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

He is your husband on a pre-contract:
To bring you thus together, 'tis no sin,

Sith that the justice of your title to him

Doth flourish 12 the deceit. Come, let us go:

Our corn's to reap, for yet our tilth's to sow.13

[Exeunt.

Prov. Come hither, sirrah. Can you cut off a man's head?

Pom. If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can; but if he be a married man, he's his wife's head, and I can never cut off a woman's head.

Prov. Come, sir, leave me your snatches, and yield me a direct answer. To-morrow morning are to die Claudio and Barnardine. Here is in our prison a common executioner, who in his office lacks a helper: if you will take it on you to assist him, it shall redeem you from your gyves; if not, you shall have your full time of imprisonment, and your deliverance with an unpitied1 whipping, for you have been a notorious bawd.

Pom. Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd time out of mind; but yet I will be content to be a lawful hangman. I would be glad to receive some instruction from my fellow partner.

Prov. What, ho, Abhorson! Where's Abhorson, there?

12 To flourish a thing, as the word is here used, is to make it fair, or to take the ugliness out of it.

13 Tilth here means land made ready for sowing.

1 Unpitied for pitiless or unpitiable; that is, merciless. See page 192, note 5.

Enter ABHORSON.

Abhor. Do you call, sir?

Prov. Sirrah, here's a fellow will help you to-morrow in your execution. If you think it meet, compound with him by the year, and let him abide here with you; if not, use him for the present, and dismiss him. He cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath been a bawd.

Abhor. A bawd, sir! fie upon him! he will discredit our mystery.

Prov. Go to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale. [Exit.

Pom. Pray, sir, by your good favour, — for surely, sir, a good favour you have, but that you have a hanging look,—do you call, sir, your occupation a mystery?

Abhor. Ay, sir; a mystery.

Pom. Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and your whores, sir, being members of my occupation, using painting, do prove my occupation a mystery: but what mystery there should be in hanging, if I should be hang'd, I cannot imagine.

Abhor. Sir, it is a mystery.

Pom. Proof?

Abhor. Every true man's apparel fits your thief: if it be too little for your thief, your true man thinks it big enough; if it be too big for your thief, your thief thinks it little enough : so every true man's apparel fits your thief.

2 A true man is, in old language, an honest man; and so the opposite of a thief. Mystery was much used formerly, as it still is sometimes, for art or trade. The cogency, or the relevancy, of Abhorson's proof is not very apparent. Heath's explanation is probably right; in substance as follows: Abhorson adopts the same method of argument which Pompey has used a little before; and, as Pompey enrolls the fast girls of his fraternity under the art of painting, so Abhorson "lays claim to the thieves as members of his occupation, and in their right endeavours to rank his brethren, the hangmen, under the mystery of fitters of apparel or tailors." See Critical Notes.

Re-enter the Provost.

Prov. Are you agreed?

Pom. Sir, I will serve him; for I do find your hangman is a more penitent trade than your bawd, he doth oftener ask forgiveness.3

Prov. You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe tomorrow four o'clock.

Abhor. Come on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow.

Pom. 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.

Prov. Call hither Barnardine and Claudio: :

[Exeunt POMPEY and ABHORSON.

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

Being a murderer, though he were my brother.

Enter CLAUDIO.

Look, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death:
'Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow
Thou must be made immortal. Where's Barnardine?
Claud. As fast lock'd up in sleep as guiltless labour
When it lies starkly 5 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?

Heaven give your spirits comfort! [Exit CLAUDIO.] — Byand-by

8 The executioner, just before doing his office, used always to ask forgiveness of the person in hand. See vol. v. page 76, note 1.

4 Yare is nimble or spry. See vol. v. page 208, note 16.

5 Stiffly; stiff being one of the old meanings of stark,

Duke. The best and wholesomest spirits of the night Envelop you, good Provost! Who call'd here of late? Prov. None, since the curfew rung.

Duke. Not so, not so; his life is parallel'd
Even with the stroke 6 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 8 with that
Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous;
But, this being so, he's just.

Now are they come.

This is a gentle provost : seldom-when 9
The steelèd jailer is the friend of men.

[Knocking within. [Exit PROVOST.

[Knocking within.

How now! what noise? That spirit's possess'd with haste That wounds th' unsisting 10 postern with these strokes

Re-enter the PROVOST.

Prov. [Speaking to one at the door.] There he must stay until the officer

6 The stroke of a pen; that is, mark; hence, perhaps, rule. Qualify here means temper, moderate, reduce.

8 Meal'd is, probably, mingled, compounded, or made up; from the French mesler. Some, however, explain it over-dusted or defiled.

Seldom-when is simply seldom; used here for the sake of the rhyme. 10 Unsisting, as Blackstone says, "may signify never at rest.”

Arise to let him in: he is call'd up.

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

Prov.

None, sir, none.

Duke. As near the dawning, Provost, as it is, You shall hear more ere morning.

Prov.

Happily 11

You something know; yet I believe there comes
No countermand; no such example have we :
Besides, upon the very siege 12 of justice

Lord Angelo hath to the public ear

Profess'd the contrary.

Enter a Messenger.

This is his lordship's man.

Duke. And here comes Claudio's pardon.

Mes. Giving a paper.] My lord hath sent you this note; and by me this further charge, that you swerve not from the smallest article of it, neither in time, matter, or other circumstance. Good morrow; for, as I take it, it is almost day.

Prov. I shall obey him.

[Exit Messenger.

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

For which the pardoner himself is in.

Hence hath offence his 13 quick celerity,

When it is borne in high authority:

When vice makes mercy, mercy's so extended,

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

11 Happily for haply, or perhaps. The Poet often makes it a trisyllable, to fill up his verse.

12 Siege was in common use for seat. So in The Faerie Queene, ii. 4, 44:

A stately siege of soveraine majestye,

And thereon satt a Woman gorgeous gay.

18 His for its again. See page 202, note 6.