Part 117

BAWD. And what shall become of those in the city?

POMPEY. They shall stand for seed. They had gone down too, but that a wise burgher put in for them.

BAWD. But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be pulled down?

POMPEY. To the ground, mistress.

BAWD. Why, here’s a change indeed in the commonwealth! What shall become of me?

POMPEY. Come, fear not you. Good counsellors lack no clients. Though you change your place, you need not change your trade. I’ll be your tapster still. Courage, there will be pity taken on you. You that have worn your eyes almost out in the service, you will be considered.

Enter Provost, Claudio, Juliet and Officers.

BAWD. What’s to do here, Thomas Tapster? Let’s withdraw.

POMPEY. Here comes Signior Claudio, led by the Provost to prison. And there’s Madam Juliet.

[_Exeunt Bawd and Pompey._]

CLAUDIO. Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to the world? Bear me to prison, where I am committed.

PROVOST. I do it not in evil disposition, But from Lord Angelo by special charge.

CLAUDIO. Thus can the demi-god Authority Make us pay down for our offence by weight. The words of heaven; on whom it will, it will; On whom it will not, so; yet still ’tis just.

Enter Lucio and two Gentlemen.

LUCIO. Why, how now, Claudio? Whence comes this restraint?

CLAUDIO. From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty. As surfeit is the father of much fast, So every scope by the immoderate use Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue, Like rats that ravin down their proper bane, A thirsty evil; and when we drink, we die.

LUCIO. If I could speak so wisely under an arrest, I would send for certain of my creditors; and yet, to say the truth, I had as lief have the foppery of freedom as the morality of imprisonment. What’s thy offence, Claudio?

CLAUDIO. What but to speak of would offend again.

LUCIO. What, is’t murder?

CLAUDIO. No.

LUCIO. Lechery?

CLAUDIO. Call it so.

PROVOST. Away, sir; you must go.

CLAUDIO. One word, good friend.—Lucio, a word with you.

LUCIO. A hundred, if they’ll do you any good. Is lechery so looked after?

CLAUDIO. Thus stands it with me: upon a true contract I got possession of Julietta’s bed. You know the lady; she is fast my wife, Save that we do the denunciation lack Of outward order. This we came not to Only for propagation of a dower Remaining in the coffer of her friends, From whom we thought it meet to hide our love Till time had made them for us. But it chances The stealth of our most mutual entertainment With character too gross is writ on Juliet.

LUCIO. With child, perhaps?

CLAUDIO. Unhappily, even so. And the new deputy now for the Duke— Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness, Or whether that the body public be A horse whereon the governor doth ride, Who, newly in the seat, that it may know He can command, lets it straight feel the spur; Whether the tyranny be in his place, Or in his eminence that fills it up, I stagger in—but this new governor Awakes me all the enrolled penalties Which have, like unscoured armour, hung by th’ wall So long that nineteen zodiacs have gone round, And none of them been worn; and for a name Now puts the drowsy and neglected act Freshly on me. ’Tis surely for a name.

LUCIO. I warrant it is. And thy head stands so tickle on thy shoulders that a milkmaid, if she be in love, may sigh it off. Send after the Duke, and appeal to him.

CLAUDIO. I have done so, but he’s not to be found. I prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service: This day my sister should the cloister enter, And there receive her approbation. Acquaint her with the danger of my state; Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him. I have great hope in that. For in her youth There is a prone and speechless dialect Such as moves men; beside, she hath prosperous art When she will play with reason and discourse, And well she can persuade.

LUCIO. I pray she may, as well for the encouragement of the like, which else would stand under grievous imposition, as for the enjoying of thy life, who I would be sorry should be thus foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack. I’ll to her.

CLAUDIO. I thank you, good friend Lucio.

LUCIO. Within two hours.

CLAUDIO. Come, officer, away.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. A monastery.

Enter Duke and Friar Thomas.

DUKE. No, holy father, throw away that thought; Believe not that the dribbling dart of love Can pierce a complete bosom. Why I desire thee To give me secret harbour hath a purpose More grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends Of burning youth.

FRIAR THOMAS. May your Grace speak of it?

DUKE. My holy sir, none better knows than you How I have ever loved the life removed, And held in idle price to haunt assemblies Where youth, and cost, a witless bravery keeps. I have delivered to Lord Angelo, A man of stricture and firm abstinence, My absolute power and place here in Vienna, And he supposes me travelled to Poland; For so I have strewed it in the common ear, And so it is received. Now, pious sir, You will demand of me why I do this?

FRIAR THOMAS. Gladly, my lord.

