ESCALUS There is 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 threepence 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 whipped. 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’s not whipped 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 the readiness in the office, you had continued in it some time. You say seven years together?

  ELBOW And a half, 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 with officers

  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

  2.2 Enter the 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; maybe 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 judgement 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.

  Enter Servant

  SERVANT

  Here is the sister of the man condemned 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 her have needful but not lavish means.

  There shall be order for’t.

  Enter Lucio and Isabella

  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 condemned 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 condemned 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 (to Angelo) 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 touched with that remorse

  As 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 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 slipped 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 judgement 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

  Tomorrow? 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)

  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 th‘edict infringe

  Had answered 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 raw, or by remissness new conceived

  And so in progress to be hatched 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 dismissed offence would after gall,

  And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,

  Lives not to act another. Be satisfied.

  Your brother dies tomorrow. Be content.

  ISABELLA

  So you must be the first that gives this sentence,

  And he that suffers. 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 never 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 gnarlèd oak

  Than the soft myrtle. But man, proud man,

  Dressed 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 makes 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 (aside to Isabella) Thou’rt i’th’ 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 advised 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’th’ top. Go to your bosom;

  Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know

  That’s like my brother’s fault. If it confess

  A natural guiltiness, such as is his,

  Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue

  Against my brother’s life.

  ANGELO (aside)

  She speaks, and ’tis such sense

  That my sense breeds with it. (To Isabella) Fare you

  well.

  ISABELLA Gentle my lord, turn back.

  ANGELO

  I will bethink me. Come again tomorrow.

  ISABELLA

  Hark how I’ll bribe you; good my lord, turn back.

  ANGELO How, bribe me?

  ISABELLA

  Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.

  LUCIO (aside to Isabella) You had marred all else.

  ISABELLA

  Not with fond shekels of the tested gold,

  Or stones, whose rate are either rich or poor

  As fancy values them; but with true prayers,

  That shall be up at heaven and enter there

  Ere sunrise, prayers from preserved souls,

  From fasting maids whose minds are dedicate

  To nothing temporal.

  ANGELO Well, come to me tomorrow

  LUCIO (aside to Isabella) Go to; ’tis well; away.

  ISABELLA Heaven keep your honour safe.

  ANGELO (aside) Amen;

  For I am that way going to temptation,

  Where prayer is crossed.

  ISABELLA

  At what hour tomorrow

  Shall I attend your lordship?

  ANGELO

  At any time fore noon.

  ISABELLA

  God save your honour.

  ANGELO (aside)

  From thee; even from thy virtue. Exeunt Isabella, Lucio, and Provost

  What’s this? What’s this? Is this her fault or mine?

  The tempter or the tempted, who sins most, ha?

  Not she; nor doth she tempt; but it is I

  That, lying by the violet in the sun,

  Do, as the carrion does, not as the flower,

  Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be

  That modesty may more betray our sense

  Than woman’s lightness? Having waste ground enough,

  Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,

  And pitch our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie!

  What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?

  Dost thou desire her foully for those things

  That make her good? O, let her brother live!

  Thieves for their robbery have authority,

  When judges steal themselves. What, do I love her,

  That I desire to hear her speak again,

  And feast upon her eyes? What is’t I dream on?

  O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,

  With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous

  Is that temptation that doth goad us on

  To sin in loving virtue. Never could the strumpet,

  With all her double vigour—art and nature—

  Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid

  Subdues me quite. Ever till now

  When men were fond, I smiled, and wondered how.

  Exit

  2.3 Enter ⌈ at one door⌉ the Duke, disguised as a friar, and ⌈ at another door⌉ the Provost

  DUKE

  Hail to you, Provost!—so I think you are.

  PROVOST

  I am the Provost. What’s your will, good friar?

  DUKE

  Bound by my charity and my blest order,

  I come to visit the afflicted spirits

  Here in the prison. Do me the common right

  To let me see them, and to make me know

  The nature of their crimes, that I may minister

  To them accordingly.

  PROVOST

  I would do more than that, if more were needful.

  Enter Juliet

  Look, here comes one, a gentlewoman of mine,

  Who, falling in the flaws of her own youth,

  Hath blistered her report. She is with child,

  And he that got it, sentenced—a young man

  More fit to do another such offence

  Than die for this.

  DUKE When must he die?

  PROVOST As I do think, tomorrow.

  (To Juliet) I have provided for you. Stay a while,

  And you shall be conducted.

  DUKE

  Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?

  JULIET

  I do, and bear the shame most patiently.

  DUKE

  I’ll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,

  And try your penitence if it be sound

  Or hollowly put on.

  JULIET I’ll gladly learn.

  DUKE Love you the man that wronged you?

  JULIET

  Yes, as I love the woman that wronged him.

  DUKE

  So then it seems your most offenceful act

  Was mutually committed?

  JULIET

  Mutually.

  DUKE

  Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.

  JULIET

  I do confess it and repent it, father.

  DUKE

  ’Tis meet so, daughter. But lest you do repent

  As that the sin hath brought you to this shame—

  Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not heaven,

  Showing we would not spare heaven as we love it,

  But as we stand in fear—

  JULIET

  I do repent me as it is an evil,

  And take the shame with joy.

  DUKE

  There rest.

  Your partner, as I hear, must die tomorrow,

  And I am going with instruction to him.

  Grace go with you. Benedicite! Exit

  JULIET

  Must die tomorrow? O injurious law,

  That respites me a life whose very comfort

  Is still a dying horror!

  PROVOST

  ’Tis pity of him.

  Exeunt

  2.4 Enter Angelo

  ANGELO

  When I would pray and think, I think and pray

  To several subjects: heaven hath my empty words,

  Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,

  Anchors on Isabel; God in my mouth,

  As if I did but only chew his name,

  And in my heart the strong and swelling evil

  Of my conception. The state whereon I studied

  Is like a good thing, being often read,

  Grown seared and tedious. Yea, my gravity,

  Wherein—let no man hear me—I take pride,

  Could I with boot change for an idle plume