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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
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
honestly; for, as you know, Master Froth, I could
not give you three-pence 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 four-score 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.
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
Constable, what say you to it?
ELBOW:
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 has 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' the 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 knowest 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:
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. What trade are you of, sir?
POMPHEY:
Tapster; a poor widow's tapster.
ESCALUS:
Your mistress' name?
POMPHEY:
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 tap-house, but I am drawn
in.
ESCALUS:
Well, no more of it, Master Froth: farewell.
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?
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
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 are 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 three-pence 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 whipt: so, for this time, Pompey, fare you well.
POMPEY:
I thank your worship for your good counsel:
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 is not whipt out of his trade.
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 your 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.
What's o'clock, think you?
Justice:
Eleven, sir.
ESCALUS:
Fare you well.
What's o'clock, think you?
Justice:
Eleven, sir.
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.
Servant:
He's hearing of a cause; he will come straight
I'll tell him of you.
Provost:
Pray you, do.
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!
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, judgment 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.
Servant:
Here is the sister of the man condemn'd
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.
See you the fornicatress be removed:
Let have needful, but not lavish, means;
There shall be order for't.
Provost:
God save your honour!
ANGELO:
Stay a little while.
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 condemn'd to die:
I do beseech you, let it be his fault,
And not my brother.
Provost:
ANGELO:
Condemn the fault and not the actor of it?
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.
ISABELLA:
O just but severe law!
I had a brother, then. |
Heaven keep your honour!
LUCIO:
ISABELLA:
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:
Heaven keep your honour!
LUCIO:
ISABELLA:
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.
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?
ANGELO:
He's sentenced; 'tis too late.
LUCIO:
ISABELLA:
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,
You would have slipt 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:
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 judgment, 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:
To-morrow! 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:
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 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-conceived,
And so in progress to be hatch'd 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 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.
Be satisfied;
ISABELLA:
So you must be the first that gives this sentence,
And he, that suffer's. O, it is excellent
To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
LUCIO:
ISABELLA:
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
Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
Than the soft myrtle: but man, proud man,
Drest 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 make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.
LUCIO:
Provost:
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:
Thou'rt i' the right, girl; more o, that.
ISABELLA:
That in the captain's but a choleric word,
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.
LUCIO:
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' 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
A natural guiltiness such as is his,
Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother's life.
ANGELO:
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:
ISABELLA:
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 sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls,
From fasting maids whose minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal.
ANGELO:
Well; come to me to-morrow.
LUCIO:
ISABELLA:
Heaven keep your honour safe!
ANGELO:
ISABELLA:
At what hour to-morrow
Shall I attend your lordship?
ANGELO:
At any time 'fore noon.
ISABELLA:
'Save your honour!
ANGELO:
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!
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?
What, do I love her,
That I desire to hear her speak again,
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. Even till now,
When men were fond, I smiled and wonder'd how.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Hail to you, provost! so I think you are.
Provost:
I am the provost. What's your will, good friar?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
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.
Look, here comes one: a gentlewoman of mine,
Who, falling in the flaws of her own youth,
Hath blister'd 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 VINCENTIO:
When must he die?
Provost:
As I do think, to-morrow.
I have provided for you: stay awhile,
And you shall be conducted.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?
JULIET:
I do; and bear the shame most patiently.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
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 VINCENTIO:
Love you the man that wrong'd you?
JULIET:
Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
So then it seems your most offenceful act
Was mutually committed?
JULIET:
Mutually.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.
JULIET:
I do confess it, and repent it, father.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
'Tis meet so, daughter: but lest you do repent,
As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,
Which sorrow is always towards 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 VINCENTIO:
There rest.
Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,
And I am going with instruction to him.
Grace go with you, Benedicite!
JULIET:
Must die to-morrow! O injurious love,
That respites me a life, whose very comfort
Is still a dying horror!
Provost:
'Tis pity of him.
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: 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 fear'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
O place, O form,
How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood:
Let's write good angel on the devil's horn:
'Tis not the devil's crest.
How now! who's there?
Servant:
One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.
ANGELO:
Teach her the way.
O heavens!
Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,
Making both it unable for itself,
And dispossessing all my other parts
Of necessary fitness?
So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;
Come all to help him, and so stop the air
By which he should revive: and even so
The general, subject to a well-wish'd king,
Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence.
How now, fair maid?
ISABELLA:
I am come to know your pleasure.
ANGELO:
That you might know it, would much better please me
Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live.
ISABELLA:
Even so. Heaven keep your honour!
ANGELO:
Yet may he live awhile; and, it may be,
As long as you or I yet he must die.
ISABELLA:
Under your sentence?
ANGELO:
Yea.
ISABELLA:
When, I beseech you? that in his reprieve,
Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted
That his soul sicken not.
ANGELO:
Ha! fie, these filthy vices! It were as 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.
ISABELLA:
'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.
ANGELO:
Say you so? then I shall pose you quickly.
Which had you rather, that the most just law
Now took your brother's life; or, to redeem him,
Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness
As she that he hath stain'd?
ISABELLA:
Sir, believe this,
I had rather give my body than my soul.
ANGELO:
I talk not of your soul: our compell'd sins
Stand more for number than for accompt.
ISABELLA:
How say you?
ANGELO:
Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak
Against the thing I say. |
Answer to this:
I, now the voice of the recorded law,
Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life:
Might there not be a charity in sin
To save this brother's life?
ISABELLA:
Please you to do't,
I'll take it as a peril to my soul,
It is no sin at all, but charity.
ANGELO:
Pleased you to do't at peril of your soul,
Were equal poise of sin and charity.
ISABELLA:
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.
ANGELO:
Nay, but hear me.
Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant,
Or seem so craftily; and that's not good.
ISABELLA:
Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good,
But graciously to know I am no better.
ANGELO:
Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright
When it doth tax itself; as these black masks
Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder
Answer to this:
I, now the voice of the recorded law,
Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life:
Might there not be a charity in sin
To save this brother's life?
ISABELLA:
Please you to do't,
I'll take it as a peril to my soul,
It is no sin at all, but charity.
ANGELO:
Pleased you to do't at peril of your soul,
Were equal poise of sin and charity.
ISABELLA:
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.
ANGELO:
Nay, but hear me.
Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant,
Or seem so craftily; and that's not good.
ISABELLA:
Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good,
But graciously to know I am no better.
ANGELO:
Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright
When it doth tax itself; as these black masks
Than beauty could, display'd. |
But mark me;
To be received plain, I'll speak more gross:
Your brother is to die.
ISABELLA:
So.
ANGELO:
And his offence is so, as it appears,
Accountant to the law upon that pain.
ISABELLA:
True.
ANGELO:
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 desired 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 supposed, or else to let him suffer;
What would you do?
ISABELLA:
As much for my poor brother as myself:
That is, were I under the terms of death,
The impression of keen whips I'ld wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death, as to a bed
That longing have been sick for, ere I'ld yield
My body up to shame.
ANGELO:
Then must your brother die.
ISABELLA:
And 'twere the cheaper way:
Better it were a brother died at once,
Than that a sister, by redeeming him,
Should die for ever.
ANGELO:
Were not you then as cruel as the sentence
That you have slander'd so?
ISABELLA:
Ignomy in ransom and free pardon
Are of two houses: lawful mercy
Is nothing kin to foul redemption.
ANGELO:
You seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant;
But mark me;
To be received plain, I'll speak more gross:
Your brother is to die.
ISABELLA:
So.
ANGELO:
And his offence is so, as it appears,
Accountant to the law upon that pain.
ISABELLA:
True.
ANGELO:
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 desired 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 supposed, or else to let him suffer;
What would you do?
ISABELLA:
As much for my poor brother as myself:
That is, were I under the terms of death,
The impression of keen whips I'ld wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death, as to a bed
That longing have been sick for, ere I'ld yield
My body up to shame.
ANGELO:
Then must your brother die.
ISABELLA:
And 'twere the cheaper way:
Better it were a brother died at once,
Than that a sister, by redeeming him,
Should die for ever.
ANGELO:
Were not you then as cruel as the sentence
That you have slander'd so?
ISABELLA:
Ignomy in ransom and free pardon
Are of two houses: lawful mercy
Is nothing kin to foul redemption.
ANGELO:
And rather proved the sliding of your brother
A merriment than a vice.
ISABELLA:
O, pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out,
To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean:
I something do excuse the thing I hate,
For his advantage that I dearly love.
ANGELO:
We are all frail.
ISABELLA:
Else let my brother die,
If not a feodary, but only he
Owe and succeed thy weakness.
ANGELO:
Nay, women are frail too.
ISABELLA:
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.
ANGELO:
I think it well:
And from this testimony of your own sex,--
Since I suppose we are made to be no stronger
Than faults may shake our frames,--let me be bold;
I do arrest your words. Be that you are,
That is, a woman; if you be more, you're none;
If you be one, as you are well express'd
By all external warrants, show it now,
By putting on the destined livery.
ISABELLA:
I have no tongue but one: gentle my lord,
Let me entreat you speak the former language.
ANGELO:
Plainly conceive, I love you.
ISABELLA:
My brother did love Juliet,
And you tell me that he shall die for it.
ANGELO:
He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.
ISABELLA:
I know your virtue hath a licence in't,
Which seems a little fouler than it is,
To pluck on others.
ANGELO:
Believe me, on mine honour,
My words express my purpose.
ISABELLA:
Ha! little honour to be much believed,
And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!
I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't:
Sign me a present pardon for my brother,
Or with an outstretch'd throat I'll tell the world aloud
What man thou art.
ANGELO:
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,
That you shall stifle in your own report
And smell of calumny. I have begun,
And now I give my sensual race the rein:
Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;
Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes,
That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother
By yielding up thy body to my will;
Or else he must not only die the death,
But thy unkindness shall his death draw out
To lingering sufferance. Answer me to-morrow,
Or, by the affection that now guides me most,
I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,
Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true.
ISABELLA:
To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,
Who would believe me? O perilous mouths,
That bear in them one and the self-same tongue,
Either of condemnation or approof;
Bidding the law make court'sy to their will:
Hooking both right and wrong to the appetite,
To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother:
Though he hath fallen by prompture of the blood,
Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour.
That, had he twenty heads to tender down
On twenty bloody blocks, he'ld 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.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
So then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?
CLAUDIO:
The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope:
I've hope to live, and am prepared to die.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Be absolute for death; either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter. |
Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyey influences,
That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st,
Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool;
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun
And yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble;
Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyey influences,
That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st,
Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool;
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun
For all the accommodations that thou bear'st
Are nursed by baseness. Thou'rt by no means valiant;
For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork
Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,
And that thou oft provokest; yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;
For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains
That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;
For what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get,
And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain;
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor;
For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear's thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none;
For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,
Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,
For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age,
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
Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this
That bears the name of life? Yet in this life
Lie hid moe thousand deaths: yet death we fear,
That makes these odds all even.
CLAUDIO:
I humbly thank you.
To sue to live, I find I seek to die;
And, seeking death, find life: let it come on.
ISABELLA:
Provost:
Who's there? come in: the wish deserves a welcome.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again.
CLAUDIO:
Most holy sir, I thank you.
ISABELLA:
My business is a word or two with Claudio.
Provost:
And very welcome. |
Look, signior, here's your sister.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Provost, a word with you.
Provost:
As many as you please.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be concealed.
CLAUDIO:
Now, sister, what's the comfort?
ISABELLA:
Why,
As all comforts are; most good, most good indeed.
Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,
Intends you for his swift ambassador,
Where you shall be an everlasting leiger:
Therefore your best appointment make with speed;
To-morrow you set on.
CLAUDIO:
Is there no remedy?
ISABELLA:
None, but such remedy as, to save a head,
To cleave a heart in twain.
CLAUDIO:
But is there any?
ISABELLA:
Yes, brother, you may live:
There is a devilish mercy in the judge,
If you'll implore it, that will free your life,
But fetter you till death.
CLAUDIO:
Perpetual durance?
ISABELLA:
Ay, just; perpetual durance, a restraint,
Look, signior, here's your sister.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Provost, a word with you.
Provost:
As many as you please.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be concealed.
CLAUDIO:
Now, sister, what's the comfort?
ISABELLA:
Why,
As all comforts are; most good, most good indeed.
Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,
Intends you for his swift ambassador,
Where you shall be an everlasting leiger:
Therefore your best appointment make with speed;
To-morrow you set on.
CLAUDIO:
Is there no remedy?
ISABELLA:
None, but such remedy as, to save a head,
To cleave a heart in twain.
CLAUDIO:
But is there any?
ISABELLA:
Yes, brother, you may live:
There is a devilish mercy in the judge,
If you'll implore it, that will free your life,
But fetter you till death.
CLAUDIO:
Perpetual durance?
ISABELLA:
Though all the world's vastidity you had,
To a determined scope.
CLAUDIO:
But in what nature?
ISABELLA:
In such a one as, you consenting to't,
Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear,
And leave you naked.
CLAUDIO:
Let me know the point.
ISABELLA:
O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,
Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain,
And six or seven winters more respect
Than a perpetual honour. Darest thou die?
The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.
CLAUDIO:
Why give you me this shame?
Think you I can a resolution fetch
From flowery tenderness? If I must die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride,
And hug it in mine arms.
ISABELLA:
There spake my brother; there my father's grave
Did utter forth a voice. Yes, thou must die:
Thou art too noble to conserve a life
In base appliances. |
This outward-sainted deputy,
Whose settled visage and deliberate word
Nips youth i' the head and follies doth emmew
As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil
His filth within being cast, he would appear
A pond as deep as hell.
CLAUDIO:
The prenzie Angelo!
ISABELLA:
O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell,
The damned'st body to invest and cover
This outward-sainted deputy,
Whose settled visage and deliberate word
Nips youth i' the head and follies doth emmew
As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil
His filth within being cast, he would appear
A pond as deep as hell.
CLAUDIO:
The prenzie Angelo!
ISABELLA:
O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell,
In prenzie guards! Dost thou think, Claudio?
If I would yield him my virginity,
Thou mightst be freed.
CLAUDIO:
O heavens! it cannot be.
ISABELLA:
Yes, he would give't thee, from this rank offence,
So to offend him still. This night's the time
That I should do what I abhor to name,
Or else thou diest to-morrow.
CLAUDIO:
Thou shalt not do't.
ISABELLA:
O, were it but my life,
I'ld throw it down for your deliverance
As frankly as a pin.
CLAUDIO:
Thanks, dear Isabel.
ISABELLA:
Be ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow.
CLAUDIO:
Yes. Has he affections in him,
That thus can make him bite the law by the nose,
When he would force it? Sure, it is no sin,
Or of the deadly seven, it is the least.
ISABELLA:
Which is the least?
CLAUDIO:
If it were damnable, he being so wise,
Why would he for the momentary trick
Be perdurably fined? O Isabel!
ISABELLA:
What says my brother?
CLAUDIO:
Death is a fearful thing.
ISABELLA:
And shamed life a hateful.
CLAUDIO:
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling: 'tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
ISABELLA:
Alas, alas!
CLAUDIO:
Sweet sister, let me live:
What sin you do to save a brother's life,
Nature dispenses with the deed so far
That it becomes a virtue.
ISABELLA:
O you beast!
O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!
Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?
Is't not a kind of incest, to take life
From thine own sister's shame? What should I think?
Heaven shield my mother play'd my father fair!
For such a warped slip of wilderness
Ne'er issued from his blood. |
Take my defiance!
Die, perish! Might but my bending down
Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed:
I'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,
No word to save thee.
CLAUDIO:
Nay, hear me, Isabel.
ISABELLA:
O, fie, fie, fie!
Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade.
Take my defiance!
Die, perish! Might but my bending down
Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed:
I'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,
No word to save thee.
CLAUDIO:
Nay, hear me, Isabel.
ISABELLA:
O, fie, fie, fie!
Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd:
'Tis best thou diest quickly.
CLAUDIO:
O hear me, Isabella!
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.
ISABELLA:
What is your will?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and
by have some speech with you: the satisfaction I
would require is likewise your own benefit.
ISABELLA:
I have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be
stolen out of other affairs; but I will attend you awhile.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Son, I have overheard what hath passed between you
and your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to
corrupt her; only he hath made an essay of her
virtue to practise his judgment with the disposition
of natures: she, having the truth of honour in her,
hath made him that gracious denial which he is most
glad to receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I
know this to be true; therefore prepare yourself to
death: do not satisfy your resolution with hopes
that are fallible: tomorrow you must die; go to
your knees and make ready.
CLAUDIO:
Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love
with life that I will sue to be rid of it.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Hold you there: farewell.
Provost, a word with you!
Provost:
What's your will, father
DUKE VINCENTIO:
That now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me
awhile with the maid: my mind promises with my
habit no loss shall touch her by my company.
Provost:
In good time.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good:
the goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty
brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of
your complexion, shall keep the body of it ever
fair. The assault that Angelo hath made to you,
fortune hath conveyed to my understanding; and, but
that frailty hath examples for his falling, I should
wonder at Angelo. How will you do to content this
substitute, and to save your brother?
ISABELLA:
I am now going to resolve him: I had rather my
brother die by the law than my son should be
unlawfully born. But, O, how much is the good duke
deceived in Angelo! If ever he return and I can
speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or
discover his government.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
That shall not be much amiss: Yet, as the matter
now stands, he will avoid your accusation; he made
trial of you only. Therefore fasten your ear on my
advisings: to the love I have in doing good a
remedy presents itself. I do make myself believe
that you may most uprighteously do a poor wronged
lady a merited benefit; redeem your brother from
the angry law; do no stain to your own gracious
person; and much please the absent duke, if
peradventure he shall ever return to have hearing of
this business.
ISABELLA:
Let me hear you speak farther. |
I have spirit to do
anything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
I have spirit to do
anything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.
Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have
you not heard speak of Mariana, the sister of
Frederick the great soldier who miscarried at sea?
