The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

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

  When evil deeds have their permissive pass,

  And not the punishment. Therefore indeed, my father,

  I have on Angelo imposed the office,

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

  And yet my nature never in the fight

  T’allow in slander. And to behold his sway,

  I will as ’twere a brother of your order

  Visit both prince and people. Therefore, I prithee,

  Supply me with the habit, and instruct me

  How I may formally in person bear

  Like a true friar. More reasons for this action

  At our more leisure shall I render you.

  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.

  Exeunt

  1.4 Enter Isabella, and Francesca, a nun

  ISABELLA

  And have you nuns no farther privileges?

  FRANCESCA Are not these large enough?

  ISABELLA

  Yes, truly. I speak not as desiring more,

  But rather wishing a more strict restraint

  Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.

  LUCIO (within)

  Ho, peace be in this place!

  ISABELLA ⌈to Francesca⌉

  Who’s that which calls?

  FRANCESCA

  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.

  When you have vowed, you must not speak with men

  But in the presence of the prioress.

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

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

  Lucio calls within

  He calls again. I pray you answer him.

  ⌈She stands asidel⌉

  ISABELLA

  Peace and prosperity! Who is’t that calls?

  She opens the door.

  Enter Lucio

  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

  To her unhappy brother Claudio?

  ISABELLA

  Why her unhappy brother? Let me ask,

  The rather for I now must make you know

  I am that Isabella, and his sister.

  LUCIO

  Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you.

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

  ISABELLA Woe me! For what?

  LUCIO

  For that which, if myself might be his judge,

  He should receive his punishment in thanks.

  He hath got his friend with child.

  ISABELLA

  Sir,

  make me not your story.

  LUCIO

  ‘Tis true. I would not—though ’tis my familiar sin

  With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest

  Tongue far from heart—play with all virgins so.

  I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted

  By your renouncement, an immortal spirit,

  And to be talked with in sincerity

  As with a saint.

  ISABELLA

  You do blaspheme the good in mocking me.

  LUCIO

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

  Your brother and his lover have embraced.

  As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time

  That from the seedness the bare fallow brings

  To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb

  Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.

  ISABELLA

  Someone with child by him? My cousin Juliet?

  LUCIO Is she your cousin?

  ISABELLA

  Adoptedly, as schoolmaids change their names

  By vain though apt affection.

  LUCIO

  She it is.

  ISABELLA

  O, let him marry her!

  LUCIO

  This is the point.

  The Duke is very strangely gone from hence;

  Bore many gentlemen—mysetf being one—

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

  By those that know the very nerves of state,

  His giving out were of an infinite distance

  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,

  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 picked out an act

  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

  To soften Angelo. And that’s my pith

  Of business ’twixt you and your poor brother.

  ISABELLA

  Doth he so seek his life?

  LUCIO

  Has censured him already,

  And, as I hear, the Provost hath a warrant

  For’s execution.

  ISABELLA

  Alas, what poor

  Ability’s in me to do him good?

  LUCIO Assay the power you have.

  ISABELLA My power? Alas, I doubt.

  LUCIO Our doubts are traitors,

  And makes us lose the good we oft might win,

  By fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo;

  And let him learn to know, when maidens sue,

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

  All their petitions are as freely theirs

  As they themselves would owe them.

  ISABELLA

  I’ll see what I can do.

  LUCIO

  But speedily.

  ISABELLA I will about it straight,

  No longer staying but to give the Mother

  Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you.

  Commend me to my brother. Soon at night

  I’ll send him certain word of my success.

  LUCIO

  I take my leave of you.

  ISABELLA

  Good sir, adieu.

  Exeunt ⌈Isabella and Francesca at one door,

  Lucio at another door⌉

  2.1 Enter Angelo, Escalus, and servants; a Justice

  ANGELO

  We must not make a scarecrow of the law,

  Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,

  And let it keep one shape till custom make it

  Their perch, and not their terror.

  ESCALUS

  Ay, but yet

  Let us be keen, and rather cut a little

  Than fall and bruise to death. Alas, this gentleman

  Whom I would save had a most noble father.

  Let but your honour know—

  Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue—

  That in the working of your own affections,

  Had time cohered with place, or place with wishing,

  Or that the resolute acting of your blood

  Could have attained th’effect of your own purpose—

  Whether you had not sometime in your life

  Erred in this point which now you censure him,

  And
pulled the law upon you.

