Complete Plays, The
Page 284
Froth
All this is true.
Pompey
Why, very well, then,—
Escalus
Come, you are a tedious fool: to the purpose. What was done to Elbow’s wife, that he hath cause to complain of? Come me to what was done to her.
Pompey
Sir, your honour cannot come to that yet.
Escalus
No, sir, nor I mean it not.
Pompey
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 four-score pound a year; whose father died at Hallowmas: was’t not at Hallowmas, Master Froth?
Froth
All-hallond eve.
Pompey
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 you not?
Froth
I have so; because it is an open room and good for winter.
Pompey
Why, very well, then; I hope here be truths.
Angelo
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.
Escalus
I think no less. Good morrow to your lordship.
Exit Angelo
Now, sir, come on: what was done to Elbow’s wife, once more?
Pompey
Once, sir? there was nothing done to her once.
Elbow
I beseech you, sir, ask him what this man did to my wife.
Pompey
I beseech your honour, ask me.
Escalus
Well, sir; what did this gentleman to her?
Pompey
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 his face?
Escalus
Ay, sir, very well.
Pompey
Nay; I beseech you, mark it well.
Escalus
Well, I do so.
Pompey
Doth your honour see any harm in his face?
Escalus
Why, no.
Pompey
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.
Escalus
He’s in the right. Constable, what say you to it?
Elbow
First, an it like you, the house is a respected house; next, this is a respected fellow; and his mistress is a respected woman.
Pompey
By this hand, sir, his wife is a more respected person than any of us all.
Elbow
Varlet, thou liest; thou liest, wicked varlet! the time has yet to come that she was ever respected with man, woman, or child.
Pompey
Sir, she was respected with him before he married with her.
Escalus
Which is the wiser here? Justice or Iniquity? Is this true?
Elbow
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.
Escalus
If he took you a box o’ the ear, you might have your action of slander too.
Elbow
Marry, I thank your good worship for it. What is’t your worship’s pleasure I shall do with this wicked caitiff?
Escalus
Truly, officer, because he hath some offences in him that thou wouldst discover if thou couldst, let him continue in his courses till thou knowest what they are.
Elbow
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.
Escalus
Where were you born, friend?
Froth
Here in Vienna, sir.
Escalus
Are you of fourscore pounds a year?
Froth
Yes, an’t please you, sir.
Escalus
So. What trade are you of, sir?
Pompey
Tapster; a poor widow’s tapster.
Escalus
Your mistress’ name?
Pompey
Mistress Overdone.
Escalus
Hath she had any more than one husband?
Pompey
Nine, sir; Overdone by the last.
Escalus
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 tap-house, but I am drawn in.
Escalus
Well, no more of it, Master Froth: farewell.
Exit Froth
Come you hither to me, Master tapster. What’s your name, Master tapster?
Pompey
Pompey.
Escalus
What else?
Pompey
Bum, sir.
Escalus
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.
Pompey
Truly, sir, I am a poor fellow that would live.
Escalus
How would you live, Pompey? by being a bawd? What do you think of the trade, Pompey? is it a lawful trade?
Pompey
If the law would allow it, sir.
Escalus
But the law will not allow it, Pompey; nor it shall not be allowed in Vienna.
Pompey
Does your worship mean to geld and splay all the youth of the city?
Escalus
No, Pompey.
Pompey
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.
Escalus
There are pretty orders beginning, I can tell you: it is but heading and hanging.
Pompey
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.
Escalus
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 Caesar to you; in plain dealing, Pompey, I shall have you whipt: so, for this time, Pompey, fare you well.
Pompey
I thank your worship for your good counsel:
Aside
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 is not whipt out of his trade.
Exit
Escalus
Come hither to me, Master Elbow; come hither, Master constable. How long have you been in this place of constable?
Elbow
Seven year and a half, sir.
Escalus
I thought, by your readiness in the office, you had continued in it some time. You say, seven years together?
Elbow
And a h
alf, sir.
Escalus
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?
Elbow
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.
Escalus
Look you bring me in the names of some six or seven, the most sufficient of your parish.
Elbow
To your worship’s house, sir?
Escalus
To my house. Fare you well.
Exit Elbow
What’s o’clock, think you?
Justice
Eleven, sir.
Escalus
I pray you home to dinner with me.
Justice
I humbly thank you.
Escalus
It grieves me for the death of Claudio;
But there’s no remedy.
