And to behold his sway46,
    I will, as ’twere a brother of your order47,
    Visit both prince48 and people: therefore, I prithee,
    Supply me with the habit49 and instruct me
    How I may formally50 in person bear me
    Like a true friar. More reasons for this action
    At our more leisure shall I render you;
    Only, this one: Lord Angelo is precise53,
    Stands at a guard with54 envy, scarce confesses
    That his blood flows, or that his appetite
    Is more to bread than stone. Hence shall we see,
    If power change purpose57, what our seemers be.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 5

running scene 4

Enter Isabella and Francisca, a nun

ISABELLA    And have you nuns no further 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 votarists5 of Saint Clare.

LUCIO    Ho? Peace be in this place!

Within

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 unsworn10.
    When you have vowed, you must not speak with men
    But in the presence of the prioress12.
    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]

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

[Enter Lucio]

LUCIO    Hail, virgin, if you be, as those cheek-roses17
    Proclaim you are no less. Can you so stead18 me
    As bring me to the sight of Isabella,
    A novice20 of this place and the fair sister
    To her unhappy21 brother Claudio?

ISABELLA    Why her unhappy brother? Let me ask,
    The rather for23 I now must make you know
    I am that Isabella and his sister.

LUCIO    Gentle and fair, your brother kindly25 greets you.
    Not to be weary26 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 thanks29:
    He hath got his friend30 with child.

ISABELLA    Sir, make me not your story31.

LUCIO    ’Tis true.
    I would not, though ’tis my familiar33 sin
    With maids to seem the lapwing34 and to jest,
    Tongue far from heart35, play with all virgins so.
    I hold you as a thing enskied36 and sainted
    By your renouncement37, an immortal spirit,
    And to be talked with in sincerity,
    As with a saint.

ISABELLA    You do blaspheme40 the good in mocking me.

LUCIO    Do not believe it. Fewness41 and truth, ’tis thus:
    Your brother and his lover have embraced42.
    As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time
    That from the seedness44 the bare fallow brings
    To teeming foison45, even so her plenteous womb
    Expresseth46 his full tilth and husbandry.

ISABELLA    Someone with child by him? My cousin47 Juliet?

LUCIO    Is she your cousin?

ISABELLA    Adoptedly, as school-maids change their names
    By vain though apt affection50.

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 hand55 and hope of action: but we do learn
    By those that know the very nerves of state,
    His giving-out58 were of an infinite distance
    From his true-meant design59. Upon his place,
    And with full line60 of his authority,
    Governs Lord Angelo, a man whose blood
    Is very snow-broth62: one who never feels
    The wanton63 stings and motions of the sense,
    But doth rebate64 and blunt his natural edge
    With profits65 of the mind, study and fast.
    He — to give fear to use66 and liberty,
    Which have for long run by the hideous67 law,
    As mice by lions — hath picked out an act,
    Under whose heavy sense69 your brother’s life
    Falls into forfeit70. 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 grace73 by your fair prayer
    To soften Angelo: and that’s my pith74 of business
    ’Twixt you and your poor brother.

ISABELLA    Doth he so seek his life?

LUCIO    Has censured77 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    Assay82 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 sue87,
    Men give88 like gods: but when they weep and kneel,
    All their petitions are as freely theirs
    As they themselves would owe them89.

ISABELLA    I’ll see what I can do.

LUCIO    But speedily.

ISABELLA    I will about it straight,
    No longer staying but to give the mother94
    Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you:
    Commend me to my brother. Soon at night96
    I’ll send him certain word of my success97.

LUCIO    I take my leave of you.

ISABELLA    Good sir, adieu.

Exeunt [separately]

Act 2 Scene 1

running scene 5

Enter Angelo, Escalus, Servants, [and a] Justice

ANGELO    We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
    Setting it up to fear2 the birds of prey,
    And let it keep one shape, till custom3 make it
    Their perch and not their terror.