ISABELLA:
I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
She should this Angelo have married; was affianced
to her by oath, and the nuptial appointed: between
which time of the contract and limit of the
solemnity, her brother Frederick was wrecked at sea,
having in that perished vessel the dowry of his
sister. But mark how heavily this befell to the
poor gentlewoman: there she lost a noble and
renowned brother, in his love toward her ever most
kind and natural; with him, the portion and sinew of
her fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her
combinate husband, this well-seeming Angelo.
ISABELLA:
Can this be so? did Angelo so leave her?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them
with his comfort; swallowed his vows whole,
pretending in her discoveries of dishonour: in few,
bestowed her on her own lamentation, which she yet
wears for his sake; and he, a marble to her tears,
is washed with them, but relents not.
ISABELLA:
What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid
from the world! What corruption in this life, that
it will let this man live! But how out of this can she avail?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
It is a rupture that you may easily heal: and the
cure of it not only saves your brother, but keeps
you from dishonour in doing it.
ISABELLA:
Show me how, good father.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
This forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance
of her first affection: his unjust unkindness, that
in all reason should have quenched her love, hath,
like an impediment in the current, made it more
violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his
requiring with a plausible obedience; agree with
his demands to the point; only refer yourself to
this advantage, first, that your stay with him may
not be long; that the time may have all shadow and
silence in it; and the place answer to convenience.
This being granted in course,--and now follows
all,--we shall advise this wronged maid to stead up
your appointment, go in your place; if the encounter
acknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him to
her recompense: and here, by this, is your brother
saved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana
advantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid
will I frame and make fit for his attempt. If you
think well to carry this as you may, the doubleness
of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof.
What think you of it?
ISABELLA:
The image of it gives me content already; and I
trust it will grow to a most prosperous perfection.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
It lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily
to Angelo: if for this night he entreat you to his
bed, give him promise of satisfaction. I will
presently to Saint Luke's: there, at the moated
grange, resides this dejected Mariana. At that
place call upon me; and dispatch with Angelo, that
it may be quickly.
ISABELLA:
I thank you for this comfort. |
Fare you well, good father.
ELBOW:
Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will
needs buy and sell men and women like beasts, we
shall have all the world drink brown and white bastard.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
O heavens! what stuff is here
POMPEY:
'Twas never merry world since, of two usuries, the
Fare you well, good father.
ELBOW:
Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will
needs buy and sell men and women like beasts, we
shall have all the world drink brown and white bastard.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
O heavens! what stuff is here
POMPEY:
merriest was put down, and the worser allowed by
order of law a furred gown to keep him warm; and
furred with fox and lamb-skins too, to signify, that
craft, being richer than innocency, stands for the facing.
ELBOW:
Come your way, sir. 'Bless you, good father friar.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
And you, good brother father. What offence hath
this man made you, sir?
ELBOW:
Marry, sir, he hath offended the law: and, sir, we
take him to be a thief too, sir; for we have found
upon him, sir, a strange picklock, which we have
sent to the deputy.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Fie, sirrah! a bawd, a wicked bawd!
The evil that thou causest to be done,
That is thy means to live. Do thou but think
What 'tis to cram a maw or clothe a back
From such a filthy vice: say to thyself,
From their abominable and beastly touches
I drink, I eat, array myself, and live.
Canst thou believe thy living is a life,
So stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend.
POMPEY:
Indeed, it does stink in some sort, sir; but yet,
sir, I would prove--
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Nay, if the devil have given thee proofs for sin,
Thou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer:
Correction and instruction must both work
Ere this rude beast will profit.
ELBOW:
He must before the deputy, sir; he has given him
warning: the deputy cannot abide a whoremaster: if
he be a whoremonger, and comes before him, he were
as good go a mile on his errand.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
That we were all, as some would seem to be,
From our faults, as faults from seeming, free!
ELBOW:
His neck will come to your waist,--a cord, sir.
POMPEY:
I spy comfort; I cry bail. Here's a gentleman and a
friend of mine.
LUCIO:
How now, noble Pompey! What, at the wheels of
Caesar? art thou led in triumph? What, is there
none of Pygmalion's images, newly made woman, to be
had now, for putting the hand in the pocket and
extracting it clutch'd? What reply, ha? What
sayest thou to this tune, matter and method? Is't
not drowned i' the last rain, ha? What sayest
thou, Trot? Is the world as it was, man? Which is
the way? Is it sad, and few words? or how? The
trick of it?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Still thus, and thus; still worse!
LUCIO:
How doth my dear morsel, thy mistress? Procures she
still, ha?
POMPEY:
Troth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she
is herself in the tub.
LUCIO:
Why, 'tis good; it is the right of it; it must be
so: ever your fresh whore and your powdered bawd:
an unshunned consequence; it must be so. |
Art going
to prison, Pompey?
Art going
POMPEY:
Yes, faith, sir.
LUCIO:
Why, 'tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell: go, say I
sent thee thither. For debt, Pompey? or how?
ELBOW:
For being a bawd, for being a bawd.
LUCIO:
Well, then, imprison him: if imprisonment be the
due of a bawd, why, 'tis his right: bawd is he
doubtless, and of antiquity too; bawd-born.
Farewell, good Pompey. Commend me to the prison,
Pompey: you will turn good husband now, Pompey; you
will keep the house.
POMPEY:
I hope, sir, your good worship will be my bail.
LUCIO:
No, indeed, will I not, Pompey; it is not the wear.
I will pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage: If
you take it not patiently, why, your mettle is the
more. Adieu, trusty Pompey. 'Bless you, friar.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
And you.
LUCIO:
Does Bridget paint still, Pompey, ha?
ELBOW:
Come your ways, sir; come.
POMPEY:
You will not bail me, then, sir?
LUCIO:
Then, Pompey, nor now. What news abroad, friar?
what news?
ELBOW:
Come your ways, sir; come.
LUCIO:
Go to kennel, Pompey; go.
What news, friar, of the duke?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
I know none. Can you tell me of any?
LUCIO:
Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other
some, he is in Rome: but where is he, think you?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well.
LUCIO:
It was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from
the state, and usurp the beggary he was never born
to. Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence; he
puts transgression to 't.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
He does well in 't.
LUCIO:
A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in
him: something too crabbed that way, friar.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it.
LUCIO:
Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred;
it is well allied: but it is impossible to extirp
it quite, friar, till eating and drinking be put
down. They say this Angelo was not made by man and
woman after this downright way of creation: is it
true, think you?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
How should he be made, then?
LUCIO:
Some report a sea-maid spawned him; some, that he
was begot between two stock-fishes. |
But it is
certain that when he makes water his urine is
congealed ice; that I know to be true: and he is a
motion generative; that's infallible.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
You are pleasant, sir, and speak apace.
LUCIO:
Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the
rebellion of a codpiece to take away the life of a
man! Would the duke that is absent have done this?
Ere he would have hanged a man for the getting a
hundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing
a thousand: he had some feeling of the sport: he
knew the service, and that instructed him to mercy.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
I never heard the absent duke much detected for
women; he was not inclined that way.
LUCIO:
O, sir, you are deceived.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
'Tis not possible.
But it is
certain that when he makes water his urine is
congealed ice; that I know to be true: and he is a
motion generative; that's infallible.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
You are pleasant, sir, and speak apace.
LUCIO:
Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the
rebellion of a codpiece to take away the life of a
man! Would the duke that is absent have done this?
Ere he would have hanged a man for the getting a
hundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing
a thousand: he had some feeling of the sport: he
knew the service, and that instructed him to mercy.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
I never heard the absent duke much detected for
women; he was not inclined that way.
LUCIO:
O, sir, you are deceived.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
LUCIO:
Who, not the duke? yes, your beggar of fifty; and
his use was to put a ducat in her clack-dish: the
duke had crotchets in him. He would be drunk too;
that let me inform you.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
You do him wrong, surely.
LUCIO:
Sir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the
duke: and I believe I know the cause of his
withdrawing.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
What, I prithee, might be the cause?
LUCIO:
No, pardon; 'tis a secret must be locked within the
teeth and the lips: but this I can let you
understand, the greater file of the subject held the
duke to be wise.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Wise! why, no question but he was.
LUCIO:
A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Either this is the envy in you, folly, or mistaking:
the very stream of his life and the business he hath
helmed must upon a warranted need give him a better
proclamation. Let him be but testimonied in his own
bringings-forth, and he shall appear to the
envious a scholar, a statesman and a soldier.
Therefore you speak unskilfully: or if your
knowledge be more it is much darkened in your malice.
LUCIO:
Sir, I know him, and I love him.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with
dearer love.
LUCIO:
Come, sir, I know what I know.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
I can hardly believe that, since you know not what
you speak. But, if ever the duke return, as our
prayers are he may, let me desire you to make your
answer before him. |
If it be honest you have spoke,
you have courage to maintain it: I am bound to call
upon you; and, I pray you, your name?
LUCIO:
Sir, my name is Lucio; well known to the duke.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
If it be honest you have spoke,
you have courage to maintain it: I am bound to call
upon you; and, I pray you, your name?
LUCIO:
Sir, my name is Lucio; well known to the duke.
He shall know you better, sir, if I may live to
report you.
LUCIO:
I fear you not.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
O, you hope the duke will return no more; or you
imagine me too unhurtful an opposite. But indeed I
can do you little harm; you'll forswear this again.
LUCIO:
I'll be hanged first: thou art deceived in me,
friar. But no more of this. Canst thou tell if
Claudio die to-morrow or no?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Why should he die, sir?
LUCIO:
Why? For filling a bottle with a tundish. I would
the duke we talk of were returned again: the
ungenitured agent will unpeople the province with
continency; sparrows must not build in his
house-eaves, because they are lecherous. The duke
yet would have dark deeds darkly answered; he would
never bring them to light: would he were returned!
Marry, this Claudio is condemned for untrussing.
Farewell, good friar: I prithee, pray for me. The
duke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on
Fridays. He's not past it yet, and I say to thee,
he would mouth with a beggar, though she smelt brown
bread and garlic: say that I said so. Farewell.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
No might nor greatness in mortality
Can censure 'scape; back-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?
But who comes here?
ESCALUS:
Go; away with her to prison!
MISTRESS OVERDONE:
Good my lord, be good to me; your honour is accounted
a merciful man; good my lord.
ESCALUS:
Double and treble admonition, and still forfeit in
the same kind! This would make mercy swear and play
the tyrant.
Provost:
A bawd of eleven years' continuance, may it please
your honour.
MISTRESS OVERDONE:
My lord, this is one Lucio's information against me.
Mistress Kate Keepdown was with child by him in the
duke's time; he promised her marriage: his child
is a year and a quarter old, come Philip and Jacob:
I have kept it myself; and see how he goes about to abuse me!
ESCALUS:
That fellow is a fellow of much licence: let him be
called before us. |
Away with her to prison! Go to;
no more words.
Provost, my brother Angelo will not be altered;
Claudio must die to-morrow: let him be furnished
with divines, and have all charitable preparation.
if my brother wrought by my pity, it should not be
so with him.
Provost:
So please you, this friar hath been with him, and
advised him for the entertainment of death.
ESCALUS:
Good even, good father.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Bliss and goodness on you!
ESCALUS:
Of whence are you?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Not of this country, though my chance is now
To use it for my time: I am a brother
Of gracious order, late come from the See
In special business from his holiness.
ESCALUS:
What news abroad i' the world?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
None, but that there is so great a fever on
goodness, that the dissolution of it must cure it:
Away with her to prison! Go to;
no more words.
Provost, my brother Angelo will not be altered;
Claudio must die to-morrow: let him be furnished
with divines, and have all charitable preparation.
if my brother wrought by my pity, it should not be
so with him.
Provost:
So please you, this friar hath been with him, and
advised him for the entertainment of death.
ESCALUS:
Good even, good father.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Bliss and goodness on you!
ESCALUS:
Of whence are you?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Not of this country, though my chance is now
To use it for my time: I am a brother
Of gracious order, late come from the See
In special business from his holiness.
ESCALUS:
What news abroad i' the world?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
None, but that there is so great a fever on
novelty is only in request; and it is as dangerous
to be aged in any kind of course, as it is virtuous
to be constant in any undertaking. There is scarce
truth enough alive to make societies secure; but
security enough to make fellowships accurst: much
upon this riddle runs the wisdom of the world. This
news is old enough, yet it is every day's news. I
pray you, sir, of what disposition was the duke?
ESCALUS:
One that, above all other strifes, contended
especially to know himself.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
What pleasure was he given to?
ESCALUS:
Rather rejoicing to see another merry, than merry at
any thing which professed to make him rejoice: a
gentleman of all temperance. But leave we him to
his events, with a prayer they may prove prosperous;
and let me desire to know how you find Claudio
prepared. I am made to understand that you have
lent him visitation.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
He professes to have received no sinister measure
from his judge, but most willingly humbles himself
to the determination of justice: yet had he framed
to himself, by the instruction of his frailty, many
deceiving promises of life; which I by my good
leisure have discredited to him, and now is he
resolved to die.
ESCALUS:
You have paid the heavens your function, and the
prisoner the very debt of your calling. I have
laboured for the poor gentleman to the extremest
shore of my modesty: but my brother justice have I
found so severe, that he hath forced me to tell him
he is indeed Justice.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
If his own life answer the straitness of his
proceeding, it shall become him well; wherein if he
chance to fail, he hath sentenced himself.
ESCALUS:
I am going to visit the prisoner. |
Fare you well.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Peace be with you!
He who the sword of heaven will bear
Should be as holy as severe;
Pattern in himself to know,
Fare you well.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Peace be with you!
He who the sword of heaven will bear
Should be as holy as severe;
Grace to stand, and virtue go;
More nor less to others paying
Than by self-offences weighing.
Shame to him whose cruel striking
Kills for faults of his own liking!
Twice treble shame on Angelo,
To weed my vice and let his grow!
O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!
How may likeness made in crimes,
Making practise on the times,
To draw with idle spiders' strings
Most ponderous and substantial things!
Craft against vice I must apply:
With Angelo to-night shall lie
His old betrothed but despised;
So disguise shall, by the disguised,
Pay with falsehood false exacting,
And perform an old contracting.
MARIANA:
Break off thy song, and haste thee quick away:
Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice
Hath often still'd my brawling discontent.
I cry you mercy, sir; and well could wish
You had not found me here so musical:
Let me excuse me, and believe me so,
My mirth it much displeased, but pleased my woe.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
'Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm
To make bad good, and good provoke to harm.
I pray, you, tell me, hath any body inquired
for me here to-day? much upon this time have
I promised here to meet.
MARIANA:
You have not been inquired after:
I have sat here all day.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
I do constantly believe you. The time is come even
now. I shall crave your forbearance a little: may
be I will call upon you anon, for some advantage to yourself.
MARIANA:
I am always bound to you.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Very well met, and well come.
What is the news from this good deputy?
ISABELLA:
He hath a garden circummured with brick,
Whose western side is with a vineyard back'd;
And to that vineyard is a planched gate,
That makes his opening with this bigger key:
This other doth command a little door
Which from the vineyard to the garden leads;
There have I made my promise
Upon the heavy middle of the night
To call upon him.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
But shall you on your knowledge find this way?
ISABELLA:
I have ta'en a due and wary note upon't:
With whispering and most guilty diligence,
In action all of precept, he did show me
The way twice o'er.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Are there no other tokens
Between you 'greed concerning her observance?
ISABELLA:
No, none, but only a repair i' the dark;
And that I have possess'd him my most stay
Can be but brief; for I have made him know
I have a servant comes with me along,
That stays upon me, whose persuasion is
I come about my brother.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
'Tis well borne up.
I have not yet made known to Mariana
A word of this. |
What, ho! within! come forth!
I pray you, be acquainted with this maid;
She comes to do you good.
ISABELLA:
I do desire the like.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Do you persuade yourself that I respect you?
MARIANA:
Good friar, I know you do, and have found it.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Take, then, this your companion by the hand,
Who hath a story ready for your ear.
I shall attend your leisure: but make haste;
The vaporous night approaches.
MARIANA:
What, ho! within! come forth!
I pray you, be acquainted with this maid;
She comes to do you good.
ISABELLA:
I do desire the like.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Do you persuade yourself that I respect you?
MARIANA:
Good friar, I know you do, and have found it.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Take, then, this your companion by the hand,
Who hath a story ready for your ear.
I shall attend your leisure: but make haste;
The vaporous night approaches.
Will't please you walk aside?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
O place and greatness! millions of false eyes
Are stuck upon thee: volumes of report
Run with these false and most contrarious quests
Upon thy doings: thousand escapes of wit
Make thee the father of their idle dreams
And rack thee in their fancies.
Welcome, how agreed?
ISABELLA:
She'll take the enterprise upon her, father,
If you advise it.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
It is not my consent,
But my entreaty too.
ISABELLA:
Little have you to say
When you depart from him, but, soft and low,
'Remember now my brother.'
MARIANA:
Fear me not.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Nor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all.
He is your husband on a pre-contract:
To bring you thus together, 'tis no sin,
Sith that the justice of your title to him
Doth flourish the deceit. Come, let us go:
Our corn's to reap, for yet our tithe's to sow.
Provost:
Come hither, sirrah. Can you cut off a man's head?
POMPEY:
If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can; but if he be a
married man, he's his wife's head, and I can never
cut off a woman's head.
Provost:
Come, sir, leave me your snatches, and yield me a
direct answer. To-morrow morning are to die Claudio
and Barnardine. Here is in our prison a common
executioner, who in his office lacks a helper: if
you will take it on you to assist him, it shall
redeem you from your gyves; if not, you shall have
your full time of imprisonment and your deliverance
with an unpitied whipping, for you have been a
notorious bawd.
POMPEY:
Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd time out of mind;
but yet I will be content to be a lawful hangman. I
would be glad to receive some instruction from my
fellow partner.
Provost:
What, ho! Abhorson! Where's Abhorson, there?
ABHORSON:
Do you call, sir?
Provost:
Sirrah, here's a fellow will help you to-morrow in
your execution. If you think it meet, compound with
him by the year, and let him abide here with you; if
not, use him for the present and dismiss him. |
He
cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath been a bawd.
