William Shakespeare
-
Tragedies
- Antony and Cleopatra
- Coriolanus
- Hamlet
- Julius Caesar
- King Lear
- Macbeth
- Othello
- Romeo and Juliet
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
-
Histories
- King Henry IV Part 1
- King Henry IV Part 2
- King Henry V
- King Henry VI Part 1
- King Henry VI Part 2
- King Henry VI Part 3
- King Henry VIII
- King John
- Richard II
- Richard III
-
Comedies
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- All's Well That Ends Well
- As You Like It
- Cymbeline
- Love's Labour's Lost
- Measure for Measure
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Pericles, Prince of Tyre
- The Comedy of Errors
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- The Winter's Tale
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
-
Poetry
- A Lover's Complaint
- Sonnets 1 to 50
- Sonnets 50 to 100
- Sonnets 100 to 154
- The Passionate Pilgrim
- The Phoenix and the Turtle
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Venus and Adonis
Measure for Measure (c. 1603)
ACT FIVE
SCENE 1. A public place near the city gate.
[MARIANA (veiled), ISABELLA, and PETER, at a distance. Enter at
- opposite doors DUKE, VARRIUS, Lords; ANGELO, ESCALUS, LUCIO,
- PROVOST, Officers, and Citizens.]
DUKE.
- My very worthy cousin, fairly met;—
- 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 inquiry 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 rasure 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.
[Enter PETER and ISABELLA come forward.]
PETER.
- Now is your time; speak loud, and kneel before him.
ISABELLA.
- Justice, O royal duke! Vail your regard
- Upon a wrong'd, I'd 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 believ'd,
- Or wring redress from you; hear me, O, hear me here!
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.
- 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,
- An hypocrite, a virgin-violator,
- 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 the end of reckoning.
DUKE.
- Away with her!—Poor soul,
- She speaks this in the 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 touch'd 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,
- Condemn'd upon the act of fornication
- To lose his head; condemn'd 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 desir'd her
- To try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo
- For her poor brother's pardon.
ISABELLA.
- That's he, indeed.
DUKE.
- You were not bid to speak.
LUCIO.
- No, my good lord;
- Nor wish'd to hold my peace.
DUKE.
- I wish you now, then;
- Pray you take note of it: and when you have
- A business for yourself, pray Heaven you then
- Be perfect.
LUCIO.
- I warrant your honour.
DUKE.
- The warrant's for yourself; take heed to it.
ISABELLA.
- This gentleman told somewhat of my tale.
LUCIO.
- Right.
DUKE.
- It may be right; but you are in the wrong
- To speak before your time.—Proceed.
ISABELLA.
- I went
- To this pernicious caitiff deputy.
DUKE.
- That's somewhat madly spoken.
ISABELLA.
- Pardon it;
- The phrase is to the matter.
DUKE.
- Mended again. The matter;—proceed.
ISABELLA.
- In brief,—to set the needless process by,
- How I persuaded, how I pray'd, and kneel'd,
- How he refell'd me, and how I replied,—
- For this was of much length,—the vile conclusion
- I now begin with grief and shame to utter:
- He would not, but by gift of my chaste body
- To his concupiscible intemperate lust,
- Release my brother; and, after much debatement,
- My sisterly remorse confutes mine honour,
- And I did yield to him. But the next morn betimes,
- His purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant
- For my poor brother's head.
DUKE.
- This is most likely!
ISABELLA.
- O, that it were as like as it is true!
DUKE.
- By heaven, fond wretch, thou know'st not what thou speak'st,
- Or else thou art suborn'd against his honour
- In hateful practice. First, his integrity
- Stands without blemish:—next, it imports no reason
- That with such vehemency he should pursue
- Faults proper to himself: if he had so offended,
- He would have weigh'd thy brother by himself,
- And not have cut him off. Some one hath set you on;
- Confess the truth, and say by whose advice
- Thou cam'st here to complain.
ISABELLA.
- And is this all?
- Then, O you blessed ministers above,
- Keep me in patience; and, with ripen'd time,
- Unfold the evil which is here wrapt up
- In countenance!—Heaven shield your grace from woe,
- As I, thus wrong'd, hence unbelieved go!
