succeed thy weakness.

II. 4.
125 Isab. Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves;

Which are as easy broke as they make forms.

Women!—Help Heaven! men their creation mar

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

For we are soft as our complexions are,

And credulous to false prints.

130 Ang.

I think it well:

And from this testimony of your own sex,—

Since, I suppose, we are made to be no stronger

Than faults may shake our frames,—let me be bold;—

I do arrest your words. Be that you are,

135 That is, a woman; if you be more, you’re none;

If you be one,—as you are well express’d

By all external warrants,—show it now,

By putting on the destined livery.

Isab. I have no tongue but one: gentle my lord,

140 Let me entreat you speak the former language.

Isab. My brother did love Juliet,

And you tell me that he shall die for it.

145 Isab. I know your virtue hath a license in’t,

Which seems a little fouler than it is,

To pluck on others.

Ang.

Believe me, on mine honour,

My words express my purpose.

Isab. Ha! little honour to be much believed,

II. 4.
150 And most pernicious purpose!—Seeming, seeming!—

I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for’t:

Sign me a present pardon for my brother,

Or with an outstretch’d throat I’ll tell the world aloud

What man thou art.

Ang.

Who will believe thee, Isabel?

155 My unsoil’d name, the austereness of my life,

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

Will so your accusation overweigh,

That you shall stifle in your own report,

And smell of calumny. I have begun;

160 And now I give my sensual race the rein:

Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;

Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes,

That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother

By yielding up thy body to my will;

165 Or else he must not only die the death,

But thy unkindness shall his death draw out

To lingering sufferance. Answer me to-morrow.

Or, by the affection that now guides me most,

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

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

Isab. To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,

Who would believe me? O perilous mouths,

That bear in them one and the self-same tongue,

Either of condemnation or approof;

II. 4.
175 Bidding the law make court’sy to their will;

Hooking both right and wrong to the appetite,

To follow as it draws! I’ll to my brother:

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

Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour,

180 That, had he twenty heads to tender down

On twenty bloody blocks, he’ld yield them up,

Before his sister should her body stoop

To such abhorr’d pollution.

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

185 More than our brother is our chastity.

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

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

Claud. The miserable have no other medicine

But only hope:

I’ve hope to live, and am prepar’d to die.

5 Duke. Be absolute for death; either death or life

Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,

Servile to all the skyey influences.

10 That dost this habitation, where thou keep’st,

Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death’s fool;

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

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

For all the accommodations that thou bear’st

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 provokest; yet grossly fear’st

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

20 For thou exist’st on many a thousand grains

That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;

For what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get.

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

For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,

III. 1
25 After the moon. If thou art rich, thou’rt poor;

For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,

Thou bear’st thy heavy riches but a journey,

And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none;

For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,

30 The mere effusion of thy proper loins,

Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,

For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age.

But, as it were, an after-dinner’s sleep,

Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth

35 Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms

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

Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,

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

That bears the name of life? Yet in this life

40 Lie hid more thousand deaths: yet death we fear,

That makes these odds all even.

Claud.

I humbly thank you.

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

And, seeking death, find life: let it come on.

Isab. Why,

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

Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,

Intends you for his swift ambassador,

60 Where you shall be an everlasting leiger:

Therefore your best appointment make with speed;

To-morrow you set on.

Isab. None, but such remedy as, to save a head,

To cleave a heart in twain.

65 Isab. 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.

Isab. Ay, just; perpetual durance, a restraint,

70 Though all the world’s vastidity you had,

To a determined scope.

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

Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear,

And leave you naked.

III. 1
75 Isab. O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,

Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain,

And six or seven winters more respect

Than a perpetual honour. Darest thou die?

75 The sense of death is most in apprehension;

And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,

In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great

As when a giant dies.

Claud.

Why give you me this shame?

Think you I can a resolution fetch

80 From flowery tenderness? If I must die,

I will encounter darkness as a bride,

And hug it in mine arms.

Isab. There spake my brother; there my father’s grave

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

85 Thou art too noble to conserve a life

In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,

Whose settled visage and deliberate word

Nips youth i’ the head, and follies doth emmew

As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil;

90 His filth within being cast, he would appear

A pond as deep as hell.

