The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  ESCALUS You have paid the heavens your function, and the prisoner the very debt of your calling. I have laboured for the poor gentleman to the extremest shore of my modesty, but my brother-justice have I found so severe that he hath forced me to tell him he is indeed Justice.

  DUKE If his own life answer the straitness of his proceeding, it shall become him well; wherein if he chance to fail, he hath sentenced himself.

  ESCALUS I am going to visit the prisoner. Fare you well.

  DUKE Peace be with you. Exit Escalus

  He who the sword of heaven will bear

  Should be as holy as severe,

  Pattern in himself to know,

  Grace to stand, and virtue go,

  More nor less to others paying

  Than by self-offences weighing.

  Shame to him whose cruel striking

  Kills for faults of his own liking!

  Twice treble shame on Angelo,

  To weed my vice, and let his grow!

  O, what may man within him hide,

  Though angel on the outward side!

  How may likeness made in crimes

  Make my practice on the times

  To draw with idle spiders’ strings

  Most ponderous and substantial things?

  Craft against vice I must apply.

  With Angelo tonight shall lie

  His old betrothed but despised.

  So disguise shall, by th’ disguised,

  Pay with falsehood false exacting,

  And perform an old contracting.

  Exit

  4.1 Mariana ⌈discoveredwith a Boy singing

  BOY

  Take, O take those lips away

  That so sweetly were forsworn,

  And those eyes, the break of day

  Lights that do mislead the morn;

  But my kisses bring again, bring again,

  Seals of love, though sealed in vain, sealed in vain.

  Enter the Duke, disguised as a friar

  MARIANA

  Break off thy song, and haste thee quick away.

  Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice

  Hath often stilled my brawling discontent. Exit Boy

  I cry you mercy, sir, and well could wish io

  You had not found me here so musical.

  Let me excuse me, and believe me so:

  My mirth it much displeased, but pleased my woe.

  DUKE

  ’Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm

  To make bad good, and good provoke to harm.

  I pray you tell me, hath anybody enquired for me here

  today? Much upon this time have I promised here to

  meet.

  MARIANA You have not been enquired after; I have sat here all day.

  Enter Isabella

  DUKE I do constantly believe you; the time is come even now. I shall crave your forbearance a little. Maybe I will call upon you anon, for some advantage to yourself.

  MARIANA I am always bound to you.

  Exit

  DUKE Very well met, and welcome.

  What is the news from this good deputy?

  ISABELLA

  He hath a garden circummured with brick,

  Whose western side is with a vineyard backed;

  And to that vineyard is a planked gate,

  That makes his opening with this bigger key.

  This other doth command a little door

  Which from the vineyard to the garden leads.

  There have I made my promise

  Upon the heavy middle of the night

  To call upon him.

  DUKE

  But shall you on your knowledge find this way?

  ISABELLA

  I have ta‘en a due and wary note upon’t.

  With whispering and most guilty diligence,

  In action all of precept, he did show me

  The way twice o’er.

  DUKE

  Are there no other tokens

  Between you ’greed concerning her observance?

  ISABELLA

  No, none, but only a repair i’th’ dark,

  And that I have possessed him my most stay

  Can be but brief, for I have made him know

  I have a servant comes with me along

  That stays upon me, whose persuasion is

  I come about my brother.

  DUKE ’Tis well borne up.

  I have not yet made known to Mariana

  A word of this.—What ho, within! Come forth!

  Enter Mariana

  (To Mariana) I pray you be acquainted with this maid.

  She comes to do you good.

  ISABELLA I do desire the like.

  DUKE (to Mariana)

  Do you persuade yourself that I respect you?

  MARIANA

  Good friar, I know you do, and so have found it.

  DUKE

  Take then this your companion by the hand,

  Who hath a story ready for your ear.

  I shall attend your leisure; but make haste,

  The vaporous night approaches.

  MARIANA (to Isabella) Will’t please you walk aside?

  Exeunt Mariana and Isabella

  DUKE

  O place and greatness, millions of false eyes

  Are stuck upon thee; volumes of report

  Run with their false and most contrarious quest

  Upon thy doings; thousand escapes of wit

  Make thee the father of their idle dream,

  And rack thee in their fancies.

  Enter Mariana and Isabella

  Welcome. How agreed?

  ISABELLA

  She’ll take the enterprise upon her, father,

  If you advise it.

  DUKE It is not my consent,

  But my entreaty too.

  ISABELLA (to Mariana) Little have you to say

  When you depart from him but, soft and low,

  ‘Remember now my brother’.

  MARIANA

  Fear me not.

  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 tilth’s to sow.

  Exeunt

  4.2 Enter the 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 off 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 instruction 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 Pain
ting, 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 hanged I cannot imagine.

  ABHORSON Sir, it is a mystery.

  POMPEY Proof.

  ABHORSON Every true man’s apparel fits your thief—

  POMPEY 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.

  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 (to Abhorson) You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe tomorrow, four o’clock.

  ABHORSON (to Pompey) 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 locked up in sleep as guiltless labour

  When it lies starkly in the travailer’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 again

  By and by!

  I hope it is some pardon or reprieve

  For the most gentle Claudio.

  Enter the Duke, disguised as a friar

  Welcome, father.

  DUKE

  The best and wholesom’st spirits of the night

  Envelop you, good Provost! Who called 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 paralleled

  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 in others. Were he mealed with that

  Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous;

  But this being so, he’s just.

  Knocking within

  Now are they come.

  ⌈The Provost goes to a door⌉

  This is a gentle Provost. Seldom when

  The steeled jailer is the friend of men.

  Knocking within

  (To Provost) How now, what noise? That spirit’s

  possessed with haste

  That wounds th’unlisting postern with these strokes.

  PROVOST

  There he must stay until the officer

  Arise to let him in. He is called 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

  Professed the contrary.

  Enter a Messenger

  This is his lordship’s man.

  ⌈DUKE⌉ And here comes Claudio’s pardon.

  MESSENGER (giving a paper to Provost) 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, purchased 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 used it before.

  DUKE Pray you let’s hear.

  PROVOST (reading the letter) ‘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 nursed up and bred; one that is a prisoner nine years old.

  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.

  PROVOST 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 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 touched?

  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 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 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 sentenced 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 bared 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.

  PROVO
ST 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. (Showing a letter) 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 tenor, 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 amazed; but this shall absolutely resolve you. Come away, it is almost clear dawn.

  Exeunt

  4.3 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-coloured satin, which now peaches him a beggar. Then have we here young Dizzy, and young Master Deepvow, and Master Copperspur and Master Starve-lackey the rapier and dagger man, and young Drop-hair that killed lusty Pudding, and Master Forthright the tilter, and brave Master Shoe-tie the great traveller, and wild Half-can that stabbed Pots, and I think forty more, all great doers in our trade, and are now ‘for the Lord’s sake’. Enter Abhorson