DUKE.
- I know you'd fain be gone.—An officer!
- To prison with her!—Shall we thus permit
- A blasting and a scandalous breath to fall
- On him so near us? This needs must be a practice.
- Who knew of your intent and coming hither?
ISABELLA.
- One that I would were here, Friar Lodowick.
DUKE.
- A ghostly father, belike. Who knows that Lodowick?
LUCIO.
- My lord, I know him; 'tis a meddling friar.
- I do not like the man: had he been lay, my lord,
- For certain words he spake against your grace
- In your retirement, I had swing'd him soundly.
DUKE.
- Words against me? This's a good friar, belike!
- And to set on this wretched woman here
- Against our substitute!—Let this friar be found.
LUCIO.
- But yesternight, my lord, she and that friar,
- I saw them at the prison: a saucy friar,
- A very scurvy fellow.
PETER.
- Bless'd be your royal grace!
- I have stood by, my lord, and I have heard
- Your royal ear abus'd. First, hath this woman
- Most wrongfully accus'd your substitute;
- Who is as free from touch or soil with her
- As she from one ungot.
DUKE.
- We did believe no less.
- Know you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of?
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.
PETER.
- Well, he in time may come to clear himself;
- But at this instant he is sick, my lord,
- Of a strange fever. Upon his mere request,—
- Being come to knowledge that there was complaint
- Intended 'gainst Lord Angelo,—came I hither
- To speak, as from his mouth, what he doth know
- Is true and false; and what he, with his oath
- And all probation, will make up full clear,
- Whensoever he's convented. First, for this woman—
- To justify this worthy nobleman,
- So vulgarly and personally accus'd,—
- Her shall you hear disproved to her eyes,
- Till she herself confess it.
DUKE.
- Good friar, let's hear it.
[ISABELLA is carried off, guarded; and MARIANA comes forward.]
Do you not smile at this, Lord Angelo?—
- O heaven! the vanity of wretched fools!
- Give us some seats.—Come, cousin Angelo;
- In this I'll be impartial; be you judge
- Of your own cause.—Is this the witness, friar?
- First let her show her face, and after speak.
MARIANA.
- Pardon, my lord; I will not show my face
- Until my husband bid me.
DUKE.
- What! are you married?
MARIANA.
- No, my lord.
DUKE.
- Are you a maid?
MARIANA.
- No, my lord.
DUKE.
- A widow, then?
MARIANA.
- 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
- To prattle for himself.
LUCIO.
- Well, my lord.
MARIANA.
- My lord, I do confess I ne'er was married,
- And I confess, besides, I am no maid:
- I have known my husband; yet my husband knows not
- That ever he knew me.
LUCIO.
- He was drunk, then, my lord; it can be no better.
DUKE.
- For the benefit of silence, would thou wert so too!
LUCIO.
- Well, my lord.
DUKE.
- This is no witness for Lord Angelo.
MARIANA.
- Now I come to't, my lord:
- She that accuses him of fornication,
- In self-same manner doth accuse my husband;
- And charges him, my lord, with such a time
- When I'll depose I had him in mine arms,
- With all the effect of love.
ANGELO.
- Charges she more than me?
MARIANA.
- Not that I know.
DUKE.
- No? you say your husband.
MARIANA.
- Why, just, my lord, and that is Angelo,
- Who thinks he knows that he ne'er knew my body,
- But knows he thinks that he knows Isabel's.
ANGELO.
- This is a strange abuse.—Let's see thy face.
MARIANA.
- My husband bids me; now I will unmask. [Unveiling.]
- This is that face, thou cruel Angelo,
- Which once thou swor'st was worth the looking on:
- This is the hand which, with a vow'd contract,
- Was fast belock'd in thine; this is the body
- That took away the match from Isabel,
- And did supply thee at thy garden-house
- In her imagin'd person.
DUKE.
- Know you this woman?
LUCIO.
- Carnally, she says.
DUKE.
- Sirrah, no more.
LUCIO.
- Enough, my lord.
ANGELO.
