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 ONE
Claudio and Isabella, William Holman Hunt, 1850" style="width: 166px; height: 300px; float: right;" class="PopBoxImageSmall" title="Click to magnify/shrink" onclick="Pop(this,50,'/');"/>SCENE 1. An apartment in the DUKE'S Palace.
[Enter DUKE, ESCALUS, LORDS, and ATTENDANTS.]
DUKE.
- Escalus,—
ESCALUS.
- My lord.
DUKE.
- Of government the properties to unfold,
- Would seem in me to affect speech and discourse;
- Since I am put to know that your own science
- Exceeds, in that, the lists of all advice
- My strength can give you: then no more remains
- But that to your sufficiency, as your worth is able,
- And let them work. The nature of our people,
- Our city's institutions, and the terms
- For common justice, you are as pregnant in
- As art and practice hath enriched any
- That we remember. There is our commission,
- From which we would not have you warp.—Call hither,
- I say, bid come before us, Angelo.—
[Exit an Attendant.]
What figure of us think you he will bear?
- For you must know we have with special soul
- Elected him our absence to supply;
- Lent him our terror, drest him with our love,
- And given his deputation all the organs
- Of our own power: what think you of it?
ESCALUS.
- If any in Vienna be of worth
- To undergo such ample grace and honour,
- It is Lord Angelo.
[Enter ANGELO.]
DUKE.
- Look where he comes.
ANGELO.
- Always obedient to your grace's will,
- I come to know your pleasure.
DUKE.
- Angelo,
- There is a kind of character in thy life
- That to th' observer doth thy history
- Fully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings
- Are not thine own so proper as to waste
- Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.
- Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
- Not light them for themselves: for if our virtues
- Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike
- As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd
- But to fine issues: nor nature never lends
- The smallest scruple of her excellence
- But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
- Herself the glory of a creditor,
- Both thanks and use. But I do bend my speech
- To one that can my part in him advertise;
- Hold, therefore, Angelo;
- In our remove be thou at full ourself:
- Mortality and mercy in Vienna
- Live in thy tongue and heart! Old Escalus,
- Though first in question, is thy secondary:
- Take thy commission.
ANGELO.
- Now, good my lord,
- Let there be some more test made of my metal,
- Before so noble and so great a figure
- Be stamped upon it.
DUKE.
- No more evasion:
- We have with a leaven'd and prepared choice
- Proceeded to you; therefore take your honours.
- Our haste from hence is of so quick condition
- That it prefers itself, and leaves unquestion'd
- Matters of needful value. We shall write to you
- As time and our concernings shall importune,
- How it goes with us; and do look to know
- What doth befall you here. So, fare you well:
- To the hopeful execution do I leave you
- Of your commissions.
ANGELO.
- Yet give leave, my lord,
- That we may bring you something on the way.
DUKE.
- My haste may not admit it;
- Nor need you, on mine honour, have to do
- With any scruple: your scope is as mine own:
- So to enforce or qualify the laws
- As to your soul seems good. Give me your hand;
- I'll privily away: I love the people,
- But do not like to stage me to their eyes:
- Though it do well, I do not relish well
- Their loud applause and 'aves' vehement:
- Nor do I think the man of safe discretion
- That does affect it. Once more, fare you well.
ANGELO.
- The heavens give safety to your purposes!
ESCALUS.
- Lead forth and bring you back in happiness.
DUKE.
- I thank you. Fare you well.
[Exit.]
ESCALUS.
- I shall desire you, sir, to give me leave
- To have free speech with you; and it concerns me
- To look into the bottom of my place:
- A pow'r I have, but of what strength and nature
- I am not yet instructed.
ANGELO.
- 'Tis so with me.—Let us withdraw together,
- And we may soon our satisfaction have
- Touching that point.
ESCALUS.
- I'll wait upon your honour.
[Exeunt.]
[Enter Lucio and two Gentlemen.]
LUCIO.
- If the duke, with the other dukes, come not to composition
- with the King of Hungary, why then all the dukes fall upon
- the king.
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
- Heaven grant us its peace, but not the King of Hungary's!
SECOND GENTLEMAN.
- Amen.
LUCIO.
- Thou concludest like the sanctimonious pirate that went to sea
- with the ten
- commandments, but scraped one out of the table.
SECOND GENTLEMAN.
- Thou shalt not steal?
LUCIO.
- Ay, that he razed.
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
- Why, 'twas a commandment to command the captain and all the rest
- from their
- functions; they put forth to steal. There's not a soldier of us
- all that, in
- the thanksgiving before meat, do relish the petition well that
- prays for
- peace.
SECOND GENTLEMAN.
- I never heard any soldier dislike it.
LUCIO.