Isab. O, ’tis the cunning livery of hell,

The damned’st body to invest and cover

In prenzie guards! Dost thou think, Claudio?—

95 If I would yield him my virginity,

Thou mightst be freed.

Isab. Yes, he would give’t thee, from this rank offence,

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

That I should do what I abhor to name,

Or else thou diest to-morrow.

Isab. O, were it but my life,

I’ld throw it down for your deliverance

As frankly as a pin.

105 Claud. Yes. Has he affections in him,

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

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

Or of the deadly seven it is the least.

110 Claud. If it were damnable, he being so wise,

Why would he for the momentary trick

Be perdurably fined?—O Isabel!

115 Claud. Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;

To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;

This sensible warm motion to become

A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside

120 In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;

To be imprison’d in the viewless winds,

And blown with restless violence round about

The pendent world; or to be worse than worst

Of those that lawless and incertain thought

III. 1
125 Imagine howling:—’tis too horrible!

The weariest and most loathed worldly life

That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment

Can lay on nature is a paradise

To what we fear of death.

130 Claud.

Sweet sister, let me live:

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

Nature dispenses with the deed so far

That it becomes a virtue.

Isab.

O you beast!

O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!

135 Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?

Is’t not a kind of incest, to take life

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

Heaven shield my mother play’d my father fair!

For such a warped slip of wilderness

140 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.

145 Isab.

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.   

Duke. Fie, sirrah! a bawd, a wicked bawd!

The evil that thou causest to be done,

That is thy means to live. Do thou but think

What ’tis to cram a maw or clothe a back

20 From such a filthy vice: say to thyself,

From their abominable and beastly touches

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

Canst thou believe thy living is a life,

So stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend.

Duke. Nay, if the devil have given thee proofs for sin,

Thou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer:

Correction and instruction must both work

30 Ere this rude beast will profit.

35 Duke. That we were all, as some would seem to be,

From our faults, as faults from seeming, free!    

Duke. No might nor greatness in mortality

III. 2
175 Can censure ’scape; back-wounding calumny

The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong

Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?

But who comes here?

205 Duke. Not of this country, though my chance is now

To use it for my time: I am a brother

Of gracious order, late come from the See

In special business from his Holiness.

Duke. Peace be with you!

Exeunt Escalus and Provost.

He who the sword of heaven will bear

245 Should be as holy as severe;

Pattern in himself to know,

Grace to stand, and virtue go;

More nor less to others paying

Than by self-offences weighing.

III. 2
250 Shame to him whose cruel striking

Kills for faults of his own liking!

Twice treble shame on Angelo,

To weed my vice and let his grow!

O, what may man within him hide,

255 Though angel on the outward side!

How may likeness made in crimes,

Making practice on the times,

To draw with idle spiders’ strings

Most ponderous and substantial things!

260 Craft against vice I must apply:

With Angelo to-night shall lie

His old betrothed but despised;

So disguise shall, by the disguised,

Pay with falsehood false exacting,

265 And perform an old contracting. Exit.

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.

Mari. Break off thy song, and haste thee quick away:

Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice

Hath often still’d my brawling discontent.

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. ’Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm

15 To make bad good, and good provoke to harm.

Duke. Very well met, and well come.

IV. 1
25 What is the news from this good Deputy?

Isab. He hath a garden circummured with brick,

Whose western side is with a vineyard back’d;

And to that vineyard is a planched gate,

That makes his opening with this bigger key:

30 This other doth command a little door

Which from the vineyard to the garden leads;

There have I made my promise

Upon the heavy middle of the night

To call upon him.

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

With whispering and most guilty diligence,

In action all of precept, he did show me

The way twice o’er.

Duke.

Are there no other tokens

40 Between you ’greed concerning her observance?

Isab. No, none, but only a repair i’ the dark;

And that I have possess’d him my most stay

Can be but brief; for I have made him know

I have a servant comes with me along,

45 That stays upon me, whose persuasion is

I come about my brother.

