he hath cause to complain of? Come me to what was done to her.

Clo. Sir, your honour cannot come to that yet. Escal No, sir, nor I mean it not.

Clo. Sir, but you shall come to it, by your honour's leave: And, I beseech you, look into master Froth here, sir; a man of fourscore pound a year; whose father died at Hallowmas :- Was't not at Hallowmas, master Froth?

Froth. All-hollond eve.

Clo. Why, very well; I hope here be truths: He, sir, sitting, as I say, in a lower chair, sir ; — - 'twas in the Bunch of Grapes, where, indeed, you have a delight to sit Have not? you

Froth. I have so; because it is an open room, and good for winter.

Clo. Why, very well then ;- - I hope here be truths. Ang. This will last out a night in Russia, When nights are longest there: I'll take my leave, And leave you to the hearing of the cause; Hoping, you'll find good cause to whip them all. Escal. I think no less: Good morrow to your lordship. [Exit ANGELO. Now, sir, come on: What was done to Elbow's wife, once more?

Clo. Once, sir? there was nothing done to her

once.

Elb. I beseech you, sir, ask him what this man did to my wife.

Clo. I beseech your honour, ask me.

Escal. Well, sir: what did this gentleman to her? Clo. I beseech you, sir, look in this gentleman's face: Good master Froth, look upon his honour; 'tis for a good purpose: Doth your honour mark lus face?

Escal. Ay, sir, very well.

Clo. Nay, I beseech you, mark it well.
Escal. Well, I do so.

Clo. Doth your honour see any harm in his face?
Escal. Why, no.

Clo. I'll be supposed upon a book, his face is the worst thing about him: Good then; if his face be the worst thing about him, how could master Froth do the constable's wife any harm? I would know that of your honour.

Escal. He's in the right: Constable, what say you to it?

Elb. First, an it like you, the house is a respected house; next, this is a respected fellow; and his mistress is a respected woman.

Clo. By this hand, sir, his wife, is a more respected person than any of us all.

Elb. Varlet, thou liest; thou liest, wicked varlet: the time is yet to come, that she was ever respected, with man, woman, or child.

Clo. Sir, she was respected with him before he married with her.

Escal. Which is the wiser here? Justice, or Iniquity? Is this true?

Elb. O thou caitiff! O thou varlet! O thou wicked Hannibal! I respected with her, before I was married to her? If ever I was respected with her, or she with me, let not your worship think me the poor duke's officer: — Prove this, thou wicked Hannibal, or I'll have mine action of battery on thee. Escal. If he took you a box o' th' ear, you might have your action of slander too.

Elb. Marry, I thank your good worship for it : What is't your worship's pleasure I should do with this wicked caitiff?

Escal. Truly, officer, because he hath some offences in him, that thou wouldst discover if thou couldst let him continue in his courses, till thou know'st what they are.

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, and'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 Over-done.

Escal. Hath she had any more than one husband? Clo. Nine, sir; Over-done 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. [Erit 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 year, 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. [Erit. Escal. Come hither to me, master Elbow; coure hither, master Constable. How long have you bee. 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 then; 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?

Isab. I am a woeful suitor to your honour, Please but your honour hear me.

Ang.

Well; what's your suit? Isab. There is a vice, that most I do abhor, And most desire should meet the blow of justice; For which I would not plead, but that I must; For which I must not plead, but that I am At war, 'twixt will, and will not.

Ang. Well; the matter? Isab. I have a brother is condemn'd to die : I do beseech you, let it be his fault, And not my brother.

Prov. Heaven give thee moving graces. Ang. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it! Why, every fault's condemn'd, ere it be done; Mine were the very cipher of a function, To find the faults, whose fine stands in record, And let go by the actor.

Isab.

O just, but severe law ! 1 had a brother then. - Heaven keep your honour! [Retiring.

Lucio. [To ISAB.] Give't not o'er so: to him again, intreat him;

Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown;
You are too cold: if you should need a pin,
You could not with more tame a tongue desire it:
To him, I say.

Isab. Must he needs die?
Ang.

Maiden, no remedy.

Isab. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him,

And neither heaven, nor man, grieve at the mercy.
Ang. I will not do't.

Isab.
But can you, if you would?
Ang. Look, what I will not, that I cannot do.
Isab. But might you do't, and do the world no
wrong,

If so your heart were touch'd with that remorse
As mine is to him?

Ang.

He's sentenc'd; 'tis too late. Lucio. You are too cold. [TO ISABELLA. Isab. Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word, 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 'twere to be a judge, And what a prisoner.

Lucio. Ay, touch him: there's the vein. Aside

Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once;
And He that might the vantage best have took,
Found out the remedy: How would you be,
If he, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? O, think on that;
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made.

Ang.
Be you content, fair maid;
It is the law, not I, condemns your brother:
Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,
It should be thus with him; he must die to-

morrow.

Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept :

Those many had not dar'd to do that evil,
If the first man that did the edict infringe,
Had answer'd for his deed: now, 'tis awake;
Takes note of what is done; and, like a prophet,
Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils,
(Either now, or by remissness new-conceiv'd,
And so in progress to be hatch'd and born,)
Are now to have no súccessive degrees,
But, where they live, to end.

Isab.

Yet show some pity.

Ang. I show it most of all, when I show justice; For then I pity those I do not know, Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall; And do him right, that, answering one foul wrong, Lives not to act another. Be satisfied; Your brother dies to-morrow; be content.

