Plays and Poems

Pompey. Pompey. Escal. What else?

Pompey. Bum, sir.

Escal. 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.

Escal. 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.

Escal. But the law will not allow it, Pompey; nor it shall not be allowed in Vienna.

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Escal. 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 Cæsar to you. In plain dealing, Pompey, I shall have you whipt. 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 whipt out of his trade. Exit. 270

Escol. Come hither to me, Master Elbow; come hither, Master constable. How long have you been in this place of constable ?

Elb. Seven year and a half, sir.

Escal. I thought, by the readiness in the office, you had continued in it some time. You say, seven years together?

Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so;
Pardon is still the nurse of second woe.
But yet, poor Claudio! There is no remedy. 300
Come, sir.
Excunt.

SCENE II.--Another Room in the Same.
Enter Provost, and a Servant.

Serv. He's hearing of a cause he will come straight:

I'll tell him of you.

Prov. 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 it!

Ang.

Enter ANGELO.

Now, what's the matter, Provost? Pror. Is it your will Claudio shall die to

morrow?

Ang. Did I not tell thee, yea? hadst thou not

order?

Why dost thou ask again?

Prov.

Lest I might be too rash. Under your good correction, I have seen, When, after execution, judgment hath Repented o'er his doom.

Ang.

Go to; let that be mine:

Do you your office, or give up your place,
And you shall well be spar'd.

Prov.

I crave your honour's pardon. What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet? She's very near her hour. Dispose of her

Ang.

To some more fitter place, and that with speed.

Prov.

Enter LUCIO and ISABELLA.

God save your honour !
Ang. Stay a little while. To ISABELLA. You're
welcome: what's your will ?

Isab. I am a woeful suitor to your honour,
Please but your honour hear me.
Ang.

Well; what's your suit?

Isab. There is a vice that most I do abhor, 29
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.
Ang.

Well; the matter?

And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.
Ang. I will not do 't.
Isab.

But can you, if you would?
Ang. Look, what I will not, that I cannot do.
Isab. But might you do't, and do the world no
wrong,

If so your heart were touch'd with that remorse
As mine is to him?

Ang.

He's sentenc'd: 'tis too late.
Lucio. To ISABELLA. You are too cold.
Isab. Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a
word,

May call it back 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,

Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it
hath slept:

Those many had not dar'd to do that evil,
If the first that did the edict infringe
Had answer'd 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 new, or by remissness new-conceiv'd,
And so in progress to be hatch'd and born,
Are now to have no successive degrees,
But, ere they live, to end.
Isab.

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Yet show some pity.

Ang. I show it most of all when I show justice;
For then I pity those I do not know,
Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall,
And do him right, that, answering one foul

wrong,

Lives not to act another. Be satisfied:
Your brother dies to-morrow: be content.

Isab. 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. To ISABELLA. That's well said. 111
Isab. Could great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er 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
Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man,

You would have slipp'd like him; but he, like Drest in a little brief authority,

120

Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make theangels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.

Lucio. To ISABELLA. O! to him, to him,
wench. He will relent:
He's coming; I perceive 't.
Prov. Aside.

Pray heaven she win him!

Isab. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself:
Great men may jest with saints; 'tis wit in them,
But in the less foul profanation.

130

Lucio. To ISABELLA. Thou 'rt in the right,
girl: more o' that.

Isab. That in the captain's but a choleric | With saints dost bait thy hook. Most dangerous

word,

Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

Lucio. To ISABELLA. Art avis'do' that? more on 't.

Ang. Why do you put these sayings upon me? Isab. Because authority, though it err like others,

Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,

That skins the vice o' the 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 140 A natural guiltiness such as is his,

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue

Against my brother's life.

Ang. Aside.

She speaks, and 'tis

Such sense, that my sense breeds with it. you well.

Isab. Gentle my lord, turn back.

Fare

Ang. I will bethinkme. Comeagain to-morrow. Isab. Hark how I'll bribe you. Good my lord, turn back.

Ang. How, bribe me ?

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

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 smil'd and wonder'd how.