- I believe thee; for I think thou never wast where grace was said.
- SECOND GENTLEMAN.
- No? A dozen times at least.
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
- What? in metre?
LUCIO.
- In any proportion or in any language.
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
- I think, or in any religion.
LUCIO.
- Ay! why not? Grace is grace, despite of all controversy. As, for
- example;—thou
- thyself art a wicked villain, despite of all grace.
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
- Well, there went but a pair of shears between us.
LUCIO.
- I grant; as there may between the lists and the velvet. Thou art
- the list.
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
- And thou the velvet: thou art good velvet; thou'rt a three-piled
- piece, I warrant thee: I had as lief be a list of an English
- kersey as be piled, as thou art piled, for a French velvet.
- Do I speak feelingly now?
LUCIO.
- I think thou dost; and, indeed, with most painful feeling of thy
- speech. I will, out of thine own confession, learn to begin thy
- health; but, whilst I live, forget to drink after thee.
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
- I think I have done myself wrong; have I not?
SECOND GENTLEMAN.
- Yes, that thou hast, whether thou art tainted or free.
LUCIO.
- Behold, behold, where Madam Mitigation comes! I have purchased as
- many diseases under her roof as come to—
SECOND GENTLEMAN.
- To what, I pray?
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
- Judge.
SECOND GENTLEMAN.
- To three thousand dollars a year.
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
- Ay, and more.
LUCIO.
- A French crown more.
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
- Thou art always figuring diseases in me, but thou art full of
- error; I am sound.
LUCIO.
- Nay, not, as one would say, healthy; but so sound as things that
- are hollow: thy bones are hollow: impiety has made a feast of thee.
[Enter BAWD.]
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
- How now! which of your hips has the most profound sciatica?
BAWD.
- Well, well; there's one yonder arrested and carried to prison was
- worth five thousand of you all.
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
- Who's that, I pray thee?
BAWD.
- Marry, sir, that's Claudio, Signior Claudio.
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
- Claudio to prison! 'tis not so.
BAWD.
- Nay, but I know 'tis so: I saw him arrested; saw him carried
- away; and, which is more, within these three days his head to
- be chopped off.
LUCIO.
- But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so. Art thou
- sure of this?
BAWD.
- I am too sure of it: and it is for getting Madam Julietta with
- child.
LUCIO.
- Believe me, this may be: he promised to meet me two hours since,
- and he was ever precise in promise-keeping.
SECOND GENTLEMAN.
- Besides, you know, it draws something near to the speech we had
- to such a purpose.
FIRST GENTLEMAN.
- But most of all agreeing with the proclamation.
LUCIO.
- Away; let's go learn the truth of it.
[Exeunt Lucio and Gentlemen.]
BAWD.
- Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what with the
- gallows, and what with poverty, I am custom-shrunk.
- How now! what's the news with you?
[Enter POMPEY.]
POMPEY.
- Yonder man is carried to prison.
BAWD.
- Well: what has he done?
POMPEY.
- A woman.
BAWD.
- But what's his offence?
POMPEY.
- Groping for trouts in a peculiar river.
BAWD.
- What! is there a maid with child by him?
POMPEY.
- No; but there's a woman with maid by him. You have not heard of
- the proclamation, have you?
BAWD.
- What proclamation, man?
POMPEY.
- All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be plucked down.
BAWD.
- And what shall become of those in the city?
POMPEY.
- They shall stand for seed: they had gone down too, but that a
- wise burgher put in for them.
BAWD.
- But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be pulled down?
POMPEY.
- To the ground, mistress.
BAWD.
- Why, here's a change indeed in the commonwealth! What shall
- become of me?
POMPEY.
- Come, fear not you; good counsellors lack no clients: though you
- change your place you need not change your trade; I'll be your
- tapster still.
- Courage; there will be pity taken on you: you that have worn your
- eyes almost out in the service, you will be considered.
BAWD.
- What's to do here, Thomas Tapster? Let's withdraw.
POMPEY.
- Here comes Signior Claudio, led by the provost to prison: and
- there's Madam Juliet.
[Exeunt.]
[Enter PROVOST, CLAUDIO, JULIET, and Officers; LUCIO and two Gentlemen.]
CLAUDIO.
- Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to the world?
- Bear me to prison, where I am committed.
PROVOST.
- I do it not in evil disposition,
- But from Lord Angelo by special charge.
CLAUDIO.
- Thus can the demi-god Authority
- Make us pay down for our offence by weight.—
- The words of heaven;—on whom it will, it will;
- On whom it will not, so; yet still 'tis just.
LUCIO.
- Why, how now, Claudio, whence comes this restraint?
CLAUDIO.
