Sir, I will serve him; for I do find your hangman is a more penitent trade than your bawd; he doth oftener ask forgiveness.
Provost
You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe to-morrow four o’clock.
Abhorson
Come on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow.
Pompey
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.
Provost
Call hither Barnardine and Claudio:
Exeunt Pompey and Abhorson
The 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?
Claudio
As fast lock’d up in sleep as guiltless labour
When it lies starkly in the traveller’s bones:
He will not wake.
Provost
Who can do good on him?
Well, go, prepare yourself.
Knocking within
But, hark, what noise?
Heaven give your spirits comfort!
Exit Claudio
By and by.
I hope it is some pardon or reprieve
For the most gentle Claudio.
Enter Duke Vincentio disguised as before
Welcome father.
Duke Vincentio
The best and wholesomest spirts of the night
Envelope you, good Provost! Who call’d here of late?
Provost
None, since the curfew rung.
Duke Vincentio
Not Isabel?
Provost
No.
Duke Vincentio
They will, then, ere’t be long.
Provost
What comfort is for Claudio?
Duke Vincentio
There’s some in hope.
Provost
It is a bitter deputy.
Duke Vincentio
Not so, not so; his life is parallel’d
Even with the stroke 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 with that
Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous;
But this being so, he’s just.
Knocking within
Now are they come.
Exit Provost
This is a gentle provost: seldom when
The steeled gaoler is the friend of men.
Knocking within
How now! what noise? That spirit’s possessed with haste
That wounds the unsisting postern with these strokes.
Re-enter Provost
Provost
There he must stay until the officer
Arise to let him in: he is call’d up.
Duke Vincentio
Have you no countermand for Claudio yet,
But he must die to-morrow?
Provost
None, sir, none.
Duke Vincentio
As near the dawning, provost, as it is,
You shall hear more ere morning.
Provost
Happily
You something know; yet I believe there comes
No countermand; no such example have we:
Besides, upon the very siege of justice
Lord Angelo hath to the public ear
Profess’d the contrary.
Enter a Messenger
This is his lordship’s man.
Duke Vincentio
And here comes Claudio’s pardon.
Messenger
[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.
Provost
I shall obey him.
Exit Messenger
Duke Vincentio
[Aside] This is his pardon, purchased by such sin
For which the pardoner himself is in.
Hence hath offence his quick celerity,
When it is born in high authority:
When vice makes mercy, mercy’s so extended,
That for the fault’s love is the offender friended.
Now, sir, what news?
Provost
I told you. Lord Angelo, belike thinking me remiss in mine office, awakens me with this unwonted putting-on; methinks strangely, for he hath not used it before.
Duke Vincentio
Pray you, let’s hear.
Provost
[Reads] ‘Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let Claudio be executed by four of the clock; and in the afternoon Barnardine: for my better satisfaction, let me have Claudio’s head sent me by five. Let this be duly performed; with a thought that more depends on it than we must yet deliver. Thus fail not to do your office, as you will answer it at your peril.’
What say you to this, sir?
Duke Vincentio
What is that Barnardine who is to be executed in the afternoon?
Provost
A Bohemian born, but here nursed un and bred; one that is a prisoner nine years old.
Duke Vincentio
How came it that the absent duke had not either delivered him to his liberty or executed him? I have heard it was ever his manner to do so.
Provost
His friends still wrought reprieves for him: and, indeed, his fact, till now in the government of Lord Angelo, came not to an undoubtful proof.
Duke Vincentio
It is now apparent?
Provost
Most manifest, and not denied by himself.
Duke Vincentio
Hath he born himself penitently in prison? how seems he to be touched?
Provost
A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but as a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless of what’s past, present, or to come; insensible of mortality, and desperately mortal.
Duke Vincentio
He wants advice.
Provost
He will hear none: he hath evermore had the liberty of the prison; give him leave to escape hence, he would not: drunk many times a day, if not many days entirely drunk. We have very oft awaked him, as if to carry him to execution, and showed him a seeming warrant for it: it hath not moved him at all.
Duke Vincentio
More of him anon. There is written in your brow, provost, honesty and constancy: if I read it not truly, my ancient skill beguiles me; but, in the boldness of my cunning, I will lay myself in hazard. Claudio, whom here you have warrant to execute, is no greater forfeit to the law than Angelo who hath sentenced him. To make you understand this in a manifested effect, I crave but four days’ respite; for the which you are to do me both a present and a dangerous courtesy.
Provost
Pray, sir, in what?
Duke Vincentio
In the delaying death.
Provost
A lack, how may I do it, having the hour limited, and an express command, under penalty, to deliver his head in the view of Angelo? I may make my case as Claudio’s, to cross this in the smallest.
