Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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2.3 Enter ⌈ at one door⌉ the Duke, disguised as a friar, and ⌈ at another door⌉ the Provost

DUKE

Hail to you, Provost!—so I think you are.

PROVOST

I am the Provost. What’s your will, good friar?

DUKE

Bound by my charity and my blest order,

I come to visit the afflicted spirits

Here in the prison. Do me the common right

To let me see them, and to make me know

The nature of their crimes, that I may minister

To them accordingly.

PROVOST

I would do more than that, if more were needful.

Enter Juliet

Look, here comes one, a gentlewoman of mine,

Who, falling in the flaws of her own youth,

Hath blistered her report. She is with child,

And he that got it, sentenced—a young man

More fit to do another such offence

Than die for this.

DUKE When must he die?

PROVOST As I do think, tomorrow.

(To Juliet) I have provided for you. Stay a while,

And you shall be conducted.

DUKE

Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?

JULIET

I do, and bear the shame most patiently.

DUKE

I’ll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,

And try your penitence if it be sound

Or hollowly put on.

JULIET I’ll gladly learn.

DUKE Love you the man that wronged you?

JULIET

Yes, as I love the woman that wronged him.

DUKE

So then it seems your most offenceful act

Was mutually committed?

JULIET

Mutually.

DUKE

Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.

JULIET

I do confess it and repent it, father.

DUKE

’Tis meet so, daughter. But lest you do repent

As that the sin hath brought you to this shame—

Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not heaven,

Showing we would not spare heaven as we love it,

But as we stand in fear—

JULIET

I do repent me as it is an evil,

And take the shame with joy.

DUKE

There rest.

Your partner, as I hear, must die tomorrow,

And I am going with instruction to him.

Grace go with you. Benedicite! Exit

JULIET

Must die tomorrow? O injurious law,

That respites me a life whose very comfort

Is still a dying horror!

PROVOST

’Tis pity of him.

Exeunt

2.4 Enter Angelo

ANGELO

When I would pray and think, I think and pray

To several subjects: heaven hath my empty words,

Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,

Anchors on Isabel; God in my mouth,

As if I did but only chew his name,

And in my heart the strong and swelling evil

Of my conception. The state whereon I studied

Is like a good thing, being often read,

Grown seared and tedious. Yea, my gravity,

Wherein—let no man hear me—I take pride,

Could I with boot change for an idle plume

Which the air beats in vain. O place, O form,

How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,

Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls

To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood.

Let’s write ‘good angel’ on the devil’s horn—

’Tis now the devil’s crest.

Enter Servant

How now? Who’s there?

SERVANT One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.

ANGELO

Teach her the way.

Exit Servant

O heavens,

Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,

Making both it unable for itself,

And dispossessing all my other parts

Of necessary fitness?

So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons—

Come all to help him, and so stop the air

By which he should revive—and even so

The general subject to a well-wished king

Quit their own part and, in obsequious fondness,

Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love

Must needs appear offence.

Enter Isabella

How now, fair maid?

ISABELLA I am come to know your pleasure.

ANGELO (aside)

That you might know it would much better please me

Than to demand what ’tis. (To Isabella) Your brother

cannot live.

ISABELLA Even so. Heaven keep your honour.

ANGELO

Yet may he live a while, and it may be

As long as you or I. Yet he must die.

ISABELLA Under your sentence?

ANGELO Yea.

ISABELLA

When, I beseech you?—that in his reprieve,

Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted

That his soul sicken not.

ANGELO

Ha, fie, these filthy vices! It were as good

To pardon him that hath from nature stolen

A man already made, as to remit

Their saucy sweetness that do coin God’s image

In stamps that are forbid. ’Tis all as easy

Falsely to take away a life true made

As to put metal in restrained moulds,

To make a false one.

ISABELLA

’Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.

ANGELO

Say you so? Then I shall pose you quickly.

Which had you rather: that the most just law

Now took your brother’s life, or, to redeem him,

Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness

As she that he hath stained?

ISABELLA

Sir, believe this.

I had rather give my body than my soul.

ANGELO

I talk not of your soul. Our compelled sins

Stand more for number than for account.

ISABELLA

How say you?