  ANGELO

  ’Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,

  Another thing to fall. I not deny

  The jury passing on the prisoner’s life

  May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two

  Guiltier than him they try. What knows the law

  That thieves do pass on thieves? What’s open made to

  justice,

  That justice seizes. ’Tis very pregnant:

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

  Because we see it, but what we do not see

  We tread upon and never think of it.

  You may not so extenuate his offence

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

  When I that censure him do so offend,

  Let mine own judgement pattern out my death,

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

  ESCALUS

  Be it as your wisdom will.

  ANGELO

  Where is the Provost?

  Enter Provost

  PROVOST

  Here, if it like your honour.

  ANGELO

  See that Claudio

  Be execute by nine tomorrow morning.

  Bring him his confessor, let him be prepared,

  For that’s the utmost of his pilgrimage.

  Exit Provost

  ESCALUS

  Well, heaven forgive him, and forgive us all!

  Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

  Some run from brakes of vice, and answer none;

  And some condemned for a fault alone.

  Enter Elbow, Froth, Pompey, and officers

  ELBOW Come, bring them away. If these be good people in a commonweal, that do nothing but use their abuses in common houses, I know no law. Bring them away.

  ANGELO

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

  matter?

  ELBOW If it please your honour, I am the poor Duke’s constable, and my name is Elbow. I do lean upon justice, sir; and do bring in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors.

  ANGELO Benefactors? Welll What benefactors are they? Are they not malefactors?

  ELBOW If it please your honour, I know not well what they are; but precise villains they are, that I am sure of, and void of all profanation in the world that good Christians ought to have.

  ESCALUS (to Angelo) This comes off well; here’s a wise officer!

  ANGELO Go to, what quality are they of? Elbow is your name? Why dost thou not speak, Elbow?

  POMPEY He cannot, sir; he’s out at elbow.

  ANGELO What are you, sir?

  ELBOW He, sir? A tapster, sir, parcel bawd; one that serves a bad woman whose house, sir, was, as they say, plucked down in the suburbs; and now she professes a hot-house, which I think is a very ill house too.

  ESCALUS How know you that?

  ELBOW My wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour—

  ESCALUS How, thy wife?

  ELBOW Ay, sir, whom I thank heaven is an honest woman—

  ESCALUS Dost thou detest her therefor?

  ELBOW I say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as she, that this house, if it be not a bawd’s house, it is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house.

  ESCALUS How dost thou know that, constable?

  ELBOW Marry, sir, by my wife, who, if she had been a woman cardinally given, might have been accused in fornication, adultery, and all uncleanliness there.

  ESCALUS By the woman’s means?

  ELBOW Ay, sir, by Mistress Overdone’s means. But as she spit in his face, so she defied him.

  POMPEY (to Escalus) Sir, if it please your honour, this is not so.

  ELBOW Prove it before these varlets here, thou honourable man, prove it.

  ESCALUS (to Angelo) Do you hear how he misplaces?

  POMPEY Sir, she came in great with child, and longing-saving your honour’s reverence—for stewed prunes. Sir, we had but two in the house, which at that very distant time stood, as it were, in a fruit dish—a dish of some threepence; your honours have seen such dishes; they are not china dishes, but very good dishes.

  ESCALUS Go to, go to, no matter for the dish, sir.

  POMPEY No, indeed, sir, not of a pin; you are therein in the right. But to the point. As I say, this Mistress Elbow, being, as I say, with child, and being great-bellied, and longing, as I said, for prunes; and having but two in the dish, as I said, Master Froth here, this very man, having eaten the rest, as I said, and, as I say, paying for them very honestly; for, as you know, Master Froth, I could not give you threepence again.

  FROTH No, indeed.

  POMPEY Very well. You being, then, if you be remembered, cracking the stones of the foresaid prunes—

  FROTH Ay, so I did indeed.

  POMPEY Why, very well.—I telling you then, if you be remembered, that such a one and such a one were past cure of the thing you wot of, unless they kept very good diet, as I told you—

  FROTH All this is true. no

  POMPEY Why, very well then—

  ESCALUS Come, you are a tedious fool. To the purpose. What was done to Elbow’s wife that he hath cause to complain of? Come me to what was done to her.

  POMPEY Sir, your honour cannot come to that yet.

  ESCALUS No, sir, nor I mean it not.

  POMPEY Sir, but you shall come to it, by your honour’s leave. And I beseech you, look into Master Froth here, sir, a man of fourscore pound a year, whose father died at Hallowmas—was’t not at Hallowmas, Master Froth?

  FROTH All Hallow Eve.

