Claud. Yes. - Has he affections in him, That thus can make him bite the law by the nose, Sure it is no sin; Isab. In such a one as (you consenting to 't) Isab. O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake, Lest thou a feverous life should'st entertain, 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 As when a giant dies. Claud. Why give you me this shame? Think you I can a resolution fetch From flowery tenderness? If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride, And hug it in mine arms. Isab. Which is the least? Claud. If it were damnable, he, being so wise, Why, would he for the momentary trick Be perdurably fined? — O Isabel! Isab. What says my brother? Claud. Death is a fearful thing. Isab. And shaméd life a hateful. 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 Isab. There spake my brother; there my fa- To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, ther's grave Did utter forth a voice! Yes, thou must die: uty, And blown with restless violence round about This outward-sainted dep- Imagine howling!-'t is too horrible! The weariest and most loathéd worldly life, Isab. Yes, he would give it thee, for this rank From thine own sister's shame? What should I offense, So to offend him still: This night's the time think? Heaven shield my mother played my father fair! For such a warpéd slip of wilderness Claud. Nay, hear me, Isabel. Isab. O, fy, fy, fy! Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade: 'Tis best thou diest quickly. Claud. O hear me, Isabella. Re-enter DUKE. [Going. Prov. In good time. [Exit Provost. Duke. The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good: the goodness that is cheap in beauty, makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of your complexion, should 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 would you do to content this substitute, and to save your brother? Isab. 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 Duke. Vouchsafe a word, young sister; but one the good Duke deceived in Angelo! If ever he word. your Isab. What is will? Duke. Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and by have some speech with you: the satisfaction I would require is likewise your own benefit. Isab. I have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be stolen out of other affairs: but I will at tend you awhile. Duke. [To CLAUDIO, aside.] Son, I have overheard what hath past 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, 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 fallible: to-morrow you must die; go to your knees, and make ready. Claud. Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love with life, that I will sue to be rid of it. Duke. Hold there: Farewell. you Re-enter Provost. Provost, a word with you. Prov. What's your will, father? return, and I can speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or discover his government. Duke. That shall not be much amiss. Yet, as the matter now stands, he will avoid your accusation; he made trial of you only.-Therefore fasten your ear on my advisings; to the love I have in doing good, a remedy presents itself. I do make myself believe, that you may most uprighteously do a poor wronged lady a merited benefit; redeem your brother from the angry law; do no stain to your own gracious person; and much please the absent Duke, if peradventure he shall ever return to have hearing of this business. Isab. Let me hear you speak further? I have spirit to do anything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit. Duke. Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have you not heard speak of Mariana, the sister of Frederick, the great soldier who miscarried at sea? Isab. I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name. Duke. Her should this Angelo have married; was affianced to her by oath, and the nuptial ap[Exit CLAUDIO. pointed: between which time of the contract and limit of the solemnity, her brother Frederick was wrecked at sea, having in that perished vessel the dowry of his sister. But mark how heavily this befell to the poor gentlewoman: there she lost a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward her ever most kind and natural; with him the portion and sinew of her fortune, her marriage dowry; with Duke. That now you are come, you will be gone: Leave me awhile with the maid; my mind promises with my habit, no loss shall touch her by my company. both, her combinate husband, this well-seeming place call upon me; and despatch with Angelo, Angelo. that it may be quickly. Isab. Can this be so? Did Angelo so leave her? Isab. I thank you for this comfort: Fare you well, good father. [Exeunt severally. Duke. 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 she yet wears for his sake; and he, a marble to her Enter DUKE, as a Friar; to him ELBOW, Clown, tears, is washed with them, but relents not. Isab. What a merit were it in death, to take this poor maid from the world! What corruption in this life, that it will let this man live! But how out of this can she avail? Duke. It is a rupture that you may easily heal: and the cure of it not only saves your brother, but keeps you from dishonor in doing it. Isab. Shew me how, good father. Duke. This forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance of her first affection; his unjust unkindness, that in all reason should have quenched her love, hath, like an impediment in the current made it more violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his requiring with a plausible obedience; agree with his demands to the point: only refer yourself to this advantage, first, that your stay with him may not be long; that the time may have all shadow and silence in it; and the place answer to convenience: this being granted in course, now follows all. We shall advise this wronged maid to stead up your appointment, go in your place; if the encounter acknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him to her recompense: and here, by this, is your brother saved, your 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, the doubleness of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof. What think you of it? Isab. The image of it gives me content already; and I trust it will grow to a most prosperous perfection. Duke. It lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily to Angelo; if for this night he entreat you to his bed, give him promise of satisfaction. I will presently to St. Luke's; there, at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana. At that SCENE II. The Street before the Prison. and Officers. Elb. Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will needs buy and sell men and women like beasts, we shall have all the world drink brown and white bastard. Duke. O, heavens! what stuff is here? Clo. 