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Re-enter PRovost.

Pro. Are you agreed ?

Clown. Sir, I will serve him; for I do find, your hangman is a more penitent trade than your bawd; he doth oftener ask forgiveness.

Pro. You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe, to-morrow, four o'clock.

Abh. Come on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow.

Clown. I do desire to learn, sir; and, I hope, if you have occasion to use me for your own turn, you shall find me yare : 1 for, truly, sir, for your kindness, I owe you a good turn.

Pro. Call hither Barnardine and Claudio:

[Exeunt Clown and Abhorson.

Th' one has my pity; not a jot the other,
Being a murderer, though he were my brother.

Enter CLAUDIO.

Look, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death: "Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow Thou must be made immortal. Where's Barnardine ?

Clau. As fast lock'd up in sleep, as guiltless la

bor,

When it lies starkly 2 in the traveller's bones:
He will not wake.

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Pro.

Who can do good on him?

Well, go, prepare yourself. But hark, what noise?

[knocking within. Heaven give your spirits comfort! [Exit Claudio. By and by: :

I hope it is some pardon or reprieve

For the most gentle Claudio.-Welcome, father.

Enter DUKE.

Duke. The best and wholesomest spirits of the

night

Envelop you, good provost! Who call'd here of

late?

Pro. None, since the curfew rung.

'Duke.

Pro. No.

Not Isabel?

Duke. They will then, ere 't be long.
Pro. What comfort is for Claudio?
Duke.

Pro. It is a bitter deputy.

There's some in hope.

Duke. Not so, not so; his life is parallel'd

Even with the stroke and line of his great justice;

He doth with holy abstinence subdue

That in himself, which he

spurs on his power

To qualify 1 in others were he meal'd 2

With that which he corrects, then were he tyran

nous;

1 To temper, moderate.

2 Defiled.

But this being so, he 's just.-Now are they come.[knocking within.—Provost goes out.

This is a gentle provost. Seldom, when
The steeled gaoler is the friend of men.-

How now? What noise? That spirit's possess'd with haste,

1

That wounds the unsisting 1 postern with these

strokes.

PROVOST returns, speaking to one at the door.

Pro. There he must stay, until the officer Arise to let him in; he is call'd up.

Duke. Have you no countermand for Claudio yet, But he must die to-morrow?

Pro.

None, sir, none.

Duke. As near the dawning, provost, as it is, You shall hear more ere morning.

Pro.

Happily,

You something know; yet, I believe, there comes No countermand; no such example have we:

2

Besides, upon the very siege of justice,

Lord Angelo hath to the public ear

Profess'd the contrary.

Enter MESSENGER.

Duke. This is his lordship's man.
Pro. And here comes Claudio's pardon.

1 Never at rest, always opening.

2 Seat.

Mes. My lord hath sent you this note; and by me this farther charge, that you swerve not from the smallest article of it, neither in time, matter, or other circumstance. Good morrow; for, as I take it, it is almost day.

Pro. I shall obey him.

[Exit Messenger. Duke. This is his pardon, purchased by such sin,

For which the pardoner himself is in
Hence hath offence his quick celerity,
When it is borne in high authority:

:

[aside.

When vice makes mercy, mercy's so extended, That for the fault's love is the offender friended.Now, sir, what news ?

Pro. I told you. Lord Angelo, belike, thinking me remiss in mine office, awakens me with this unwonted putting on:1 methinks, strangely; for he hath not used it before.

Duke. Pray you, let's hear.

Pro. [reads.] 'Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let Claudio be executed by four of the clock; and, in the afternoon, Barnardine : for my better satisfaction, let me have Claudio's head sent me by five. Let this be duly performed; with a thought, that more depends on it than we must yet deliver. Thus fail not to do your office, as you will answer it at your peril.'

What say you to this, sir?

1 Spur, incitement.

Duke. What is that Barnardine, who is to be executed in the afternoon?

Pro. A Bohemian born, but here nursed up and bred one that is a prisoner nine years old.1

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.

Pro. 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. Is it now apparent ?

Pro. Most manifest, and not denied by himself. Duke. Hath he borne himself penitently in prison? How seems he to be touched?

Pro. 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.

Pro. 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 intirely drunk. We have very often 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

1 That has been confined these nine years.

For mortally desperate, i. e. desperate in the extreme.

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