Whose settled visage and deliberate word His filth within being cast, he would appear A pond as deep as hell. O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch! From thine own sister's shame? What should The prenzie Angelo? 92 Heaven shield my mother play'd my father fair; Isab. O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell, Claud. 96 O heavens! it cannot be. 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. 100 Thou shalt not do't. 140 For such a warped slip of wilderness Claud. Nay, hear me, Isabel. O, fie, fie, fiel Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade. 148 [Going. O hear me, Isabella. Claud. If it were damnable, he being so wise, attend you a while. Why would he for the momentary trick Isab. What says my brother? 112 Death is a fearful thing. Isab. And shamed life a hateful. Claud. Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; 116 158 Duke. [Aside to CLAUDIO.] 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 practise his judgment with the disposition o natures. She, having the truth of honour 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 mus die; go to your knees and make ready. To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; 120 hath made you good: the goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty brief in goodDess; but grace, being the soul of your compiexion, 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 would you do to content this substitute, and to save your brother? 192 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 the good duke deceived in Angelo! If ever be return and I can speak to him, I will open my aps in vain, or discover his government. 198 Duke. That shall not be much amiss: yet, as the matter now stands, he will avoid your accu-, sation; '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 1 business. 210 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. 219 Duke. She should this Angelo have married; was affianced to her by oath, and the nuptial appointed: between which time of the contract, De solemnity, her brother Frederick and limit of the that perished vessel was wracked latsea, having in 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 both, her combinate husband, this well-seeming Angelo. 231 Isab. Can this be so? Did Angelo so leave her? Duke. Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them with his comfort; swallowed his yows whole, pretending in her discoveries of dishonour: in few, bestowed her on her own lamentation, which she yet wears for his sake; and he, a marble to her tears, is washed with them, but relents not. 239 Duke. It is a rupture that you may easily heal; and the cure of it not only saves your brother, but keeps you from dishonour in doing it. 248 Isab. Show 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, 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 your brother saved, your honour 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? to keep him warm; and furred with fox and lamb skins too, to signify that craft, being richer than innocency, stands for the facing. Elb. Come your way, sir. Bless you, good father friar. 13 Duke. And you, good brother father. What offence 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. Lucio. Why, 'tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell. Go, say I sent thee thither. For debt, Pompey? or how? Elb. For being a bawd, for being a bawd. 70 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, Pompey. You will turn good husband now, Pompey; you will keep the house. Duke. Fie, sirrah: a bawd, a wicked bawd! 20 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 my bail. Duke. Nay, if the devil have given thee proofs for sin, 32 Thou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, 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 before him, he were as good go a mile on his errand. Duke. That we were all, as some would seem to be, 40 From our faults, as faults from seeming, free! Elb. His neck will come to your waist, -a cord, sir. Lucio. How now, noble Pompey! What, at the wheels 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 say'st thou to this tune, matter and method? Is't not drowned i' the last rain, ha? What sayest thou Trot? Is the world as it was, man? Which is the way? Is it sad, and few words, or how? The trick of it? Duke. Still thus, and thus, still worse! tress? Procures she still, ha? 56 mis 77 Pom. I hope, sir, your good worship will be 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 you, friar. Duke. And you. 84 Lucio. Does Bridget paint still, Pompey, ha? abroad, friar? What news? 88 92 Lucio. Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred; it is well allied; but it is impossible to extirp it quite, friar, till eating and drinking be put down. They say this Angelo was not made by man and woman after this downright way of creation: is it true, think you? 116 Duke. How should he be made, then? Lucio. Some report a sea-maid spawn'd 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 generative; 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 cod-piece 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 nursing a thousand: he had some feeling of the sport; he knew the service, and that instructed him to mercy. 131 Duke. I never heard the absent duke much detected for women; he was not inclined that way. Lucio. O, sir, you are deceived. 136 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. 140 Duke. You do him wrong, surely. a 144 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 prithee, might be the cause? Lucio. No, pardon; 'tis 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. Wisel why, no question but he was. very superficial, ignorant, unweigh Lucio. A ing fellow. 152 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 meed, 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 unskilfully; or, if your knowledge be more, it is much darkened in your malice. Lucio. Sir, I know him, and I love him. 162 knowledge with dearer love. Duke. 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, friar. But no more of this. Canst thou tell if Claudio die to-morrow or no? Duke. Why should he die, sir? 184 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 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! Marry, this Claudio is condemned for untrussing. Farewell, good friar; I prithee, pray for me. The duke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on Fridays. He's not past it yet, and I say to thee, he would mouth with a beggar, though she smelt brown 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? 204 Mrs. Ov. My lord, this is one Lucio's infor mation 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! 220 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: let him be called before us. Away with her to f it be honest you have spoke, you have courage Escal. That fellow is a fellow of much licence: prison! Go to; no more words. [Exeunt Offto maintain it. I am bound to call upon you; cers with MISTRESS OVERDONE.] Provost, my and, I pray you, your name? 172 brother Angelo will not be altered; Claudio Duke. Not of this country, though my chance is now To use it for my time: I am a brother 236 240 Escal. What news abroad i' the world? Duke. None, but there is so great a fever on goodness, that the dissolution of it must cure it: novelty is only in request; and it is as dangerous to be aged in any kind of course, as it is virtuous to be constant in any undertaking: there is scarce truth enough alive to make mocieties secure, but security enough to make fellowships accursed. Much upon this riddle runs the wisdom of the world. This news is old enough, yet it is every day's news. I pray you, sir, of what disposition was the duke? Escal. One that, above all other strifes, contended especially to know himself. 251 254 Duke. What pleasure was he given to? Escal. 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 prosperous; and let me desire to know how you find Claudio prepared. I am made to understand, that you have lent him visitation. 262 Duke. He professes to have received no sinister measure from his judge, but most willingly humbles himself to the determination of justice; yet had he framed to himself, by the instruction of his frailty, many deceiving promises of life, which I, by my good leisure have discredited to him, and now is he resolved to die. 269 Escal. You have paid the heavens your function, and the prisoner the very debt of your calling. I have laboured for the poor gentleman to the extremest shore of my modesty; but my brother justice have I found so severe, that he hath forced me to tell him he is indeed Justice. 276 Duke. 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. Escal. I am going to visit the prisoner. Fare you well. Duke. Peace be with you! [Exeunt ESCALUS and PROVOST. He, who the sword of heaven will bear Craft against vice I must apply: ACT IV. 284 288 292 296 300 [Exit. |