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

DUKE. Nor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all.

He is your husband on a pre-contract.

To bring you thus together ‘tis no sin, Sith that the justice of your title to him Doth flourish the deceit. Come, let us go; Our corn’s to reap, for yet our tithe’s to sow. Exeunt

SCENE II.

The prison

Enter PROVOST and POMPEY

PROVOST. Come hither, sirrah. Can you cut off a man’s head?

POMPEY. If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can; but if he be a married man, he’s his wife’s head, and I can never cut of a woman’s head.

PROVOST. Come, sir, leave me your snatches and yield me a direct answer. Tomorrow morning are to die Claudio and Barnardine. Here is in our prison a common executioner, who in his office lacks a helper; if you will take it on you to assist him, it shall redeem you from your gyves; if not, you shall have your full time of imprisonment, and your deliverance with an unpitied whipping, for you have been a notorious bawd.

POMPEY. Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd time out of mind; but yet I will be content to be a lawful hangman. I would be glad to receive some instructions from my fellow partner.

PROVOST. What ho, Abhorson! Where’s Abhorson there?

Enter ABHORSON

ABHORSON. Do you call, sir?

PROVOST. Sirrah, here’s a fellow will help you tomorrow in your execution. If you think it meet, compound with him by the year, and let him abide here with you; if not, use him for the present, and dismiss him. He cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath been a bawd.

ABHORSON. A bawd, sir? Fie upon him! He will discredit our mystery.

PROVOST. Go to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale. Exit POMPEY. Pray, sir, by your good favour-for surely, sir, a good favour you have but that you have a hanging look-do you call, sir, your occupation a mystery?

ABHORSON. Ay, sir; a mystery.

POMPEY. Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and your whores, sir, being members of my occupation, using painting, do prove my occupation a mystery; but what mystery there should be in hanging, if I should be hang’d, I cannot imagine.

ABHORSON. Sir, it is a mystery.

POMPEY. Proof?

ABHORSON. Every true man’s apparel fits your thief: if it be too little for your thief, your true man thinks it big enough; if it be too big for your thief, your thief thinks it little enough; so every true man’s apparel fits your thief.

Re-enter PROVOST

PROVOST. Are you agreed?

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

PROVOST. You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe tomorrow four o’clock.

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

POMPEY. 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; for truly, sir, for your kindness I owe you a good turn.

PROVOST. Call hither Barnardine and Claudio.

Exeunt ABHORSON and POMPEY

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 tomorrow Thou must be made immortal. Where’s Barnardine?

CLAUDIO. As fast lock’d up in sleep as guiltless labour When it lies starkly in the traveller’s bones.

He will not wake.

PROVOST. Who can do good on him?

Well, go, prepare yourself. [Knocking within] But hark, what noise?

Heaven give your spirits comfort! Exit CLAUDIO

[Knocking continues] By and by.

I hope it is some pardon or reprieve

For the most gentle Claudio.

Enter DUKE, disguised as before Welcome, father.

DUKE. The best and wholesom’st spirits of the night Envelop you, good Provost! Who call’d here of late?

PROVOST. None, since the curfew rung.

DUKE. Not Isabel?

PROVOST. No.

DUKE. They will then, ere’t be long.

PROVOST. What comfort is for Claudio?

DUKE. There’s some in hope.

PROVOST. It is a bitter deputy.

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 pow’r To qualify in others. Were he meal’d with that Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous; But this being so, he’s just. [Knocking within] Now are they come. Exit PROVOST

This is a gentle provost; seldom when The steeled gaoler is the friend of men. [Knocking within]

How now, what noise! That spirit’s possess’d with haste That wounds th’ unsisting postern with these strokes.

Re-enter PROVOST

PROVOST. 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 tomorrow?

PROVOST. None, sir, none.

DUKE. As near the dawning, Provost, as it is, You shall hear more ere morning.

PROVOST. Happily

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

Besides, upon the very siege of justice, Lord Angelo hath to the public ear

Profess’d the contrary.

Enter a MESSENGER

This is his lordship’s man.

DUKE. And here comes Claudio’s pardon.

MESSENGER. My lord hath sent you this note; and by me this further 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.

PROVOST. I shall obey him. Exit MESSENGER

DUKE. [Aside] This is his pardon, purchas’d by such sin For which the pardoner himself is in; Hence hath offence his quick celerity, When it is borne in high authority.