ABHORSON:
A bawd, sir? fie upon him! he will discredit our mystery.
Provost:
Go to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn
the scale.
POMPEY:
Pray, sir, by your good favour,--for surely, sir, a
good favour you have, but that you have a hanging
He
cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath been a bawd.
ABHORSON:
A bawd, sir? fie upon him! he will discredit our mystery.
Provost:
Go to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn
the scale.
POMPEY:
Pray, sir, by your good favour,--for surely, sir, a
look,--do you call, sir, your occupation a mystery?
ABHORSON:
Ay, sir; a mystery
POMPEY:
Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and
your whores, sir, being members of my occupation,
using painting, do prove my occupation a mystery:
but what mystery there should be in hanging, if I
should be hanged, I cannot imagine.
ABHORSON:
Sir, it is a mystery.
POMPEY:
Proof?
ABHORSON:
Every true man's apparel fits your thief: if it be
too little for your thief, your true man thinks it
big enough; if it be too big for your thief, your
thief thinks it little enough: so every true man's
apparel fits your thief.
Provost:
Are you agreed?
POMPEY:
Sir, I will serve him; for I do find your hangman is
a more penitent trade than your bawd; he doth
oftener ask forgiveness.
Provost:
You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe
to-morrow four o'clock.
ABHORSON:
Come on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow.
POMPEY:
I do desire to learn, sir: and I hope, if you have
occasion to use me for your own turn, you shall find
me yare; for truly, sir, for your kindness I owe you
a good turn.
Provost:
Call hither Barnardine and Claudio:
The one has my pity; not a jot the other,
Being a murderer, though he were my brother.
Look, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death:
'Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow
Thou must be made immortal. |
Where's Barnardine?
CLAUDIO:
As fast lock'd up in sleep as guiltless labour
When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones:
He will not wake.
Provost:
Who can do good on him?
Well, go, prepare yourself.
But, hark, what noise?
Heaven give your spirits comfort!
By and by.
I hope it is some pardon or reprieve
For the most gentle Claudio.
Welcome father.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
The best and wholesomest spirts of the night
Envelope you, good Provost! Who call'd here of late?
Provost:
None, since the curfew rung.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Not Isabel?
Provost:
No.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
They will, then, ere't be long.
Provost:
What comfort is for Claudio?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
There's some in hope.
Provost:
It is a bitter deputy.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Not so, not so; his life is parallel'd
Even with the stroke and line of his great justice:
He doth with holy abstinence subdue
That in himself which he spurs on his power
To qualify in others: were he meal'd with that
Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous;
But this being so, he's just.
Now are they come.
This is a gentle provost: seldom when
Where's Barnardine?
CLAUDIO:
As fast lock'd up in sleep as guiltless labour
When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones:
He will not wake.
Provost:
Who can do good on him?
Well, go, prepare yourself.
But, hark, what noise?
Heaven give your spirits comfort!
By and by.
I hope it is some pardon or reprieve
For the most gentle Claudio.
Welcome father.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
The best and wholesomest spirts of the night
Envelope you, good Provost! Who call'd here of late?
Provost:
None, since the curfew rung.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Not Isabel?
Provost:
No.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
They will, then, ere't be long.
Provost:
What comfort is for Claudio?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
There's some in hope.
Provost:
It is a bitter deputy.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Not so, not so; his life is parallel'd
Even with the stroke and line of his great justice:
He doth with holy abstinence subdue
That in himself which he spurs on his power
To qualify in others: were he meal'd with that
Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous;
But this being so, he's just.
Now are they come.
The steeled gaoler is the friend of men.
How now! what noise? That spirit's possessed with haste
That wounds the unsisting postern with these strokes.
Provost:
There he must stay until the officer
Arise to let him in: he is call'd up.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Have you no countermand for Claudio yet,
But he must die to-morrow?
Provost:
None, sir, none.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
As near the dawning, provost, as it is,
You shall hear more ere morning.
Provost:
Happily
You something know; yet I believe there comes
No countermand; no such example have we:
Besides, upon the very siege of justice
Lord Angelo hath to the public ear
Profess'd the contrary.
This is his lordship's man.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
And here comes Claudio's pardon.
Messenger:
Provost:
I shall obey him. |
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Provost:
I told you. Lord Angelo, belike thinking me remiss
in mine office, awakens me with this unwonted
putting-on; methinks strangely, for he hath not used it before.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Pray you, let's hear.
Provost:
DUKE VINCENTIO:
What is that Barnardine who is to be executed in the
afternoon?
Provost:
A Bohemian born, but here nursed un and bred; one
that is a prisoner nine years old.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
How came it that the absent duke had not either
delivered him to his liberty or executed him? I
have heard it was ever his manner to do so.
Provost:
His friends still wrought reprieves for him: and,
indeed, his fact, till now in the government of Lord
Angelo, came not to an undoubtful proof.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
It is now apparent?
Provost:
Most manifest, and not denied by himself.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Hath he born himself penitently in prison? how
seems he to be touched?
Provost:
A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but
as a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless
of what's past, present, or to come; insensible of
mortality, and desperately mortal.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
He wants advice.
Provost:
He will hear none: he hath evermore had the liberty
of the prison; give him leave to escape hence, he
would not: drunk many times a day, if not many days
entirely drunk. We have very oft awaked him, as if
to carry him to execution, and showed him a seeming
warrant for it: it hath not moved him at all.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
More of him anon. There is written in your brow,
provost, honesty and constancy: if I read it not
truly, my ancient skill beguiles me; but, in the
boldness of my cunning, I will lay myself in hazard.
Claudio, whom here you have warrant to execute, is
no greater forfeit to the law than Angelo who hath
sentenced him. To make you understand this in a
manifested effect, I crave but four days' respite;
for the which you are to do me both a present and a
dangerous courtesy.
Provost:
Pray, sir, in what?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
In the delaying death.
Provost:
A lack, how may I do it, having the hour limited,
and an express command, under penalty, to deliver
his head in the view of Angelo? I may make my case
as Claudio's, to cross this in the smallest.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
By the vow of mine order I warrant you, if my
instructions may be your guide. Let this Barnardine
be this morning executed, and his head born to Angelo.
Provost:
Angelo hath seen them both, and will discover the favour.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
O, death's a great disguiser; and you may add to it.
Shave the head, and tie the beard; and say it was
the desire of the penitent to be so bared before his
death: you know the course is common. |
If any thing
fall to you upon this, more than thanks and good
fortune, by the saint whom I profess, I will plead
against it with my life.
Provost:
Pardon me, good father; it is against my oath.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Were you sworn to the duke, or to the deputy?
Provost:
To him, and to his substitutes.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
You will think you have made no offence, if the duke
avouch the justice of your dealing?
Provost:
But what likelihood is in that?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Not a resemblance, but a certainty. Yet since I see
If any thing
fall to you upon this, more than thanks and good
fortune, by the saint whom I profess, I will plead
against it with my life.
Provost:
Pardon me, good father; it is against my oath.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Were you sworn to the duke, or to the deputy?
Provost:
To him, and to his substitutes.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
You will think you have made no offence, if the duke
avouch the justice of your dealing?
Provost:
But what likelihood is in that?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
you fearful, that neither my coat, integrity, nor
persuasion can with ease attempt you, I will go
further than I meant, to pluck all fears out of you.
Look you, sir, here is the hand and seal of the
duke: you know the character, I doubt not; and the
signet is not strange to you.
Provost:
I know them both.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
The contents of this is the return of the duke: you
shall anon over-read it at your pleasure; where you
shall find, within these two days he will be here.
This is a thing that Angelo knows not; for he this
very day receives letters of strange tenor;
perchance of the duke's death; perchance entering
into some monastery; but, by chance, nothing of what
is writ. Look, the unfolding star calls up the
shepherd. Put not yourself into amazement how these
things should be: all difficulties are but easy
when they are known. Call your executioner, and off
with Barnardine's head: I will give him a present
shrift and advise him for a better place. Yet you
are amazed; but this shall absolutely resolve you.
Come away; it is almost clear dawn.
POMPEY:
I am as well acquainted here as I was in our house
of profession: one would think it were Mistress
Overdone's own house, for here be many of her old
customers. First, here's young Master Rash; he's in
for a commodity of brown paper and old ginger,
ninescore and seventeen pounds; of which he made
five marks, ready money: marry, then ginger was not
much in request, for the old women were all dead.
Then is there here one Master Caper, at the suit of
Master Three-pile the mercer, for some four suits of
peach-coloured satin, which now peaches him a
beggar. Then have we here young Dizy, and young
Master Deep-vow, and Master Copperspur, and Master
Starve-lackey the rapier and dagger man, and young
Drop-heir that killed lusty Pudding, and Master
Forthlight the tilter, and brave Master Shooty the
great traveller, and wild Half-can that stabbed
Pots, and, I think, forty more; all great doers in
our trade, and are now 'for the Lord's sake.'
ABHORSON:
Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither.
POMPEY:
Master Barnardine! you must rise and be hanged.
Master Barnardine!
ABHORSON:
What, ho, Barnardine!
BARNARDINE:
POMPEY:
Your friends, sir; the hangman. |
You must be so
good, sir, to rise and be put to death.
You must be so
BARNARDINE:
ABHORSON:
Tell him he must awake, and that quickly too.
POMPEY:
Pray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are
executed, and sleep afterwards.
ABHORSON:
Go in to him, and fetch him out.
POMPEY:
He is coming, sir, he is coming; I hear his straw rustle.
ABHORSON:
Is the axe upon the block, sirrah?
POMPEY:
Very ready, sir.
BARNARDINE:
How now, Abhorson? what's the news with you?
ABHORSON:
Truly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your
prayers; for, look you, the warrant's come.
BARNARDINE:
You rogue, I have been drinking all night; I am not
fitted for 't.
POMPEY:
O, the better, sir; for he that drinks all night,
and is hanged betimes in the morning, may sleep the
sounder all the next day.
ABHORSON:
Look you, sir; here comes your ghostly father: do
we jest now, think you?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Sir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily
you are to depart, I am come to advise you, comfort
you and pray with you.
BARNARDINE:
Friar, not I I have been drinking hard all night,
and I will have more time to prepare me, or they
shall beat out my brains with billets: I will not
consent to die this day, that's certain.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
O, sir, you must: and therefore I beseech you
Look forward on the journey you shall go.
BARNARDINE:
I swear I will not die to-day for any man's
persuasion.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
But hear you.
BARNARDINE:
Not a word: if you have any thing to say to me,
come to my ward; for thence will not I to-day.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Unfit to live or die: O gravel heart!
After him, fellows; bring him to the block.
Provost:
Now, sir, how do you find the prisoner?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
A creature unprepared, unmeet for death;
And to transport him in the mind he is
Were damnable.
Provost:
Here in the prison, father,
There died this morning of a cruel fever
One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate,
A man of Claudio's years; his beard and head
Just of his colour. |
What if we do omit
This reprobate till he were well inclined;
And satisfy the deputy with the visage
Of Ragozine, more like to Claudio?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
O, 'tis an accident that heaven provides!
Dispatch it presently; the hour draws on
Prefix'd by Angelo: see this be done,
And sent according to command; whiles I
Persuade this rude wretch willingly to die.
Provost:
This shall be done, good father, presently.
But Barnardine must die this afternoon:
And how shall we continue Claudio,
To save me from the danger that might come
If he were known alive?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Let this be done.
Put them in secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio:
Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting
To the under generation, you shall find
Your safety manifested.
Provost:
I am your free dependant.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Quick, dispatch, and send the head to Angelo.
Now will I write letters to Angelo,--
The provost, he shall bear them, whose contents
Shall witness to him I am near at home,
And that, by great injunctions, I am bound
To enter publicly: him I'll desire
To meet me at the consecrated fount
What if we do omit
This reprobate till he were well inclined;
And satisfy the deputy with the visage
Of Ragozine, more like to Claudio?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
O, 'tis an accident that heaven provides!
Dispatch it presently; the hour draws on
Prefix'd by Angelo: see this be done,
And sent according to command; whiles I
Persuade this rude wretch willingly to die.
Provost:
This shall be done, good father, presently.
But Barnardine must die this afternoon:
And how shall we continue Claudio,
To save me from the danger that might come
If he were known alive?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Let this be done.
Put them in secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio:
Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting
To the under generation, you shall find
Your safety manifested.
Provost:
I am your free dependant.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Quick, dispatch, and send the head to Angelo.
Now will I write letters to Angelo,--
The provost, he shall bear them, whose contents
Shall witness to him I am near at home,
And that, by great injunctions, I am bound
To enter publicly: him I'll desire
A league below the city; and from thence,
By cold gradation and well-balanced form,
We shall proceed with Angelo.
Provost:
Here is the head; I'll carry it myself.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Convenient is it. Make a swift return;
For I would commune with you of such things
That want no ear but yours.
Provost:
I'll make all speed.
ISABELLA:
DUKE VINCENTIO:
The tongue of Isabel. |
She's come to know
If yet her brother's pardon be come hither:
But I will keep her ignorant of her good,
To make her heavenly comforts of despair,
When it is least expected.
ISABELLA:
Ho, by your leave!
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Good morning to you, fair and gracious daughter.
ISABELLA:
The better, given me by so holy a man.
Hath yet the deputy sent my brother's pardon?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
He hath released him, Isabel, from the world:
His head is off and sent to Angelo.
ISABELLA:
Nay, but it is not so.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
It is no other: show your wisdom, daughter,
In your close patience.
ISABELLA:
O, I will to him and pluck out his eyes!
DUKE VINCENTIO:
You shall not be admitted to his sight.
She's come to know
If yet her brother's pardon be come hither:
But I will keep her ignorant of her good,
To make her heavenly comforts of despair,
When it is least expected.
ISABELLA:
Ho, by your leave!
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Good morning to you, fair and gracious daughter.
ISABELLA:
The better, given me by so holy a man.
Hath yet the deputy sent my brother's pardon?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
He hath released him, Isabel, from the world:
His head is off and sent to Angelo.
ISABELLA:
Nay, but it is not so.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
It is no other: show your wisdom, daughter,
In your close patience.
ISABELLA:
O, I will to him and pluck out his eyes!
DUKE VINCENTIO:
ISABELLA:
Unhappy Claudio! wretched Isabel!
Injurious world! most damned Angelo!
DUKE VINCENTIO:
This nor hurts him nor profits you a jot;
Forbear it therefore; give your cause to heaven.
Mark what I say, which you shall find
By every syllable a faithful verity:
The duke comes home to-morrow; nay, dry your eyes;
One of our convent, and his confessor,
Gives me this instance: already he hath carried
Notice to Escalus and Angelo,
Who do prepare to meet him at the gates,
There to give up their power. If you can, pace your wisdom
In that good path that I would wish it go,
And you shall have your bosom on this wretch,
Grace of the duke, revenges to your heart,
And general honour.
ISABELLA:
I am directed by you.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
This letter, then, to Friar Peter give;
'Tis that he sent me of the duke's return:
Say, by this token, I desire his company
At Mariana's house to-night. Her cause and yours
I'll perfect him withal, and he shall bring you
Before the duke, and to the head of Angelo
Accuse him home and home. For my poor self,
I am combined by a sacred vow
And shall be absent. Wend you with this letter:
Command these fretting waters from your eyes
With a light heart; trust not my holy order,
If I pervert your course. Who's here?
LUCIO:
Good even. Friar, where's the provost?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Not within, sir.
LUCIO:
O pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart to see
thine eyes so red: thou must be patient. I am fain
to dine and sup with water and bran; I dare not for
my head fill my belly; one fruitful meal would set
me to 't. But they say the duke will be here
to-morrow. |
By my troth, Isabel, I loved thy brother:
if the old fantastical duke of dark corners had been
at home, he had lived.
By my troth, Isabel, I loved thy brother:
if the old fantastical duke of dark corners had been
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Sir, the duke is marvellous little beholding to your
reports; but the best is, he lives not in them.
LUCIO:
Friar, thou knowest not the duke so well as I do:
he's a better woodman than thou takest him for.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Well, you'll answer this one day. Fare ye well.
LUCIO:
Nay, tarry; I'll go along with thee
I can tell thee pretty tales of the duke.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
You have told me too many of him already, sir, if
they be true; if not true, none were enough.
LUCIO:
I was once before him for getting a wench with child.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Did you such a thing?
LUCIO:
Yes, marry, did I but I was fain to forswear it;
they would else have married me to the rotten medlar.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Sir, your company is fairer than honest. Rest you well.
LUCIO:
By my troth, I'll go with thee to the lane's end:
if bawdy talk offend you, we'll have very little of
it. Nay, friar, I am a kind of burr; I shall stick.
ESCALUS:
Every letter he hath writ hath disvouched other.
ANGELO:
In most uneven and distracted manner. His actions
show much like to madness: pray heaven his wisdom be
not tainted! And why meet him at the gates, and
redeliver our authorities there
ESCALUS:
I guess not.
ANGELO:
And why should we proclaim it in an hour before his
entering, that if any crave redress of injustice,
they should exhibit their petitions in the street?
ESCALUS:
He shows his reason for that: to have a dispatch of
complaints, and to deliver us from devices
hereafter, which shall then have no power to stand
against us.
ANGELO:
Well, I beseech you, let it be proclaimed betimes
i' the morn; I'll call you at your house: give
notice to such men of sort and suit as are to meet
him.
ESCALUS:
I shall, sir. Fare you well.
ANGELO:
Good night.
This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant
And dull to all proceedings. A deflower'd maid!
And by an eminent body that enforced
The law against it! But that her tender shame
Will not proclaim against her maiden loss,
How might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her no;
For my authority bears of a credent bulk,
That no particular scandal once can touch
But it confounds the breather. He should have lived,
Save that riotous youth, with dangerous sense,
Might in the times to come have ta'en revenge,
By so receiving a dishonour'd life
With ransom of such shame. Would yet he had lived!
A lack, when once our grace we have forgot,
Nothing goes right: we would, and we would not.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
These letters at fit time deliver me
The provost knows our purpose and our plot.