  POMPEY Why, very well. I hope here be truths. He, sir, sitting, as I say, in a lower chair, sir—’twas in the Bunch of Grapes, where indeed you have a delight to sit, have you not?

  FROTH I have so, because it is an open room, and good for winter.

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

  ANGELO

  This will last out a night in Russia,

  When nights are longest there. (To Escalus) I’ll take

  my leave,

  And leave you to the hearing of the cause,

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

  ESCALUS

  I think no less. Good morrow to your lordship.

  Exit Angelo

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

  once more?

  POMPEY Once, sir? There was nothing done to her once.

  ELBOW I beseech you, sir, ask him what this man did to my wife.

  POMPEY I beseech your honour, ask me.

  ESCALUS Well, sir, what did this gentleman to her?

  POMPEY I beseech you, sir, look in this gentleman’s face. Good Master Froth, look upon his honour. ’Tis for a good purpose. Doth your honour mark his face?

  ESCALUS Ay, sir, very well.

  POMPEY Nay, I beseech you, mark it well.

  ESCALUS Well, I do so.

  POMPEY Doth your honour see any harm in his face?

  ESCALUS Why, no.

  POMPEY I’ll be supposed upon a book his face is the worst thing about him. Good, then—if his face be the worst thing about him, how could Master Froth do the constable’s wife any harm? I would know that of your honour.

  ESCALUS He’s in the right, constable; what say you to it?

  ELBOW First, an it like you, the house is a respected house; next, this is a respected fellow; and his mistress is a respected woman.

  POMPEY (to Escalus) By this hand, sir, his wife is a more respected person than any of us all.

  ELBOW Varlet, thou liest; thou liest, wicked varlet. The time is yet to come that she was ever respected with man, woman, or child.

  POMPEY Sir, she was respected with him before he married with her.

  ESCALUS Which is the wiser here, justice or iniquity? (To Elbow) Is this true?

  ELBOW (to Pompey) O thou caitiff, O thou varlet, O thou wicked Hanniball I respected with her before I was married to her? (To E
scalus) If ever I was respected with her, or she with me, let not your worship think me the poor Duke’s officer. (To Pompey) Prove this, thou wicked Hannibal, or I’ll have mine action of battery on thee.

  ESCALUS If he took you a box o’th’ ear you might have your action of slander too.

  ELBOW Marry, I thank your good worship for it. What is’t your worship’s pleasure I shall do with this wicked caitiff?

  ESCALUS Truly, officer, because he hath some offences in him that thou wouldst discover if thou couldst, let him continue in his courses till thou knowest what they are.

  ELBOW Marry, I thank your worship for it.—Thou seest, thou wicked varlet now, what’s come upon thee. Thou art to continue now, thou varlet, thou art to continue.

  ESCALUS (to Froth) Where were you born, friend?

  FROTH Here in Vienna, sir.

  ESCALUS Are you of fourscore pounds a year?

  FROTH Yes, an’t please you, sir.

  ESCALUS So. (To Pompey) What trade are you of, sir?

  POMPEY A tapster, a poor widow’s tapster.

  ESCALUS Your mistress’s name?

  POMPEY Mistress Overdone.

  ESCALUS Hath she had any more than one husband?

  POMPEY Nine, sir—Overdone by the last.

  ESCALUS Nine?—Come hither to me, Master Froth. Master Froth, I would not have you acquainted with tapsters. They will draw you, Master Froth, and you will hang them. Get you gone, and let me hear no more of you.

  FROTH I thank your worship. For mine own part, I never come into any room in a tap-house but I am drawn in.

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

  Exit Froth

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

  name, Master Tapster?

  POMPEY Pompey.

  ESCALUS What else?

  POMPEY Bum, sir.

  ESCALUS Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you; so that, in the beastliest sense, you are Pompey the Great. Pompey, you are partly a bawd, Pompey, howsoever you colour it in being a tapster, are you not? Come, tell me true; it shall be the better for you.

  POMPEY Truly, sir, I am a poor fellow that would live.

  ESCALUS How would you live, Pompey? By being a bawd? What do you think of the trade, Pompey? Is it a lawful trade?

  POMPEY If the law would allow it, sir.

  ESCALUS But the law will not allow it, Pompey; nor it shall not be allowed in Vienna.

  POMPEY Does your worship mean to geld and spay all the youth of the city?

  ESCALUS No, Pompey.

  POMPEY Truly, sir, in my poor opinion they will to’t then. If your worship will take order for the drabs and the knaves, you need not to fear the bawds.