- From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty:
- As surfeit is the father of much fast,
- So every scope by the immoderate use
- Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue,—
- Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,—
- A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die.
LUCIO.
- If I could speak so wisely under an arrest, I would send for
- certain of my creditors; and yet, to say the truth, I had as
- lief have the foppery of freedom as the morality of
- imprisonment.—What's thy offence, Claudio?
CLAUDIO.
- What but to speak of would offend again.
LUCIO.
- What, is't murder?
CLAUDIO.
- No.
LUCIO.
- Lechery?
CLAUDIO.
- Call it so.
PROVOST.
- Away, sir; you must go.
CLAUDIO.
- One word, good friend.—Lucio, a word with you.
[Takes him aside.]
LUCIO.
- A hundred, if they'll do you any good. Is lechery so lookeed
- after?
CLAUDIO.
- Thus stands it with me:—Upon a true contract
- I got possession of Julietta's bed:
- You know the lady; she is fast my wife,
- Save that we do the denunciation lack
- Of outward order;: this we came not to
- Only for propagation of a dower
- Remaining in the coffer of her friends;
- From whom we thought it meet to hide our love
- Till time had made them for us. But it chances
- The stealth of our most mutual entertainment,
- With character too gross, is writ on Juliet.
LUCIO.
- With child, perhaps?
CLAUDIO.
- Unhappily, even so.
- And the new deputy now for the duke,—
- Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness,
- Or whether that the body public be
- A horse whereon the governor doth ride,
- Who, newly in the seat, that it may know
- He can command, lets it straight feel the spur:
- Whether the tyranny be in his place,
- Or in his eminence that fills it up,
- I stagger in.—But this new governor
- Awakes me all the enrolled penalties
- Which have, like unscour'd armour, hung by the wall
- So long that nineteen zodiacs have gone round
- And none of them been worn; and, for a name,
- Now puts the drowsy and neglected act
- Freshly on me; 'tis surely for a name.
LUCIO.
- I warrant it is: and thy head stands so tickle on thy shoulders
- that a milkmaid, if she be in love, may sigh it off. Send after the
- duke, and appeal to him.
CLAUDIO.
- I have done so, but he's not to be found.
- I pr'ythee, Lucio, do me this kind service:
- This day my sister should the cloister enter,
- And there receive her approbation:
- Acquaint her with the danger of my state;
- Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends
- To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him;
- I have great hope in that: for in her youth
- There is a prone and speechless dialect
- Such as moves men; beside, she hath prosperous art
- When she will play with reason and discourse,
- And well she can persuade.
LUCIO.
- I pray she may; as well for the encouragement of the like, which
- else would stand under grievous imposition, as for the enjoying
- of thy life, who I would be sorry should be thus foolishly lost
- at a game of tick-tack. I'll to her.
CLAUDIO.
- I thank you, good friend Lucio.
LUCIO.
- Within two hours,—
CLAUDIO.
- Come, officer, away.
[Exeunt.]
[Enter DUKE and FRIAR THOMAS.]
DUKE.
- No; holy father; throw away that thought;
- Believe not that the dribbling dart of love
- Can pierce a complete bosom: why I desire thee
- To give me secret harbour hath a purpose
- More grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends
- Of burning youth.
FRIAR.
- May your grace speak of it?
DUKE.
- My holy sir, none better knows than you
- How I have ever lov'd the life remov'd,
- And held in idle price to haunt assemblies
- Where youth, and cost, a witless bravery keeps.
- I have deliver'd to Lord Angelo,—
- A man of stricture and firm abstinence,—
- My absolute power and place here in Vienna,
- And he supposes me travell'd to Poland;
- For so I have strew'd it in the common ear,
- And so it is received. Now, pious sir,
- You will demand of me why I do this?
FRIAR.
- Gladly, my lord.
DUKE.
- We have strict statutes and most biting laws,—
- The needful bits and curbs to headstrong steeds,—
- Which for this fourteen years we have let sleep,
- Even like an o'ergrown lion in a cave,
- That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers,
- Having bound up the threat'ning twigs of birch,
- Only to stick it in their children's sight
- For terror, not to use, in time the rod
- Becomes more mock'd than fear'd; so our decrees,
- Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead;
- And liberty plucks justice by the nose;
- The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart
- Goes all decorum.
FRIAR.
- It rested in your grace
- To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleas'd;
- And it in you more dreadful would have seem'd
- Than in Lord Angelo.
DUKE.