Isab. So you must be the first, that gives this sentence;

And he, that suffers: O, it is excellent

To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.

Lucio.

That's well said.

Isab. Could great men thunder

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet, For every pelting, petty officer,

Would use his heaven for thunder: nothing but

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

Lucio. Art advis'd 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 'tis Such sense, that my sense breeds with it. Fare you well.

Isab. Gentle my lord, turn back.
Ang. I will bethink me: -

morrow.

- Come again to

Isab. Hark, how I'll bribe you: Good my lord, turn back. Ang. How! bribe me?

Isab.

Ay, with such gifts, that heaven shall share with you.

Lucio. You had marr'd all else.

Isab. Not with fond shekels of the tested gold, Or stones, whose rates are either rich, or poor, As fancy values them: but with true prayers, That shall be up at heaven, and enter there, Ere sun-rise: prayers from preserved souls, From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate To nothing temporal.

Ang. To-morrow.

Well come to me

Isab. Heaven keep your honour safe!
Ang.

Am that way going to temptation,
Where prayers cross.

Isab.
At what hour to-morrow
Shall I attend your lordship?
Ang.

Isab. Save your honour!

Ang.

At any time 'fore noon.

[Exeunt Lucio, ISABELLA, and Provost.
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 raze 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,

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.

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,

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 bless'd 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
The nature of their crimes, that I may minister
To them accordingly.

Prov. I would do more than that if more were needful.

Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth,
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 fear'd 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 biood:
Let's write good angel on the devil's horn,
'Tis not the devil's crest.

him.

Isab. When, I beseech you? that in his reprieve, Longer, or shorter, he may be so fitted, That his soul sicken not.

Ang. Ha! Fye, these filthy vices! It were as good

To pardon him, that hath from nature stolen
A man already made, as to remit

Their sawcy sweetness, that do coin heaven's image,
In stamps that are forbid: 'tis all as easy

Falsely to take away a life true made,

As to put mettle in restrained means,

To make a false one.

I'll take it as a peril to my soul,
It is no sin at all, but charity.

Ang. Pleas'd you to do't, at peril of Were equal poize of sin and charity.

your soul,

Isab. That I do beg his life, if it be sin, Heaven, let me bear it! you granting of my suit, If that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer To have it added to the faults of mine, And nothing of your, answer.

Ang. Nay, but hear me : Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant, Or seem so, craftily; and that's not good.

Isab. Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, But graciously to know I am no better.

Ang. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright, When it doth tax itself: as these black masks Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder Than beauty could displayed. But mark me; To be received plain, I'll speak more gross : Your brother is to die.

Ang. Admit no other way to save his life,
(As I subscribe not that, nor any other,
But in the loss of question,) that you, his sister,
Finding yourself desir'd of such a person,
Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,
Could fetch your brother from the manacles
Of the all-binding law; and that there were
No earthly mean to save him, but that either
You must lay down the treasures of your body
To this supposed, or else let him suffer;
What would you do?

Isab. As much for my poor brother, as myself:
That is, Were I under the terms of death,
The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death, as to a bed
That longing I have been sick for, ere I'd yield
My body up to shame.

Ang. Then must your brother die. Isab. And 'twere the cheaper way: Better it were, a brother died at once, Than that a sister, by redeeming him, Should die for ever.

Ang. Were not you then as cruel as the sentence That you have slander'd so?

Isab. Ignominy in ransom, and free pardon, Are of two houses: lawful mercy is

Nothing akin to foul redemption.

Ang. You seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant; And rather prov'd the sliding of your brother A merriment than a vice.

Isab. O, pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out,
To have what we'd have, we speak not what we mean:
I something do excuse the thing I hate,

For his advantage that I dearly love.
Ang. We are all frail.
Isab.

Ang.

Nay, women are frail too.

Isab. Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves;

Which are as easy broke as they make forms.
Women! - Help heaven! men their creation mar
In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail ;
For we are soft as our complexions are,
And credulous to false prints.

Ang.
I think it well:
And from this testimony of your own sex,
(Since, I suppose, we are made to be no stronger
Than faults may shake our frames,) let me be bold ;—
I do arrest your words; Be that you are,
That is, a woman; if you be more, you're none;
If you be one, (as you are well express'd
By all external warrants,) show it now,
By putting on the destin'd livery.

Isab. I have no tongue but one: gentle my lord, Let me intreat you speak the former language. Ang. Plainly conceive, I love you.

Isub. My brother did love Juliet; and you tell me That he shall die for it.

Ang. He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love. Isab. I know, your virtue hath a licence in't, Which seems a little fouler than it is, To pluck on others. Ang.

Believe me, on mine honour, My words express my purpose.

Isab. Ha! little honour to be much believed, And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seem

ing!

I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't:
Sign me a present pardon for my brother,

Or, with an outstretch'd throat, I'll tell the world
Aloud, what man thou art.

Ang. Who will believe thee, Isabel? My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life, My vouch against you, and my place i' the state, Will so your accusation overweigh, That you shall stifle in your own report, And smell of calumny. I have begun ; And now I give my sensual race the rein: Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite; Lay by all nicety, and prolixious blushes,

That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother By yielding up thy body to my will;

Or else he must not only die the death,

But thy unkindness shall his death draw out
To lingering sufferance: answer me to-morrow,
Or, by the affection that now guides me most,
I'll prove a tyrant to him: As for you,
Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true.

[Erit.

If not a feodary, but only he, Owe, and succeed by weakness.

I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,

And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest. Ext