SCENE III.--A Room in a Prison.

Exit. 190

Enter DUKE, disguised as a friar, and Provost.

Duke. Hail to you, provost! so I think you are. Prov. I am the provost. What's your will, good friar?

Duke. Bound by my charity and my bless'd 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.

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

Lucio, To ISABELLA. You had marr'd all else. Isab. Not with fond shekels of the tested gold,

131

Than die for this.

Enter JULIET.

Or stones whose rates 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

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,

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.

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Juliet. Must die to-morrow! O! injurious love, That respites me a life, whose very comfort

'Tis pity of him. Excunt.

And feast upon her eyes? What is 't I dream on? Is still a dying horror.
O cunning enemy! that, to catch a saint,

Prov.

SCENE IV.-A Room in ANGELO's House.
Enter ANGELO.

Ang. 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: heaven 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 sear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity,
Wherein, let no man hear me, I take pride,
Could I with boot change for an idle plume,
Which the air beats for vain. O place! O form!
How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood:
Let's write good angel on the devil's horn,
"Tis not the devil's crest.

Ang. Yea.

I'll take it as a peril to my soul;
It is no sin at all, but charity.

Ang. Pleas'd you to do 't at peril of your soul, Were equal poise of sin and charity.

Isab. That I do beg his life, if it be sin,
Heaven let me bear it! you granting of my suit,
If that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer
To have it added to the faults of mine,

And nothing of your answer.
Ang.

Nay, but hear me. Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant,

Or seem so craftily; and that's not good.
Isab. Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good,
But graciously to know I am no better.

Ang. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright

When it doth tax itself; as these black masks 80 Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder Than beauty could, display'd. But mark me; To be received plain, I'll speak more gross: Your brother is to die.

Isab. So.

Ang. And his offence is so, as it appears Accountant to the law upon that pain. Isab. True.

Ang. Admit no other way to save his life,-
As I subscribe not that, nor any other,
But in the loss of question, -that you, his sister,
Finding yourself desir'd of such a person,
Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,
Could fetch your brother from the manacles
Of the all-building law; and that there were
No earthly mean to save him, but that either
You must lay down the treasures of your body
To this suppos'd, or else to let him suffer;

Isab. When, I beseech you? that in his reprieve, What would you do?

Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted

That his soul sicken not.

Isab. As much for my poor brother as myself: That is, were I under the terms of death,

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Ang. Ha! fie, these filthy vices! It were as The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies, good

To pardon him that hath from nature stolen

A man already made, as to remit

Their saucy sweetness that do coin heaven's

image

In stamps that are forbid: 'tis all as easy
Falsely to take away a life true made,
As to put metal in restrained means

To make a false one.

Isab. 'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.

Ang. Say you so? then I shall pose you quickly.

And strip myself to death, as to a bed
That longing have been sick for, ere I'd yield

On twenty bloody blocks, he'd yield them up,
Before his sister should her body stoop
To such abhorr'd pollution.
Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:
More than our brother is our chastity.
I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,
And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest.

Exit.

130

Ang. We are all frail. Isab.

Else let my brother die, That, had he twenty heads to tender down

If not a feodary, but only he
Owe and succeed thy weakness.

Ang. Nay, women are frail too.

Isab. Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves,

Which are as easy broke as they make forms. Women! Help heaven! men their creation mar In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail, For we are soft as our complexions are,

And credulous to false prints.

Who will believe thee, Isabel? My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life, My vouch against you, and my place i' the state, Will so your accusation overweigh,

certain;

That you shall stifle in your own report

And smell of calumny. I have begun,

Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes,

For thy complexion shifts to strange effects, After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor ; 160 For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows, Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey, And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none; For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,

That banish what they sue for; redeem thy The mere effusion of thy proper loins,

brother

Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,

By yielding up thy body to my will,

For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor

Or else he must not only die the death,

youth nor age,

But thy unkindness shall his death draw out

But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,

Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms

I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,

170

Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your

Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich, Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor

true.

Exit.

beauty,

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