Duke.

’Tis well borne up.

I have not yet made known to Mariana

A word of this. What, ho! within! come forth!

Re-enter Mariana.

I pray you, be acquainted with this maid;

She comes to do you good.

Duke. Take, then, this your companion by the hand,

Who hath a story ready for your ear.

55 I shall attend your leisure: but make haste;

The vaporous night approaches.

Duke. O place and greatness, millions of false eyes

Are stuck upon thee! volumes of report

60 Run with these false and most contrarious quests

Upon thy doings! thousand escapes of wit

Make thee the father of their idle dreams,

And rack thee in their fancies!

Re-enter Mariana and Isabella.

Welcome, how agreed?

Isab. She’ll take the enterprise upon her, father,

If you advise it.

65 Duke.

It is not my consent,

But my entreaty too.

Isab.

Little have you to say

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

‘Remember now my brother.’

Duke. Nor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all.

70 He is your husband on a pre-contract:

To bring you thus together, ’tis no sin,

Sith that the justice of your title to him

Doth flourish the deceit. Come, let us go:

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

55 Prov. Call hither Barnardine and Claudio:

Exeunt Pompey and Abhorson.

The one has my pity; not a jot the other,

Being a murderer, though he were my brother.

Enter Claudio.

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

’Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow

60 Thou must be made immortal. Where’s Barnardine?

Claud. As fast lock’d up in sleep as guiltless labour

When it lies starkly in the traveller’s bones:

He will not wake.

Prov.

Who can do good on him?

Well, go, prepare yourself. [Knocking within.] But, hark, what noise?—

65 Heaven give your spirits comfort! [Exit Clandio.] By and by.—

I hope it is some pardon or reprieve

For the most gentle Claudio.

Enter Duke disguised as before.

Welcome, father.

Duke. The best and wholesomest spirits of the night

Envelop you, good Provost! Who call’d here of late?

IV. 2
75 Duke. Not so, not so; his life is parallel’d

Even with the stroke and line of his great justice:

He doth with holy abstinence subdue

That in himself which he spurs on his power

To qualify in others: were he meal’d with that

80 Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous;

But this being so, he’s just. Knocking within.

Now are they come.

Exit Provost.

This is a gentle provost: seldom when

The steeled gaoler is the friend of men. Knocking within.

How now! what noise? That spirit’s possessed with haste

85 That wounds the unsisting postern with these strokes.

Prov. There he must stay until the officer

Arise to let him in: he is call’d up.

Duke. Have you no countermand for Claudio yet,

But he must die to-morrow?

90 Duke. As near the dawning, provost, as it is,

You shall hear more ere morning.

Prov.

Happily

You something know; yet I believe there comes

No countermand; no such example have we:

Besides, upon the very siege of justice

95 Lord Angelo hath to the public ear

Profess’d the contrary.

Enter a Messenger.

This is his lordship’s man.

Duke. [Aside] This is his pardon, purchased by such sin

For which the pardoner himself is in.

105 Hence hath offence his quick celerity,

When it is borne in high authority:

When vice makes mercy, mercy’s so extended,

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

Now, sir, what news?

Duke. O, sir, you must: and therefore I beseech you

Look forward on the journey you shall go.

60 Duke. Unfit to live or die: O gravel heart!

After him, fellows; bring him to the block.

Duke. A creature unprepared, unmeet for death;

And to transport him in the mind he is

Were damnable.

65 Prov.

Here in the prison, father,

There died this morning of a cruel fever

One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate,

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

Just of his colour. What if we do omit

70 This reprobate till he were well inclined;

And satisfy the Deputy with the visage

Of Ragozine, more like to Claudio?

Duke. O, ’tis an accident that heaven provides!

Dispatch it presently; the hour draws on

IV. 3
75 Prefix’d by Angelo: see this be done,

And sent according to command; whiles I

Persuade this rude wretch willingly to die.

Prov. This shall be done, good father, presently.

But Barnardine must die this afternoon:

80 And how shall we continue Claudio,

To save me from the danger that might come

If he were known alive?

Duke.