- My lord, I must confess I know this woman;
- And five years since there was some speech of marriage
- Betwixt myself and her; which was broke off,
- Partly for that her promis'd proportions
- Came short of composition; but in chief
- For that her reputation was disvalued
- In levity: since which time of five years
- I never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her,
- Upon my faith and honour.
MARIANA.
- Noble prince,
- As there comes light from heaven and words from breath,
- As there is sense in truth and truth in virtue,
- I am affianc'd this man's wife as strongly
- As words could make up vows: and, my good lord,
- But Tuesday night last gone, in his garden-house,
- He knew me as a wife. As this is true,
- Let me in safety raise me from my knees,
- Or else for ever be confixed here,
- A marble monument!
ANGELO.
- I did but smile till now;
- Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice;
- My patience here is touch'd. I do perceive
- These poor informal women are no more
- But instruments of some more mightier member
- That sets them on. Let me have way, my lord,
- To find this practice out.
DUKE.
- Ay, with my heart;
- And punish them to your height of pleasure.—
- Thou foolish friar, and thou pernicious woman,
- Compact with her that's gone, thinkst thou thy oaths,
- Though they would swear down each particular saint,
- Were testimonies against his worth and credit,
- That's seal'd in approbation?—You, Lord Escalus,
- Sit with my cousin; lend him your kind pains
- To find out this abuse, whence 'tis deriv'd.—
- There is another friar that set them on;
- Let him be sent for.
PETER.
- Would lie were here, my lord; for he indeed
- Hath set the women on to this complaint:
- Your provost knows the place where he abides,
- And he may fetch him.
DUKE.
- Go, do it instantly.—
[Exit PROVOST.]
And you, my noble and well-warranted cousin,
- Whom it concerns to hear this matter forth,
- Do with your injuries as seems you best
- In any chastisement. I for a while
- Will leave you: but stir not you till you have well
- Determined upon these slanderers.
ESCALUS.
- My lord, we'll do it throughly.
[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 nothing but in his
- clothes; and one that hath spoke most villainous speeches of the
- duke.
ESCALUS.
- 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.
ESCALUS.
- Call that same Isabel here once again [to an Attendant]; I would
- speak with her. 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.
ESCALUS.
- Say you?
LUCIO.
- Marry, sir, I think, if you handled her privately, she would
- sooner confess: perchance, publicly, she'll be ashamed.
[Re-enter Officers, with ISABELLA.]
ESCALUS.
- I will go darkly to work with her.
LUCIO.
- That's the way; for women are light at midnight.
ESCALUS.
- Come on, mistress [to ISABELLA]; here's a gentlewoman denies all
- that you have said.
LUCIO.
- My lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of, here with the Provost.
[Re-enter the DUKE in his friar's habit, and PROVOST.]
ESCALUS.
- In very good time:—speak not you to him till we call upon you.
LUCIO.
- Mum.
ESCALUS.
- Come, sir: did you set these women on to slander Lord Angelo?
- they have confessed you did.
DUKE.
- 'Tis false.
ESCALUS.
- 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.
ESCALUS.
- The duke's in us; and we will hear you speak:
- Look you speak justly.
DUKE.
- Boldly, at least. But, O, poor souls,
- Come you to seek the lamb here of the fox,
- Good night to your redress! Is the duke gone?
- Then is your cause gone too. The duke's unjust
- Thus to retort your manifest appeal,
- And put your trial in the villain's mouth
- Which here you come to accuse.
LUCIO.
- This is the rascal; this is he I spoke of.
ESCALUS.
- Why, thou unreverend and unhallow'd friar,
- Is't not enough thou hast suborn'd these women
- To accuse this worthy man, but, in foul mouth,
- And in the witness of his proper ear,
- To call him villain?
- And then to glance from him to the duke himself,
- To tax him with injustice? Take him hence;
- To the rack with him!—We'll touze you joint by joint,
- But we will know his purpose.—What! unjust?
DUKE.
- Be not so hot; the duke
- Dare no more stretch this finger of mine than he
- Dare rack his own; his subject am I not,
- Nor here provincial. My business in this state
- Made me a looker-on here in Vienna,
- Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble
- Till it o'errun the stew: laws for all faults,
- But faults so countenanc'd that the strong statutes
- Stand like the forfeits in a barber's shop,
- As much in mock as mark.
