dep nds on it than we must yet deliver. Thus fail not to do your office, as you will answ.r it at your peril. What say you to this, sir? DUKE. What is that Barnardine, who is to be executed in the afternoon? PROV. A Bohemian born, but here nursed up and bred: one that is a prisoner nine years old. DUKE. 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. PROV. 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. It is now apparent? PROV. Most manifest, and not denied by himself. DUKE. Hath he borne himself penitently in prison? How seems he to be touched? PROV. 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 He wants advice. PROV. 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. 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. PROV. Pray, sir, in what? PROV. Alack! 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. if DUKE. By the vow of mine order I warrant you: my instructions may be your guide, let this Barnardine be this morning executed, and his head borne to Angelo. PROV. Angelo hath seen them both, and will discover the favour. DUKE. 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 anything fall to you upon this, more than thanks and good fortune, by the Saint whom I profess, I will plead against it with my life. PROV. Pardon me, good father; it is against my oath. DUKE. Were you sworn to the duke, or to the deputy? PROV. To him, and to his substitutes. DUKE. You will think you have made no offence, if the duke avouch the justice of your dealing. PROV. But what likelihood is in that? DUKE. 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. PROV. I know them both. DUKE. 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 tenour; 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. it is almost clear dawn. SCENE III.-Another Room in the same. Enter POMPEY. POM. 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, nine. score 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 Threep'le the mercer, for some four suits of peach-coloured satin, which now peaches him a beg gar. Then have we here young Dizzy, and young master Deepvow, and master Copperspur, and master Starvelackey, the rapier and dagger-man, and young Dropheir that killed lusty Pudding, and master Forthright the tilter, and brave master Shoetie the great traveller, and wild Halfcan that stabbed Pots, and, I think, forty more; all great doers in our trade, and are now for the Lord's sake. BARNAR. How now, Abhorson! what's the news with you? ABHOR. Truly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your prayers; for, look you, the warrant 's come. BARNAR. You rogue, I have been drinking all night; I am not fitted for 't. Poм. 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. ABHOR. Look you, sir; here comes your ghostly father: do we jest now, think you? Enter DUKE, disguised as before. DUKE. 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. BARNAR. 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 Dispatch it presently; the hour draws on Prefix'd by Angelo: see this be done, And sent according to command, whiles I PROV. This shall be done, good father, presently. Put them in secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio: PROV. I am your free dependant. Re-enter Provost with Ragozine's head. If yet her brother's pardon be come hither; ISAB. Enter ISABELLA. Ho! by your leave. DUKE. Good morning to you, fair and gracious daughter. ISAB. The better, given me by so holy a man. His head is off, and sent to Angelo. It is no other. DUKE. This nor hurts him, nor profits you a jot: One of our covent, and his confessor, Who do prepare to meet him at the gates, wisdom Look forward on the journey you shall go. DUKE. But hear you, BARNAR. Not a word: if you have any thing to say PROV. Now, sir; how do you find the prisoner? Were damnable. There died this morning of a cruel fever And you shall have your bosom on this wretch, And shall be absent. Wend you with this letter fain to dine and sup with water and bran; I dare not for my head 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 takest 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. 1 before his entering. that if any crave redress of injustice, they should exhibit their petitions in the street? ESCAL. 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. ANG. Well, I beseech you, let it be proclaim'd: ESCAL. I shall, sir: fare you well. [Exit ESCALUS. With ransom of such shame. Would yet he had liv'd! SCENE V.-An open Place without the City. Enter DUKE, in his own habit, and FRIAR Peter. DUKE. These letters at fit time deliver me: [Giving letters. The provost knows our purpose and our plot. ANG. And why should we proclaim it in an hour | And tell him where I stay: give the like notice DUKE. Many and hearty thankings to you both ANG. To lock it in the wards of covert bosom, FRIAR PETER and ISABELLA come forward. F. PETER Now is your time: speak loud, kneel before him. and ANG. 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, ISAB. By course of justice! ANG. And she will speak most bitterly and strange. ISAB. 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, An hypocrite, a virgin-violator, Is it not strange and strange? DUKE. Nay, it is ten times strange. ISAB. 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 the end of reckoning. DUKE. Away with her!-Poor soul, She speaks this in the infirmity of sense. ISAB. O prince, I conjure thee, as thou believ'st That which but seems unlike: 'tis not impossible, In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms, To make the truth appear where it seems hid, ISAB. I am the sister of one Claudio, That's I, an 't like your grace: I came to her from Claudio, and desir'd her That 's he, indeed. Nor wish'd to hold my peace. I wish you now, LUCIO. I warrant your honour. then: DUKE. The warrant 's for yourself: take heed to it. ISAB. This gentleman told somewhat of my tale, LUCIO. Right. DUKE. It may be right; but you are i' the wrong To speak before your time.