ANGELO

Nay, I’ll not warrant that, for I can speak

Against the thing I say. Answer to this.

I now, the voice of the recorded law,

Pronounce a sentence on your brother’s life.

Might there not be a charity in sin

To save this brother’s life?

ISABELLA Please you to do’t,

I’ll take it as a peril to my soul

It is no sin at all, but charity.

ANGELO

Pleased you to do’t at peril of your soul

Were equal poise of sin and charity.

ISABELLA

That I do beg his life, if it be sin,

Heaven let me bear it. You granting of my suit,

If that be sin, I’ll make it my morn prayer

To have it added to the faults of mine,

And nothing of your answer.

ANGELO

Nay, but hear me.

Your sense pursues not mine. Either you are ignorant,

Or seem so craftily, and that’s not good.

ISABELLA

Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good

But graciously to know I am no better.

ANGELO

Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright

When it doth tax itself: as these black masks

Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder

Than beauty could, displayed. But mark me.

To be received plain, I’ll speak more gross.

Your brother is to die.

ISABELLA So.

ANGELO

And his offence is so, as it appears,

Accountant to the law upon that pain.

ISABELLA True.

ANGELO

Admit no other way to save his life—

As I subscribe not that nor any other—

But, in the loss of question, that you his sister,

Finding yourself desired of such a person

Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,

Could fetch your brother from the manacles

Of the all-binding law, and that there were

No earthly mean to save him, but that either

You must lay down the treasures of your body

To this supposed, or else to let him suffer—

What would you do?

ISABELLA

As much for my poor brother as myself.

That is, were I under the terms of death,

Th’impression of keen whips I’d wear as rubies,

And strip myself to death as to a bed

That longing have been sick for, ere I’d yield

My body up to shame.

ANGELO Then must your brother die.

ISABELLA And ’twere the cheaper way.

Better it were a brother died at once

Than that a sister, by redeeming him,

Should die for ever.

ANGELO

Were not you then as cruel as the sentence

That you have slandered so?

ISABELLA

Ignominy in ransom and free pardon

Are of two houses; lawful mercy

Is nothing kin to foul redemption.

ANGELO

You seemed of late to make the law a tyrant,

And rather proved the sliding of your brother

A merriment than a vice.

ISABELLA

O pardon me, my lord. It oft falls out

To have what we would have, we speak not what we

mean.

I something do excuse the thing I hate

For his advantage that I dearly love.

ANGELO

We are all frail.

ISABELLA Else let my brother die—

If not a federy, but only he,

Owe and succeed thy weakness.

ANGELO

Nay, women are frail too.

ISABELLA

Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves,

Which are as easy broke as they make forms.

Women? Help, heaven! Men their creation mar

In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail,

For we are soft as our complexions are,

And credulous to false prints.

ANGELO

I think it well,

And from this testimony of your own sex,

Since I suppose we are made to be no stronger

Than faults may shake our frames, let me be bold.

I do arrest your words. Be that you are;

That is, a woman. If you be more, you’re none.

If you be one, as you are well expressed

By all external warrants, show it now,

By putting on the destined livery.

ISABELLA

I have no tongue but one. Gentle my lord,

Let me entreat you speak the former language.

ANGELO Plainly conceive, I love you.

ISABELLA

My brother did love Juliet,

And you tell me that he shall die for it.

ANGELO

He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.

ISABELLA

I know your virtue hath a licence in’t,

Which seems a little fouler than it is,

To pluck on others.

ANGELO

Believe me, on mine honour,

My words express my purpose.

ISABELLA

Ha, little honour to be much believed,

And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!

I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for’t.

Sign me a present pardon for my brother,

Or with an outstretched throat I’ll tell the world aloud

What man thou art.

ANGELO

Who will believe thee, Isabel?

My unsoiled name, th‘austereness of my life,

My vouch against you, and my place i’th’ state,

Will so your accusation overweigh

That you shall stifle in your own report,

And smell of calumny. I have begun,

And now I give my sensual race the rein.

Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite.

Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes

That banish what they sue for. Redeem thy brother

By yielding up thy body to my will,

Or else he must not only die the death,

But thy unkindness shall his death draw out

To ling‘ring sufferance. Answer me tomorrow,

Or by the affection that now guides me most,

I’ll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,

Say what you can, my false o’erweighs your true.

