The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works
Page 280
ABHORSON Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither. 19
POMPEY Master Barnardine! You must rise and be hanged, Master Barnardine!
ABHORSON What ho, Barnardine!
BARNARDINE (within) A pox o’ your throats! Who makes that noise there? What are you?
POMPEY Your friends, sir; the hangman. You must be so good, sir, to rise and be put to death.
BARNARDINE Away, you rogue, away! I am sleepy.
ABHORSON Tell him he must awake, and that quickly too.
POMPEY Pray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are executed, and sleep afterwards.
ABHORSON Go in to him and fetch him out.
POMPEY He is coming, sir, he is coming. I hear his straw rustle.
ABHORSON Is the axe upon the block, sirrah?
POMPEY Very ready, sir.
Enter Barnardine
BARNARDINE How now, Abhorson, what’s the news with you?
ABHORSON Truly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your prayers, for, look you, the warrant’s come.
BARNARDINE You rogue, I have been drinking all night. I am not fitted for’t.
POMPEY O, the better, sir; for he that drinks all night, and is hanged betimes in the morning, may sleep the sounder all the next day. Enter the Duke, disguised as a friar
ABHORSON (to Barnardine) Look you, sir, here comes your ghostly father. Do we jest now, think you?
DUKE (to Barnardine) Sir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily you are to depart, I am come to advise you, comfort you, and pray with you.
BARNARDINE Friar, not I. I have been drinking hard all night, and I will have more time to prepare me, or they shall beat out my brains with billets. I will not consent to die this day, that’s certain.
DUKE
O sir, you must; and therefore, I beseech you,
Look forward on the journey you shall go.
BARNARDINE I swear I will not die today, for any man’s persuasion.
DUKE But hear you—
BARNARDINE Not a word. If you have anything to say to me, come to my ward, for thence will not I today.
Exit
DUKE
Unfit to live or die. O gravel heart!
After him, fellows; bring him to the block.
Exeunt Abhorson and Pompey
Enter Provost
PROVOST
Now, sir, how do you find the prisoner?
DUKE
A creature unprepared, unmeet for death;
And to transport him in the mind he is
Were damnable.
PROVOST
Here in the prison, father,
There died this morning of a cruel fever
One Ragusine, a most notorious pirate,
A man of Claudio’s years, his beard and head
Just of his colour. What if we do omit
This reprobate till he were well inclined,
And satisfy the deputy with the visage
Of Ragusine, more like to Claudio?
DUKE
O, ’tis an accident that heaven provides.
Dispatch it presently; the hour draws on
Prefixed by Angelo. See this be done,
And sent according to command, whiles I
Persuade this rude wretch willingly to die.
PROVOST
This shall be done, good father, presently.
But Barnardine must die this afternoon;
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
To yonder generation, you shall find
Your safety manifested.
PROVOST
I am your free dependant.
DUKE
Quick, dispatch, and send the head to Angelo.
Exit Provost
Now will I write letters to Angelo—
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
A league below the city, and from thence,
By cold gradation and well-balanced form,
We shall proceed with Angelo.
Enter the Provost, with Ragusine’s head
PROVOST
Here is the head; I’ll carry it myself.
DUKE
Convenient is it. Make a swift return,
For I would commune with you of such things
That want no ear but yours.
PROVOST I’ll make all speed.
Exit
ISABELLA (within) Peace, ho, be here!
DUKE
The tongue of Isabel. She’s come to know
If yet her brother’s pardon be come hither;
But I will keep her ignorant of her good,
To make her heavenly comforts of despair
When it is least expected.
ISABELLA ⌈within⌉ Ho, by your leave!
⌈Enter Isabella⌉
DUKE
Good morning to you, fair and gracious daughter.
ISABELLA
The better, given me by so holy a man.
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.
ISABELLA
Nay, but it is not so.
DUKE
It is no other.
Show your wisdom, daughter, in your close patience.
ISABELLA
O, I will to him and pluck out his eyes!
DUKE
You shall not be admitted to his sight.
ISABELLA (weeping)
Unhappy Claudio! Wretched Isabel!
Injurious world! Most damned Angelo!
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 tomorrow—nay, dry your
eyes—
One of our convent, 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
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.
ISABELLA
I am directed by you.
DUKE
This letter, then, to Friar Peter give.
’Tis that he sent me of the Duke’s return.
Say by this token I desire his company
At Mariana’s house tonight. Her cause and yours
I’ll perfect him withal, and he shall bring you
Before the Duke, and to the head of Angelo
Accuse him home and home. For my poor self,
I am combined by a sacred vow,
And shall be absent. (Giving the letter) Wend you with
this letter.
Command these fretting waters from your eyes
With a light heart. Trust not my holy order
If I pervert your course.
Enter Lucio
Who’s here?
LUCIO
Good even.
Friar, where’s the Provost?
DUKE
Not within, sir.
