O pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart to see thine eyes so red: thou must be patient. I am fain to dine and sup with water and bran; I dare not for my head fill my belly; one fruitful meal would set me to ’t. But they say the duke will be here to-morrow. By my troth, Isabel, I loved thy brother: if the old fantastical duke of dark corners had been at home, he had lived.
Exit Isabella
Duke Vincentio
Sir, the duke is marvellous little beholding to your reports; but the best is, he lives not in them.
Lucio
Friar, thou knowest not the duke so well as I do: he’s a better woodman than thou takest him for.
Duke Vincentio
Well, you’ll answer this one day. Fare ye well.
Lucio
Nay, tarry; I’ll go along with thee
I can tell thee pretty tales of the duke.
Duke Vincentio
You have told me too many of him already, sir, if they be true; if not true, none were enough.
Lucio
I was once before him for getting a wench with child.
Duke Vincentio
Did you such a thing?
Lucio
Yes, marry, did I but I was fain to forswear it; they would else have married me to the rotten medlar.
Duke Vincentio
Sir, your company is fairer than honest. Rest you well.
Lucio
By my troth, I’ll go with thee to the lane’s end: if bawdy talk offend you, we’ll have very little of it. Nay, friar, I am a kind of burr; I shall stick.
Exeunt
SCENE IV. A ROOM IN ANGELO’S HOUSE.
Enter Angelo and Escalus
Escalus
Every letter he hath writ hath disvouched other.
Angelo
In most uneven and distracted manner. His actions show much like to madness: pray heaven his wisdom be not tainted! And why meet him at the gates, and redeliver our authorities there
Escalus
I guess not.
Angelo
And why should we proclaim it in an hour before his entering, that if any crave redress of injustice, they should exhibit their petitions in the street?
Escalus
He shows his reason for that: to have a dispatch of complaints, and to deliver us from devices hereafter, which shall then have no power to stand against us.
Angelo
Well, I beseech you, let it be proclaimed betimes i’ the morn; I’ll call you at your house: give notice to such men of sort and suit as are to meet him.
Escalus
I shall, sir. Fare you well.
Angelo
Good night.
Exit Escalus
This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant
And dull to all proceedings. A deflower’d maid!
And by an eminent body that enforced
The law against it! But that her tender shame
Will not proclaim against her maiden loss,
How might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her no;
For my authority bears of a credent bulk,
That no particular scandal once can touch
But it confounds the breather. He should have lived,
Save that riotous youth, with dangerous sense,
Might in the times to come have ta’en revenge,
By so receiving a dishonour’d life
With ransom of such shame. Would yet he had lived!
A lack, when once our grace we have forgot,
Nothing goes right: we would, and we would not.
Exit
SCENE V. FIELDS WITHOUT THE TOWN.
Enter Duke Vincentio in his own habit, and Friar Peter
Duke Vincentio
These letters at fit time deliver me
Giving letters
The provost knows our purpose and our plot.
The matter being afoot, keep your instruction,
And hold you ever to our special drift;
Though sometimes you do blench from this to that,
As cause doth minister. Go call at Flavius’ house,
And tell him where I stay: give the like notice
To Valentinus, Rowland, and to Crassus,
And bid them bring the trumpets to the gate;
But send me Flavius first.
Friar Peter
It shall be speeded well.
Exit
Enter Varrius
Duke Vincentio
I thank thee, Varrius; thou hast made good haste:
Come, we will walk. There’s other of our friends
Will greet us here anon, my gentle Varrius.
Exeunt
SCENE VI. STREET NEAR THE CITY GATE.
Enter Isabella and Mariana
Isabella
To speak so indirectly I am loath:
I would say the truth; but to accuse him so,
That is your part: yet I am advised to do it;
He says, to veil full purpose.
Mariana
Be ruled by him.
Isabella
Besides, he tells me that, if peradventure
He speak against me on the adverse side,
I should not think it strange; for ’tis a physic
That’s bitter to sweet end.
Mariana
I would Friar Peter —
Isabella
O, peace! the friar is come.
Enter Friar Peter
Friar Peter
Come, I have found you out a stand most fit,
Where you may have such vantage on the duke,
He shall not pass you. Twice have the trumpets sounded;
The generous and gravest citizens
Have hent the gates, and very near upon
The duke is entering: therefore, hence, away!
Exeunt
ACT V
SCENE I. THE CITY GATE.