ESCALUS    Ay, but yet
    Let us be keen6, and rather cut a little
    Than fall7 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 strait10 in virtue —
    That, in the working of your own affections11,
    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 purpose13,
    Whether you had not sometime in your life
    Erred in this point which16 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 passing20 on the prisoner’s life,
    May in the sworn twelve21 have a thief or two
    Guiltier than him they try. What’s open made22 to justice,
    That justice seizes. What23 knows the laws
    That thieves do pass on thieves? ’Tis very pregnant24,
    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 extenuate28 his offence
    For29 I have had such faults, but rather tell me,
    When I, that censure him, do so offend,
    Let mine own judgement pattern out31 my death,
    And nothing come in partial32. Sir, he must die.

Enter Provost

ESCALUS    Be it as your wisdom will.

ANGELO    Where is the provost?

PROVOST    Here, if it like35 your honour.

ANGELO    See that Claudio
    Be executed by nine tomorrow morning.
    Bring him his confessor, let him be prepared38,
    For that’s the utmost of his pilgrimage39.

[Exit Provost]

ESCALUS    Well, heaven forgive him, and forgive us all.

Aside

    Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.
    Some run from breaks of ice42, and answer none,
    And some condemnèd for a fault alone43.

Enter Elbow [and] Officers [with] Froth [and] Clown [Pompey]

ELBOW    Come, bring them away: if these be good people in
    a commonweal that do nothing but use their abuses in
    common houses45, 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’s49
    constable, and my name is Elbow: I do lean50 upon justice, sir,
    and do bring in here before your good honour two notorious
    benefactors52.

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 precise56 villains they are, that I am sure of, and void
    of all profanation57 in the world that good Christians ought
    to have.

ESCALUS    This comes off well59: here’s a wise officer.

To Angelo

ANGELO    Go to60, what quality are they of? Elbow is your
    name? Why dost thou not speak, Elbow?

POMPEY    He cannot, sir: he’s out at elbow62.

ANGELO    What are you, sir?

ELBOW    He, sir? A tapster, sir, parcel-bawd64, one that serves a
    bad woman, whose house65, sir, was, as they say, plucked
    down in the suburbs: and now she professes66 a hot-house,
    which, I think, is a very ill house too.

ESCALUS    How know you that?

ELBOW    My wife, sir, whom I detest69 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 life75, for
    it is a naughty76 house.

ESCALUS    How dost thou know that, constable?

ELBOW    Marry, sir, by my wife, who, if she had been a woman
    cardinally79 given, might have been accused in fornication,
    adultery and all uncleanliness80 there.

ESCALUS    By the woman’s means81?

ELBOW    Ay, sir, by Mistress Overdone’s means: but as she spit
    in his83 face, so she defied him.

POMPEY    Sir, if it please your honour, this is not so.

ELBOW    Prove it before these varlets here, thou honourable85
    man, prove it.

ESCALUS    Do you hear how he misplaces87?

Aside to Angelo

POMPEY    Sir, she came in great with child, and longing —
    saving your honour’s reverence89 — for stewed prunes. Sir, we
    had but two in the house, which at that very distant90 time
    stood91, as it were, in a fruit-dish, a dish of some 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 pin95: you are therein in the
    right. But to the point96. 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 three-pence again101.

FROTH    No, indeed.

POMPEY    Very well: you being then, if you be remembered,
    cracking the stones104 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 of108, 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 me114 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 into118 Master Froth here, sir, a man of
    fourscore pound119 a year, whose father died at Hallowmas.
    Was’t not at Hallowmas, Master Froth?

FROTH    All-hallond eve121.

POMPEY    Why, very well, I hope here be truths. He, sir, sitting,
    as I say, in a lower chair123, 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 open125 room and good for
    winter.

POMPEY    Why, very well, then. I hope here be truths.

ANGELO    This will last out a night in Russia128,
    When nights are longest there. I’ll take my leave
    And leave you to the hearing of the cause130,
    Hoping you’ll find good cause131 to whip them all.

Exit [Angelo]

ESCALUS    I think no less. Good morrow to your lordship.—
    Now, sir, come on: what was done to Elbow’s wife, once more?

POMPEY    Once, sir? There was nothing done134 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 mark141 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 supposed147 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 harm148? I would know that of your honour.

ESCALUS    He’s in the right.