The matter being afoot, keep your instruction,
And hold you ever to our special drift;
Though sometimes you do blench from this to that,
As cause doth minister. |
Go call at Flavius' house,
And tell him where I stay: give the like notice
To Valentinus, Rowland, and to Crassus,
And bid them bring the trumpets to the gate;
But send me Flavius first.
FRIAR PETER:
It shall be speeded well.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
I thank thee, Varrius; thou hast made good haste:
Go call at Flavius' house,
And tell him where I stay: give the like notice
To Valentinus, Rowland, and to Crassus,
And bid them bring the trumpets to the gate;
But send me Flavius first.
FRIAR PETER:
It shall be speeded well.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Come, we will walk. There's other of our friends
Will greet us here anon, my gentle Varrius.
ISABELLA:
To speak so indirectly I am loath:
I would say the truth; but to accuse him so,
That is your part: yet I am advised to do it;
He says, to veil full purpose.
MARIANA:
Be ruled by him.
ISABELLA:
Besides, he tells me that, if peradventure
He speak against me on the adverse side,
I should not think it strange; for 'tis a physic
That's bitter to sweet end.
MARIANA:
I would Friar Peter--
ISABELLA:
O, peace! the friar is come.
FRIAR PETER:
Come, I have found you out a stand most fit,
Where you may have such vantage on the duke,
He shall not pass you. Twice have the trumpets sounded;
The generous and gravest citizens
Have hent the gates, and very near upon
The duke is entering: therefore, hence, away!
DUKE VINCENTIO:
My very worthy cousin, fairly met!
Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you.
ANGELO:
Happy return be to your royal grace!
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Many and hearty thankings to you both.
We have made inquiry of you; and we hear
Such goodness of your justice, that our soul
Cannot but yield you forth to public thanks,
Forerunning more requital.
ANGELO:
You make my bonds still greater.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
O, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it,
To lock it in the wards of covert bosom,
When it deserves, with characters of brass,
A forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time
And razure of oblivion. Give me your hand,
And let the subject see, to make them know
That outward courtesies would fain proclaim
Favours that keep within. Come, Escalus,
You must walk by us on our other hand;
And good supporters are you.
FRIAR PETER:
Now is your time: speak loud and kneel before him.
ISABELLA:
Justice, O royal duke! Vail your regard
Upon a wrong'd, I would fain have said, a maid!
O worthy prince, dishonour not your eye
By throwing it on any other object
Till you have heard me in my true complaint
And given me justice, justice, justice, justice!
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Relate your wrongs; in what? by whom? be brief.
Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice:
Reveal yourself to him.
ISABELLA:
O worthy duke,
You bid me seek redemption of the devil:
Hear me yourself; for that which I must speak
Must either punish me, not being believed,
Or wring redress from you. |
Hear me, O hear me, here!
ANGELO:
My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm:
She hath been a suitor to me for her brother
Cut off by course of justice,--
ISABELLA:
By course of justice!
ANGELO:
And she will speak most bitterly and strange.
ISABELLA:
Hear me, O hear me, here!
ANGELO:
My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm:
She hath been a suitor to me for her brother
Cut off by course of justice,--
ISABELLA:
By course of justice!
ANGELO:
And she will speak most bitterly and strange.
Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak:
That Angelo's forsworn; is it not strange?
That Angelo's a murderer; is 't not strange?
That Angelo is an adulterous thief,
An hypocrite, a virgin-violator;
Is it not strange and strange?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Nay, it is ten times strange.
ISABELLA:
It is not truer he is Angelo
Than this is all as true as it is strange:
Nay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth
To the end of reckoning.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Away with her! Poor soul,
She speaks this in the infirmity of sense.
ISABELLA:
O prince, I conjure thee, as thou believest
There is another comfort than this world,
That thou neglect me not, with that opinion
That I am touch'd with madness! Make not impossible
That which but seems unlike: 'tis not impossible
But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground,
May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute
As Angelo; even so may Angelo,
In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms,
Be an arch-villain; believe it, royal prince:
If he be less, he's nothing; but he's more,
Had I more name for badness.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
By mine honesty,
If she be mad,--as I believe no other,--
Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense,
Such a dependency of thing on thing,
As e'er I heard in madness.
ISABELLA:
O gracious duke,
Harp not on that, nor do not banish reason
For inequality; but let your reason serve
To make the truth appear where it seems hid,
And hide the false seems true.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Many that are not mad
Have, sure, more lack of reason. What would you say?
ISABELLA:
I am the sister of one Claudio,
Condemn'd upon the act of fornication
To lose his head; condemn'd by Angelo:
I, in probation of a sisterhood,
Was sent to by my brother; one Lucio
As then the messenger,--
LUCIO:
That's I, an't like your grace:
I came to her from Claudio, and desired her
To try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo
For her poor brother's pardon.
ISABELLA:
That's he indeed.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
You were not bid to speak.
LUCIO:
No, my good lord;
Nor wish'd to hold my peace.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
I wish you now, then;
Pray you, take note of it: and when you have
A business for yourself, pray heaven you then
Be perfect.
LUCIO:
I warrant your honour.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
The warrants for yourself; take heed to't.
ISABELLA:
This gentleman told somewhat of my tale,--
LUCIO:
Right.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
It may be right; but you are i' the wrong
To speak before your time. |
Proceed.
ISABELLA:
I went
To this pernicious caitiff deputy,--
Proceed.
ISABELLA:
I went
To this pernicious caitiff deputy,--
DUKE VINCENTIO:
That's somewhat madly spoken.
ISABELLA:
Pardon it;
The phrase is to the matter.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Mended again. The matter; proceed.
ISABELLA:
In brief, to set the needless process by,
How I persuaded, how I pray'd, and kneel'd,
How he refell'd me, and how I replied,--
For this was of much length,--the vile conclusion
I now begin with grief and shame to utter:
He would not, but by gift of my chaste body
To his concupiscible intemperate lust,
Release my brother; and, after much debatement,
My sisterly remorse confutes mine honour,
And I did yield to him: but the next morn betimes,
His purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant
For my poor brother's head.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
This is most likely!
ISABELLA:
O, that it were as like as it is true!
DUKE VINCENTIO:
By heaven, fond wretch, thou knowist not what thou speak'st,
Or else thou art suborn'd against his honour
In hateful practise. First, his integrity
Stands without blemish. Next, it imports no reason
That with such vehemency he should pursue
Faults proper to himself: if he had so offended,
He would have weigh'd thy brother by himself
And not have cut him off. Some one hath set you on:
Confess the truth, and say by whose advice
Thou camest here to complain.
ISABELLA:
And is this all?
Then, O you blessed ministers above,
Keep me in patience, and with ripen'd time
Unfold the evil which is here wrapt up
In countenance! Heaven shield your grace from woe,
As I, thus wrong'd, hence unbelieved go!
DUKE VINCENTIO:
I know you'ld fain be gone. An officer!
To prison with her! Shall we thus permit
A blasting and a scandalous breath to fall
On him so near us? This needs must be a practise.
Who knew of Your intent and coming hither?
ISABELLA:
One that I would were here, Friar Lodowick.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
A ghostly father, belike. Who knows that Lodowick?
LUCIO:
My lord, I know him; 'tis a meddling friar;
I do not like the man: had he been lay, my lord
For certain words he spake against your grace
In your retirement, I had swinged him soundly.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Words against me? this is a good friar, belike!
And to set on this wretched woman here
Against our substitute! Let this friar be found.
LUCIO:
But yesternight, my lord, she and that friar,
I saw them at the prison: a saucy friar,
A very scurvy fellow.
FRIAR PETER:
Blessed be your royal grace!
I have stood by, my lord, and I have heard
Your royal ear abused. |
First, hath this woman
Most wrongfully accused your substitute,
Who is as free from touch or soil with her
As she from one ungot.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
We did believe no less.
Know you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of?
FRIAR PETER:
I know him for a man divine and holy;
Not scurvy, nor a temporary meddler,
As he's reported by this gentleman;
And, on my trust, a man that never yet
Did, as he vouches, misreport your grace.
LUCIO:
My lord, most villanously; believe it.
FRIAR PETER:
Well, he in time may come to clear himself;
First, hath this woman
Most wrongfully accused your substitute,
Who is as free from touch or soil with her
As she from one ungot.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
We did believe no less.
Know you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of?
FRIAR PETER:
I know him for a man divine and holy;
Not scurvy, nor a temporary meddler,
As he's reported by this gentleman;
And, on my trust, a man that never yet
Did, as he vouches, misreport your grace.
LUCIO:
My lord, most villanously; believe it.
FRIAR PETER:
But at this instant he is sick my lord,
Of a strange fever. Upon his mere request,
Being come to knowledge that there was complaint
Intended 'gainst Lord Angelo, came I hither,
To speak, as from his mouth, what he doth know
Is true and false; and what he with his oath
And all probation will make up full clear,
Whensoever he's convented. First, for this woman.
To justify this worthy nobleman,
So vulgarly and personally accused,
Her shall you hear disproved to her eyes,
Till she herself confess it.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Good friar, let's hear it.
Do you not smile at this, Lord Angelo?
O heaven, the vanity of wretched fools!
Give us some seats. Come, cousin Angelo;
In this I'll be impartial; be you judge
Of your own cause. |
Is this the witness, friar?
First, let her show her face, and after speak.
MARIANA:
Pardon, my lord; I will not show my face
Until my husband bid me.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
What, are you married?
MARIANA:
No, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Are you a maid?
MARIANA:
No, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
A widow, then?
MARIANA:
Neither, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Why, you are nothing then: neither maid, widow, nor wife?
LUCIO:
My lord, she may be a punk; for many of them are
neither maid, widow, nor wife.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Silence that fellow: I would he had some cause
To prattle for himself.
LUCIO:
Well, my lord.
MARIANA:
My lord; I do confess I ne'er was married;
And I confess besides I am no maid:
I have known my husband; yet my husband
Knows not that ever he knew me.
LUCIO:
He was drunk then, my lord: it can be no better.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
For the benefit of silence, would thou wert so too!
LUCIO:
Well, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
This is no witness for Lord Angelo.
MARIANA:
Now I come to't my lord
She that accuses him of fornication,
In self-same manner doth accuse my husband,
And charges him my lord, with such a time
When I'll depose I had him in mine arms
With all the effect of love.
ANGELO:
Charges she more than me?
Is this the witness, friar?
First, let her show her face, and after speak.
MARIANA:
Pardon, my lord; I will not show my face
Until my husband bid me.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
What, are you married?
MARIANA:
No, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Are you a maid?
MARIANA:
No, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
A widow, then?
MARIANA:
Neither, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Why, you are nothing then: neither maid, widow, nor wife?
LUCIO:
My lord, she may be a punk; for many of them are
neither maid, widow, nor wife.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Silence that fellow: I would he had some cause
To prattle for himself.
LUCIO:
Well, my lord.
MARIANA:
My lord; I do confess I ne'er was married;
And I confess besides I am no maid:
I have known my husband; yet my husband
Knows not that ever he knew me.
LUCIO:
He was drunk then, my lord: it can be no better.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
For the benefit of silence, would thou wert so too!
LUCIO:
Well, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
This is no witness for Lord Angelo.
MARIANA:
Now I come to't my lord
She that accuses him of fornication,
In self-same manner doth accuse my husband,
And charges him my lord, with such a time
When I'll depose I had him in mine arms
With all the effect of love.
ANGELO:
MARIANA:
Not that I know.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
No? you say your husband.
MARIANA:
Why, just, my lord, and that is Angelo,
Who thinks he knows that he ne'er knew my body,
But knows he thinks that he knows Isabel's.
ANGELO:
This is a strange abuse. |
Let's see thy face.
MARIANA:
My husband bids me; now I will unmask.
Let's see thy face.
MARIANA:
This is that face, thou cruel Angelo,
Which once thou sworest was worth the looking on;
This is the hand which, with a vow'd contract,
Was fast belock'd in thine; this is the body
That took away the match from Isabel,
And did supply thee at thy garden-house
In her imagined person.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Know you this woman?
LUCIO:
Carnally, she says.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Sirrah, no more!
LUCIO:
Enough, my lord.
ANGELO:
My lord, I must confess I know this woman:
And five years since there was some speech of marriage
Betwixt myself and her; which was broke off,
Partly for that her promised proportions
Came short of composition, but in chief
For that her reputation was disvalued
In levity: since which time of five years
I never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her,
Upon my faith and honour.
MARIANA:
Noble prince,
As there comes light from heaven and words from breath,
As there is sense in truth and truth in virtue,
I am affianced this man's wife as strongly
As words could make up vows: and, my good lord,
But Tuesday night last gone in's garden-house
He knew me as a wife. As this is true,
Let me in safety raise me from my knees
Or else for ever be confixed here,
A marble monument!
ANGELO:
I did but smile till now:
Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice
My patience here is touch'd. |
I do perceive
These poor informal women are no more
But instruments of some more mightier member
That sets them on: let me have way, my lord,
To find this practise out.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Ay, with my heart
And punish them to your height of pleasure.
Thou foolish friar, and thou pernicious woman,
Compact with her that's gone, think'st thou thy oaths,
Though they would swear down each particular saint,
Were testimonies against his worth and credit
That's seal'd in approbation? You, Lord Escalus,
Sit with my cousin; lend him your kind pains
To find out this abuse, whence 'tis derived.
There is another friar that set them on;
Let him be sent for.
FRIAR PETER:
Would he were here, my lord! for he indeed
Hath set the women on to this complaint:
Your provost knows the place where he abides
And he may fetch him.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Go do it instantly.
And you, my noble and well-warranted cousin,
Whom it concerns to hear this matter forth,
Do with your injuries as seems you best,
In any chastisement: I for a while will leave you;
But stir not you till you have well determined
Upon these slanderers.
ESCALUS:
My lord, we'll do it throughly.
Signior Lucio, did not you say you knew that
Friar Lodowick to be a dishonest person?
LUCIO:
'Cucullus non facit monachum:' honest in nothing
but in his clothes; and one that hath spoke most
villanous speeches of the duke.
ESCALUS:
We shall entreat you to abide here till he come and
enforce them against him: we shall find this friar a
notable fellow.
LUCIO:
As any in Vienna, on my word.
ESCALUS:
Call that same Isabel here once again; I would speak with her.
Pray you, my lord, give me leave to question; you
shall see how I'll handle her.
LUCIO:
Not better than he, by her own report.
ESCALUS:
Say you?
LUCIO:
Marry, sir, I think, if you handled her privately,
she would sooner confess: perchance, publicly, |
I do perceive
These poor informal women are no more
But instruments of some more mightier member
That sets them on: let me have way, my lord,
To find this practise out.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Ay, with my heart
And punish them to your height of pleasure.
Thou foolish friar, and thou pernicious woman,
Compact with her that's gone, think'st thou thy oaths,
Though they would swear down each particular saint,
Were testimonies against his worth and credit
That's seal'd in approbation? You, Lord Escalus,
Sit with my cousin; lend him your kind pains
To find out this abuse, whence 'tis derived.
There is another friar that set them on;
Let him be sent for.
FRIAR PETER:
Would he were here, my lord! for he indeed
Hath set the women on to this complaint:
Your provost knows the place where he abides
And he may fetch him.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Go do it instantly.
And you, my noble and well-warranted cousin,
Whom it concerns to hear this matter forth,
Do with your injuries as seems you best,
In any chastisement: I for a while will leave you;
But stir not you till you have well determined
Upon these slanderers.
ESCALUS:
My lord, we'll do it throughly.
Signior Lucio, did not you say you knew that
Friar Lodowick to be a dishonest person?
LUCIO:
'Cucullus non facit monachum:' honest in nothing
but in his clothes; and one that hath spoke most
villanous speeches of the duke.
ESCALUS:
We shall entreat you to abide here till he come and
enforce them against him: we shall find this friar a
notable fellow.
LUCIO:
As any in Vienna, on my word.
ESCALUS:
Call that same Isabel here once again; I would speak with her.
Pray you, my lord, give me leave to question; you
shall see how I'll handle her.
LUCIO:
Not better than he, by her own report.
ESCALUS:
Say you?
LUCIO:
Marry, sir, I think, if you handled her privately,
she'll be ashamed.
ESCALUS:
I will go darkly to work with her.
LUCIO:
That's the way; for women are light at midnight.
ESCALUS:
Come on, mistress: here's a gentlewoman denies all
that you have said.
LUCIO:
My lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of; here with
the provost.
ESCALUS:
In very good time: speak not you to him till we
call upon you.
LUCIO:
Mum.
ESCALUS:
Come, sir: did you set these women on to slander
Lord Angelo? they have confessed you did.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
'Tis false.
ESCALUS:
How! know you where you are?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Respect to your great place! and let the devil
Be sometime honour'd for his burning throne!
Where is the duke? 'tis he should hear me speak.
ESCALUS:
The duke's in us; and we will hear you speak:
Look you speak justly.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Boldly, at least. But, O, poor souls,
Come you to seek the lamb here of the fox?
Good night to your redress! Is the duke gone?
Then is your cause gone too. |
The duke's unjust,
Thus to retort your manifest appeal,
And put your trial in the villain's mouth
Which here you come to accuse.
LUCIO:
This is the rascal; this is he I spoke of.
ESCALUS:
Why, thou unreverend and unhallow'd friar,
Is't not enough thou hast suborn'd these women
The duke's unjust,
Thus to retort your manifest appeal,
And put your trial in the villain's mouth
Which here you come to accuse.
LUCIO:
This is the rascal; this is he I spoke of.
ESCALUS:
Why, thou unreverend and unhallow'd friar,
To accuse this worthy man, but, in foul mouth
And in the witness of his proper ear,
To call him villain? and then to glance from him
To the duke himself, to tax him with injustice?
Take him hence; to the rack with him! We'll touse you
Joint by joint, but we will know his purpose.
What 'unjust'!