- I do fear, too dreadful:
- Sith 'twas my fault to give the people scope,
- 'Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall them
- For what I bid them do: for we bid this be done
- When evil deeds have their permissive pass
- And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my father,
- I have on Angelo impos'd the office;
- Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home,
- And yet my nature never in the fight
- To do in slander. And to behold his sway,
- I will, as 'twere a brother of your order,
- Visit both prince and people: therefore, I pr'ythee,
- Supply me with the habit, and instruct me
- How I may formally in person bear me
- Like a true friar. Moe reasons for this action
- At our more leisure shall I render you;
- Only, this one:—Lord Angelo is precise;
- Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses
- That his blood flows, or that his appetite
- Is more to bread than stone: hence shall we see,
- If power change purpose, what our seemers be.
[Exeunt.]
[Enter ISABELLA and FRANCISCA.]
ISABELLA.
- And have you nuns no further privileges?
FRANCISCA.
- Are not these large enough?
ISABELLA.
- Yes, truly; I speak not as desiring more,
- But rather wishing a more strict restraint
- Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.
LUCIO.
- [Within.] Ho! Peace be in this place!
ISABELLA.
- Who's that which calls?
FRANCISCA.
- It is a man's voice. Gentle Isabella,
- Turn you the key, and know his business of him;
- You may, I may not; you are yet unsworn:
- When you have vow'd, you must not speak with men
- But in the presence of the prioress;
- Then, if you speak, you must not show your face;
- Or, if you show your face, you must not speak.
- He calls again; I pray you answer him.
[Exit FRANCISCA.]
ISABELLA.
- Peace and prosperity! Who is't that calls?
[Enter LUCIO.]
LUCIO.
- Hail, virgin, if you be; as those cheek-roses
- Proclaim you are no less! Can you so stead me
- As bring me to the sight of Isabella,
- A novice of this place, and the fair sister
- To her unhappy brother Claudio?
ISABELLA.
- Why her unhappy brother? let me ask;
- The rather, for I now must make you know
- I am that Isabella, and his sister.
LUCIO.
- Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you:
- Not to be weary with you, he's in prison.
ISABELLA.
- Woe me! For what?
LUCIO.
- For that which, if myself might be his judge,
- He should receive his punishment in thanks:
- He hath got his friend with child.
ISABELLA.
- Sir, make me not your story.
LUCIO.
- It is true.
- I would not—though 'tis my familiar sin
- With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest,
- Tongue far from heart—play with all virgins so:
- I hold you as a thing ensky'd and sainted;
- By your renouncement an immortal spirit;
- And to be talk'd with in sincerity,
- As with a saint.
ISABELLA.
- You do blaspheme the good in mocking me.
LUCIO.
- Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, 'tis thus:
- Your brother and his lover have embraced:
- As those that feed grow full: as blossoming time,
- That from the seedness the bare fallow brings
- To teeming foison; even so her plenteous womb
- Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.
ISABELLA.
- Some one with child by him?—My cousin Juliet?
LUCIO.
- Is she your cousin?
ISABELLA.
- Adoptedly, as school-maids change their names
- By vain though apt affection.
LUCIO.
- She it is.
ISABELLA.
- O, let him marry her!
LUCIO.
- This is the point.
- The duke is very strangely gone from hence;
- Bore many gentlemen, myself being one,
- In hand, and hope of action: but we do learn
- By those that know the very nerves of state,
- His givings out were of an infinite distance
- From his true-meant design. Upon his place,
- And with full line of his authority,
- Governs Lord Angelo: a man whose blood
- Is very snow-broth; one who never feels
- The wanton stings and motions of the sense.
- But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
- With profits of the mind, study, and fast.
- He,—to give fear to use and liberty,
- Which have for long run by the hideous law,
- As mice by lions,—hath pick'd out an act,
- Under whose heavy sense your brother's life
- Falls into forfeit: he arrests him on it;
- And follows close the rigour of the statute
- To make him an example; all hope is gone.
- Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer
- To soften Angelo: and that's my pith
- Of business 'twixt you and your poor brother.
ISABELLA.
- Doth he so seek his life?
LUCIO.
- Has censur'd him
- Already; and, as I hear, the provost hath
- A warrant for his execution.
ISABELLA.
- Alas! what poor ability's in me
- To do him good.
LUCIO.
- Assay the power you have.
ISABELLA.
- My power! alas, I doubt,—
LUCIO.
- Our doubts are traitors,
- And make us lose the good we oft might win
- By fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo,
- And let him learn to know, when maidens sue,
- Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,
- All their petitions are as freely theirs
- As they themselves would owe them.
ISABELLA.
- I'll see what I can do.
LUCIO.
- But speedily.
ISABELLA.
- I will about it straight;
- No longer staying but to give the Mother
- Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you:
- Commend me to my brother: soon at night
- I'll send him certain word of my success.
LUCIO.
- I take my leave of you.
ISABELLA.
- Good sir, adieu.
[Exeunt.]