Mariana veiled, Isabella, and Friar Peter, at their stand. Enter Duke Vincentio, Varrius, Lords, Angelo, Escalus, Lucio, Provost, Officers, and Citizens, at several doors
Duke Vincentio
My very worthy cousin, fairly met!
Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you.
Angelo
Escalus
Happy return be to your royal grace!
Duke Vincentio
Many and hearty thankings to you both.
We have made inquiry of you; and we hear
Such goodness of your justice, that our soul
Cannot but yield you forth to public thanks,
Forerunning more requital.
Angelo
You make my bonds still greater.
Duke Vincentio
O, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it,
To lock it in the wards of covert bosom,
When it deserves, with characters of brass,
A forted residence ’gainst the tooth of time
And razure of oblivion. Give me your hand,
And let the subject see, to make them know
That outward courtesies would fain proclaim
Favours that keep within. Come, Escalus,
You must walk by us on our other hand;
And good supporters are you.
Friar Peter and Isabella come forward
Friar Peter
Now is your time: speak loud and kneel before him.
Isabella
Justice, O royal duke! Vail your regard
Upon a wrong’d, I would fain have said, a maid!
O worthy prince, dishonour not your eye
By throwing it on any other object
Till you have heard me in my true complaint
And given me justice, justice, justice, justice!
Duke Vincentio
Relate your wrongs; in what? by whom? be brief.
Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice:
Reveal yourself to him.
Isabella
O worthy duke,
You bid me seek red
emption of the devil:
Hear me yourself; for that which I must speak
Must either punish me, not being believed,
Or wring redress from you. Hear me, O hear me, here!
Angelo
My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm:
She hath been a suitor to me for her brother
Cut off by course of justice,—
Isabella
By course of justice!
Angelo
And she will speak most bitterly and strange.
Isabella
Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak:
That Angelo’s forsworn; is it not strange?
That Angelo’s a murderer; is ’t not strange?
That Angelo is an adulterous thief,
An hypocrite, a virgin-violator;
Is it not strange and strange?
Duke Vincentio
Nay, it is ten times strange.
Isabella
It is not truer he is Angelo
Than this is all as true as it is strange:
Nay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth
To the end of reckoning.
Duke Vincentio
Away with her! Poor soul,
She speaks this in the infirmity of sense.
Isabella
O prince, I conjure thee, as thou believest
There is another comfort than this world,
That thou neglect me not, with that opinion
That I am touch’d with madness! Make not impossible
That which but seems unlike: ’tis not impossible
But one, the wicked’st caitiff on the ground,
May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute
As Angelo; even so may Angelo,
In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms,
Be an arch-villain; believe it, royal prince:
If he be less, he’s nothing; but he’s more,
Had I more name for badness.
Duke Vincentio
By mine honesty,
If she be mad,— as I believe no other,—
Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense,
Such a dependency of thing on thing,
As e’er I heard in madness.
Isabella
O gracious duke,
Harp not on that, nor do not banish reason
For inequality; but let your reason serve
To make the truth appear where it seems hid,
And hide the false seems true.
Duke Vincentio
Many that are not mad
Have, sure, more lack of reason. What would you say?
Isabella
I am the sister of one Claudio,
Condemn’d upon the act of fornication
To lose his head; condemn’d by Angelo:
I, in probation of a sisterhood,
Was sent to by my brother; one Lucio
As then the messenger,—
Lucio
That’s I, an’t like your grace:
I came to her from Claudio, and desired her
To try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo
For her poor brother’s pardon.
Isabella
That’s he indeed.
Duke Vincentio
You were not bid to speak.
Lucio
No, my good lord;
Nor wish’d to hold my peace.
Duke Vincentio
I wish you now, then;
Pray you, take note of it: and when you have
A business for yourself, pray heaven you then
Be perfect.
Lucio
I warrant your honour.
Duke Vincentio
The warrants for yourself; take heed to’t.
Isabella
This gentleman told somewhat of my tale,—
Lucio
Right.
Duke Vincentio
It may be right; but you are i’ the wrong
To speak before your time. Proceed.
Isabella
I went
To this pernicious caitiff deputy,—
Duke Vincentio
That’s somewhat madly spoken.
Isabella
Pardon it;
The phrase is to the matter.
Duke Vincentio
Mended again. The matter; proceed.
Isabella
In brief, to set the needless process by,
How I persuaded, how I pray’d, and kneel’d,
How he refell’d me, and how I replied,—
For this was of much length,— the vile conclusion
I now begin with grief and shame to utter:
He would not, but by gift of my chaste body
To his concupiscible intemperate lust,
Release my brother; and, after much debatement,
My sisterly remorse confutes mine honour,
And I did yield to him: but the next morn betimes,
His purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant
For my poor brother’s head.
