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Elb. Marry, I thank your worship for it :—Thou seest, thou wicked varlet now, what's come upon thee; thou art to continue now, thou varlet; thou art to continue.

Escal. Where were you born, friend?

[TO FROTH.

Froth. Here, in Vienna, sir.
Escal. Are you of fourscore pounds a-year?
Froth. Yes, an't please you, sir,
Escal. So.-What trade are you of, sir?
[To the Clown.

Clo. A tapster; a poor widow's tapster.
Escal. Your mistress's name?
Clo. Mistress Overdone.
Escal. Hath she had any more than one husband?
Clo. Nine, sir; Overdone by the last.

Escal. Nine!-Come hither to me, Master Froth. Master Froth, I would not have you acquainted with tapsters; they will draw you, Master Froth, and you will hang them: Get you gone, and let me hear no more of you.

Froth. I thank your worship: For mine own part, I never come into any room in a taphouse, but I am drawn in.

Escal. Well; no more of it, Master Froth: farewell. [Exit FROTH. Come you hither to me, master tapster; what's your name, master tapster?

Clo. Pompey.

Escal. What else?

Clo. Bum, sir.

Escal. "Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you; so that, in the beastliest sense, you are Pompey the great. Pompey, you are partly a bawd, Pompey, howsoever you colour it in being a tapster. Are you not? come, tell me true; it shall be the better for you.

Clo. Truly, sir, I am a poor fellow that would

live.

Escal. How would you live, Pompey? by being a bawd? What do you think of the trade, Pompey? is it a lawful trade?

Clo. If the law would allow it, sir. Escal. But the law will not allow it, Pompey; nor it shall not be allowed in Vienna.

Clo. Does your worship mean to geld and spay all the youth in the city?

Escal. No, Pompey. Clo. Truly, sir, in my poor opinion, they will to't, then: If your worship will take order for the drabs and the knaves, you need not to fear the bawds.

Escal. There are pretty orders beginning, I can tell you it is but heading and hanging.

Clo. If you head and hang all that offend that way but for ten year together, you'll be glad to give out a commission for more heads. If this law

hold in Vienna ten years, I'll rent the fairest house in it after three-pence a bay: If you live to see this come to pass, say Pompey told you so.

Escal. Thank you, good Pompey: and, in requital of your prophecy, hark you:-I advise you, let me not find you before me again upon any complaint whatsoever, no, not for dwelling where you do: If I do, Pompey, I shall beat you to your tent, and prove a shrewd Cæsar to you; in plain dealing, Pompey, I shall have you whipt: so for this time, Pompey, fare you well.

Clo. I thank your worship for your good counsel; but I shall follow it as the flesh and fortune shall better determine.

Whip me? No, no; let carman whip his jade; The valiant heart's not whipt out of his trade.

[Exit.

Escal. Come hither to me, Master Elbow; come hither, master constable. How long have you been in this place of constable?

Elb. Seven year and a half, sir.

Escal. I thought, by your readiness in the office, you had continued in it some time: You say, seven years together?

Elb. And a half, sir.

Escal. Alas! it hath been great pains to you. They do you wrong to put you so oft upon 't. Are there not men in your ward sufficient to serve it?

Elb. Faith, sir, few of any wit in such matters: as they are chosen, they are glad to choose me for them; I do it for some piece of money, and go through with all.

Escal. Look you, bring me in the names of some six or seven, the most sufficient of your parish. Elb. To your worship's house, sir?

Escal. To my house: Fare you well. [Exit ELBOW. What's o'clock, think you?

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May call it back again: Well believe this,
No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace
As mercy does. If he had been as you,
And you as he, you would have slipt like him;
But he, like you, would not have been so stern.
Ang. Pray you, begone.

Isab. I would to heaven I had your potency, And you were Isabel! should it then be thus? No; I would tell what 't were to be a judge, And what a prisoner.

Lucio. Ay, touch him: there's the vein. [Aside. Ang. Your brother is a forfeit of the law, And you but waste your words. Alas, alas!

Isab.

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Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt,
Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarléd oak,
Than the soft myrtle;—O, but man, proud man,
(Drest in a little brief authority;

Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
His glassy essence), like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.

Lucio. O, to him, to him, wench: he will relent; He's coming, I perceive 't.

Prov.

Pray heaven she win him!

Isab. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself: Great men may jest with saints: 'tis wit in them; But, in the less, foul profanation.

Lucio. Thou 'rt in the right, girl; more o' that. Isab. That in the captain's but a choleric word, Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

Lucio. Art advised o' that? more on 't.
Ang. Why do you put these sayings upon me?
Isab. Because authority, though it err like
others,

Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,

That skins the vice o' the top: Go to your bosom;
Knock there; and ask your heart what it doth know
That's like my brother's fault: if it confess
A natural guiltiness, such as is his,

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother's life.

Ang.

She speaks, and 't is

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Isab. Save your honour!

[Exeunt Lucio, ISABELLA, and Provost.
Ang. From thee; even from thy virtue!
What's this? what's this? Is this her fault, or mine?
The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most? Ha!
Not she; nor doth she tempt: but it is I,
That lying by the violet, in the sun,

Do as the carrion does, not as the flower,
Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be,
That modesty may more betray our sense
Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground
enough,

Shall we desire to raise the sanctuary,
And pitch our evils there? O, fy, fy, fy!
What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?
Dost thou desire her foully, for those things
That make her good? O, let her brother live:
Thieves for their robbery have authority,
When judges steal themselves. What? do I love
her,

That I desire to hear her speak again,
And feast upon her eyes? What is 't I dream on?
O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous
Is that temptation, that doth goad us on
To sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet,
With all her double vigour, art and nature,
Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
Subdues me quite :-Ever till now,

When men were fond, I smiled, and wondered
how.
[Exit.

SCENE III-A Room in a Prison. Enter DUKE, habited like a Friar, and Provost. Duke. Hail to you, Provost! so I think you are. Prov. I am the Provost: What's your will, good friar?

Duke. Bound by my charity and my blesséd 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

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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 feared 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 for 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 still art blood:
Let's write "good angel" on the devil's horn,
"Tis not the devil's crest.

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