Let this be done.

Put them in secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio:

Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting

85 To the under generation, you shall find

Your safety manifested.

Duke. Quick, dispatch, and send the head to Angelo.

Exit Provost.

Now will I write letters to Angelo,—

90 The provost, he shall bear them,—whose contents

Shall witness to him I am near at home,

And that, by great injunctions, I am bound

To enter publicly: him I’ll desire

To meet me at the consecrated fount,

95 A league below the city; and from thence,

By cold gradation and well-balanced form,

We shall proceed with Angelo.

Duke. Convenient is it. Make a swift return;

IV. 3
100 For I would commune with you of such things

That want no ear but yours.

Duke. The tongue of Isabel. She’s come to know

If yet her brother’s pardon be come hither:

105 But I will keep her ignorant of her good,

To make her heavenly comforts of despair,

When it is least expected.

Isab. The better, given me by so holy a man.

110 Hath yet the Deputy sent my brother’s pardon?

Duke. He hath released him, Isabel, from the world:

His head is off, and sent to Angelo.

Duke. It is no other: show your wisdom, daughter,

115 In your close patience.

Isab. Unhappy Claudio! wretched Isabel!

Injurious world! most damned Angelo!

120 Duke. This nor hurts him nor profits you a jot;

Forbear it therefore; give your cause to heaven.

Mark what I say, which you shall find

By every syllable a faithful verity:

The Duke comes home to-morrow;—nay, dry your eyes;

IV. 3
125 One of our covent, and his confessor,

Gives me this instance: already he hath carried

Notice to Escalus and Angelo;

Who do prepare to meet him at the gates,

There to give up their power. If you can, pace your wisdom

130 In that good path that I would wish it go;

And you shall have your bosom on this wretch,

Grace of the Duke, revenges to your heart,

And general honour.

Duke. This letter, then, to Friar Peter give;

135 ’Tis that he sent me of the Duke’s return:

Say, by this token, I desire his company

At Mariana’s house to-night. Her cause and yours

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

Before the Duke; and to the head of Angelo

140 Accuse him home and home. For my poor self,

I am combined by a sacred vow,

And shall be absent. Wend you with this letter:

Command these fretting waters from your eyes

With a light heart; trust not my holy order,

145 If I pervert your course.—Who’s here?

Ang. Good night.

Exit Escalus.

This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant,

And dull to all proceedings. A deflower’d maid!

20 And by an eminent body that enforced

The law against it! But that her tender shame

Will not proclaim against her maiden loss,

How might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her no;

For my authority bears of a credent bulk,

IV. 4
25 That no particular scandal once can touch

But it confounds the breather. He should have lived,

Save that his riotous youth, with dangerous sense,

Might in the times to come have ta’en revenge,

By so receiving a dishonour’d life

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

Alack, when once our grace we have forgot,

Nothing goes right: we would, and we would not. Exit.

Duke. These letters at fit time deliver me: Giving letters.

The provost knows our purpose and our plot.

The matter being afoot, keep your instruction,

And hold you ever to our special drift;

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 Valentius, Rowland, and to Crassus,

And bid them bring the trumpets to the gate;

But send me Flavius first.

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.

Isab. 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.

5 Isab. 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.

10 Fri. P. Come, I have found you out a stand most fit,

Where you may have such vantage on the Duke,

He shall not pass you. Twice have the trumpets sounded;

The generous and gravest citizens

Have hent the gates, and very near upon

15 The Duke is entering: therefore, hence, away!

Duke. My very worthy cousin, fairly met!

Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you.

Duke. Many and hearty thankings to you both.

5 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.

Duke. O, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it,

10 To lock it in the wards of covert bosom,

When it deserves, with characters of brass,

A forted residence ’gainst the tooth of time

And razure of oblivion. Give me your hand,

And let the subject see, to make them know

15 That outward courtesies would fain proclaim

Favours that keep within. Come, Escalus;

You must walk by us on our other hand:

And good supporters are you.

20 Isab. Justice, O royal Duke! Vail your regard

Upon a wrong’d, I would fain have said, a maid!