Exit

ISABELLA

To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,

Who would believe me? O perilous mouths,

That bear in them one and the selfsame tongue

Either of condemnation or approof,

Bidding the law make curtsy to their will,

Hooking both right and wrong to th’appetite,

To follow as it draws! I’ll to my brother.

Though he hath fall’n by prompture of the blood,

Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour

That had he twenty heads to tender down

On twenty bloody blocks, he’d yield them up

Before his sister should her body stoop

To such abhorred pollution.

Then Isabel live chaste, and brother die:

More than our brother is our chastity.

I’ll tell him yet of Angelo’s request,

And fit his mind to death, for his soul’s rest.

Exit

3.1 Enter the Duke, disguised as a friar, Claudio, and the Provost

DUKE

So then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?

CLAUDIO

The miserable have no other medicine

But only hope.

I’ve hope to live, and am prepared to die.

DUKE

Be absolute for death. Either death or life

Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life.

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

That none but fools would keep. A breath thou art,

Servile to all the skyey influences

That dost this habitation where thou keep‘st

Hourly afflict. Merely thou art death’s fool,

For him thou labour’st by thy flight to shun,

And yet runn‘st toward him still. Thou art not noble,

For all th’accommodations that thou bear’t

Are nursed by baseness. Thou’rt by no means valiant,

For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork

Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,

And that thou oft provok‘st, yet grossly fear’st

Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself,

For thou exist‘st on many a thousand grains

That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not,

For what thou hast not, still thou striv’st to get,

And what thou hast, forget‘st. Thou art not certain,

For thy complexion shifts to strange effects

After the moon. If thou art rich, thou’rt poor,

For like an ass whose back with ingots bows,

Thou bear’st thy heavy riches but a journey,

And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none,

For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,

The mere effusion of thy proper loins,

Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,

For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor

age,

But as it were an after-dinner’s sleep

Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth

Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms

Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,

Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,

To make thy riches pleasant. What’s in this

That bears the name of life? Yet in this life

Lie hid more thousand deaths; yet death we fear

That makes these odds all even.

CLAUDIO

I humbly thank you.

To sue to live, I find I seek to die,

And seeking death, find life. Let it come on.

ISABELLA (within)

What ho! Peace here, grace, and good company!

PROVOST

Who’s there? Come in; the wish deserves a welcome.

DUKE (to Claudio)

Dear sir, ere long I’ll visit you again.

CLAUDIO Most holy sir, I thank you.

Enter Isabella

ISABELLA

My business is a word or two with Claudio.

PROVOST

And very welcome. Look, signor, here’s your sister.

DUKE

Provost, a word with you.

PROVOST As many as you please.

The Duke and Provost draw aside

DUKE

Bring me to hear them speak where I may be

concealed.

They conceal themselves

CLAUDIO Now sister, what’s the comfort?

ISABELLA

Why, as all comforts are: most good, most good

indeed.

Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,

Intends you for his swift ambassador,

Where you shall be an everlasting leiger.

Therefore your best appointment make with speed.

Tomorrow you set on.

CLAUDIO

Is there no remedy?

ISABELLA

None but such remedy as, to save a head,

To cleave a heart in twain.

CLAUDIO But is there any?

ISABELLA Yes, brother, you may live.

There is a devilish mercy in the judge,

If you’ll implore it, that will free your life,

But fetter you till death.

CLAUDIO

Perpetual durance?

ISABELLA

Ay, just, perpetual durance; a restraint,

Though all the world’s vastidity you had,

To a determined scope.

CLAUDIO

But in what nature?

ISABELLA

In such a one as you consenting to’t

Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear,

And leave you naked.

CLAUDIO

Let me know the point.

ISABELLA

O, I do fear thee, Claudio, and I quake

Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain,

And six or seven winters more respect

Than a perpetual honour. Dar’st thou die?

The sense of death is most in apprehension,

And the poor beetle that we tread upon

In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great

As when a giant dies.

CLAUDIO

Why give you me this shame?

Think you I can a resolution fetch

From flow’ry tenderness? If I must die,

I will encounter darkness as a bride,

And hug it in mine arms.