LUCIO O pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart to see thine eyes so red. Thou must be patient. I am fain to dine and sup with water and bran; I dare not for my he
ad fill my belly; one fruitful meal would set me to’t. But they say the Duke will be here tomorrow. By my troth, Isabel, I loved thy brother. If the old fantastical Duke of dark corners had been at home, he had lived. ⌈Exit Isabella⌉
DUKE Sir, the Duke is marvellous little beholden to your reports; but the best is, he lives not in them.
LUCIO Friar, thou knowest not the Duke so well as I do. He’s a better woodman than thou tak’st him for.
DUKE Well, you’ll answer this one day. Fare ye well.
LUCIO Nay, tarry, I’ll go along with thee. I can tell thee pretty tales of the Duke.
DUKE You have told me too many of him already, sir, if they be true; if not true, none were enough.
LUCIO I was once before him for getting a wench with child.
DUKE Did you such a thing?
LUCIO Yes, marry, did I; but I was fain to forswear it. They would else have married me to the rotten medlar.
DUKE Sir, your company is fairer than honest. Rest you well.
LUCIO By my troth, I’ll go with thee to the lane’s end. If bawdy talk offend you, we’ll have very little of it. Nay, friar, I am a kind of burr; I shall stick.
Exeunt
4.4 Enter Angelo and Escalus
ESCALUS Every letter he hath writ hath disvouched other.
ANGELO In most uneven and distracted manner. His actions show much like to madness. Pray heaven his wisdom be not tainted. And why meet him at the gates, and redeliver our authorities there?
ESCALUS I guess not.
ANGELO And why should we proclaim it in an hour before his entering, that if any crave redress of injustice, they should exhibit their petitions in the street?
ESCALUS He shows his reason for that—to have a dispatch of complaints, and to deliver us from devices hereafter, which shall then have no power to stand against us.
ANGELO
Well, I beseech you let it be proclaimed.
Betimes i’th’ morn I’ll call you at your house.
Give notice to such men of sort and suit
As are to meet him.
ESCALUS I shall, sir. Fare you well.
ANGELO Good night.
Exit Escalus
This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant
And dull to all proceedings. A deflowered maid,
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 off a credent bulk,
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 dishonoured life
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
4.5 Enter the Duke, in his own habit, and Friar Peter
DUKE
These letters at fit time deliver me.
The Provost knows our purpose and our plot.
The matter being afoot, keep your instruction,
And hold you ever to our special drift,
Though sometimes you do blench from this to that
As cause doth minister. Go call at Flavio’s house,
And tell him where I stay. Give the like notice
To Valentinus, Rowland, and to Crassus,
And bid them bring the trumpets to the gate.
But send me Flavius first.
FRIAR It shall be speeded well.
Exit
Enter Varrius
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!
Exeunt
4.6 Enter Isabella and Mariana
ISABELLA
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.
MARIANA
Be ruled by him.
ISABELLA
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.
Enter Friar Peter
MARIANA I would Friar Peter—
ISABELLA O, peace; the friar is come.
FRIAR PETER
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
The Duke is ent’ring; therefore hence, away. Exeunt
5.1 Enter ⌈at one door⌉ the Duke, Varrius, and lords, ⌈at another door⌉ Angelo, Escalus, Lucio, citizens, ⌈and officers⌉
DUKE (to Angelo)
My very worthy cousin, fairly met.
(To Escalus) Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to
see you.
ANGELO and ESCALUS
Happy return be to your royal grace.
DUKE
Many and hearty thankings to you both.
We have made enquiry of you, and we hear
Such goodness of your justice that our soul
Cannot but yield you forth to public thanks,
Forerunning more requital.
ANGELO
You make my bonds still greater.
DUKE
O, your desert speaks loud, and I should wrong it
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
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.
⌈ They walk forward. ⌉
Enter Friar Peter and Isabella
FRIAR PETER
Now is your time. Speak loud, and kneel before him.
ISABELLA (kneeling)
Justice, O royal Duke! Vail your regard
Upon a wronged—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,
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.
ISABELLA
O worthy Duke,
You bid me seek redemption of the devil.
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, hear!
ANGELO
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.
ISABELLA ⌈standing⌉
By course of justice!
ANGELO
And she will speak most bitterly and strange.
ISABELLA
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?
That Angelo is an adulterous thief,
Is it not strange, and strange?
DUKE
Nay, it is ten times strange!
ISABELLA
It is not truer he is Angelo
Than this is all as true as it is strange.
Nay, it is ten times true, for truth is truth
To th‘end of reck’ning.
DUKE
Away with her. Poor soul,
She speaks this in th’infirmity of sense.
ISABELLA
O prince, I conjure thee, as thou believ‘st
There is another comfort than this world,
That thou neglect me not with that opinion
That I am touched 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,
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,
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.
ISABELLA
O gracious Duke,
Harp not on that, nor do not banish reason
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?
ISABELLA
I am the sister of one Claudio,
Condemned upon the act of fornication
To lose his head, condemned 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.
I came to her from Claudio, and desired her