When vice makes mercy, mercy’s so extended That for the fault’s love is th’ offender friended.

Now, sir, what news?

PROVOST. I told you: Lord Angelo, belike thinking me remiss in mine office, awakens me with this unwonted putting-on; methinks strangely, for he hath not us’d it before.

DUKE. Pray you, let’s hear.

PROVOST. [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?

DUKE. What is that Barnardine who is to be executed in th’

afternoon?

PROVOST. A Bohemian born; but here nurs’d up and bred.

One that is a prisoner nine years old.

DUKE. How came it that the absent Duke had not either deliver’d him to his liberty or executed him? I have heard it was ever his manner to do so.

PROVOST. His friends still wrought reprieves for him; and, indeed, his fact, till now in the government of Lord Angelo, came not to an undoubted proof.

DUKE. It is now apparent?

PROVOST. Most manifest, and not denied by himself.

DUKE. Hath he borne himself penitently in prison? How seems he to be touch’d?

PROVOST. 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.

PROVOST. 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 entirely drunk. We have very oft awak’d him, as if to carry him to execution, and show’d him a seeming warrant for it; it hath not moved him at all.

DUKE. More of him anon. There is written in your brow, Provost, honesty and constancy. If I read it not truly, my ancient skill beguiles me; but in the boldness of my cunning I will lay myself in hazard. Claudio, whom here you have warrant to execute, is no greater forfeit to the law than Angelo who hath sentenc’d him. To make you understand this in a manifested effect, I crave but four days’ respite; for the which you are to do me both a present and a dangerous courtesy.

PROVOST. Pray, sir, in what?

DUKE. In the delaying death.

PROVOST. Alack! How may I do it, having the hour limited, and an express command, under penalty, to deliver his head in the view of Angelo? I may make my case as Claudio’s, to cross this in the smallest.

DUKE. By the vow of mine order, I warrant you, if my instructions may be your guide. Let this Barnardine be this morning executed, and his head borne to Angelo.

PROVOST. Angelo hath seen them both, and will discover the favour.

DUKE. O, death’s a great disguiser; and you may add to it. Shave the head and tie the beard; and say it was the desire of the penitent to be so bar’d before his death. You know the course is common. If anything fall to you upon this more than thanks and good fortune, by the saint whom I profess, I will plead against it with my life.

PROVOST. Pardon me, good father; it is against my oath.

DUKE. Were you sworn to the Duke, or to the deputy?

PROVOST. To him and to his substitutes.

DUKE. You will think you have made no offence if the Duke avouch the justice of your dealing?

PROVOST. But what likelihood is in that?

DUKE. Not a resemblance, but a certainty. Yet since I see you fearful, that neither my coat, integrity, nor persuasion, can with ease attempt you, I will go further than I meant, to pluck all fears out of you. Look you, sir, here is the hand and seal of the Duke. You know the character, I doubt not; and the signet is not strange to you.

PROVOST. I know them both.

DUKE. The contents of this is the return of the Duke; you shall anon over-read it at your pleasure, where you shall find within these two days he will be here. This is a thing that Angelo knows not; for he this very day receives letters of strange tenour, perchance of the Duke’s death, perchance entering into some monastery; but, by chance, nothing of what is writ. Look, th’

unfolding star calls up the shepherd. Put not yourself into amazement how these things should be: all difficulties are but easy when they are known. Call your executioner, and off with Barnardine’s head. I will give him a present shrift, and advise him for a better place. Yet you are amaz’d, but this shall absolutely resolve you. Come away; it is almost clear dawn.

Exeunt

SCENE III.

The prison

Enter POMPEY

POMPEY. I am as well acquainted here as I was in our house of profession; one would think it were Mistress Overdone’s own house, for here be many of her old customers. First, here’s young Master Rash; he’s in for a commodity of brown paper and old ginger, nine score and seventeen pounds, of which he made five marks ready money. Marry, then ginger was not much in request, for the old women were all dead. Then is there here one Master Caper, at the suit of Master Threepile the mercer, for some four suits of peach-colour’d satin, which now peaches him a beggar.

Then have we here young Dizy, and young Master Deepvow, and Master Copperspur, and Master Starvelackey, the rapier and dagger man, and young Dropheir that kill’d lusty Pudding, and Master Forthlight the tilter, and brave Master Shootie the great traveller, and wild Halfcan that