ESCALUS.
- Slander to the state! Away with him to prison!
ANGELO.
- 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, good-man 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.
ANGELO.
- Hark how the villain would gloze now, after his treasonable
- abuses!
ESCALUS.
- Such a fellow is not to be talked withal. Away 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 hands on the DUKE.]
DUKE.
- Stay, sir; stay awhile.
ANGELO.
- 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:—
- Sneak not away, sir[To Lucio.]; for the friar and you
- Must have a word anon:—Lay hold on him.
LUCIO.
- This may prove worse than hanging.
DUKE.
- What you have spoke I pardon; sit you down.—[To ESCALUS.]
- We'll borrow place of him.—[To ANGELO.] Sir, by your leave.
- Hast thou or word, or wit, or impudence,
- That yet can do thee office? If thou hast,
- Rely upon it till my tale be heard,
- And hold no longer out.
ANGELO.
- O my dread lord,
- I should be guiltier than my guiltiness,
- To think I can be undiscernible,
- When I perceive your grace, like power divine,
- Hath look'd upon my passes. Then, good Prince,
- No longer session hold upon my shame,
- But let my trial be mine own confession:
- Immediate sentence then, and sequent death,
- Is all the grace I beg.
DUKE.
- Come hither, Mariana:—
- Say, wast thou e'er contracted to this woman?
ANGELO.
- I was, my lord.
DUKE.
- Go, take her hence and marry her instantly.
- Do you the office, friar; which consummate,
- Return him here again.—Go with him, Provost.
[Exeunt ANGELO, MARIANA, PETER, and PROVOST.]
ESCALUS.
- My lord, I am more amazed at his dishonour
- Than at the strangeness of it.
DUKE.
- Come hither, Isabel:
- Your friar is now your prince. As I was then
- Advertising and holy to your business,
- Not changing heart with habit, I am still
- Attorney'd at your service.
ISABELLA.
- O, give me pardon,
- That I, your vassal, have employ'd and pain'd
- Your unknown sovereignty.
DUKE.
- You are pardon'd, Isabel.
- And now, dear maid, be you as free to us.
- Your brother's death, I know, sits at your heart;
- And you may marvel why I obscur'd myself,
- Labouring to save his life, and would not rather
- Make rash remonstrance of my hidden power
- Than let him so be lost. O most kind maid,
- It was the swift celerity of his death,
- Which I did think with slower foot came on,
- That brain'd my purpose. But peace be with him!
- That life is better life, past fearing death,
- Than that which lives to fear: make it your comfort,
- So happy is your brother.
ISABELLA.
- I do, my lord.
[Re-enter ANGELO, MARIANA, PETER, and PROVOST.]
DUKE.
- For this new-married man approaching here,
- Whose salt imagination yet hath wrong'd
- Your well-defended honour, you must pardon
- For Mariana's sake: but as he adjudg'd your brother,—
- Being criminal, in double violation
- Of sacred chastity and of promise-breach,
- Thereon dependent, for your brother's life,—
- The very mercy of the law cries out
- Most audible, even from his proper tongue,
- 'An Angelo for Claudio, death for death.'
- Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;
- Like doth quit like, and measure still for measure.
- Then, Angelo, thy fault's thus manifested,—
- Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage.—
- We do condemn thee to the very block
- Where Claudio stoop'd to death, and with like haste.—
- Away with him.
MARIANA.
- O my most gracious lord,
- I hope you will not mock me with a husband!
DUKE.
- It is your husband mock'd you with a husband.
- Consenting to the safeguard of your honour,
- I thought your marriage fit; else imputation,
- For that he knew you, might reproach your life,
- And choke your good to come: for his possessions,
- Although by confiscation they are ours,
- We do instate and widow you withal
- To buy you a better husband.
MARIANA.
- O my dear lord,
- I crave no other, nor no better man.
DUKE.
- Never crave him; we are definitive.
MARIANA.
- Gentle my liege—[Kneeling.]
DUKE.
- You do but lose your labour.—
- Away with him to death!—[To LUCIO.] Now, sir, to you.