-Proceed. ISAB. I went My sisterly remorse confutes mine honour, And I did yield to him: but the next morn betimes, DUKE. This is most likely! Or else thou art suborn'd against his honour Stands without blemish: next, it imports no reason, ISAB. DUKE. This is no witness for lord Angelo. Then, O, you blessed ministers above, In countenance!-Heaven shield your grace from woe, DUKE. I know you d fain be gone.-An officer! To prison with her!-Shall we thus permit Lucio. My lord, I know him; 'tis a meddling friar; I do not like the man: had he been lay, my lord, F. PETER. Bless'd be your royal grace! I have stood by, my lord, and I have heard DUKE. We did believe no less. Know you that friar Lodowick that she speaks of? F. PETER. I know him for a man divine and holy: Not scurvy, nor a temporary meddler, As he's reported by this gentleman; And, on my trust, a man that never yet Did, as he vouches, misreport your grace. LUCIO. My lord, most villainously; believe it. F. PETER. Well, he in time may come to clear himself; But at this instant he is sick, my lord, So vulgarly and personally accus'd, Do you not smile at this, lord Angelo?— DUKE. What, are you married? Are you a maid? No, my lord. DUKE. A widow then? MARI. Neither, my lord. DUKE. Why, you are nothing then :-neither maid, widow, nor wife? LUCIO. My lord, she may be a punk; for many of them are neither maid, widow, nor wife. DUKE. Silence that fellow; I would, he had some cause nothing but in his clothes; and one that hath spoke most villainous speeches of the duke ESCAL. We shall entreat you to abide here till he come, and enforce them against him: we shall find this friar a notable fellow. LUCIO. As any in Vienna, on my word. ESCAL. Call that same Isabel here once again: I would speak with her. [Exit an Attendant.] Pray you, my lord, give me leave to question; you shall see how I'll handle her. LUCIO. Not better than he, by her own report. LUCIO. Marry, sir, I think, if you handled her privately, she would sooner confess: perchance, publicly, she 'll be ashamed. a ESCAL I will go darkly to work with her. LUCIO. That's the way; for women are light at midnight. Re-enter Officers with ISABELLA. ESCAL. [To ISABELLA.] Come on, mistress: here's gentlewoman denies all that you have said. LUCIO. My lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of; here, with the provost. ESCAL. In very good time:-speak not you to him till we call upon you. LUCIO. Mum. Re-enter DUKE, disguised as a Friar, and Provost. ESCAL. Come, sir: did you set these women on to slander lord Angelo? they have confessed you did. DUKE. 'Tis false. ESCAL. How! know you where you are? DUKE. Respect to your great place! and let the devil Be sometime honour'd for his burning throne!Where is the duke? 'tis he should hear me speak. ESCAL. The duke's in us, and we will hear you speak: Look you speak justly. DUKE. Boldly, at least.-But, O, poor souls, I never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her, And put your trial in the villain's mouth, MARI. Noble prince, As there comes light from heaven, and words from Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice; F. PETER. Would he were here, my lord! for he, indeed, Hath set the women on to this complaint: ESCAL. My lord, we'll do it thoroughly.-[Exit DUKE] Signior Lucio, did not you say you knew that friar Lodowick to be a dishonest person? LUCIO. Cucullus non facit monachum: honest in Which here you come to accuse. LUCIO. This is the rascal; this is he I spoke of. ESCAL. Why, thou unreverend and unhallow'd friar, Is 't not enough thou hast suborn'd these women To call him villain? and then to glance from him you Joint by joint, but we will know his purpose.--- DUKE. Be not so hot; the duke dare ESCAL. Slander to the state! Away with him to prison! ANG. What can you vouch against him, signior Lucio? Is this the man that you did tell us of? LUCIO. 'Tis he, my lord.-Come hither, goodman bald-pate: do you know me? DUKE. I remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice: I met you at the prison, in the absence of the duke. LUCIO. O. did you so? and do you remember what you said of the duke? DUKE. Most notedly, sir. LUCIO. Do you so, sir? and was the duke a fleshmonger, a fool, and a coward, as you then reported him to be? DUKE. You must, sir, change persons with me, ere you make that my report: you, indeed, spoke so of him; and much more, much worse. LUCIO. O, thou damnable fellow! did not I pluck thee by the nose, for thy speeches? DUKE. I protest, I love the duke as I love myself. ANG. Hark how the villain would close now, after his treasonable abuses! ESCAL. Such a fellow is not to be talked withalaway with him to prison!-where is the provost ?away with him to prison! lay bolts enough upon him: let him speak no more.-Away with those giglots too, and with the other confederate companion! [The Provost lays hand on the DUKE. DUKE. Stay, sir; stay a while. ANG. What! resists he?-Help him, Lucio. LUCIO. Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why you bald-pated, lying rascal! you must be hooded, must you? Show your knave's visage, with a pox to you! show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour! Will 't not off? [Pulls off the Friar's hood, and discovers the DUKE. DUKE. Thou art the first knave that e'er made a duke. First, provost, let me bail these gentle three. Of sacred chastity, and of promise-breach I hope you will not mock me with a husband! Sneak not away, sir; [To Lucio.] for the friar and Consenting to the safeguard of your honour, I thought your marriage fit; else imputation, O, my dear lord, DUKE. Go take her hence, and marry her in- Hold up your hands, say nothing,-I'll speak all. stantly. Do you the office, friar; which consummate, [Exeunt ANGELO, MARIANA, FRIAR PETER, ESCAL. My lord, I am more amaz'd at his dishonour, Than at the strangeness of it. O, give me pardon, That I, your vassal, have employ'd and pain'd Your unknown sovereignty! DUKE. You are pardon'd, Isabel: Which I did think with slower foot came on, I do, my lord. Re-enter ANGELO, MARIANA, FRIAR PETER, and Provost. DUKE. For this new-married man, approaching here, Whose salt imagination yet hath wrong'd For Mariana's sake: but as he adjudg'd your bro ther, Being criminal, in double violation They say, best men are moulded out of faults, Most bounteous sir, [Kneeling. Look, if it please you, on this man condemn'd, Till he did look on me: since it is so, His act did not o'ertake his bad intent; That perish'd by the way: thoughts are no subjects; MARI. Merely, my lord. Go, fetch him hither; let me look upon him. ANG. I am sorry that such sorrow I procure; And so deep sticks it in 1y penitent heart, That I crave death more willingly than mercy; 'Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it. Re-enter Provost, with BARNARDINE, CLAUDIO, muffled, and JULIET. DUKE. Which is that Barnardine? PROV. This, my lord. DUKE. There was a friar told me of this man.Sirrah, thou art said to have a stubborn soul, That apprehends no further than this world, And squar'st thy life according. Thou 'rt condemn'd; But, for those earthly faults, I quit them all, And pray thee, take this mercy to provide For better times to come.-Friar, advise him; I leave him to your hand.-What muffled fellow's that? PROV. This is another prisoner that I sav'd, Who should have died when Claudio lost his head; As like almost to Claudio as himself. [Unmuffles CLAUDIO. DUKE. [To ISABELLA.] If he be like your brother, for his sake Is he pardon'd; and, for your lovely sake, Look that you love your wife; her worth, worth yours.- And yet here's one in place I cannot pardon. [To LUCIO.] You, sirrah, that know me for a fool, a coward, One all of luxury, an ass, a madman; LUCIO. Faith, my lord, I spoke it but according to LUCIO. I beseech your highness, do not marry me to a whore! Your highness said even now, I made you a duke: good my lord, do not recompense me in making me a cuckold. DUKE. Upon mine honour, thou shalt marry her. Thy slanders I forgive; and therewithal Remit thy other forfeits.-Take him to prison; And see our pleasure herein executed. LUCIO. Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping, and hanging. DUKE. Slandering a prince deserves it.- I have confess'd her, and I know her virtue.- SHAL. Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star-chamber matter of it: if he were twenty sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire. SLEN. In the county of Gloster, justice of peace, and coram. SHAL. Ay, cousin Slender, and Cust-alorum. SLEN. Ay, and ratolorum too: and a gentleman born, master parson; who writes himself armigero in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation; armigero. SHAL. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three hundred years. SLEN. All his successors, gone before him, hath done 't; and all his ancestors, that come after him, may: they may give the dozen white luces in their Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star-chamber matter of it. ACT I. SCENE I.-Windsor. Before Page's House. SHAL. Not a whit. EVA. Yes, per-lady; if he has a quarter of your coat, there is put three skirts for yourself, in my simple conjectures: but that is all one: if sir John Falstaff have committed disparagements unto you, I am of the church, and will be glad to do my penevolence, to make atonements and compromises petween you. SHAL. The Council shall hear it; it is a riot. EVA. It is not meet the Council hear a riot; there is no fear of Got in a riot: the Council, look you, shall desire to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot; take your vizaments in that. SHAL. Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, the sword should end it. EVA. It is petter that friends is the sword, and end it: and there is also another device in my prain, which, peradventure, prings goot discretions with it. There is Anne Page, which is daughter to master George Page, which is pretty virginity. SLEN. Mistress Anne Page? she has brown hair, and speaks small like a woman. EVA. It is that fery person for all the 'orld, as just as you will desire; and seven hundred pounds of monies, and gold, and silver, is her grandsire, upon his death's-ped, (Got deliver to a joyful resurrections!) give, when she is aple to overtake seventeen years old: it were a goot motion, if we leave our pribbles and prabbles, and desire a marriage petween master Abraham and mistress Anne Page. SHAL. Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound? EVA. Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny. SHAL. I know the young gentlewoman; she has good gifts. EVA. Seven hundred pounds, and possibilities, is goot gifts. SHAL Well, let us see honest master Page: is Falstaff there? EVA. Shall I tell you a lie? I do despise a liar, as I do despise one that is false; or. as I despise one that is not true. The knight, sir John, is there; and, I peseech you, pe ruled by your well-willers. I will peat the door [Knocks.] for master Page. What, hoa! Got pless your house here! Enter PAGE. PAGE. Who's there? EVA. Here is Got's plessing, and your friend, and justice Shallow: and here young master Slender; that, peradventures, shall tell you another tale, if matters grow to your likings. PAGE. I am glad to see your worslaps well: I thank you for my venison, master Shallow. SHAL. Master Page, I am glad to see you; much |