The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (moboreader .TXT) 📕

I’ll pray a thousand prayers for thy death, No word to save thee.

CLAUDIO. Nay, hear me, Isabel.

ISABELLA. O fie, fie, fie!

Thy sin’s not accidental, but a trade.

Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd; ‘Tis best that thou diest quickly.

CLAUDIO. O, hear me, Isabella.

Re-enter DUKE

DUKE. Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.

ISABELLA. What is your will?

DUKE. Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and by have some speech with you; the satisfaction I would require is likewise your own benefit.

ISABELLA. I have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be stolen out of other affairs; but I will attend you awhile.

[Walks apart]

DUKE. Son, I have overheard what hath pass’d between you and your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her; only he hath made an assay of her virtue to practise his judgment with the disposition of natures. She, having the truth of honour in her, hath made him that gracious denial which he is most glad to receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I know this to be true; therefore prepare yourself to death. Do not satisfy your resolution with hopes that are fallible; tomorrow you must die; go to your knees and make ready.

CLAUDIO. Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love with life that I will sue to be rid of it.

DUKE. Hold you there. Farewell. [Exit CLAUDIO] Provost, a word with you.

Re-enter PROVOST

PROVOST. What’s your will, father?

DUKE. That, now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me a while with the maid; my mind promises with my habit no loss shall touch her by my company.

PROVOST. In good time. Exit PROVOST

DUKE. The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good; the goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of your complexion, shall keep the body of it ever fair. The assault that Angelo hath made to you, fortune hath convey’d to my understanding; and, but that frailty hath examples for his falling, I should wonder at Angelo. How will you do to content this substitute, and to save your brother?

ISABELLA. I am now going to resolve him; I had rather my brother die by the law than my son should be unlawfully born. But, O, how much is the good Duke deceiv’d in Angelo! If ever he return, and I can speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or discover his government.

DUKE. That shall not be much amiss; yet, as the matter now stands, he will avoid your accusation: he made trial of you only.

Therefore fasten your ear on my advisings; to the love I have in doing good a remedy presents itself. I do make myself believe that you may most uprighteously do a poor wronged lady a merited benefit; redeem your brother from the angry law; do no stain to your own gracious person; and much please the absent Duke, if peradventure he shall ever return to have hearing of this business.

ISABELLA. Let me hear you speak farther; I have spirit to do anything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.

DUKE. Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have you not heard speak of Mariana, the sister of Frederick, the great soldier who miscarried at sea?

ISABELLA. I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.

DUKE. She should this Angelo have married; was affianced to her by oath, and the nuptial appointed; between which time of the contract and limit of the solemnity her brother Frederick was wreck’d at sea, having in that perished vessel the dowry of his sister. But mark how heavily this befell to the poor gentlewoman: there she lost a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward her ever most kind and natural; with him the portion and sinew of her fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her combinate husband, this well-seeming Angelo.

ISABELLA. Can this be so? Did Angelo so leave her?

DUKE. Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them with his comfort; swallowed his vows whole, pretending in her discoveries of dishonour; in few, bestow’d her on her own lamentation, which she yet wears for his sake; and he, a marble to her tears, is washed with them, but relents not.

ISABELLA. What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid from the world! What corruption in this life that it will let this man live! But how out of this can she avail?

DUKE. It is a rupture that you may easily heal; and the cure of it not only saves your brother, but keeps you from dishonour in doing it.

ISABELLA. Show me how, good father.

DUKE. This forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance of her first affection; his unjust unkindness, that in all reason should have quenched her love, hath, like an impediment in the current, made it more violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his requiring with a plausible obedience; agree with his demands to the point; only refer yourself to this advantage: first, that your stay with him may not be long; that the time may have all shadow and silence in it; and the place answer to convenience.

This being granted in course-and now follows all: we shall advise this wronged maid to stead up your appointment, go in your place. If the encounter acknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him to her recompense; and here, by this, is your brother saved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid will I frame and make fit for his attempt. If you think well to carry this as you may, the doubleness of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof. What think you of it?

ISABELLA. The image of it gives me content already; and I trust it will grow to a most prosperous perfection.

DUKE. It lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily to Angelo; if for this night he entreat you to his bed, give him promise of satisfaction. I will presently to Saint Luke’s; there, at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana. At that place call upon me; and dispatch with Angelo, that it may be quickly.

ISABELLA. I thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father.

Exeunt severally

Scene II.