Justice
Lord Angelo is severe.
Escalus
It is but needful:
Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so;
Pardon is still the nurse of second woe:
But yet,— poor Claudio! There is no remedy.
Come, sir.
Exeunt
SCENE II. ANOTHER ROOM IN THE SAME.
Enter Provost and a Servant
Servant
He’s hearing of a cause; he will come straight
I’ll tell him of you.
Provost
Pray you, do.
Exit Servant
I’ll know
His pleasure; may be he will relent. Alas,
He hath but as offended in a dream!
All sects, all ages smack of this vice; and he
To die for’t!
Enter Angelo
Angelo
Now, what’s the matter. Provost?
Provost
Is it your will Claudio shall die tomorrow?
Angelo
Did not I tell thee yea? hadst thou not order?
Why dost thou ask again?
Provost
Lest I might be too rash:
Under your good correction, I have seen,
When, after execution, judgment hath
Repented o’er his doom.
Angelo
Go to; let that be mine:
Do you your office, or give up your place,
And you shall well be spared.
Provost
I crave your honour’s pardon.
What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet?
She’s very near her hour.
Angelo
Dispose of her
To some more fitter place, and that with speed.
Re-enter Servant
Servant
Here is the sister of the man condemn’d
Desires access to you.
Angelo
Hath he a sister?
Provost
Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid,
And to be shortly of a sisterhood,
If not already.
Angelo
Well, let her be admitted.
Exit Servant
See you the fornicatress be removed:
Let have needful, but not lavish, means;
There shall be order for’t.
Enter Isabella and Lucio
Provost
God save your honour!
Angelo
Stay a little while.
To Isabella
You’re welcome: what’s your will?
Isabella
I am a woeful suitor to your honour,
Please but your honour hear me.
Angelo
Well; what’s your suit?
Isabella
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.
Angelo
Well; the matter?
Isabella
I have a brother is condemn’d to die:
I do beseech you, let it be his fault,
And not my brother.
Provost
[Aside] Heaven give thee moving graces!
Angelo
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 fine the faults whose fine stands in record,
And let go by the actor.
Isabella
O just but severe law!
I had a brother, then. Heaven keep your honour!
Lucio
[Aside to Isabella] Give’t not o’er so: to him again, entreat 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!
Isabella
Must he needs die?
Angelo
Maiden, no remedy.
Isabella
Yes; I do think that you might pardon him,
And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.
Angelo
I will not do’t.
Isabella
But can you, if you would?
Angelo
Look, what I will not, that I cannot do.
Isabella
But might you do’t, and do the world no wrong,
If so your heart were touch’d with that remorse
A s mine is to him?
Angelo
He’s sentenced; ’tis too late.
Lucio
[Aside to Isabella] You are too cold.
Isabella
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.
Angelo
Pray you, be gone.
Isabella
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
[Aside to Isabella]
Ay, touch him; there’s the vein.
Angelo
Your brother is a forfeit of the law,
And you but waste your words.
Isabella
Alas, alas!
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.
Angelo
Be you content, fair maid;
It is the law, not I condemn your brother:
Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,
It should be thus with him: he must die tomorrow.
Isabella
To-morrow! O, that’s sudden! Spare him, spare him!
He’s not prepared for death. Even for our kitchens
We kill the fowl of season: shall we serve heaven
With less respect than we do minister
To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you;
Who is it that hath died for this offence?
; There’s many have committed it.
Lucio
[Aside to Isabella] Ay, well said.
Angelo
The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept:
Those many had not dared to do that evil,
If the first 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 new, or by remissness new-conceived,
And so in progress to be hatch’d and born,
Are now to have no successive degrees,
But, ere they live, to end.
Isabella
Yet show some pity.
Angelo
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.
Isabella
So you must be the first that gives this sentence,
And he, that suffer’s. O, it is excellent
To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
Lucio
[Aside to Isabella] That’s well said.
Isabella
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 thunder! Merciful Heaven,
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
Split’st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
Than the soft myrtle: 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
[Aside to Isabella] O, to him, to him, wench! he will relent; He’s coming; I perceive ’t.
Provost
[Aside] Pray heaven she win him!
Isabella
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 i’ the right, girl; more o, that.
Isabella
That in the captain’s but a choleric word,
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.
Lucio
[Aside to Isabella] Art avised o’ that? more on ’t.
Angelo
Why do you put these sayings upon me?
Isabella
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;