ISABELLA

There spake my brother; there my father’s grave

Did utter forth a voice. Yes, thou must die.

Thou art too noble to conserve a life

In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,

Whose settled visage and deliberate word

Nips youth i’th’ head and follies doth enew

As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil.

His filth within being cast, he would appear

A pond as deep as hell.

CLAUDIO

The precise Angelo?

ISABELLA

O, ‘tis the cunning livery of hell

The damnedest body to invest and cover

In precise guards! Dost thou think, Claudio:

If I would yield him my virginity,

Thou might’st be freed!

CLAUDIO

O heavens, it cannot be!

ISABELLA

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 tomorrow.

CLAUDIO Thou shalt not do’t.

ISABELLA O, were it but my life,

I’d throw it down for your deliverance

As frankly as a pin.

CLAUDIO

Thanks, dear Isabel.

ISABELLA

Be ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow.

CLAUDIO

Yes. Has he affections in him

That thus can make him bite the law by th’ nose

When he would force it? Sure it is no sin,

Or of the deadly seven it is the least.

ISABELLA Which is the least?

CLAUDIO

If it were damnable, he being so wise,

Why would he for the momentary trick

Be perdurably fined? O Isabel!

ISABELLA What says my brother?

CLAUDIO Death is a fearful thing.

ISABELLA And shamed life a hateful.

CLAUDIO

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;

To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;

This sensible warm motion to become

A kneaded clod, and the dilated spirit

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside

In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;

To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,

And blown with restless violence round about

The pendent world; or to be worse than worst

Of those that lawless and incertain thought

Imagine howling—’tis too horrible!

The weariest and most loathed worldly life

That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment

Can lay on nature is a paradise

To what we fear of death.

ISABELLA Alas, alas!

CLAUDIO Sweet sister, let me live.

What sin you do to save a brother’s life,

Nature dispenses with the deed so far

That it becomes a virtue.

ISABELLA

O, you beast!

O faithless coward, O dishonest wretch,

Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?

Is’t not a kind of incest to take life

From thine own sister’s shame? What should I think?

Heaven shield my mother played my father fair,

For such a warped slip of wilderness

Ne’er issued from his blood. Take my defiance,

Die, perish! Might but my bending down

Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed.

I’ll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,

No word to save thee.

CLAUDIO Nay, hear me, Isabel.

ISABELLA O fie, fie, fie!

Thy sin’s not accidental, but a trade.

Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd.

’Tis best that thou diest quickly.

She parts from Claudio

CLAUDIO O hear me, Isabella.

DUKE (coming forward to Isabella) Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.

ISABELLA What is your will?

DUKE Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and by have some speech with you. The satisfaction I would require is likewise your own benefit.

ISABELLA I have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be stolen out of other affairs; but I will attend you a while.

DUKE standing aside with Claudio Son, I have overheard what hath passed 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 judgement with the disposition of 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 falsify your resolution with hopes that are fallible. Tomorrow you must die. Go to your knees and make ready.

CLAUDIO Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love with life that I will sue to be rid of it.

DUKE Hold you there. Farewell.

⌈Claudio joins Isabella⌉

Provost, a word with you.

PROVOST (coming forward) What’s your will, father?

DUKE That now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me a while with the maid. My mind promises with my habit no loss shall touch her by my company.

PROVOST In good time. Exit with Claudio

DUKE The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good. The goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of your complexion, 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 will you do to content this substitute, and to save your brother?

ISABELLA 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 he return and I can speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or discover his government.

DUKE That shall not be much amiss. Yet as the matter now stands, he will avoid your accusation: 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 business.

ISABELLA Let me hear you speak farther. 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?

ISABELLA I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.

DUKE She should this Angelo have married, was affianced to her oath, and the nuptial appointed; between which time of the contract and limit of the solemnity, her brother Frederick was wrecked at sea, having in that perished vessel 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.

ISABELLA 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 vows 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.

ISABELLA What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid from the world! What corruption in this life, that it will let this man live! But how out of this can she avail?

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.

ISABELLA 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 hear, 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?

ISABELLA The image of it gives me content already, and I trust it will grow to a most prosperous perfection.