Duke Vincentio
By the vow of mine order I warrant you, if my instructions may be your guide. Let this Barnardine be this morning executed, and his head born to Angelo.
Provost
Angelo hath seen them both, and will discover the favour.
Duke Vincentio
O, death’s a great disguiser; and you may add to it. Shave the head, and tie the beard; and say it was the desire of the penitent to be so bared before his death: you know the course is common. If any thing fall t
o you upon this, more than thanks and good fortune, by the saint whom I profess, I will plead against it with my life.
Provost
Pardon me, good father; it is against my oath.
Duke Vincentio
Were you sworn to the duke, or to the deputy?
Provost
To him, and to his substitutes.
Duke Vincentio
You will think you have made no offence, if the duke avouch the justice of your dealing?
Provost
But what likelihood is in that?
Duke Vincentio
Not a resemblance, but a certainty. Yet since I see you fearful, that neither my coat, integrity, nor persuasion can with ease attempt you, I will go further than I meant, to pluck all fears out of you. Look you, sir, here is the hand and seal of the duke: you know the character, I doubt not; and the signet is not strange to you.
Provost
I know them both.
Duke Vincentio
The contents of this is the return of the duke: you shall anon over-read it at your pleasure; where you shall find, within these two days he will be here. This is a thing that Angelo knows not; for he this very day receives letters of strange tenor; perchance of the duke’s death; perchance entering into some monastery; but, by chance, nothing of what is writ. Look, the unfolding star calls up the shepherd. Put not yourself into amazement how these things should be: all difficulties are but easy when they are known. Call your executioner, and off with Barnardine’s head: I will give him a present shrift and advise him for a better place. Yet you are amazed; but this shall absolutely resolve you. Come away; it is almost clear dawn.
Exeunt
SCENE III. ANOTHER ROOM IN THE SAME.
Enter Pompey
Pompey
I am as well acquainted here as I was in our house of profession: one would think it were Mistress Overdone’s own house, for here be many of her old customers. First, here’s young Master Rash; he’s in for a commodity of brown paper and old ginger, ninescore and seventeen pounds; of which he made five marks, ready money: marry, then ginger was not much in request, for the old women were all dead. Then is there here one Master Caper, at the suit of Master Three-pile the mercer, for some four suits of peach-coloured satin, which now peaches him a beggar. Then have we here young Dizy, and young Master Deep-vow, and Master Copperspur, and Master Starve-lackey the rapier and dagger man, and young Drop-heir that killed lusty Pudding, and Master Forthlight the tilter, and brave Master Shooty the great traveller, and wild Half-can that stabbed Pots, and, I think, forty more; all great doers in our trade, and are now ’for the Lord’s sake.’
Enter Abhorson
Abhorson
Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither.
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
[Within] 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.
Abhorson
Look you, sir; here comes your ghostly father: do we jest now, think you?
Enter Duke Vincentio disguised as before
Duke Vincentio
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 Vincentio
O, sir, you must: and therefore I beseech you
Look forward on the journey you shall go.
Barnardine
I swear I will not die to-day for any man’s persuasion.
Duke Vincentio
But hear you.
Barnardine
Not a word: if you have any thing to say to me, come to my ward; for thence will not I to-day.
Exit
Duke Vincentio
Unfit to live or die: O gravel heart!
After him, fellows; bring him to the block.
Exeunt Abhorson and Pompey
Re-enter Provost
Provost
Now, sir, how do you find the prisoner?
Duke Vincentio
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 Ragozine, 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 Ragozine, more like to Claudio?
Duke Vincentio
O, ’tis an accident that heaven provides!
Dispatch it presently; the hour draws on
Prefix’d 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 Vincentio
Let this be done.
Put them in secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio:
Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting
To the under generation, you shall find
Your safety manifested.
Provost
I am your free dependant.
Duke Vincentio
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.
Re-enter Provost
Provost
Here is the head; I’ll carry it myself.
Duke Vincentio
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 Vincentio
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.
Enter Isabella
Isabella
Ho, by your leave!
Duke Vincentio
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 Vincentio
He hath released him, Isabel, from the world:
His head is off and sent to Angelo.
Isabella
Nay, but it is not so.
Duke Vincentio
It is no other: show your wisdom, daughter,
In your close patience.
Isabella
O, I will to him and pluck out his eyes!
Duke Vincentio
You shall not be admitted to his sight.
Isabella
Unhappy Claudio! wretched Isabel!
Injurious world! most damned Angelo!
Duke Vincentio
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 to-morrow; 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 Vincentio
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 to-night. 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. 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. Who’s here?
Enter Lucio
Lucio
Good even. Friar, where’s the provost?
Duke Vincentio
Not within, sir.
Lucio
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