O worthy prince, dishonour not your eye

By throwing it on any other object

Till you have heard me in my true complaint,

V. 1
25 And given me justice, justice, justice, justice!

Duke. Relate your wrongs; in what? by whom? be brief.

Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice:

Reveal yourself to him.

Isab.

O worthy Duke,

You bid me seek redemption of the devil:

30 Hear me yourself; for that which I must speak

Must either punish me, not being believed,

Or wring redress from you. Hear me, O hear me, here!

Ang. 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,—

Isab. 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?

40 That Angelo is an adulterous thief,

An hypocrite, a virgin-violator;

Is it not strange and strange?

Isab. It is not truer he is Angelo

Than this is all as true as it is strange:

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

To th’ end of reckoning.

Duke.

Away with her!—Poor soul,

She speaks this in th’ infirmity of sense.

Isab. O prince, I conjure thee, as thou believest

There is another comfort than this world,

V. 1
50 That thou neglect me not, with that opinion

That I am touch’d with madness! Make not impossible

That which but seems unlike: ’tis not impossible

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

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

55 As Angelo; even so may Angelo,

In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms,

Be an arch-villain; believe it, royal prince:

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

Had I more name for badness.

Duke.

By mine honesty,

60 If she be mad,—as I believe no other,—

Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense,

Such a dependency of thing on thing,

As e’er I heard in madness.

Isab.

O gracious Duke,

Harp not on that; nor do not banish reason

65 For inequality; but let your reason serve

To make the truth appear where it seems hid,

And hide the false seems true.

Duke.

Many that are not mad

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

Isab. I am the sister of one Claudio,

70 Condemn’d upon the act of fornication

To lose his head; condemn’d by Angelo:

I, (in probation of a sisterhood,)

Was sent to by my brother; one Lucio

As then the messenger,—

Lucio.

That’s I, an’t like your Grace:

V. 1
75 I came to her from Claudio, and desired her

To try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo

For her poor brother’s pardon.

Lucio.

No, my good lord;

Nor wish’d to hold my peace.

Duke.

I wish you now, then;

80 Pray you, take note of it: and when you have

A business for yourself, pray heaven you then

Be perfect.

Duke. It may be right; but you are i’ the wrong

To speak before your time. Proceed.

Isab.

I went

To this pernicious caitiff Deputy,—

Isab.

Pardon it;

90 The phrase is to the matter.

Isab. In brief,—to set the needless process by,

How I persuaded, how I pray’d, and kneel’d,

How he refell’d me, and how I replied,—

95 For this was of much length,—the vile conclusion

I now begin with grief and shame to utter:

He would not, but by gift of my chaste body

To his concupiscible intemperate lust,

Release my brother; and, after much debatement,

V. 1
100 My sisterly remorse confutes mine honour,

And I did yield to him: but the next morn betimes,

His purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant

For my poor brother’s head.

105 Duke. By heaven, fond wretch, thou know’st not what thou speak’st,

Or else thou art suborn’d against his honour

In hateful practice. First, his integrity

Stands without blemish. Next, it imports no reason

That with such vehemency he should pursue

110 Faults proper to himself: if he had so offended,

He would have weigh’d thy brother by himself,

And not have cut him off. Some one hath set you on:

Confess the truth, and say by whose advice

Thou camest here to complain.

Isab.

And is this all?

115 Then, O you blessed ministers above,

Keep me in patience, and with ripen’d time

Unfold the evil which is here wrapt up

In countenance!—Heaven shield your Grace from woe.

As I, thus wrong’d, hence unbelieved go!

120 Duke. I know you’ld fain be gone.—An officer!

To prison with her!—Shall we thus permit

A blasting and a scandalous breath to fall

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

Who knew of your intent and coming hither?

Lucio. My lord, I know him; ’tis a meddling friar;

I do not like the man: had he been lay, my lord,

For certain words he spake against your Grace

130 In your retirement, I had swinged him soundly.

Duke. Words against me! this’s a good friar, belike!

And to set on this wretched woman here

Against our substitute! Let this friar be found.