MARIANA.
- O my good lord!—Sweet Isabel, take my part;
- Lend me your knees, and all my life to come
- I'll lend you all my life to do you service.
DUKE.
- Against all sense you do importune her.
- Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact,
- Her brother's ghost his paved bed would break,
- And take her hence in horror.
MARIANA.
- Isabel,
- Sweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me;
- Hold up your hands, say nothing,—I'll speak all.
- They say, best men are moulded out of faults;
- And, for the most, become much more the better
- For being a little bad: so may my husband.
- O Isabel, will you not lend a knee?
DUKE.
- He dies for Claudio's death.
ISABELLA.
- [Kneeling.] Most bounteous sir,
- Look, if it please you, on this man condemn'd,
- As if my brother liv'd: I partly think
- A due sincerity govern'd his deeds
- Till he did look on me; since it is so,
- Let him not die. My brother had but justice,
- In that he did the thing for which he died:
- For Angelo,
- His act did not o'ertake his bad intent,
- And must be buried but as an intent
- That perish'd by the way. Thoughts are no subjects;
- Intents but merely thoughts.
MARIANA.
- Merely, my lord.
DUKE.
- Your suit's unprofitable; stand up, I say.—
- I have bethought me of another fault.—
- Provost, how came it Claudio was beheaded
- At an unusual hour?
PROVOST.
- It was commanded so.
DUKE.
- Had you a special warrant for the deed?
PROVOST.
- No, my good lord; it was by private message.
DUKE.
- For which I do discharge you of your office:
- Give up your keys.
PROVOST.
- Pardon me, noble lord:
- I thought it was a fault, but knew it not;
- Yet did repent me, after more advice:
- For testimony whereof, one in the prison,
- That should by private order else have died,
- I have reserved alive.
DUKE.
- What's he?
PROVOST.
- His name is Barnardine.
DUKE.
- I would thou hadst done so by Claudio.—
- Go fetch him hither; let me look upon him.
[Exit PROVOST.]
ESCALUS.
- I am sorry one so learned and so wise
- As you, Lord Angelo, have still appear'd,
- Should slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood
- And lack of temper'd judgment afterward.
ANGELO.
- I am sorry that such sorrow I procure:
- And so deep sticks it in my 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?
PROVOST.
- 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?
PROVOST.
- 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.
- If he be like your brother [to ISABELLA], for his sake
- Is he pardon'd; and for your lovely sake,
- Give me your hand and say you will be mine;
- He is my brother too: but fitter time for that.
- By this Lord Angelo perceives he's safe;
- Methinks I see a quick'ning in his eye.—
- Well, Angelo, your evil quits you well":
- Look that you love your wife; her worth worth yours.—
- I find an apt remission in myself;
- And yet here's one in place I cannot pardon.—
- You, sirrah [to Lucio], that knew me for a fool, a coward,
- One all of luxury, an ass, a madman;
- Wherein have I so deserved of you
- That you extol me thus?
LUCIO.
- Faith, my lord, I spoke it but according to the trick. If you
- will hang me for
- it, you may; but I had rather it would please you I might be
- whipped.
DUKE.
- Whipp'd first, sir, and hang'd after.—
- Proclaim it, Provost, round about the city,
- If any woman wrong'd by this lewd fellow,—
- As I have heard him swear himself there's one
- Whom he begot with child,—let her appear,
- And he shall marry her: the nuptial finish'd,
- Let him be whipp'd and hang'd.
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.—
[Exeunt Officers with LUCIO.]
She, Claudio, that you wrong'd, look you restore.—
- Joy to you, Mariana!—Love her, Angelo;
- I have confess'd her, and I know her virtue.—
- Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness
- There's more behind that is more gratulate.
- Thanks, Provost, for thy care and secrecy;
- We shall employ thee in a worthier place.—
- Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home
- The head of Ragozine for Claudio's:
- The offence pardons itself.—Dear Isabel,
- I have a motion much imports your good;
- Whereto if you'll a willing ear incline,
- What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine:—
- So, bring us to our palace; where we'll show
- What's yet behind that's meet you all should know.
[Exeunt.]