Pompey. Mistress Overdone.

Escal. Hath she had any more than one husband? 211

Pompey. Nine, sir; Overdone by the last. Escal. 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 iu a taphouse, but I am drawn in.

220

Escal. 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. 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.

241

Escal. 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?

Escal. 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.

Escal. There are pretty orders beginning, I can tell you: it is but heading and hanging.

250

Pomper. 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 three-pence a bay. If you live to see this come to pass, say Pompey told you so.

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

Escal. 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?

Enter LUCIO and ISABELLA.

Prov. God save your honour! Ang. Stay a little while. To ISABELLA. You're welcome what's your will? Isub. 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? Isab. I have a brother is condemn'd to die: I do beseech you, let it be his fault, And not my brother.

Prov. Aside. Heaven give thee moving graces! Ang. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?

40

Why, every fault's condemn'd 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.
Isab.
O just but severe law!
I had a brother then. Heaven keep your honour!
Lucio. 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!

Isab. Must he needs die ?
Ang.

Maiden, no remedy. Isub. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him,

5)

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,

60

Isab. To-morrow! O! that's sudden. Spare him, spare him!

He's not prepar'd 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? 90
There's many have committed it.

Lucio. To ISABELLA.
Ay, well said.
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.
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

100

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!

you,

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 the angels 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.

Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

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

Ang. Why do you put these sayings upon me? lab. 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. Fare you well.

Isab. Gentle my lord, turn back.

Ang. I will bethink me. Come again to-morrow. Isab. Hark how I'll bribe you. Good my lord, turn back.

Ang. How, bribe me?

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.
Exit. 190

SCENE III.--A Room in a Prison.

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.

Prov. 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,

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 To nothing temporal.

131

Ang. Well; come to me to-morrow. Lucio. To ISABELLA. Go to; 'tis well away! Isab. Heaven keep your honour safe! Ang. Aside. For I am that way going to temptation, Where prayers cross.

Amen :

160

Isab At what hour to morrow Shall I attend your lordship? Aug.

At any time 'fore noon.

Isab. Save your honour!

Exeunt LUCIO, ISABELLA, and Provost. Ang. From thee; even from thy virtue! What's this? what's this? Is this her fault or

mine?

The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?

Ha!

170

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.

18)

Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow, And I am going with instruction to him. Grace go with you! Benedicite!

Exit.

41

'Tis pity of him. Excunt.

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,

10

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.

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.

90

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; What would you do?

101

Isab. As much for my poor brother as myself:
That is, were I under the terms of death,
The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death, as to a bed
That longing have been sick for, ere I'd yield
My body up to shame.

Ang.
Then must your brother die.
Isab. And 'twere the cheaper way:

Better it were a brother died at once,
Than that a sister, by redeeming him,

Should die for ever.