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Be not so hot; the duke
Dare no more stretch this finger of mine than he
Dare rack his own: his subject am I not,
Nor here provincial. My business in this state
Made me a looker on here in Vienna,
Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble
Till it o'er-run the stew; laws for all faults,
But faults so countenanced, that the strong statutes
Stand like the forfeits in a barber's shop,
As much in mock as mark.
ESCALUS:
Slander to the state! Away with him to prison!
ANGELO:
What can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio?
Is this the man that you did tell us of?
LUCIO:
'Tis he, my lord. Come hither, goodman baldpate:
do you know me?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
I remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice: I
met you at the prison, in the absence of the duke.
LUCIO:
O, did you so? And do you remember what you said of the duke?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Most notedly, sir.
LUCIO:
Do you so, sir? And was the duke a fleshmonger, a
fool, and a coward, as you then reported him to be?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
You must, sir, change persons with me, ere you make
that my report: you, indeed, spoke so of him; and
much more, much worse.
LUCIO:
O thou damnable fellow! Did not I pluck thee by the
nose for thy speeches?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
I protest I love the duke as I love myself.
ANGELO:
Hark, how the villain would close now, after his
treasonable abuses!
ESCALUS:
Such a fellow is not to be talked withal. Away with
him to prison! Where is the provost? Away with him
to prison! lay bolts enough upon him: let him
speak no more. Away with those giglots too, and
with the other confederate companion!
DUKE VINCENTIO:
ANGELO:
What, resists he? Help him, Lucio.
LUCIO:
Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you
bald-pated, lying rascal, you must be hooded, must
you? Show your knave's visage, with a pox to you!
show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour!
Will't not off?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Thou art the first knave that e'er madest a duke.
First, provost, let me bail these gentle three.
Sneak not away, sir; for the friar and you
Must have a word anon. |
Lay hold on him.
LUCIO:
This may prove worse than hanging.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Lay hold on him.
LUCIO:
This may prove worse than hanging.
ANGELO:
O my dread lord,
I should be guiltier than my guiltiness,
To think I can be undiscernible,
When I perceive your grace, like power divine,
Hath look'd upon my passes. Then, good prince,
No longer session hold upon my shame,
But let my trial be mine own confession:
Immediate sentence then and sequent death
Is all the grace I beg.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Come hither, Mariana.
Say, wast thou e'er contracted to this woman?
ANGELO:
I was, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Go take her hence, and marry her instantly.
Do you the office, friar; which consummate,
Return him here again. Go with him, provost.
ESCALUS:
My lord, I am more amazed at his dishonour
Than at the strangeness of it.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Come hither, Isabel.
Your friar is now your prince: as I was then
Advertising and holy to your business,
Not changing heart with habit, I am still
Attorney'd at your service.
ISABELLA:
O, give me pardon,
That I, your vassal, have employ'd and pain'd
Your unknown sovereignty!
DUKE VINCENTIO:
You are pardon'd, Isabel:
And now, dear maid, be you as free to us.
Your brother's death, I know, sits at your heart;
And you may marvel why I obscured myself,
Labouring to save his life, and would not rather
Make rash remonstrance of my hidden power
Than let him so be lost. O most kind maid,
It was the swift celerity of his death,
Which I did think with slower foot came on,
That brain'd my purpose. |
But, peace be with him!
That life is better life, past fearing death,
Than that which lives to fear: make it your comfort,
So happy is your brother.
ISABELLA:
I do, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
For this new-married man approaching here,
Whose salt imagination yet hath wrong'd
Your well defended honour, you must pardon
For Mariana's sake: but as he adjudged your brother,--
Being criminal, in double violation
Of sacred chastity and of promise-breach
Thereon dependent, for your brother's life,--
The very mercy of the law cries out
Most audible, even from his proper tongue,
'An Angelo for Claudio, death for death!'
Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;
Like doth quit like, and MEASURE still FOR MEASURE.
Then, Angelo, thy fault's thus manifested;
Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage.
We do condemn thee to the very block
Where Claudio stoop'd to death, and with like haste.
Away with him!
MARIANA:
O my most gracious lord,
I hope you will not mock me with a husband.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
It is your husband mock'd you with a husband.
Consenting to the safeguard of your honour,
I thought your marriage fit; else imputation,
For that he knew you, might reproach your life
And choke your good to come; for his possessions,
Although by confiscation they are ours,
We do instate and widow you withal,
To buy you a better husband.
MARIANA:
O my dear lord,
I crave no other, nor no better man.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Never crave him; we are definitive.
MARIANA:
Gentle my liege,--
DUKE VINCENTIO:
You do but lose your labour.
Away with him to death!
Now, sir, to you.
But, peace be with him!
That life is better life, past fearing death,
Than that which lives to fear: make it your comfort,
So happy is your brother.
ISABELLA:
I do, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
For this new-married man approaching here,
Whose salt imagination yet hath wrong'd
Your well defended honour, you must pardon
For Mariana's sake: but as he adjudged your brother,--
Being criminal, in double violation
Of sacred chastity and of promise-breach
Thereon dependent, for your brother's life,--
The very mercy of the law cries out
Most audible, even from his proper tongue,
'An Angelo for Claudio, death for death!'
Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;
Like doth quit like, and MEASURE still FOR MEASURE.
Then, Angelo, thy fault's thus manifested;
Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage.
We do condemn thee to the very block
Where Claudio stoop'd to death, and with like haste.
Away with him!
MARIANA:
O my most gracious lord,
I hope you will not mock me with a husband.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
It is your husband mock'd you with a husband.
Consenting to the safeguard of your honour,
I thought your marriage fit; else imputation,
For that he knew you, might reproach your life
And choke your good to come; for his possessions,
Although by confiscation they are ours,
We do instate and widow you withal,
To buy you a better husband.
MARIANA:
O my dear lord,
I crave no other, nor no better man.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Never crave him; we are definitive.
MARIANA:
Gentle my liege,--
DUKE VINCENTIO:
You do but lose your labour.
Away with him to death!
MARIANA: |
O my good lord! Sweet Isabel, take my part;
Lend me your knees, and all my life to come
I'll lend you all my life to do you service.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Against all sense you do importune her:
Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact,
Her brother's ghost his paved bed would break,
And take her hence in horror.
MARIANA:
Isabel,
Sweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me;
Hold up your hands, say nothing; I'll speak all.
They say, best men are moulded out of faults;
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad: so may my husband.
O Isabel, will you not lend a knee?
DUKE VINCENTIO:
He dies for Claudio's death.
ISABELLA:
Most bounteous sir,
Look, if it please you, on this man condemn'd,
As if my brother lived: I partly think
A due sincerity govern'd his deeds,
Till he did look on me: since it is so,
Let him not die. My brother had but justice,
In that he did the thing for which he died:
For Angelo,
His act did not o'ertake his bad intent,
And must be buried but as an intent
That perish'd by the way: thoughts are no subjects;
Intents but merely thoughts.
MARIANA:
Merely, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Your suit's unprofitable; stand up, I say.
I have bethought me of another fault.
Provost, how came it Claudio was beheaded
At an unusual hour?
Provost:
It was commanded so.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Had you a special warrant for the deed?
Provost:
No, my good lord; it was by private message.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
For which I do discharge you of your office:
Give up your keys.
Provost:
Pardon me, noble lord:
I thought it was a fault, but knew it not;
Yet did repent me, after more advice;
For testimony whereof, one in the prison,
That should by private order else have died,
I have reserved alive.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
What's he?
Provost:
His name is Barnardine.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
I would thou hadst done so by Claudio.
Go fetch him hither; let me look upon him.
ESCALUS:
I am sorry, one so learned and so wise
As you, Lord Angelo, have still appear'd,
Should slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood.
And lack of temper'd judgment afterward.
ANGELO:
I am sorry that such sorrow I procure:
And so deep sticks it in my penitent heart
That I crave death more willingly than mercy;
'Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Which is that Barnardine?
Provost:
This, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
There was a friar told me of this man.
Sirrah, thou art said to have a stubborn soul.
That apprehends no further than this world,
And squarest thy life according. Thou'rt condemn'd:
But, for those earthly faults, I quit them all;
And pray thee take this mercy to provide
For better times to come. Friar, advise him;
I leave him to your hand. What muffled fellow's that?
Provost:
This is another prisoner that I saved.
Who should have died when Claudio lost his head;
As like almost to Claudio as himself.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
LUCIO:
'Faith, my lord. I spoke it but according to the
trick. |
If you will hang me for it, you may; but I
had rather it would please you I might be whipt.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Whipt first, sir, and hanged after.
Proclaim it, provost, round about the city.
If you will hang me for it, you may; but I
had rather it would please you I might be whipt.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Whipt first, sir, and hanged after.
Is any woman wrong'd by this lewd fellow,
As I have heard him swear himself there's one
Whom he begot with child, let her appear,
And he shall marry her: the nuptial finish'd,
Let him be whipt and hang'd.
LUCIO:
I beseech your highness, do not marry me to a whore.
Your highness said even now, I made you a duke:
good my lord, do not recompense me in making me a cuckold.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Upon mine honour, thou shalt marry her.
Thy slanders I forgive; and therewithal
Remit thy other forfeits. Take him to prison;
And see our pleasure herein executed.
LUCIO:
Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death,
whipping, and hanging.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Slandering a prince deserves it.
She, Claudio, that you wrong'd, look you restore.
Joy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo:
I have confess'd her and I know her virtue.
Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness:
There's more behind that is more gratulate.
Thanks, provost, for thy care and secrecy:
We shill employ thee in a worthier place.
Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home
The head of Ragozine for Claudio's:
The offence pardons itself. Dear Isabel,
I have a motion much imports your good;
Whereto if you'll a willing ear incline,
What's mine is yours and what is yours is mine.
So, bring us to our palace; where we'll show
What's yet behind, that's meet you all should know.
SLY:
I'll pheeze you, in faith.
Hostess:
A pair of stocks, you rogue!
SLY:
Ye are a baggage: the Slys are no rogues; look in
the chronicles; we came in with Richard Conqueror.
Therefore paucas pallabris; let the world slide: sessa!
Hostess:
You will not pay for the glasses you have burst?
SLY:
No, not a denier. |
Go by, Jeronimy: go to thy cold
bed, and warm thee.
Hostess:
I know my remedy; I must go fetch the
third--borough.
SLY:
Third, or fourth, or fifth borough, I'll answer him
by law: I'll not budge an inch, boy: let him come,
and kindly.
Lord:
Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds:
Brach Merriman, the poor cur is emboss'd;
And couple Clowder with the deep--mouth'd brach.
Saw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good
At the hedge-corner, in the coldest fault?
I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.
First Huntsman:
Why, Belman is as good as he, my lord;
He cried upon it at the merest loss
And twice to-day pick'd out the dullest scent:
Trust me, I take him for the better dog.
Lord:
Thou art a fool: if Echo were as fleet,
I would esteem him worth a dozen such.
But sup them well and look unto them all:
To-morrow I intend to hunt again.
First Huntsman:
I will, my lord.
Lord:
What's here? one dead, or drunk? See, doth he breathe?
Second Huntsman:
He breathes, my lord. |
Were he not warm'd with ale,
Go by, Jeronimy: go to thy cold
bed, and warm thee.
Hostess:
I know my remedy; I must go fetch the
third--borough.
SLY:
Third, or fourth, or fifth borough, I'll answer him
by law: I'll not budge an inch, boy: let him come,
and kindly.
Lord:
Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds:
Brach Merriman, the poor cur is emboss'd;
And couple Clowder with the deep--mouth'd brach.
Saw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good
At the hedge-corner, in the coldest fault?
I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.
First Huntsman:
Why, Belman is as good as he, my lord;
He cried upon it at the merest loss
And twice to-day pick'd out the dullest scent:
Trust me, I take him for the better dog.
Lord:
Thou art a fool: if Echo were as fleet,
I would esteem him worth a dozen such.
But sup them well and look unto them all:
To-morrow I intend to hunt again.
First Huntsman:
I will, my lord.
Lord:
What's here? one dead, or drunk? See, doth he breathe?
Second Huntsman:
This were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly.
Lord:
O monstrous beast! how like a swine he lies!
Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!
Sirs, I will practise on this drunken man.
What think you, if he were convey'd to bed,
Wrapp'd in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers,
A most delicious banquet by his bed,
And brave attendants near him when he wakes,
Would not the beggar then forget himself?
First Huntsman:
Believe me, lord, I think he cannot choose.
Second Huntsman:
It would seem strange unto him when he waked.
Lord:
Even as a flattering dream or worthless fancy.
Then take him up and manage well the jest:
Carry him gently to my fairest chamber
And hang it round with all my wanton pictures:
Balm his foul head in warm distilled waters
And burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet:
Procure me music ready when he wakes,
To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound;
And if he chance to speak, be ready straight
And with a low submissive reverence
Say 'What is it your honour will command?'
Let one attend him with a silver basin
Full of rose-water and bestrew'd with flowers, |
Were he not warm'd with ale,
Go by, Jeronimy: go to thy cold
bed, and warm thee.
Hostess:
I know my remedy; I must go fetch the
third--borough.
SLY:
Third, or fourth, or fifth borough, I'll answer him
by law: I'll not budge an inch, boy: let him come,
and kindly.
Lord:
Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds:
Brach Merriman, the poor cur is emboss'd;
And couple Clowder with the deep--mouth'd brach.
Saw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good
At the hedge-corner, in the coldest fault?
I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.
First Huntsman:
Why, Belman is as good as he, my lord;
He cried upon it at the merest loss
And twice to-day pick'd out the dullest scent:
Trust me, I take him for the better dog.
Lord:
Thou art a fool: if Echo were as fleet,
I would esteem him worth a dozen such.
But sup them well and look unto them all:
To-morrow I intend to hunt again.
First Huntsman:
I will, my lord.
Lord:
What's here? one dead, or drunk? See, doth he breathe?
Second Huntsman:
This were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly.
Lord:
O monstrous beast! how like a swine he lies!
Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!
Sirs, I will practise on this drunken man.
What think you, if he were convey'd to bed,
Wrapp'd in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers,
A most delicious banquet by his bed,
And brave attendants near him when he wakes,
Would not the beggar then forget himself?
First Huntsman:
Believe me, lord, I think he cannot choose.
Second Huntsman:
It would seem strange unto him when he waked.
Lord:
Even as a flattering dream or worthless fancy.
Then take him up and manage well the jest:
Carry him gently to my fairest chamber
And hang it round with all my wanton pictures:
Balm his foul head in warm distilled waters
And burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet:
Procure me music ready when he wakes,
To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound;
And if he chance to speak, be ready straight
And with a low submissive reverence
Say 'What is it your honour will command?'
Let one attend him with a silver basin
Another bear the ewer, the third a diaper,
And say 'Will't please your lordship cool your hands?'
Some one be ready with a costly suit
And ask him what apparel he will wear;
Another tell him of his hounds and horse,
And that his lady mourns at his disease:
Persuade him that he hath been lunatic;
And when he says he is, say that he dreams,
For he is nothing but a mighty lord.
This do and do it kindly, gentle sirs:
It will be pastime passing excellent,
If it be husbanded with modesty.
First Huntsman:
My lord, I warrant you we will play our part,
As he shall think by our true diligence
He is no less than what we say he is.
Lord:
Take him up gently and to bed with him;
And each one to his office when he wakes.
Sirrah, go see what trumpet 'tis that sounds:
Belike, some noble gentleman that means,
Travelling some journey, to repose him here.
How now! who is it?
Servant:
An't please your honour, players
That offer service to your lordship.
Lord:
Bid them come near.
Now, fellows, you are welcome.
Players:
We thank your honour.
Lord:
Do you intend to stay with me tonight?
A Player:
So please your lordship to accept our duty.
Lord: |
With all my heart. |
This fellow I remember,
Since once he play'd a farmer's eldest son:
'Twas where you woo'd the gentlewoman so well:
I have forgot your name; but, sure, that part
Was aptly fitted and naturally perform'd.
A Player:
I think 'twas Soto that your honour means.
Lord:
'Tis very true: thou didst it excellent.
Well, you are come to me in a happy time;
The rather for I have some sport in hand
Wherein your cunning can assist me much.
There is a lord will hear you play to-night:
But I am doubtful of your modesties;
Lest over-eyeing of his odd behavior,--
For yet his honour never heard a play--
You break into some merry passion
And so offend him; for I tell you, sirs,
If you should smile he grows impatient.
A Player:
Fear not, my lord: we can contain ourselves,
Were he the veriest antic in the world.
Lord:
Go, sirrah, take them to the buttery,
And give them friendly welcome every one:
Let them want nothing that my house affords.
Sirrah, go you to Barthol'mew my page,
And see him dress'd in all suits like a lady:
That done, conduct him to the drunkard's chamber;
And call him 'madam,' do him obeisance.
Tell him from me, as he will win my love,
He bear himself with honourable action,
Such as he hath observed in noble ladies
Unto their lords, by them accomplished:
Such duty to the drunkard let him do
With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,
And say 'What is't your honour will command,
Wherein your lady and your humble wife
May show her duty and make known her love?'
And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses,
And with declining head into his bosom,
Bid him shed tears, as being overjoy'd
To see her noble lord restored to health,
Who for this seven years hath esteem'd him
No better than a poor and loathsome beggar:
And if the boy have not a woman's gift
To rain a shower of commanded tears,
An onion will do well for such a shift,
Which in a napkin being close convey'd
Shall in despite enforce a watery eye.
See this dispatch'd with all the haste thou canst:
Anon I'll give thee more instructions.
I know the boy will well usurp the grace,
Voice, gait and action of a gentlewoman:
I long to hear him call the drunkard husband,
And how my men will stay themselves from laughter
When they do homage to this simple peasant.
I'll in to counsel them; haply my presence
May well abate the over-merry spleen
Which otherwise would grow into extremes.
SLY:
For God's sake, a pot of small ale.
First Servant:
Will't please your lordship drink a cup of sack?
Second Servant:
Will't please your honour taste of these conserves?
Third Servant:
What raiment will your honour wear to-day?