DUKE It lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily to Angelo. If for this night he entreat you to his bed, give him promise of satisfaction. I will presently to Saint Luke’s; there at the moated grange resides this dejected Mariana. At that place call upon me; and dispatch with Angelo, that it may be quickly.

ISABELLA I thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father.

Exit

Enter Elbow, Clown, and officers

ELBOW Nay, if there be no remedy for it but that you will needs buy and sell men and women like beasts, we shall have all the world drink brown and white bastard.

DUKE O heavens, what stuff is here?

POMPEY ’Twas never merry world since, of two usuries, the merriest was put down, and the worser allowed by order of law, a furred gown to keep him warm—and furred with fox on lambskins too, to signify that craft, being richer than innocency, stands for the facing.

ELBOW Come your way, sir.—Btess you, good father friar.

DUKE And you, good brother father. What offence hath this man made you, sir?

ELBOW 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.

DUKE (to Pompey)

Fie, sirrah, a bawd, a wicked bawd!

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

From such a filthy vice. Say to thyself,

’From their abominable and beastly touches

I drink, I eat, array myself, and live’.

Canst thou believe thy living is a life,

So stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend.

POMPEY Indeed it does stink in some sort, sir. But yet, sir, I would prove—

DUKE

Nay, if the devil have given thee proofs for sin,

Thou wilt prove his.—Take him to prison, officer.

Correction and instruction must both work

Ere this rude beast will profit.

ELBOW 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-

Free from our faults, or faults from seeming free.

ELBOW His neck will come to your waist: a cord, sir.

Enter Lucio

POMPEY I spy comfort, I cry bail. Here’s a gentleman, and a friend of mine.

LUCIO How now, noble Pompey? What, at the wheels of Caesar? 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 clutched? What reply, ha? What sayst thou to this tune, matter, and method? Is’t not drowned i’th’ last rain, ha? What sayst 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!

LUCIO How doth my dear morsel thy mistress? Procures she still, ha?

POMPEY Troth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she is herself in the tub.

LUCIO Why, ’tis good, it is the right of it, it must be so. Ever your fresh whore and your powdered bawd; an unshunned consequence, it must be so. Art going to prison, Pompey?

POMPEY Yes, faith, sir.

LUCIO Why ’tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell. Go; say I sent thee thither. For debt, Pompey, or how?

ELBOW For being a bawd, for being a bawd.

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.

POMPEY I hope, sir, your good worship will be my bail?

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.

LUCIO Does Bridget paint still, Pompey, ha?

ELBOW (to Pompey) Come your ways, sir, come.

POMPEY (to Lucio) You will not bail me then, sir?

LUCIO Then, Pompey, nor now.—What news abroad, friar, what news?

ELBOW (to Pompey) Come your ways, sir, come.

LUCIO Go to kennel, Pompey, go.

Exeunt Elbow, Pompey, and officers

What news, friar, of the Duke?

DUKE I know none. Can you tell me of any?

LUCIO Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other some, he is in Rome. But where is he, think you?

DUKE I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well.

LUCIO It was a mad, fantastical trick of him to steal from the state, and usurp the beggary he was never born to. Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence; he puts transgression to’t. 361

DUKE He does well in’t.

LUCIO A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in him. Something too crabbed that way, friar.

DUKE It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it.

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?

DUKE How should he be made, then?

LUCIO Some report a sea-maid spawned him, some that he was begot between two stockfishes. 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 ungenerative; 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 codpiece 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.

DUKE I never heard the absent Duke much detected for women; he was not inclined that way.

LUCIO O sir, you are deceived.

DUKE ’Tis not possible.

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 crochets in him. He would be drunk too, that let me inform you.

DUKE You do him wrong, surely.

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 a 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 Wise? Why, no question but he was.

LUCIO A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.

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 need, 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. 410

DUKE Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer love.

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. If it be honest you have spoke, you have courage to maintain it. I am bound to call upon you; and I pray you, your name?

LUCIO Sir, my name is Lucio, well known to the Duke.

DUKE He shall know you better, sir, if I may live to report you.

LUCIO I fear you not.

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 tomorrow or no?

DUKE Why should he die, sir?

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