'T was 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 that craft, being richer than innocency, stands for the facing. Elb. Come your way, sir:- Bless you, good father friar. Duke. And you, good brother father: What offense hath this man made you, sir? Elb. Marry, sir, he hath offended the law; and, sir, we take him to be a thief too, sir; for we have found upon him, sir, a strange picklock, which we have sent to the deputy. Duke. Fy, sirrah; a bawd, a wicked bawd! Clo. Indeed it does stink in some sort, sir; but yet, sir, I would prove― Duke. Nay, if the devil have given thee proofs Thou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer: Elb. He must before the deputy, sir; he has given him warning: the deputy cannot abide a whoremaster; if he be a whoremonger, and comes Clo. I spy comfort; I cry, bail: Here's a gen- What news, friar, of the Duke? tleman and a friend of mine. Lucio. How now, noble Pompey? what, at the heels of Cæsar? 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 sayst thou to this tune, matter, and method? Is 't not drowned i' the last rain? ha? What sayst thou, trot? is the world as it was, man? Which is the way? is it sad, and few words? or how? the trick of it? Duke. Still thus, and thus; still worse ! Lucio. How doth my dear morsel, thy mistress? procures she still? ha? Clo. Troth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she is herself in the tub. Lucio. Why, 't is good; it is the right of it: it must be so ever your fresh whore, and your powdered bawd: an unshunned consequence; it must Art going to prison, Pompey? be so. Clo. Yes, faith, sir. Lucio. Why, 't is not amiss, Pompey. Farewell: go; say I sent thee thither. For debt, Pompey? or how? Elb. For being a bawd, for being a bawd. Lucio. Well, then imprison him; if imprisonment be the due of a bawd, why 't is his right. Bawd is he, doubtless, and of antiquity too; bawdborn. Farewell, good Pompey: commend me to the prison, Pompey: you will turn good husband now, Pompey; you will keep the house. - Duke. I know none can you tell me of any? Lucio. Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other some, he is in Rome: but where is he, think you? Duke. I know not where: but wheresoever, I wish him well. Lucio. It was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from the state, and usurp the beggary he was never born to. Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence: he puts transgression to 't. Duke. He does well in 't. Lucio. A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in him: something too crabbed that way, friar Duke. It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it. Lucio. Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred; it is well allied: but it is impossible to extirp it quite, friar, till eating and drinking be put down. They say this Angelo was not made by man and woman, after the downright way of creation. Is it true, think you? Duke. How should he be made, then? Lucio. Some report a sea-maid spawned him: some, that he was begot between two stock-fishes : but it is certain that, when he makes water, his urine is congealed ice; that I know to be true: and he is a motion ungenerative: that's infallible. Duke. You are pleasant, sir; and speak apace. Lucio. Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the rebellion of a codpiece, to take away Clo. I hope, sir, your good worship will be my the life of a man? Would the Duke, that is abbail. sent, have done this? Ere he would have hanged a man for the getting a hundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing a thousand: He had some feeling of the sport; he knew the service, and that instructed him to mercy. Lucio. No, indeed, will I not, Pompey; it is not the wear. I will pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage if you take it not patiently, why your mettle is the more. Adieu, trusty Pompey. Bless friar. you Duke. I never heard the absent Duke much detected for women; he was not inclined that site. But indeed I can do you little harm: you'll forswear this again. way. Lucio. O, sir, you are deceived. Lucio. Who? not the Duke? Yes, your beggar of fifty; and his use was, to put a ducat in her clack-dish: the Duke had crotchets in him. He would be drunk, too; that let me inform you. Duke. You do him wrong, surely. Lucio. Sir, I was an inward of his: a shy fellow was the Duke: and I believe I know the cause of his withdrawing. Duke. What, I pr'y thee, might be the cause? Lucio. No-pardon; 't is a secret must be locked within the teeth and the lips: but this I can let you understand The greater file of the subject held the Duke to be wise. Duke. Wise? why, no question but he was. Lucio. A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow. Duke. Either this is envy in you, folly, or mistaking the very stream of his life, and the business he hath helmed, must, upon a warranted need, give him a better proclamation. Let him be but testimonied in his own bringings forth, and he shall appear to the envious a scholar, a statesman, and a soldier: therefore you speak unskillfully; or, if your knowledge be more, it is much darkened in your malice. Lucio. I'll be hanged first thou art deceived in me, friar. But no more of this. Canst thou tell if Claudio die to-morrow, or no? Duke. Why should he die, sir? ous. Lucio. Why? for filling a bottle with a tundish. I would the Duke we talk of were returned again this ungenitured agent will unpeople the province with contingency; sparrows must not build in his house-eaves, because they are lecherThe Duke yet would have dark deeds darkly answered; he would never bring them to light: would he were returned! Marry, this Claudio is condemned for untrussing. Farewell, good friar; I pr'y thee, pray for me. The Duke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on Fridays. He's now past it; yet, and I say to thee, he would mouth with a beggar, though she smelt brown bread and garlic say that I said so. Farewell. [Exit. Duke. No might nor greatness in mortality Can censure scape; back-wounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong, Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue? But who comes here? Enter ESCALUS, Provost, Bawd, and Officers. Escal. Go, away with her to prison. Bawd. Good my lord, be good to me; your honor is accounted a merciful man: good my Lucio. Sir, I know him, and I love him. Duke. Love talks with better knowledge, and lord. knowledge with dearer love. Lucio. Come, sir, I know what I know. Duke. I can hardly believe that, since you know not what you speak. But if ever the Duke return (as our prayers are he may), let me desire you to make your answer before him: if it be honest you have spoke, you have courage to maintain it: I am bound to call upon you; and I pray you, your name? Escal. Double and treble admonition, and still forfeit in the same kind? This would make mercy swear, and play the tyrant. Prov. A bawd of eleven years' continuance, may it please your honor. Bawd. My lord, this is one of Lucio's information against me: Mistress Kate Keepdown was with child by him in the Duke's time; he promised her marriage; his child is a year and a quarter Lucio. Sir, my name is Lucio; well known to old, come Philip and Jacob: I have kept it mythe Duke. self; and see how he goes about to abuse me. Escal. That fellow is a fellow of much license; let him be called before us.-Away with her to prison. Go to; no more words. [Exeunt Bawd and Officers. more; or you imagine me too unhurtful an oppo- Provost, my brother Angelo will not be altered; |