SLY:
I am Christophero Sly; call not me 'honour' nor
'lordship:' I ne'er drank sack in my life; and if
you give me any conserves, give me conserves of
beef: ne'er ask me what raiment I'll wear; for I
have no more doublets than backs, no more stockings
than legs, nor no more shoes than feet; nay,
sometimes more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my
toes look through the over-leather.
Lord:
Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour!
O, that a mighty man of such descent,
Of such possessions and so high esteem,
Should be infused with so foul a spirit!
SLY:
What, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher
Sly, old Sly's son of Burtonheath, by birth a
pedlar, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation a
bear-herd, and now by present profession a tinker? |
This fellow I remember,
Since once he play'd a farmer's eldest son:
'Twas where you woo'd the gentlewoman so well:
I have forgot your name; but, sure, that part
Was aptly fitted and naturally perform'd.
A Player:
I think 'twas Soto that your honour means.
Lord:
'Tis very true: thou didst it excellent.
Well, you are come to me in a happy time;
The rather for I have some sport in hand
Wherein your cunning can assist me much.
There is a lord will hear you play to-night:
But I am doubtful of your modesties;
Lest over-eyeing of his odd behavior,--
For yet his honour never heard a play--
You break into some merry passion
And so offend him; for I tell you, sirs,
If you should smile he grows impatient.
A Player:
Fear not, my lord: we can contain ourselves,
Were he the veriest antic in the world.
Lord:
Go, sirrah, take them to the buttery,
And give them friendly welcome every one:
Let them want nothing that my house affords.
Sirrah, go you to Barthol'mew my page,
And see him dress'd in all suits like a lady:
That done, conduct him to the drunkard's chamber;
And call him 'madam,' do him obeisance.
Tell him from me, as he will win my love,
He bear himself with honourable action,
Such as he hath observed in noble ladies
Unto their lords, by them accomplished:
Such duty to the drunkard let him do
With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,
And say 'What is't your honour will command,
Wherein your lady and your humble wife
May show her duty and make known her love?'
And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses,
And with declining head into his bosom,
Bid him shed tears, as being overjoy'd
To see her noble lord restored to health,
Who for this seven years hath esteem'd him
No better than a poor and loathsome beggar:
And if the boy have not a woman's gift
To rain a shower of commanded tears,
An onion will do well for such a shift,
Which in a napkin being close convey'd
Shall in despite enforce a watery eye.
See this dispatch'd with all the haste thou canst:
Anon I'll give thee more instructions.
I know the boy will well usurp the grace,
Voice, gait and action of a gentlewoman:
I long to hear him call the drunkard husband,
And how my men will stay themselves from laughter
When they do homage to this simple peasant.
I'll in to counsel them; haply my presence
May well abate the over-merry spleen
Which otherwise would grow into extremes.
SLY:
For God's sake, a pot of small ale.
First Servant:
Will't please your lordship drink a cup of sack?
Second Servant:
Will't please your honour taste of these conserves?
Third Servant:
What raiment will your honour wear to-day?
SLY:
I am Christophero Sly; call not me 'honour' nor
'lordship:' I ne'er drank sack in my life; and if
you give me any conserves, give me conserves of
beef: ne'er ask me what raiment I'll wear; for I
have no more doublets than backs, no more stockings
than legs, nor no more shoes than feet; nay,
sometimes more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my
toes look through the over-leather.
Lord:
Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour!
O, that a mighty man of such descent,
Of such possessions and so high esteem,
Should be infused with so foul a spirit!
SLY:
What, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher
Sly, old Sly's son of Burtonheath, by birth a
pedlar, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation a
Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if |
she know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence
on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the
lyingest knave in Christendom. |
What! I am not
bestraught: here's--
Third Servant:
O, this it is that makes your lady mourn!
Second Servant:
O, this is it that makes your servants droop!
Lord:
Hence comes it that your kindred shuns your house,
As beaten hence by your strange lunacy.
O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth,
Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment
And banish hence these abject lowly dreams.
Look how thy servants do attend on thee,
Each in his office ready at thy beck.
Wilt thou have music? hark! Apollo plays,
And twenty caged nightingales do sing:
Or wilt thou sleep? we'll have thee to a couch
Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed
On purpose trimm'd up for Semiramis.
Say thou wilt walk; we will bestrew the ground:
Or wilt thou ride? thy horses shall be trapp'd,
Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.
Dost thou love hawking? thou hast hawks will soar
Above the morning lark or wilt thou hunt?
Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them
And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.
First Servant:
Say thou wilt course; thy greyhounds are as swift
As breathed stags, ay, fleeter than the roe.
Second Servant:
Dost thou love pictures? we will fetch thee straight
Adonis painted by a running brook,
And Cytherea all in sedges hid,
Which seem to move and wanton with her breath,
Even as the waving sedges play with wind.
Lord:
We'll show thee Io as she was a maid,
And how she was beguiled and surprised,
As lively painted as the deed was done.
Third Servant:
Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,
Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds,
And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,
So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.
Lord:
Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord:
Thou hast a lady far more beautiful
Than any woman in this waning age.
First Servant:
And till the tears that she hath shed for thee
Like envious floods o'er-run her lovely face,
She was the fairest creature in the world;
And yet she is inferior to none.
SLY:
Am I a lord? and have I such a lady?
Or do I dream? or have I dream'd till now?
I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak;
I smell sweet savours and I feel soft things:
Upon my life, I am a lord indeed
And not a tinker nor Christophero Sly.
Well, bring our lady hither to our sight;
And once again, a pot o' the smallest ale.
Second Servant:
Will't please your mightiness to wash your hands?
O, how we joy to see your wit restored!
O, that once more you knew but what you are!
These fifteen years you have been in a dream;
Or when you waked, so waked as if you slept.
SLY:
These fifteen years! by my fay, a goodly nap.
But did I never speak of all that time?
First Servant:
O, yes, my lord, but very idle words:
For though you lay here in this goodly chamber,
Yet would you say ye were beaten out of door;
And rail upon the hostess of the house;
And say you would present her at the leet,
Because she brought stone jugs and no seal'd quarts:
Sometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.
SLY:
Ay, the woman's maid of the house.
Third Servant:
Why, sir, you know no house nor no such maid,
Nor no such men as you have reckon'd up,
As Stephen Sly and did John Naps of Greece
And Peter Turph and Henry Pimpernell
And twenty more such names and men as these |
What! I am not
bestraught: here's--
Third Servant:
O, this it is that makes your lady mourn!
Second Servant:
O, this is it that makes your servants droop!
Lord:
Hence comes it that your kindred shuns your house,
As beaten hence by your strange lunacy.
O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth,
Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment
And banish hence these abject lowly dreams.
Look how thy servants do attend on thee,
Each in his office ready at thy beck.
Wilt thou have music? hark! Apollo plays,
And twenty caged nightingales do sing:
Or wilt thou sleep? we'll have thee to a couch
Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed
On purpose trimm'd up for Semiramis.
Say thou wilt walk; we will bestrew the ground:
Or wilt thou ride? thy horses shall be trapp'd,
Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.
Dost thou love hawking? thou hast hawks will soar
Above the morning lark or wilt thou hunt?
Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them
And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.
First Servant:
Say thou wilt course; thy greyhounds are as swift
As breathed stags, ay, fleeter than the roe.
Second Servant:
Dost thou love pictures? we will fetch thee straight
Adonis painted by a running brook,
And Cytherea all in sedges hid,
Which seem to move and wanton with her breath,
Even as the waving sedges play with wind.
Lord:
We'll show thee Io as she was a maid,
And how she was beguiled and surprised,
As lively painted as the deed was done.
Third Servant:
Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,
Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds,
And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,
So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.
Lord:
Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord:
Thou hast a lady far more beautiful
Than any woman in this waning age.
First Servant:
And till the tears that she hath shed for thee
Like envious floods o'er-run her lovely face,
She was the fairest creature in the world;
And yet she is inferior to none.
SLY:
Am I a lord? and have I such a lady?
Or do I dream? or have I dream'd till now?
I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak;
I smell sweet savours and I feel soft things:
Upon my life, I am a lord indeed
And not a tinker nor Christophero Sly.
Well, bring our lady hither to our sight;
And once again, a pot o' the smallest ale.
Second Servant:
Will't please your mightiness to wash your hands?
O, how we joy to see your wit restored!
O, that once more you knew but what you are!
These fifteen years you have been in a dream;
Or when you waked, so waked as if you slept.
SLY:
These fifteen years! by my fay, a goodly nap.
But did I never speak of all that time?
First Servant:
O, yes, my lord, but very idle words:
For though you lay here in this goodly chamber,
Yet would you say ye were beaten out of door;
And rail upon the hostess of the house;
And say you would present her at the leet,
Because she brought stone jugs and no seal'd quarts:
Sometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.
SLY:
Ay, the woman's maid of the house.
Third Servant:
Why, sir, you know no house nor no such maid,
Nor no such men as you have reckon'd up,
As Stephen Sly and did John Naps of Greece
And Peter Turph and Henry Pimpernell
Which never were nor no man ever saw.
SLY: |
Now Lord be thanked for my good amends!
ALL:
Amen.
SLY:
I thank thee: thou shalt not lose by it.
Page:
How fares my noble lord?
SLY:
Marry, I fare well for here is cheer enough.
Where is my wife?
Page:
Here, noble lord: what is thy will with her?
SLY:
Are you my wife and will not call me husband?
My men should call me 'lord:' I am your goodman.
Page:
My husband and my lord, my lord and husband;
I am your wife in all obedience.
SLY:
I know it well. What must I call her?
Lord:
Madam.
SLY:
Al'ce madam, or Joan madam?
Lord:
'Madam,' and nothing else: so lords
call ladies.
SLY:
Madam wife, they say that I have dream'd
And slept above some fifteen year or more.
Page:
Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me,
Being all this time abandon'd from your bed.
SLY:
'Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.
Madam, undress you and come now to bed.
Page:
Thrice noble lord, let me entreat of you
To pardon me yet for a night or two,
Or, if not so, until the sun be set:
For your physicians have expressly charged,
In peril to incur your former malady,
That I should yet absent me from your bed:
I hope this reason stands for my excuse.
SLY:
Ay, it stands so that I may hardly
tarry so long. But I would be loath to fall into
my dreams again: I will therefore tarry in
despite of the flesh and the blood.
Messenger:
Your honour's players, heating your amendment,
Are come to play a pleasant comedy;
For so your doctors hold it very meet,
Seeing too much sadness hath congeal'd your blood,
And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy:
Therefore they thought it good you hear a play
And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.
SLY:
Marry, I will, let them play it. Is not a
comondy a Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick?
Page:
No, my good lord; it is more pleasing stuff.
SLY:
What, household stuff?
Page:
It is a kind of history.
SLY:
Well, well see't. |
Come, madam wife, sit by my side
and let the world slip: we shall ne'er be younger.
LUCENTIO:
Tranio, since for the great desire I had
To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,
I am arrived for fruitful Lombardy,
The pleasant garden of great Italy;
And by my father's love and leave am arm'd
With his good will and thy good company,
My trusty servant, well approved in all,
Here let us breathe and haply institute
A course of learning and ingenious studies.
Pisa renown'd for grave citizens
Gave me my being and my father first,
A merchant of great traffic through the world,
Vincetino come of Bentivolii.
Vincetino's son brought up in Florence
It shall become to serve all hopes conceived,
To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds:
And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,
Virtue and that part of philosophy
Will I apply that treats of happiness
By virtue specially to be achieved.
Tell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left
And am to Padua come, as he that leaves
A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep
And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.
TRANIO:
Mi perdonato, gentle master mine,
I am in all affected as yourself;
Glad that you thus continue your resolve
To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.
Only, good master, while we do admire
This virtue and this moral discipline,
Let's be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray;
Or so devote to Aristotle's cheques
Come, madam wife, sit by my side
and let the world slip: we shall ne'er be younger.
LUCENTIO:
Tranio, since for the great desire I had
To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,
I am arrived for fruitful Lombardy,
The pleasant garden of great Italy;
And by my father's love and leave am arm'd
With his good will and thy good company,
My trusty servant, well approved in all,
Here let us breathe and haply institute
A course of learning and ingenious studies.
Pisa renown'd for grave citizens
Gave me my being and my father first,
A merchant of great traffic through the world,
Vincetino come of Bentivolii.
Vincetino's son brought up in Florence
It shall become to serve all hopes conceived,
To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds:
And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,
Virtue and that part of philosophy
Will I apply that treats of happiness
By virtue specially to be achieved.
Tell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left
And am to Padua come, as he that leaves
A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep
And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.
TRANIO:
Mi perdonato, gentle master mine,
I am in all affected as yourself;
Glad that you thus continue your resolve
To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.
Only, good master, while we do admire
This virtue and this moral discipline,
Let's be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray;
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured:
Balk logic with acquaintance that you have
And practise rhetoric in your common talk;
Music and poesy use to quicken you;
The mathematics and the metaphysics,
Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you;
No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en:
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.
LUCENTIO:
Gramercies, Tranio, well dost thou advise.
If, Biondello, thou wert come ashore,
We could at once put us in readiness,
And take a lodging fit to entertain
Such friends as time in Padua shall beget.
But stay a while: what company is this?
TRANIO:
Master, some show to welcome us to town.
BAPTISTA:
Gentlemen, importune me no farther,
For how I firmly am resolved you know;
That is, not bestow my youngest daughter |
Before I have a husband for the elder:
If either of you both love Katharina,
Because I know you well and love you well,
Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.
GREMIO:
KATHARINA:
I pray you, sir, is it your will
To make a stale of me amongst these mates?
HORTENSIO:
Mates, maid! how mean you that? no mates for you,
Unless you were of gentler, milder mould.
KATHARINA:
I'faith, sir, you shall never need to fear:
I wis it is not half way to her heart;
But if it were, doubt not her care should be
To comb your noddle with a three-legg'd stool
And paint your face and use you like a fool.
HORTENSIA:
From all such devils, good Lord deliver us!
GREMIO:
And me too, good Lord!
TRANIO:
Hush, master! here's some good pastime toward:
That wench is stark mad or wonderful froward.
LUCENTIO:
But in the other's silence do I see
Maid's mild behavior and sobriety.
Peace, Tranio!
TRANIO:
Well said, master; mum! and gaze your fill.
BAPTISTA:
Gentlemen, that I may soon make good
What I have said, Bianca, get you in:
And let it not displease thee, good Bianca,
For I will love thee ne'er the less, my girl.
KATHARINA:
A pretty peat! it is best
Put finger in the eye, an she knew why.
BIANCA:
Sister, content you in my discontent.
Sir, to your pleasure humbly I subscribe:
My books and instruments shall be my company,
On them to took and practise by myself.
LUCENTIO:
Hark, Tranio! thou may'st hear Minerva speak.
HORTENSIO:
Signior Baptista, will you be so strange?
Sorry am I that our good will effects
Bianca's grief.
GREMIO:
Why will you mew her up,
Signior Baptista, for this fiend of hell,
And make her bear the penance of her tongue?
BAPTISTA:
Gentlemen, content ye; I am resolved:
Go in, Bianca:
And for I know she taketh most delight
In music, instruments and poetry,
Schoolmasters will I keep within my house,
Fit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio,
Or Signior Gremio, you, know any such,
Prefer them hither; for to cunning men
I will be very kind, and liberal
To mine own children in good bringing up:
And so farewell. Katharina, you may stay;
For I have more to commune with Bianca.
KATHARINA:
Why, and I trust I may go too, may I not? What,
shall I be appointed hours; as though, belike, I
knew not what to take and what to leave, ha?
GREMIO:
You may go to the devil's dam: your gifts are so
good, here's none will hold you. Their love is not
so great, Hortensio, but we may blow our nails
together, and fast it fairly out: our cakes dough on
both sides. |
Farewell: yet for the love I bear my
sweet Bianca, if I can by any means light on a fit
man to teach her that wherein she delights, I will
wish him to her father.
HORTENSIO:
So will I, Signior Gremio: but a word, I pray.
Though the nature of our quarrel yet never brooked
parle, know now, upon advice, it toucheth us both,
that we may yet again have access to our fair
mistress and be happy rivals in Bianco's love, to
labour and effect one thing specially.
GREMIO:
What's that, I pray?
HORTENSIO:
Marry, sir, to get a husband for her sister.
GREMIO:
A husband! a devil.
Farewell: yet for the love I bear my
sweet Bianca, if I can by any means light on a fit
man to teach her that wherein she delights, I will
wish him to her father.
HORTENSIO:
So will I, Signior Gremio: but a word, I pray.
Though the nature of our quarrel yet never brooked
parle, know now, upon advice, it toucheth us both,
that we may yet again have access to our fair
mistress and be happy rivals in Bianco's love, to
labour and effect one thing specially.
GREMIO:
What's that, I pray?
HORTENSIO:
Marry, sir, to get a husband for her sister.
GREMIO:
HORTENSIO:
I say, a husband.
GREMIO:
I say, a devil. Thinkest thou, Hortensio, though
her father be very rich, any man is so very a fool
to be married to hell?
HORTENSIO:
Tush, Gremio, though it pass your patience and mine
to endure her loud alarums, why, man, there be good
fellows in the world, an a man could light on them,
would take her with all faults, and money enough.
GREMIO:
I cannot tell; but I had as lief take her dowry with
this condition, to be whipped at the high cross
every morning.
HORTENSIO:
Faith, as you say, there's small choice in rotten
apples. But come; since this bar in law makes us
friends, it shall be so far forth friendly
maintained all by helping Baptista's eldest daughter
to a husband we set his youngest free for a husband,
and then have to't a fresh. |
Sweet Bianca! Happy man
be his dole! He that runs fastest gets the ring.
How say you, Signior Gremio?
GREMIO:
I am agreed; and would I had given him the best
horse in Padua to begin his wooing that would
thoroughly woo her, wed her and bed her and rid the
house of her! Come on.
TRANIO:
I pray, sir, tell me, is it possible
That love should of a sudden take such hold?