Duke Vincentio
This is most likely!
Isabella
O, that it were as like as it is true!
Duke Vincentio
By heaven, fond wretch, thou knowist not what thou speak’st,
Or else thou art suborn’d against his honour
In hateful practise. First, his integrity
Stands without blemish. Next, it imports no reason
That with such vehemency he should pursue
Faults proper to himself: if he had so offended,
He would have weigh’d thy brother by himself
And not have cut him off. Some one hath set you on:
Confess the truth, and say by whose advice
Thou camest here to complain.
Isabella
And is this all?
Then, O you blessed ministers above,
Keep me in patience, and with ripen’d time
Unfold the evil which is here wrapt up
In countenance! Heaven shield your grace from woe,
As I, thus wrong’d, hence unbelieved go!
Duke Vincentio
I know you’ld fain be gone. An officer!
To prison with her! Shall we thus permit
A blasting and a scandalous breath to fall
On him so near us? This needs must be a practise.
Who knew of Your intent and coming hither?
Isabella
One that I would were here, Friar Lodowick.
Duke Vincentio
A ghostly father, belike. Who knows that Lodowick?
Lucio
My lord, I know him; ’tis a meddling friar;
I do not like the man: had he been lay, my lord
For certain words he spake against your grace
In your retirement, I had swinged him soundly.
Duke Vincentio
Words against me? this is a good friar, belike!
And to set on this wretched woman here
Against our substitute! Let this friar be found.
Lucio
But yesternight, my lord, she and that friar,
I saw them at the prison: a saucy friar,
A very scurvy fellow.
Friar Peter
Blessed be your royal grace!
I have stood by, my lord, and I have heard
Your royal ear abused. First, hath this woman
Most wrongfully accused your substitute,
Who is as free from touch or soil with her
As she from one ungot.
Duke Vincentio
We did believe no less.
Know you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of?
Friar Peter
I know him for a man divine and holy;
Not scurvy, nor a temporary meddler,
As he’s reported by this gentleman;
And, on my trust, a man that never yet
Did, as he vouches, m
isreport your grace.
Lucio
My lord, most villanously; believe it.
Friar Peter
Well, he in time may come to clear himself;
But at this instant he is sick my lord,
Of a strange fever. Upon his mere request,
Being come to knowledge that there was complaint
Intended ’gainst Lord Angelo, came I hither,
To speak, as from his mouth, what he doth know
Is true and false; and what he with his oath
And all probation will make up full clear,
Whensoever he’s convented. First, for this woman.
To justify this worthy nobleman,
So vulgarly and personally accused,
Her shall you hear disproved to her eyes,
Till she herself confess it.
Duke Vincentio
Good friar, let’s hear it.
Isabella is carried off guarded; and Mariana comes forward
Do you not smile at this, Lord Angelo?
O heaven, the vanity of wretched fools!
Give us some seats. Come, cousin Angelo;
In this I’ll be impartial; be you judge
Of your own cause. Is this the witness, friar?
First, let her show her face, and after speak.
Mariana
Pardon, my lord; I will not show my face
Until my husband bid me.
Duke Vincentio
What, are you married?
Mariana
No, my lord.
Duke Vincentio
Are you a maid?
Mariana
No, my lord.
Duke Vincentio
A widow, then?
Mariana
Neither, my lord.
Duke Vincentio
Why, you are nothing then: neither maid, widow, nor wife?
Lucio
My lord, she may be a punk; for many of them are neither maid, widow, nor wife.
Duke Vincentio
Silence that fellow: I would he had some cause
To prattle for himself.
Lucio
Well, my lord.
Mariana
My lord; I do confess I ne’er was married;
And I confess besides I am no maid:
I have known my husband; yet my husband
Knows not that ever he knew me.
Lucio
He was drunk then, my lord: it can be no better.
Duke Vincentio
For the benefit of silence, would thou wert so too!
Lucio
Well, my lord.
Duke Vincentio
This is no witness for Lord Angelo.
Mariana
Now I come to’t my lord
She that accuses him of fornication,
In self-same manner doth accuse my husband,
And charges him my lord, with such a time
When I’ll depose I had him in mine arms
With all the effect of love.
Angelo
Charges she more than me?
Complete Plays, The Page 289