The street before the prison

Enter, on one side, DUKE disguised as before; on the other, ELBOW, and OFFICERS with POMPEY

ELBOW. Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will needs buy and sell men and women like beasts, we shall have all the world drink brown and white bastard.

DUKE. O heavens! what stuff is here?

POMPEY. ‘Twas never merry world since, of two usuries, the merriest was put down, and the worser allow’d by order of law a furr’d gown to keep him warm; and furr’d with fox on lamb-skins too, to signify that craft, being richer than innocency, stands for the facing.

ELBOW. Come your way, sir. Bless you, good father friar.

DUKE. And you, good brother father. What offence hath this man made you, sir?

ELBOW. Marry, sir, he hath offended the law; and, sir, we take him to be a thief too, sir, for we have found upon him, sir, a strange picklock, which we have sent to the deputy.

DUKE. Fie, sirrah, a bawd, a wicked bawd!

The evil that thou causest to be done, That is thy means to live. Do thou but think What ‘tis to cram a maw or clothe a back From such a filthy vice; say to thyself ‘From their abominable and beastly touches I drink, I eat, array myself, and live.’

Canst thou believe thy living is a life, So stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend.

POMPEY. Indeed, it does stink in some sort, sir; but yet, sir, I would prove-DUKE. Nay, if the devil have given thee proofs for sin, Thou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer; Correction and instruction must both work Ere this rude beast will profit.

ELBOW. He must before the deputy, sir; he has given him warning.

The deputy cannot abide a whoremaster; if he be a whoremonger, and comes before him, he were as good go a mile on his errand.

DUKE. That we were all, as some would seem to be, From our faults, as his faults from seeming, free.

ELBOW. His neck will come to your waist-a cord, sir.

Enter LUCIO

POMPEY. I spy comfort; I cry bail. Here’s a gentleman, and a friend of mine.

LUCIO. How now, noble Pompey! What, at the wheels of Caesar? Art thou led in triumph? What, is there none of Pygmalion’s images, newly made woman, to be had now for putting the hand in the pocket and extracting it clutch’d? What reply, ha? What say’st thou to this tune, matter, and method? Is’t not drown’d i’ th’

last rain, ha? What say’st thou, trot? Is the world as it was, man? Which is the way? Is it sad, and few words? or how? The trick of it?

DUKE. Still thus, and thus; still worse!

LUCIO. How doth my dear morsel, thy mistress? Procures she still, ha?

POMPEY. Troth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she is herself in the tub.

LUCIO. Why, ‘tis good; it is the right of it; it must be so; ever your fresh whore and your powder’d bawd-an unshunn’d consequence; it must be so. Art going to prison, Pompey?

POMPEY. Yes, faith, sir.

LUCIO. Why, ‘tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell; go, say I sent thee thither. For debt, Pompey-or how?

ELBOW. For being a bawd, for being a bawd.

LUCIO. Well, then, imprison him. If imprisonment be the due of a bawd, why, ‘tis his right. Bawd is he doubtless, and of antiquity, too; bawd-born. Farewell, good Pompey. Commend me to the prison, Pompey. You will turn good husband now, Pompey; you will keep the house.

POMPEY. I hope, sir, your good worship will be my bail.

LUCIO. No, indeed, will I not, Pompey; it is not the wear. I will pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage. If you take it not patiently, why, your mettle is the more. Adieu trusty Pompey.

Bless you, friar.

DUKE. And you.

LUCIO. Does Bridget paint still, Pompey, ha?

ELBOW. Come your ways, sir; come.

POMPEY. You will not bail me then, sir?

LUCIO. Then, Pompey, nor now. What news abroad, friar? what news?

ELBOW. Come your ways, sir; come.

LUCIO. Go to kennel, Pompey, go.

Exeunt ELBOW, POMPEY and OFFICERS

What news, friar, of the Duke?

DUKE. I know none. Can you tell me of any?

LUCIO. Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other some, he is in Rome; but where is he, think you?

DUKE. I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well.

LUCIO. It was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from the state and usurp the beggary he was never born to. Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence; he puts transgression to’t.

DUKE. He does well in’t.

LUCIO. A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in him; something too crabbed that way, friar.

DUKE. It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it.

LUCIO. Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred; it is well allied; but it is impossible to extirp it quite, friar, till eating and drinking be put down. They say this Angelo was not made by man and woman after this downright way of creation. Is it true, think you?

DUKE. How should he be made, then?

LUCIO.