The arden shakespeare co.., p.351
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, page 351
ISABELLA
Adoptedly, as schoolmaids change their names
By vain though apt affection.
LUCIO She it is.
ISABELLA O, let him marry her!
LUCIO This is the point.
The Duke is very strangely gone from hence;
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Bore many gentlemen – myself being one –
In hand, and hope of action: but we do learn,
By those that know the very nerves of state,
His giving out were of an infinite distance
From his true-meant design. Upon his place,
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And with full line of his authority,
Governs Lord Angelo; a man whose blood
Is very snow-broth; one who never feels
The wanton stings and motions of the sense;
But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
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With profits of the mind, study and fast.
He, to give fear to use and liberty,
Which have for long run by the hideous law
As mice by lions, hath pick’d out an act
Under whose heavy sense your brother’s life
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Falls into forfeit: he arrests him on it,
And follows close the rigour of the statute
To make him an example. All hope is gone,
Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer
To soften Angelo. And that’s my pith of business
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’Twixt you and your poor brother.
ISABELLA Doth he so,
Seek his life?
LUCIO Has censur’d him already;
And, as I hear, the Provost hath a warrant
For’s execution.
ISABELLA Alas, what poor ability’s in me
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To do him good!
LUCIO Assay the power you have.
ISABELLA My power? Alas, I doubt.
LUCIO Our doubts are traitors,
And makes us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo,
And let him learn to know, when maidens sue,
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Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,
All their petitions are as freely theirs
As they themselves would owe them.
ISABELLA I’ll see what I can do.
LUCIO But speedily.
ISABELLA I will about it straight;
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No longer staying but to give the Mother
Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you.
Commend me to my brother: soon at night
I’ll send him certain word of my success.
LUCIO I take my leave of you.
ISABELLA Good sir, adieu.
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Exeunt severally.
2.1 Enter ANGELO, ESCALUS and servants, a Justice.
ANGELO We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape till custom make it
Their perch, and not their terror.
ESCALUS Ay, but yet
Let us be keen, and rather cut a little,
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Than fall, and bruise to death. Alas, this gentleman,
Whom I would save, had a most noble father.
Let but your honour know –
Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue –
That in the working of your own affections,
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Had time coher’d with place, or place with wishing,
Or that the resolute acting of your blood
Could have attain’d th’effect of your own purpose,
Whether you had not sometime in your life
Err’d in this point, which now you censure him,
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And pull’d the law upon you.
ANGELO ’Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
Another thing to fall. I not deny
The jury passing on the prisoner’s life
May in the sworn twelve have a thief, or two,
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Guiltier than him they try. What’s open made to justice,
That justice seizes. What knows the laws
That thieves do pass on thieves? ’Tis very pregnant,
The jewel that we find, we stoop and take’t,
Because we see it; but what we do not see,
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We tread upon, and never think of it.
You may not so extenuate his offence
For I have had such faults; but rather tell me,
When I that censure him do so offend,
Let mine own judgement pattern out my death,
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And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.
Enter PROVOST.
ESCALUS Be it as your wisdom will.
ANGELO Where is the Provost?
PROVOST Here, if it like your honour.
ANGELO See that Claudio
Be executed by nine tomorrow morning;
Bring him his confessor, let him be prepar’d,
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For that’s the utmost of his pilgrimage.
Exit Provost.
ESCALUS Well, heaven forgive him; and forgive us all.
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.
Some run from brakes of ice and answer none,
And some condemned for a fault alone.
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Enter ELBOW and officers with FROTH and POMPEY.
ELBOW Come, bring them away. If these be good people
in a commonweal, that do nothing but use their abuses
in common houses, I know no law. Bring them away.
ANGELO How now sir, what’s your name? And what’s
the matter?
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ELBOW If it please your honour, I am the poor Duke’s
constable, and my name is Elbow. I do lean upon
justice, sir, and do bring in here before your good
honour two notorious benefactors.
ANGELO Benefactors? Well, what benefactors are they?
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Are they not malefactors?
ELBOW If it please your honour, I know not well what
they are. But precise villains they are, that I am sure
of, and void of all profanation in the world, that good
Christians ought to have.
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ESCALUS [to Angelo] This comes off well: here’s a wise
officer.
ANGELO Go to. What quality are they of? Elbow is your
name? Why dost thou not speak, Elbow?
POMPEY He cannot, sir: he’s out at elbow.
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ANGELO What are you, sir?
ELBOW He, sir? A tapster, sir; parcel bawd; one that
serves a bad woman; whose house, sir, was, as they say,
plucked down in the suburbs; and now she professes a
hot-house; which I think is a very ill house too.
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ESCALUS How know you that?
ELBOW My wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour –
ESCALUS How? Thy wife?
ELBOW Ay, sir: whom I thank heaven is an honest
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woman –
ESCALUS Dost thou detest her therefore?
ELBOW I say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as she,
that this house, if it be not a bawd’s house, it is pity of
her life, for it is a naughty house.
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ESCALUS How dost thou know that, constable?
ELBOW Marry, sir, by my wife, who, if she had been a
woman cardinally given, might have been accused in
fornication, adultery, and all uncleanliness there.
ESCALUS By the woman’s means?
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ELBOW Ay, sir, by Mistress Overdone’s means; but as
she spit in his face, so she defied him.
POMPEY Sir, if it please your honour, this is not so.
ELBOW Prove it before these varlets here, thou
honourable man, prove it.
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ESCALUS [to Angelo] Do you hear how he misplaces?
POMPEY Sir, she came in great with child; and longing,
saving your honours’ reverence, for stewed prunes; sir,
we had but two in the house, which at that very distant
time stood as it were in a fruit-dish, a dish of some
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three pence, your honours have seen such dishes, they
are not china dishes, but very good dishes, –
ESCALUS Go to, go to: no matter for the dish, sir.
POMPEY No indeed, sir, not of a pin: you are therein in
the right: but to the point. As I say, this Mistress
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Elbow being, as I say, with child, and being great-
bellied, and longing, as I said, for prunes; and having
but two in the dish, as I said, Master Froth here, this
very man, having eaten the rest, as I said, and, as I say,
paying for them very honestly; for, as you know,
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Master Froth, I could not give you three pence
again –
FROTH No, indeed.
POMPEY Very well: you being then, if you be
remembered, cracking the stones of the foresaid
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prunes –
FROTH Ay, so I did indeed.
POMPEY Why, very well: I telling you then, if you be
remembered, that such a one and such a one were past
cure of the thing you wot of, unless they kept very
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good diet, as I told you –
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
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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,
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sir; a man of fourscore 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,
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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?
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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
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honour.
ESCALUS He’s in the right, constable; what say you to it?
ELBOW First, and it like you, the house is a respected
house; next, this is a respected fellow; and his mistress
is a respected woman.
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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 is yet to come that she was ever respected with