Lucio. But yesternight, my lord, she and that friar,

135 I saw them at the prison: a saucy friar,

A very scurvy fellow.

Fri. P. Blessed be your royal Grace!

I have stood by, my lord, and I have heard

Your royal ear abused. First, hath this woman

140 Most wrongfully accused your substitute,

Who is as free from touch or soil with her

As she from one ungot.

Duke.

We did believe no less.

Know you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of?

Fri. P. I know him for a man divine and holy;

Not scurvy, nor a temporary meddler,

As he’s reported by this gentleman;

And, on my trust, a man that never yet

Did, as he vouches, misreport your Grace.

V. 1
150 Fri. P. Well, he in time may come to clear himself;

But at this instant he is sick, my lord,

Of a strange fever. Upon his mere request,—

Being come to knowledge that there was complaint

Intended ’gainst Lord Angelo,—came I hither,

155 To speak, as from his mouth, what he doth know

Is true and false; and what he with his oath

And all probation will make up full clear,

Whensoever he’s convented. First, for this woman,

To justify this worthy nobleman,

160 So vulgarly and personally accused,

Her shall you hear disproved to her eyes,

Till she herself confess it.

Duke.

Good friar, let’s hear it.

Isabella is carried off guarded; and Mariana comes forward.

Do you not smile at this, Lord Angelo?—

O heaven, the vanity of wretched fools!—

165 Give us some seats. Come, cousin Angelo;

In this I’ll be impartial; be you judge

Of your own cause. Is this the witness, friar?

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

Mari. Pardon, my lord; I will not show my face

170 Until my husband bid me.

Duke. Silence that fellow: I would he had some cause

To prattle for himself.

Mari. My lord, I do confess I ne’er was married;

185 And I confess, besides, I am no maid:

I have known my husband; yet my husband

Knows not that ever he knew me.

Mari. Now I come to’t, my lord:

She that accuses him of fornication,

In self-same manner doth accuse my husband;

195 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.

V. 1
200 Mari. Why, just, my lord, and that is Angelo,

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

But knows he thinks that he knows Isabel’s.

Mari. My husband bids me; now I will unmask. Unveiling.

205 This is that face, thou cruel Angelo,

Which once thou sworest was worth the looking on;

This is the hand which, with a vow’d contract,

Was fast belock’d in thine; this is the body

That took away the match from Isabel,

210 And did supply thee at thy garden-house

In her imagined person.

Ang. My lord, I must confess I know this woman:

215 And five years since there was some speech of marriage

Betwixt myself and her; which was broke off,

Partly for that her promised proportions

Came short of composition; but in chief,

For that her reputation was disvalued

220 In levity: since which time of five years

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

Upon my faith and honour.

Mari.

Noble prince,

As there comes light from heaven and words from breath,

As there is sense in truth and truth in virtue,

V. 1
225 I am affianced this man’s wife as strongly

As words could make up vows: and, my good lord,

But Tuesday night last gone in’s garden-house

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

Let me in safety raise me from my knees;

230 Or else for ever be confixed here,

A marble monument!

Ang.

I did but smile till now:

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

My patience here is touch’d. I do perceive

These poor informal women are no more

235 But instruments of some more mightier member

That sets them on: let me have way, my lord,

To find this practice out.

Duke.

Ay, with my heart;

And punish them to your height of pleasure.

Thou foolish friar; and thou pernicious woman,

240 Compact with her that’s gone, think’st thou thy oaths,

Though they would swear down each particular saint,

Were testimonies against his worth and credit,

That’s seal’d in approbation? You, Lord Escalus,

Sit with my cousin; lend him your kind pains

245 To find out this abuse, whence ’tis derived.

There is another friar that set them on;

Let him be sent for.

Fri. P. Would he were here, my lord! for he, indeed,

Hath set the women on to this complaint:

V. 1
250 Your provost knows the place where he abides,

And he may fetch him.

Duke.

Go do it instantly.

Exit Provost.

And you, my noble and well-warranted cousin,

Whom it concerns to hear this matter forth,

Do with your injuries as seems you best,

255 In any chastisement: I for a while will leave you;

But stir not you till you have well determined

Upon these slanderers.

