Enter ISABELLA, Isab. Ho! by your leave. Duke. Good morning to you, fair and gracious daughter. Isab. The better, given me by so holy a man. Hath yet the deputy sent my brother's pardon? Duke. He hath releas'd him, Isabel, from the world. His head is off, and sent to Angelo. Isab. Nay, but it is not so. Duke. This nor hurts him, nor profits you a jot: The duke comes home to-morrow;-nay, dry your eyes: Gives me this instance. Already he hath carried Who do prepare to meet him at the gates, There to give up their power. If you can, pace your wisdom In that good path that I would wish it go, Isab. yours And shall be absent. Wend you with this letter. Lucio. Friar, where is the provost? Duke. 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. Good even. Not within, sir. Lucio. O, pretty Isabella! I am pale at mine heart, to see thine eyes so red: thou must be patient. I am 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 beholding to your reports; but the best is, he lives not in them. Lucio. Friar, thou knowest not the duke so well as Duke. Sir, your company is fairer than honest. Rest you well. [Going. 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. SCENE IV.A Room in ANGELO's House. Escal. Every letter he hath writ hath disvouch'd other. Ang. In most uneven and distracted manner. And why meet him at the gates, and re-deliver Escal. I guess not. Ang. And why should we Proclaim it an hour before his entering, Escal. He shows his reason for that: to have a despatch of complaints, and to deliver us from devices hereafter, Which shall then have no power to stand against us. Escal. I shall, sir: fare you well. [Exit. The law against it!-But that her tender shame How might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her: no; For my authority bears such a credent bulk [Giving them. SCENE I.-A public Place near the City Gate. Duke. Many and hearty thankings to you both. Ang. To lock it in the wards of covert bosom, Friar PETER and ISABELLA come forward. before him. She hath been a suitor to me for her brother, Cut off by course of justice. Isab. By course of justice! [Rising. Ang. And she will speak most bitterly, and strangely. Isab. Most strangely, 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 th' end of reckoning. Duke. Away with her.-Poor soul! She speaks this in th' infirmity of sense. Isab. O prince, I conjure thee, as thou believ'st That I am touch'd with madness: make not impossible 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. That's somewhat madly spoken. Isab. The phrase is to the matter. Pardon it: Duke. Mended again: the matter?-Now proceed. Isab. 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, 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, Isab. And is this all? 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 Isab. One that I would were here, friar 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 a good friar, belike. And to set on this wretched woman here Against our substitute !-Let this friar be found. F. 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, So vulgarly and personally accus'd, Good friar, let's hear it. Do you not smile at this, lord Angelo?— Duke. Mari. No, my lord. Duke. Mari. What, are you married? Are you a maid? Duke. A widow then? No, my lord. Neither, my lord. 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 When, I'll depose, I had him in mine arms, Mari. Not that I know. Charges she more than me? No? you say, your husband. This is that face, thou cruel Angelo, In her imagin'd person. Duke. Know you this woman? Lucio. Carnally, she says. Duke. Lucio. Enough, my lord. Sirrah, no more. Ang. My lord, I must confess, I know this woman; 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, Mari. Noble prince, [Kneeling. As there comes light from heaven, and words from As there is sense in truth, and truth in virtue, As words could make up vows: and, my good lord, Let me in safety raise me from my knees, Or else for ever be confixed here, A marble monument. 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 unto your height of pleasure.Thou foolish friar, and thou pernicious woman, Compact with her that's gone, think'st 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. Will leave you; but stir not you, till you have well Determined upon these slanderers. [Exit DUKE. Escal. My lord, we'll do it thoroughly.-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. 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: [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. 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: the DUKE, in a Escal. I will go darkly to work with her. Lucio. That's the way; for women are light at midnight. Escal. 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. Escal. In very good time :-speak not you to him, till we call upon you. Lucio. Mum. Escal. Come, sir. slander lord Angelo? Did you set these women on to they have confess'd you did. Duke. "Tis false. Escal. How! know Duke. Respect to your great place! then 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! 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 reject 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. To call him villain? And then to glance from him Duke. Be not so hot; the duke dare F. Peter. Would he were here, my lord; for he, No more stretch this finger of mine, than 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, Dare rack his own: his subject am I not, Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble, As much in mock as mark. Escal. Slander to the state! Away with him to prison. Lucio? Is this the man that you did tell us of? 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? Ang. What can you vouch against him, signior Advertising and holy to your business, 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 gloze now, after his treasonable abuses, Escal. Such a fellow is not to be talk'd 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 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 hang'd an hour. Will't not off? [Pulling off the DUKE's disguise. Duke. Thou art the first knave, that e'er made a duke.[All start and stand. 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 :-Sir, by your leave. [To ANGELO. Hast thou or word, or wit, or impudence, O, my dread lord! But let my trial be mine own confession : Duke. Duke. Go take her hence, and marry her instantly.- [Exeunt ANGELO, MARIANA, PETER, and Provost. Escal. My lord, I am more amaz'd at his dishonour, Than at the strangeness of it. Duke. Re-enter ANGELO, MARIANA, PETER, and Provost. Of sacred chastity, and of promise-breach, O, my most gracious lord! I hope you will not mock me with a husband. Mari. O, my dear lord! I crave no other, nor no better man. [Kneeling. You do but lose your labour. |