LUCENTIO:
O Tranio, till I found it to be true,
I never thought it possible or likely;
But see, while idly I stood looking on,
I found the effect of love in idleness:
And now in plainness do confess to thee,
That art to me as secret and as dear
As Anna to the queen of Carthage was,
Tranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio,
If I achieve not this young modest girl.
Counsel me, Tranio, for I know thou canst;
Assist me, Tranio, for I know thou wilt.
TRANIO:
Master, it is no time to chide you now;
Affection is not rated from the heart:
If love have touch'd you, nought remains but so,
'Redime te captum quam queas minimo.'
LUCENTIO:
Gramercies, lad, go forward; this contents:
The rest will comfort, for thy counsel's sound.
TRANIO:
Master, you look'd so longly on the maid,
Perhaps you mark'd not what's the pith of all.
Sweet Bianca! Happy man
be his dole! He that runs fastest gets the ring.
How say you, Signior Gremio?
GREMIO:
I am agreed; and would I had given him the best
horse in Padua to begin his wooing that would
thoroughly woo her, wed her and bed her and rid the
house of her! Come on.
TRANIO:
I pray, sir, tell me, is it possible
That love should of a sudden take such hold?
LUCENTIO:
O Tranio, till I found it to be true,
I never thought it possible or likely;
But see, while idly I stood looking on,
I found the effect of love in idleness:
And now in plainness do confess to thee,
That art to me as secret and as dear
As Anna to the queen of Carthage was,
Tranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio,
If I achieve not this young modest girl.
Counsel me, Tranio, for I know thou canst;
Assist me, Tranio, for I know thou wilt.
TRANIO:
Master, it is no time to chide you now;
Affection is not rated from the heart:
If love have touch'd you, nought remains but so,
'Redime te captum quam queas minimo.'
LUCENTIO:
Gramercies, lad, go forward; this contents:
The rest will comfort, for thy counsel's sound.
TRANIO:
Master, you look'd so longly on the maid,
LUCENTIO:
O yes, I saw sweet beauty in her face,
Such as the daughter of Agenor had,
That made great Jove to humble him to her hand.
When with his knees he kiss'd the Cretan strand.
TRANIO:
Saw you no more? mark'd you not how her sister
Began to scold and raise up such a storm
That mortal ears might hardly endure the din?
LUCENTIO:
Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move
And with her breath she did perfume the air:
Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her.
TRANIO:
Nay, then, 'tis time to stir him from his trance.
I pray, awake, sir: if you love the maid,
Bend thoughts and wits to achieve her. |
Thus it stands:
Her eldest sister is so curst and shrewd
That till the father rid his hands of her,
Master, your love must live a maid at home;
Thus it stands:
Her eldest sister is so curst and shrewd
That till the father rid his hands of her,
And therefore has he closely mew'd her up,
Because she will not be annoy'd with suitors.
LUCENTIO:
Ah, Tranio, what a cruel father's he!
But art thou not advised, he took some care
To get her cunning schoolmasters to instruct her?
TRANIO:
Ay, marry, am I, sir; and now 'tis plotted.
LUCENTIO:
I have it, Tranio.
TRANIO:
Master, for my hand,
Both our inventions meet and jump in one.
LUCENTIO:
Tell me thine first.
TRANIO:
You will be schoolmaster
And undertake the teaching of the maid:
That's your device.
LUCENTIO:
It is: may it be done?
TRANIO:
Not possible; for who shall bear your part,
And be in Padua here Vincentio's son,
Keep house and ply his book, welcome his friends,
Visit his countrymen and banquet them?
LUCENTIO:
Basta; content thee, for I have it full.
We have not yet been seen in any house,
Nor can we lie distinguish'd by our faces
For man or master; then it follows thus;
Thou shalt be master, Tranio, in my stead,
Keep house and port and servants as I should:
I will some other be, some Florentine,
Some Neapolitan, or meaner man of Pisa.
'Tis hatch'd and shall be so: Tranio, at once
Uncase thee; take my colour'd hat and cloak:
When Biondello comes, he waits on thee;
But I will charm him first to keep his tongue.
TRANIO:
So had you need.
In brief, sir, sith it your pleasure is,
And I am tied to be obedient;
For so your father charged me at our parting,
'Be serviceable to my son,' quoth he,
Although I think 'twas in another sense;
I am content to be Lucentio,
Because so well I love Lucentio.
LUCENTIO:
Tranio, be so, because Lucentio loves:
And let me be a slave, to achieve that maid
Whose sudden sight hath thrall'd my wounded eye.
Here comes the rogue.
Sirrah, where have you been?
BIONDELLO:
Where have I been! Nay, how now! where are you?
Master, has my fellow Tranio stolen your clothes? Or
you stolen his? or both? pray, what's the news?
LUCENTIO:
Sirrah, come hither: 'tis no time to jest,
And therefore frame your manners to the time.
Your fellow Tranio here, to save my life,
Puts my apparel and my countenance on,
And I for my escape have put on his;
For in a quarrel since I came ashore
I kill'd a man and fear I was descried:
Wait you on him, I charge you, as becomes,
While I make way from hence to save my life:
You understand me?
BIONDELLO:
I, sir! ne'er a whit.
LUCENTIO:
And not a jot of Tranio in your mouth:
Tranio is changed into Lucentio.
BIONDELLO:
The better for him: would I were so too!
TRANIO:
So could I, faith, boy, to have the next wish after,
That Lucentio indeed had Baptista's youngest daughter.
But, sirrah, not for my sake, but your master's, I advise
You use your manners discreetly in all kind of companies:
When I am alone, why, then I am Tranio;
But in all places else your master Lucentio.
LUCENTIO:
Tranio, let's go: one thing more rests, that |
thyself execute, to make one among these wooers: if
thou ask me why, sufficeth, my reasons are both good
and weighty.
First Servant:
My lord, you nod; you do not mind the play.
SLY:
Yes, by Saint Anne, do I. A good matter, surely:
comes there any more of it?
Page:
My lord, 'tis but begun.
SLY:
'Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady:
would 'twere done!
PETRUCHIO:
Verona, for a while I take my leave,
To see my friends in Padua, but of all
My best beloved and approved friend,
Hortensio; and I trow this is his house.
Here, sirrah Grumio; knock, I say.
GRUMIO:
Knock, sir! whom should I knock? is there man has
rebused your worship?
PETRUCHIO:
Villain, I say, knock me here soundly.
GRUMIO:
Knock you here, sir! why, sir, what am I, sir, that
I should knock you here, sir?
PETRUCHIO:
Villain, I say, knock me at this gate
And rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's pate.
GRUMIO:
My master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock
you first,
And then I know after who comes by the worst.
PETRUCHIO:
Will it not be?
Faith, sirrah, an you'll not knock, I'll ring it;
I'll try how you can sol, fa, and sing it.
GRUMIO:
Help, masters, help! my master is mad.
PETRUCHIO:
Now, knock when I bid you, sirrah villain!
HORTENSIO:
How now! what's the matter? My old friend Grumio!
and my good friend Petruchio! How do you all at Verona?
PETRUCHIO:
Signior Hortensio, come you to part the fray?
'Con tutto il cuore, ben trovato,' may I say.
HORTENSIO:
'Alla nostra casa ben venuto, molto honorato signor
mio Petruchio.' Rise, Grumio, rise: we will compound
this quarrel.
GRUMIO:
Nay, 'tis no matter, sir, what he 'leges in Latin.
if this be not a lawful case for me to leave his
service, look you, sir, he bid me knock him and rap
him soundly, sir: well, was it fit for a servant to
use his master so, being perhaps, for aught I see,
two and thirty, a pip out? Whom would to God I had
well knock'd at first, Then had not Grumio come by the worst.
PETRUCHIO:
A senseless villain! Good Hortensio,
I bade the rascal knock upon your gate
And could not get him for my heart to do it.
GRUMIO:
Knock at the gate! O heavens! Spake you not these
words plain, 'Sirrah, knock me here, rap me here,
knock me well, and knock me soundly'? And come you
now with, 'knocking at the gate'?
PETRUCHIO:
Sirrah, be gone, or talk not, I advise you.
HORTENSIO:
Petruchio, patience; I am Grumio's pledge:
Why, this's a heavy chance 'twixt him and you,
Your ancient, trusty, pleasant servant Grumio.
And tell me now, sweet friend, what happy gale
Blows you to Padua here from old Verona?
PETRUCHIO:
Such wind as scatters young men through the world,
To seek their fortunes farther than at home
Where small experience grows. |
But in a few,
Signior Hortensio, thus it stands with me:
Antonio, my father, is deceased;
And I have thrust myself into this maze,
Haply to wive and thrive as best I may:
Crowns in my purse I have and goods at home,
And so am come abroad to see the world.
But in a few,
Signior Hortensio, thus it stands with me:
Antonio, my father, is deceased;
And I have thrust myself into this maze,
Haply to wive and thrive as best I may:
Crowns in my purse I have and goods at home,
HORTENSIO:
Petruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee
And wish thee to a shrewd ill-favour'd wife?
Thou'ldst thank me but a little for my counsel:
And yet I'll promise thee she shall be rich
And very rich: but thou'rt too much my friend,
And I'll not wish thee to her.
PETRUCHIO:
Signior Hortensio, 'twixt such friends as we
Few words suffice; and therefore, if thou know
One rich enough to be Petruchio's wife,
As wealth is burden of my wooing dance,
Be she as foul as was Florentius' love,
As old as Sibyl and as curst and shrewd
As Socrates' Xanthippe, or a worse,
She moves me not, or not removes, at least,
Affection's edge in me, were she as rough
As are the swelling Adriatic seas:
I come to wive it wealthily in Padua;
If wealthily, then happily in Padua.
GRUMIO:
Nay, look you, sir, he tells you flatly what his
mind is: Why give him gold enough and marry him to
a puppet or an aglet-baby; or an old trot with ne'er
a tooth in her head, though she have as many diseases
as two and fifty horses: why, nothing comes amiss,
so money comes withal.
HORTENSIO:
Petruchio, since we are stepp'd thus far in,
I will continue that I broach'd in jest.
I can, Petruchio, help thee to a wife
With wealth enough and young and beauteous,
Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman:
Her only fault, and that is faults enough,
Is that she is intolerable curst
And shrewd and froward, so beyond all measure
That, were my state far worser than it is,
I would not wed her for a mine of gold.
PETRUCHIO:
Hortensio, peace! thou know'st not gold's effect:
Tell me her father's name and 'tis enough;
For I will board her, though she chide as loud
As thunder when the clouds in autumn crack.
HORTENSIO:
Her father is Baptista Minola,
An affable and courteous gentleman:
Her name is Katharina Minola,
Renown'd in Padua for her scolding tongue.
PETRUCHIO:
I know her father, though I know not her;
And he knew my deceased father well.
I will not sleep, Hortensio, till I see her;
And therefore let me be thus bold with you
To give you over at this first encounter,
Unless you will accompany me thither.
GRUMIO:
I pray you, sir, let him go while the humour lasts.
O' my word, an she knew him as well as I do, she
would think scolding would do little good upon him:
she may perhaps call him half a score knaves or so:
why, that's nothing; an he begin once, he'll rail in
his rope-tricks. |
I'll tell you what sir, an she
stand him but a little, he will throw a figure in
her face and so disfigure her with it that she
shall have no more eyes to see withal than a cat.
You know him not, sir.
HORTENSIO:
Tarry, Petruchio, I must go with thee,
For in Baptista's keep my treasure is:
He hath the jewel of my life in hold,
I'll tell you what sir, an she
stand him but a little, he will throw a figure in
her face and so disfigure her with it that she
shall have no more eyes to see withal than a cat.
You know him not, sir.
HORTENSIO:
Tarry, Petruchio, I must go with thee,
For in Baptista's keep my treasure is:
His youngest daughter, beautiful Binaca,
And her withholds from me and other more,
Suitors to her and rivals in my love,
Supposing it a thing impossible,
For those defects I have before rehearsed,
That ever Katharina will be woo'd;
Therefore this order hath Baptista ta'en,
That none shall have access unto Bianca
Till Katharina the curst have got a husband.
GRUMIO:
Katharina the curst!
A title for a maid of all titles the worst.
HORTENSIO:
Now shall my friend Petruchio do me grace,
And offer me disguised in sober robes
To old Baptista as a schoolmaster
Well seen in music, to instruct Bianca;
That so I may, by this device, at least
Have leave and leisure to make love to her
And unsuspected court her by herself.
GRUMIO:
Here's no knavery! See, to beguile the old folks,
how the young folks lay their heads together!
Master, master, look about you: who goes there, ha?
HORTENSIO:
Peace, Grumio! it is the rival of my love.
Petruchio, stand by a while.
GRUMIO:
A proper stripling and an amorous!
GREMIO:
O, very well; I have perused the note.
Hark you, sir: I'll have them very fairly bound:
All books of love, see that at any hand;
And see you read no other lectures to her:
You understand me: over and beside
Signior Baptista's liberality,
I'll mend it with a largess. Take your paper too,
And let me have them very well perfumed
For she is sweeter than perfume itself
To whom they go to. |
What will you read to her?
LUCENTIO:
Whate'er I read to her, I'll plead for you
As for my patron, stand you so assured,
As firmly as yourself were still in place:
Yea, and perhaps with more successful words
Than you, unless you were a scholar, sir.
GREMIO:
O this learning, what a thing it is!
GRUMIO:
O this woodcock, what an ass it is!
PETRUCHIO:
Peace, sirrah!
HORTENSIO:
Grumio, mum! God save you, Signior Gremio.
GREMIO:
And you are well met, Signior Hortensio.
Trow you whither I am going? To Baptista Minola.
I promised to inquire carefully
About a schoolmaster for the fair Bianca:
And by good fortune I have lighted well
On this young man, for learning and behavior
Fit for her turn, well read in poetry
And other books, good ones, I warrant ye.
HORTENSIO:
'Tis well; and I have met a gentleman
Hath promised me to help me to another,
A fine musician to instruct our mistress;
So shall I no whit be behind in duty
To fair Bianca, so beloved of me.
GREMIO:
Beloved of me; and that my deeds shall prove.
GRUMIO:
And that his bags shall prove.
HORTENSIO:
Gremio, 'tis now no time to vent our love:
Listen to me, and if you speak me fair,
What will you read to her?
LUCENTIO:
Whate'er I read to her, I'll plead for you
As for my patron, stand you so assured,
As firmly as yourself were still in place:
Yea, and perhaps with more successful words
Than you, unless you were a scholar, sir.
GREMIO:
O this learning, what a thing it is!
GRUMIO:
O this woodcock, what an ass it is!
PETRUCHIO:
Peace, sirrah!
HORTENSIO:
Grumio, mum! God save you, Signior Gremio.
GREMIO:
And you are well met, Signior Hortensio.
Trow you whither I am going? To Baptista Minola.
I promised to inquire carefully
About a schoolmaster for the fair Bianca:
And by good fortune I have lighted well
On this young man, for learning and behavior
Fit for her turn, well read in poetry
And other books, good ones, I warrant ye.
HORTENSIO:
'Tis well; and I have met a gentleman
Hath promised me to help me to another,
A fine musician to instruct our mistress;
So shall I no whit be behind in duty
To fair Bianca, so beloved of me.
GREMIO:
Beloved of me; and that my deeds shall prove.
GRUMIO:
And that his bags shall prove.
HORTENSIO:
Gremio, 'tis now no time to vent our love:
I'll tell you news indifferent good for either.
Here is a gentleman whom by chance I met,
Upon agreement from us to his liking,
Will undertake to woo curst Katharina,
Yea, and to marry her, if her dowry please.
GREMIO:
So said, so done, is well.
Hortensio, have you told him all her faults?
PETRUCHIO:
I know she is an irksome brawling scold:
If that be all, masters, I hear no harm.
GREMIO:
No, say'st me so, friend? What countryman?
PETRUCHIO:
Born in Verona, old Antonio's son:
My father dead, my fortune lives for me;
And I do hope good days and long to see.
GREMIO:
O sir, such a life, with such a wife, were strange!
But if you have a stomach, to't i' God's name:
You shall have me assisting you in all. |
But will you woo this wild-cat?
PETRUCHIO:
Will I live?
GRUMIO:
Will he woo her? ay, or I'll hang her.
PETRUCHIO:
Why came I hither but to that intent?
Think you a little din can daunt mine ears?
Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea puff'd up with winds
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in a pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets' clang?
And do you tell me of a woman's tongue,
That gives not half so great a blow to hear
As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire?
Tush, tush! fear boys with bugs.
GRUMIO:
For he fears none.
GREMIO:
Hortensio, hark:
This gentleman is happily arrived,
My mind presumes, for his own good and ours.
HORTENSIO:
I promised we would be contributors
And bear his charging of wooing, whatsoe'er.
GREMIO:
And so we will, provided that he win her.
GRUMIO:
I would I were as sure of a good dinner.
TRANIO:
Gentlemen, God save you. If I may be bold,
Tell me, I beseech you, which is the readiest way
To the house of Signior Baptista Minola?
BIONDELLO:
He that has the two fair daughters: is't he you mean?
TRANIO:
Even he, Biondello.
GREMIO:
Hark you, sir; you mean not her to--
TRANIO:
Perhaps, him and her, sir: what have you to do?
PETRUCHIO:
Not her that chides, sir, at any hand, I pray.
TRANIO:
I love no chiders, sir. |
Biondello, let's away.
LUCENTIO:
Well begun, Tranio.
HORTENSIO:
Sir, a word ere you go;
Are you a suitor to the maid you talk of, yea or no?
TRANIO:
And if I be, sir, is it any offence?
GREMIO:
No; if without more words you will get you hence.
TRANIO:
Why, sir, I pray, are not the streets as free
For me as for you?
GREMIO:
But so is not she.
TRANIO:
For what reason, I beseech you?
GREMIO:
For this reason, if you'll know,
That she's the choice love of Signior Gremio.
HORTENSIO:
That she's the chosen of Signior Hortensio.
TRANIO:
Softly, my masters! if you be gentlemen,
Do me this right; hear me with patience.
Baptista is a noble gentleman,
To whom my father is not all unknown;
And were his daughter fairer than she is,
She may more suitors have and me for one.