290 Duke. Respect to your great place! and let the devil

Be sometime honour’d for his burning throne!

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

Escal. The Duke’s in us; and we will hear you speak:

Look you speak justly.

295 Duke. Boldly, at least. But, O, poor souls,

Come you to seek the lamb here of the fox?

Good night to your redress! Is the Duke gone?

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

Thus to retort your manifest appeal,

V. 1
300 And put your trial in the villain’s mouth

Which here you come to accuse.

Escal. Why, thou unreverend and unhallow’d friar,

Is’t not enough thou hast suborn’d these women

305 To accuse this worthy man, but, in foul mouth,

And in the witness of his proper ear,

To call him villain? and then to glance from him

To the Duke himself, to tax him with injustice?

Take him hence; to the rack with him! We’ll touse you

310 Joint by joint, but we will know his purpose.

What, ‘unjust’!

Duke.

Be not so hot; the Duke

Dare no more stretch this finger of mine than he

Dare rack his own: his subject am I not,

Nor here provincial. My business in this state

315 Made me a looker-on here in Vienna,

Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble

Till it o’er-run the stew; laws for all faults,

But faults so countenanced, that the strong statutes

Stand like the forfeits in a barber’s shop,

320 As much in mock as mark.

Ang. What can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio?

Is this the man that you did tell us of?

Duke. Thou art the first knave that e’er madest a Duke.

355 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.

Duke. [To Escalus] What you have spoke I pardon: sit you down:

360 We’ll borrow place of him. [To Angelo] Sir, by your leave.

Hast thou or word, or wit, or impudence,

That yet can do thee office? If thou hast,

Rely upon it till my tale be heard,

And hold no longer out.

Ang.

O my dread lord,

365 I should be guiltier than my guiltiness,

To think I can be undiscernible,

When I perceive your Grace, like power divine,

Hath look’d upon my passes. Then, good prince,

No longer session hold upon my shame,

370 But let my trial be mine own confession:

Immediate sentence then, and sequent death,

Is all the grace I beg.

Duke.

Come hither, Mariana.

Say, wast thou e’er contracted to this woman?

V. 1
375 Duke. Go take her hence, and marry her instantly.

Do you the office, friar; which consummate,

Return him here again. Go with him, provost.

Escal. My lord, I am more amazed at his dishonour

Than at the strangeness of it.

Duke.

Come hither, Isabel.

380 Your friar is now your prince: as I was then

Advertising and holy to your business,

Not changing heart with habit, I am still

Attorney’d at your service.

Isab.

O, give me pardon,

That I, your vassal, have employ’d and pain’d

Your unknown sovereignty!

385 Duke.

You are pardon’d, Isabel:

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

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

And you may marvel why I obscured myself,

Labouring to save his life, and would not rather

390 Make rash remonstrance of my hidden power

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

It was the swift celerity of his death,

Which I did think with slower foot came on,

That brain’d my purpose. But, peace be with him!

395 That life is better life, past fearing death,

Than that which lives to fear: make it your comfort,

So happy is your brother.

Duke. For this new-married man, approaching here,

Whose salt imagination yet hath wrong’d

V. 1
400 Your well-defended honour, you must pardon

For Mariana’s sake: but as he adjudged your brother,—

Being criminal, in double violation

Of sacred chastity, and of promise-breach

Thereon dependent, for your brother’s life,—

405 The very mercy of the law cries out

Most audible, even from his proper tongue,

‘An Angelo for Claudio, death for death!’

Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;

Like doth quit like, and MEASURE still FOR MEASURE.

410 Then, Angelo, thy fault’s thus manifested;

Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage.

We do condemn thee to the very block

Where Claudio stoop’d to death, and with like haste.

Away with him!

Mari.

O my most gracious lord,

415 I hope you will not mock me with a husband.

Duke. It is your husband mock’d you with a husband.