DUKE. We have strict statutes and most biting laws, The needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds, Which for this fourteen years we have let slip, Even like an o’ergrown lion in a cave That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers, Having bound up the threat’ning twigs of birch, Only to stick it in their children’s sight For terror, not to use, in time the rod Becomes more mocked than feared: so our decrees, Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead, And liberty plucks justice by the nose, The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart Goes all decorum.

FRIAR THOMAS. It rested in your Grace To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleased; And it in you more dreadful would have seemed Than in Lord Angelo.

DUKE. I do fear, too dreadful. Sith ’twas my fault to give the people scope, ’Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall them For what I bid them do; for we bid this be done When evil deeds have their permissive pass And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my father, I have on Angelo imposed the office; Who may in th’ ambush of my name strike home, And yet my nature never in the fight To do in slander. And to behold his sway, I will, as ’twere a brother of your order, Visit both prince and people. Therefore, I prithee, Supply me with the habit, and instruct me How I may formally in person bear Like a true friar. Moe reasons for this action At our more leisure shall I render you; Only, this one: Lord Angelo is precise; Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses That his blood flows or that his appetite Is more to bread than stone. Hence shall we see, If power change purpose, what our seemers be.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. A nunnery.

Enter Isabella and Francisca, a Nun.

ISABELLA. And have you nuns no farther privileges?

FRANCISCA. Are not these large enough?

ISABELLA. Yes, truly; I speak not as desiring more, But rather wishing a more strict restraint Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.

LUCIO. [_Within_.] Ho! Peace be in this place!

ISABELLA. Who’s that which calls?

FRANCISCA. It is a man’s voice. Gentle Isabella, Turn you the key, and know his business of him; You may, I may not; you are yet unsworn. When you have vowed, you must not speak with men But in the presence of the prioress; Then, if you speak, you must not show your face; Or if you show your face, you must not speak. He calls again. I pray you answer him.

[_Exit Francisca._]

ISABELLA. Peace and prosperity! Who is’t that calls?

Enter Lucio.

LUCIO. Hail, virgin, if you be, as those cheek-roses Proclaim you are no less. Can you so stead me As bring me to the sight of Isabella, A novice of this place, and the fair sister To her unhappy brother Claudio?

ISABELLA. Why “her unhappy brother”? let me ask, The rather for I now must make you know I am that Isabella, and his sister.

LUCIO. Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you. Not to be weary with you, he’s in prison.

ISABELLA. Woe me! For what?

LUCIO. For that which, if myself might be his judge, He should receive his punishment in thanks: He hath got his friend with child.

ISABELLA. Sir, make me not your story.

LUCIO. ’Tis true. I would not, though ’tis my familiar sin With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest, Tongue far from heart, play with all virgins so. I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted By your renouncement an immortal spirit, And to be talked with in sincerity, As with a saint.

ISABELLA. You do blaspheme the good in mocking me.

LUCIO. Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, ’tis thus: Your brother and his lover have embraced; As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time That from the seedness the bare fallow brings To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.

ISABELLA. Someone with child by him? My cousin Juliet?

LUCIO. Is she your cousin?

ISABELLA. Adoptedly, as school-maids 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; 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 givings-out were of an infinite distance From his true-meant design. Upon his place, 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 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 picked out an act, Under whose heavy sense your brother’s life 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 ’Twixt you and your poor brother.

ISABELLA. Doth he so Seek his life?

LUCIO. Has censured him already; And, as I hear, the Provost hath a warrant For’s execution.

ISABELLA. Alas, what poor ability’s in me To do him good?

LUCIO. Assay the power you have.

ISABELLA. My power? Alas, I doubt.

LUCIO. Our doubts are traitors, And make 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, 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; 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.

[_Exeunt._]

ACT II

SCENE I. A hall in Angelo’s house.

Enter Angelo, Escalus, Servants, and 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 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, Had time cohered with place, or place with wishing, Or that the resolute acting of your blood Could have attained th’ effect of your own purpose, Whether you had not sometime in your life Erred in this point which now you censure him, And pulled 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 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, 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, 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 prepared, 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 vice, and answer none, And some condemned for a fault alone.

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?

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? 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.

ESCALUS. 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.

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.

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 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.

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?

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.

ESCALUS. [_To Angelo_.] Do you hear how he misplaces?

POMPEY. Sir, she came in great with child; and longing, saving your honour’s 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 threepence; 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 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, Master Froth, I could not give you threepence again—

FROTH. No, indeed.

POMPEY. Very well. You being then, if you be remembered, cracking the stones of the foresaid 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 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 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 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, 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 is 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’ th’ 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 know’st 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. [_To Froth_.] 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. [_To Pompey_.] What trade are you of, sir?

POMPEY. A 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 taphouse 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 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 sometime. 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._]

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’s 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?