Consenting to the safeguard of your honour,

I thought your marriage fit; else imputation,

For that he knew you, might reproach your life,

420 And choke your good to come: for his possessions,

Although by confiscation they are ours,

We do instate and widow you withal,

To buy you a better husband.

Mari.

O my dear lord,

I crave no other, nor no better man.

Duke.

You do but lose your labour.

Away with him to death! [To Lucio] Now, sir, to you.

Mari. O my good lord! Sweet Isabel, take my part;

Lend me your knees, and all my life to come

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

Duke. Against all sense you do importune her:

Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact,

Her brother’s ghost his paved bed would break,

And take her hence in horror.

Mari.

Isabel,

435 Sweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me;

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

They say, best men are moulded out of faults;

And, for the most, become much more the better

For being a little bad: so may my husband.

440 O Isabel, will you not lend a knee?

Isab.

Most bounteous sir, Kneeling.

Look, if it please you, on this man condemn’d,

As if my brother lived: I partly think

A due sincerity govern’d his deeds,

445 Till he did look on me: since it is so,

Let him not die. My brother had but justice,

In that he did the thing for which he died:

For Angelo,

His act did not o’ertake his bad intent;

V. 1
450 And must be buried but as an intent

That perish’d by the way: thoughts are no subjects;

Intents, but merely thoughts.

Duke. Your suit’s unprofitable; stand up, I say.

I have bethought me of another fault.

455 Provost, how came it Claudio was beheaded

At an unusual hour?

Duke. For which I do discharge you of your office:

Give up your keys.

460 Prov.

Pardon me, noble lord:

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

Yet did repent me, after more advice:

For testimony whereof, one in the prison,

That should by private order else have died,

I have reserved alive.

Duke. I would thou hadst done so by Claudio.

Go fetch him hither; let me look upon him.

Escal. I am sorry, one so learned and so wise

As you, Lord Angelo, have still appear’d,

470 Should slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood,

And lack of temper’d judgment afterward.

Ang. I am sorry that such sorrow I procure:

And so deep sticks it in my penitent heart,

That I crave death more willingly than mercy;

V. 1
475 ’Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it.

Duke. There was a friar told me of this man.

Sirrah, thou art said to have a stubborn soul,

That apprehends no further than this world,

480 And squarest thy life according. Thou’rt condemn’d:

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

And pray thee take this mercy to provide

For better times to come. Friar, advise him;

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

485 Prov. This is another prisoner that I saved,

Who should have died when Claudio lost his head;

As like almost to Claudio as himself. Unmuffles Claudio.

Duke. [To Isabella] If he be like your brother, for his sake

Is he pardon’d; and, for your lovely sake,

490 Give me your hand, and say you will be mine,

He is my brother too: but fitter time for that.

By this Lord Angelo perceives he’s safe;

Methinks I see a quickening in his eye.

Well, Angelo, your evil quits you well:

495 Look that you love your wife; her worth worth yours.

I find an apt remission in myself;

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

[To Lucio] You, sirrah, that knew me for a fool, a coward,

One all of luxury, an ass, a madman;

V. 1
500 Wherein have I so deserved of you,

That you extol me thus?

505 Duke. Whipt first, sir, and hang’d after.

Proclaim it, provost, round about the city,

Is any woman wrong’d by this lewd fellow,

As I have heard him swear himself there’s one

Whom he begot with child, let her appear,

510 And he shall marry her: the nuptial finish’d,

Let him be whipt and hang’d.

Duke. Upon mine honour, thou shalt marry her.

Thy slanders I forgive; and therewithal

Remit thy other forfeits.—Take him to prison;

And see our pleasure herein executed.

Duke. Slandering a prince deserves it.

Exeunt Officers with Lucio.

She, Claudio, that you wrong’d, look you restore.

Joy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo:

V. 1
525 I have confess’d her, and I know her virtue.

Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness:

There’s more behind that is more gratulate.

Thanks, provost, for thy care and secrecy:

We shall employ thee in a worthier place.

530 Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home

The head of Ragozine for Claudio’s:

The offence pardons itself. Dear Isabel,

I have a motion much imports your good;

Whereto if you’ll a willing ear incline,

535 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.