Fair Leda's daughter had a thousand wooers;
Then well one more may fair Bianca have:
And so she shall; Lucentio shall make one,
Though Paris came in hope to speed alone.
GREMIO:
What! this gentleman will out-talk us all.
LUCENTIO:
Sir, give him head: I know he'll prove a jade.
PETRUCHIO:
Hortensio, to what end are all these words?
HORTENSIO:
Sir, let me be so bold as ask you,
Did you yet ever see Baptista's daughter?
TRANIO:
No, sir; but hear I do that he hath two,
The one as famous for a scolding tongue
As is the other for beauteous modesty.
PETRUCHIO:
Sir, sir, the first's for me; let her go by.
GREMIO: |
Biondello, let's away.
LUCENTIO:
Well begun, Tranio.
HORTENSIO:
Sir, a word ere you go;
Are you a suitor to the maid you talk of, yea or no?
TRANIO:
And if I be, sir, is it any offence?
GREMIO:
No; if without more words you will get you hence.
TRANIO:
Why, sir, I pray, are not the streets as free
For me as for you?
GREMIO:
But so is not she.
TRANIO:
For what reason, I beseech you?
GREMIO:
For this reason, if you'll know,
That she's the choice love of Signior Gremio.
HORTENSIO:
That she's the chosen of Signior Hortensio.
TRANIO:
Softly, my masters! if you be gentlemen,
Do me this right; hear me with patience.
Baptista is a noble gentleman,
To whom my father is not all unknown;
And were his daughter fairer than she is,
She may more suitors have and me for one.
Fair Leda's daughter had a thousand wooers;
Then well one more may fair Bianca have:
And so she shall; Lucentio shall make one,
Though Paris came in hope to speed alone.
GREMIO:
What! this gentleman will out-talk us all.
LUCENTIO:
Sir, give him head: I know he'll prove a jade.
PETRUCHIO:
Hortensio, to what end are all these words?
HORTENSIO:
Sir, let me be so bold as ask you,
Did you yet ever see Baptista's daughter?
TRANIO:
No, sir; but hear I do that he hath two,
The one as famous for a scolding tongue
As is the other for beauteous modesty.
PETRUCHIO:
Sir, sir, the first's for me; let her go by.
Yea, leave that labour to great Hercules;
And let it be more than Alcides' twelve.
PETRUCHIO:
Sir, understand you this of me in sooth:
The youngest daughter whom you hearken for
Her father keeps from all access of suitors,
And will not promise her to any man
Until the elder sister first be wed:
The younger then is free and not before.
TRANIO:
If it be so, sir, that you are the man
Must stead us all and me amongst the rest,
And if you break the ice and do this feat,
Achieve the elder, set the younger free
For our access, whose hap shall be to have her
Will not so graceless be to be ingrate.
HORTENSIO:
Sir, you say well and well you do conceive;
And since you do profess to be a suitor,
You must, as we do, gratify this gentleman,
To whom we all rest generally beholding.
TRANIO:
Sir, I shall not be slack: in sign whereof,
Please ye we may contrive this afternoon,
And quaff carouses to our mistress' health,
And do as adversaries do in law,
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
GRUMIO:
O excellent motion! Fellows, let's be gone.
HORTENSIO:
The motion's good indeed and be it so,
Petruchio, I shall be your ben venuto.
BIANCA:
Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself,
To make a bondmaid and a slave of me;
That I disdain: but for these other gawds,
Unbind my hands, I'll pull them off myself,
Yea, all my raiment, to my petticoat;
Or what you will command me will I do,
So well I know my duty to my elders.
KATHARINA:
Of all thy suitors, here I charge thee, tell
Whom thou lovest best: see thou dissemble not.
BIANCA:
Believe me, sister, of all the men alive
I never yet beheld that special face |
Which I could fancy more than any other.
KATHARINA:
Minion, thou liest. Is't not Hortensio?
BIANCA:
If you affect him, sister, here I swear
I'll plead for you myself, but you shall have
him.
KATHARINA:
O then, belike, you fancy riches more:
You will have Gremio to keep you fair.
BIANCA:
Is it for him you do envy me so?
Nay then you jest, and now I well perceive
You have but jested with me all this while:
I prithee, sister Kate, untie my hands.
KATHARINA:
If that be jest, then all the rest was so.
BAPTISTA:
Why, how now, dame! whence grows this insolence?
Bianca, stand aside. Poor girl! she weeps.
Go ply thy needle; meddle not with her.
For shame, thou helding of a devilish spirit,
Why dost thou wrong her that did ne'er wrong thee?
When did she cross thee with a bitter word?
KATHARINA:
Her silence flouts me, and I'll be revenged.
BAPTISTA:
What, in my sight? Bianca, get thee in.
KATHARINA:
What, will you not suffer me? Nay, now I see
She is your treasure, she must have a husband;
I must dance bare-foot on her wedding day
And for your love to her lead apes in hell.
Talk not to me: I will go sit and weep
Till I can find occasion of revenge.
BAPTISTA:
Was ever gentleman thus grieved as I?
But who comes here?
GREMIO:
Good morrow, neighbour Baptista.
BAPTISTA:
Good morrow, neighbour Gremio.
God save you, gentlemen!
PETRUCHIO:
And you, good sir! Pray, have you not a daughter
Call'd Katharina, fair and virtuous?
BAPTISTA:
I have a daughter, sir, called Katharina.
GREMIO:
You are too blunt: go to it orderly.
PETRUCHIO:
You wrong me, Signior Gremio: give me leave.
I am a gentleman of Verona, sir,
That, hearing of her beauty and her wit,
Her affability and bashful modesty,
Her wondrous qualities and mild behavior,
Am bold to show myself a forward guest
Within your house, to make mine eye the witness
Of that report which I so oft have heard.
And, for an entrance to my entertainment,
I do present you with a man of mine,
Cunning in music and the mathematics,
To instruct her fully in those sciences,
Whereof I know she is not ignorant:
Accept of him, or else you do me wrong:
His name is Licio, born in Mantua.
BAPTISTA:
You're welcome, sir; and he, for your good sake.
But for my daughter Katharina, this I know,
She is not for your turn, the more my grief.
PETRUCHIO:
I see you do not mean to part with her,
Or else you like not of my company.
BAPTISTA:
Mistake me not; I speak but as I find.
Whence are you, sir? what may I call your name?
PETRUCHIO:
Petruchio is my name; Antonio's son,
A man well known throughout all Italy.
BAPTISTA:
I know him well: you are welcome for his sake.
GREMIO:
Saving your tale, Petruchio, I pray,
Let us, that are poor petitioners, speak too:
Baccare! you are marvellous forward.
PETRUCHIO:
O, pardon me, Signior Gremio; I would fain be doing.
GREMIO:
I doubt it not, sir; but you will curse your
wooing. Neighbour, this is a gift very grateful, I am
sure of it. |
To express the like kindness, myself,
that have been more kindly beholding to you than
To express the like kindness, myself,
any, freely give unto you this young scholar,
that hath been long studying at Rheims; as cunning
in Greek, Latin, and other languages, as the other
in music and mathematics: his name is Cambio; pray,
accept his service.
BAPTISTA:
A thousand thanks, Signior Gremio.
Welcome, good Cambio.
But, gentle sir, methinks you walk like a stranger:
may I be so bold to know the cause of your coming?
TRANIO:
Pardon me, sir, the boldness is mine own,
That, being a stranger in this city here,
Do make myself a suitor to your daughter,
Unto Bianca, fair and virtuous.
Nor is your firm resolve unknown to me,
In the preferment of the eldest sister.
This liberty is all that I request,
That, upon knowledge of my parentage,
I may have welcome 'mongst the rest that woo
And free access and favour as the rest:
And, toward the education of your daughters,
I here bestow a simple instrument,
And this small packet of Greek and Latin books:
If you accept them, then their worth is great.
BAPTISTA:
Lucentio is your name; of whence, I pray?
TRANIO:
Of Pisa, sir; son to Vincentio.
BAPTISTA:
A mighty man of Pisa; by report
I know him well: you are very welcome, sir,
Take you the lute, and you the set of books;
You shall go see your pupils presently.
Holla, within!
Sirrah, lead these gentlemen
To my daughters; and tell them both,
These are their tutors: bid them use them well.
We will go walk a little in the orchard,
And then to dinner. |
You are passing welcome,
And so I pray you all to think yourselves.
PETRUCHIO:
Signior Baptista, my business asketh haste,
And every day I cannot come to woo.
You knew my father well, and in him me,
Left solely heir to all his lands and goods,
Which I have better'd rather than decreased:
Then tell me, if I get your daughter's love,
What dowry shall I have with her to wife?
BAPTISTA:
After my death the one half of my lands,
And in possession twenty thousand crowns.
PETRUCHIO:
And, for that dowry, I'll assure her of
Her widowhood, be it that she survive me,
In all my lands and leases whatsoever:
Let specialties be therefore drawn between us,
That covenants may be kept on either hand.
BAPTISTA:
Ay, when the special thing is well obtain'd,
That is, her love; for that is all in all.
PETRUCHIO:
Why, that is nothing: for I tell you, father,
I am as peremptory as she proud-minded;
And where two raging fires meet together
They do consume the thing that feeds their fury:
Though little fire grows great with little wind,
Yet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all:
So I to her and so she yields to me;
For I am rough and woo not like a babe.
BAPTISTA:
Well mayst thou woo, and happy be thy speed!
But be thou arm'd for some unhappy words.
PETRUCHIO:
Ay, to the proof; as mountains are for winds,
That shake not, though they blow perpetually.
BAPTISTA:
How now, my friend! why dost thou look so pale?
HORTENSIO:
For fear, I promise you, if I look pale.
BAPTISTA:
What, will my daughter prove a good musician?
HORTENSIO:
I think she'll sooner prove a soldier
Iron may hold with her, but never lutes.
BAPTISTA:
Why, then thou canst not break her to the lute?
HORTENSIO:
Why, no; for she hath broke the lute to me.
I did but tell her she mistook her frets, |
You are passing welcome,
And so I pray you all to think yourselves.
PETRUCHIO:
Signior Baptista, my business asketh haste,
And every day I cannot come to woo.
You knew my father well, and in him me,
Left solely heir to all his lands and goods,
Which I have better'd rather than decreased:
Then tell me, if I get your daughter's love,
What dowry shall I have with her to wife?
BAPTISTA:
After my death the one half of my lands,
And in possession twenty thousand crowns.
PETRUCHIO:
And, for that dowry, I'll assure her of
Her widowhood, be it that she survive me,
In all my lands and leases whatsoever:
Let specialties be therefore drawn between us,
That covenants may be kept on either hand.
BAPTISTA:
Ay, when the special thing is well obtain'd,
That is, her love; for that is all in all.
PETRUCHIO:
Why, that is nothing: for I tell you, father,
I am as peremptory as she proud-minded;
And where two raging fires meet together
They do consume the thing that feeds their fury:
Though little fire grows great with little wind,
Yet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all:
So I to her and so she yields to me;
For I am rough and woo not like a babe.
BAPTISTA:
Well mayst thou woo, and happy be thy speed!
But be thou arm'd for some unhappy words.
PETRUCHIO:
Ay, to the proof; as mountains are for winds,
That shake not, though they blow perpetually.
BAPTISTA:
How now, my friend! why dost thou look so pale?
HORTENSIO:
For fear, I promise you, if I look pale.
BAPTISTA:
What, will my daughter prove a good musician?
HORTENSIO:
I think she'll sooner prove a soldier
Iron may hold with her, but never lutes.
BAPTISTA:
Why, then thou canst not break her to the lute?
HORTENSIO:
Why, no; for she hath broke the lute to me.
And bow'd her hand to teach her fingering;
When, with a most impatient devilish spirit,
'Frets, call you these?' quoth she; 'I'll fume
with them:'
And, with that word, she struck me on the head,
And through the instrument my pate made way;
And there I stood amazed for a while,
As on a pillory, looking through the lute;
While she did call me rascal fiddler
And twangling Jack; with twenty such vile terms,
As had she studied to misuse me so.
PETRUCHIO:
Now, by the world, it is a lusty wench;
I love her ten times more than e'er I did:
O, how I long to have some chat with her!
BAPTISTA:
Well, go with me and be not so discomfited:
Proceed in practise with my younger daughter;
She's apt to learn and thankful for good turns.
Signior Petruchio, will you go with us,
Or shall I send my daughter Kate to you?
PETRUCHIO:
I pray you do.
I will attend her here,
And woo her with some spirit when she comes.
Say that she rail; why then I'll tell her plain
She sings as sweetly as a nightingale:
Say that she frown, I'll say she looks as clear
As morning roses newly wash'd with dew:
Say she be mute and will not speak a word;
Then I'll commend her volubility,
And say she uttereth piercing eloquence:
If she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks,
As though she bid me stay by her a week:
If she deny to wed, I'll crave the day
When I shall ask the banns and when be married.
But here she comes; and now, Petruchio, speak. |
Good morrow, Kate; for that's your name, I hear.
KATHARINA:
Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing:
They call me Katharina that do talk of me.
PETRUCHIO:
You lie, in faith; for you are call'd plain Kate,
And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst;
But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,
For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation;
Hearing thy mildness praised in every town,
Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,
Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,
Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.
KATHARINA:
Moved! in good time: let him that moved you hither
Remove you hence: I knew you at the first
You were a moveable.
PETRUCHIO:
Why, what's a moveable?
KATHARINA:
A join'd-stool.
PETRUCHIO:
Thou hast hit it: come, sit on me.
KATHARINA:
Asses are made to bear, and so are you.
PETRUCHIO:
Women are made to bear, and so are you.
KATHARINA:
No such jade as you, if me you mean.
PETRUCHIO:
Alas! good Kate, I will not burden thee;
For, knowing thee to be but young and light--
KATHARINA:
Too light for such a swain as you to catch;
And yet as heavy as my weight should be.
PETRUCHIO:
Should be! should--buzz!
KATHARINA:
Well ta'en, and like a buzzard.
PETRUCHIO:
O slow-wing'd turtle! shall a buzzard take thee?
KATHARINA:
Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.
PETRUCHIO:
Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.
KATHARINA:
If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
PETRUCHIO:
My remedy is then, to pluck it out.
KATHARINA:
Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies,
PETRUCHIO:
Who knows not where a wasp does
wear his sting? In his tail.
KATHARINA:
In his tongue.
PETRUCHIO:
Whose tongue?
KATHARINA:
Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell.
PETRUCHIO:
What, with my tongue in your tail? nay, come again,
Good Kate; I am a gentleman.
KATHARINA:
That I'll try.
PETRUCHIO:
I swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again.
KATHARINA:
So may you lose your arms:
If you strike me, you are no gentleman;
And if no gentleman, why then no arms.
PETRUCHIO:
A herald, Kate? O, put me in thy books!
KATHARINA:
What is your crest? a coxcomb?
PETRUCHIO:
A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.
KATHARINA:
No cock of mine; you crow too like a craven.
PETRUCHIO:
Nay, come, Kate, come; you must not look so sour.
KATHARINA:
It is my fashion, when I see a crab.
PETRUCHIO:
Why, here's no crab; and therefore look not sour.
KATHARINA:
There is, there is.
PETRUCHIO:
Then show it me.
KATHARINA:
Had I a glass, I would.
PETRUCHIO:
What, you mean my face?
KATHARINA: |
Well aim'd of such a young one.
PETRUCHIO:
Now, by Saint George, I am too young for you.
KATHARINA:
Yet you are wither'd.
PETRUCHIO:
'Tis with cares.
KATHARINA:
I care not.
PETRUCHIO:
Nay, hear you, Kate: in sooth you scape not so.
KATHARINA:
I chafe you, if I tarry: let me go.
PETRUCHIO:
No, not a whit: I find you passing gentle.
'Twas told me you were rough and coy and sullen,
And now I find report a very liar;
For thou are pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,
But slow in speech, yet sweet as spring-time flowers:
Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,
Nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will,
Nor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk,
But thou with mildness entertain'st thy wooers,
With gentle conference, soft and affable.
Why does the world report that Kate doth limp?
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig
Is straight and slender and as brown in hue
As hazel nuts and sweeter than the kernels.
O, let me see thee walk: thou dost not halt.
KATHARINA:
Go, fool, and whom thou keep'st command.
PETRUCHIO:
Did ever Dian so become a grove
As Kate this chamber with her princely gait?
O, be thou Dian, and let her be Kate;
And then let Kate be chaste and Dian sportful!
KATHARINA:
Where did you study all this goodly speech?
PETRUCHIO:
It is extempore, from my mother-wit.
KATHARINA:
A witty mother! witless else her son.
PETRUCHIO:
Am I not wise?
KATHARINA:
Yes; keep you warm.
PETRUCHIO:
Marry, so I mean, sweet Katharina, in thy bed:
And therefore, setting all this chat aside,
Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented
That you shall be my wife; your dowry 'greed on;
And, Will you, nill you, I will marry you.
Now, Kate, I am a husband for your turn;
For, by this light, whereby I see thy beauty,
Thy beauty, that doth make me like thee well,
Thou must be married to no man but me;
For I am he am born to tame you Kate,
And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate
Conformable as other household Kates.
Here comes your father: never make denial;
I must and will have Katharina to my wife.
BAPTISTA:
Now, Signior Petruchio, how speed you with my daughter?
PETRUCHIO:
How but well, sir? how but well?
It were impossible I should speed amiss.
BAPTISTA:
Why, how now, daughter Katharina! in your dumps?
KATHARINA:
Call you me daughter? now, I promise you
You have show'd a tender fatherly regard,
To wish me wed to one half lunatic;
A mad-cup ruffian and a swearing Jack,
That thinks with oaths to face the matter out.
PETRUCHIO:
Father, 'tis thus: yourself and all the world,
That talk'd of her, have talk'd amiss of her:
If she be curst, it is for policy,
For she's not froward, but modest as the dove;
She is not hot, but temperate as the morn;
For patience she will prove a second Grissel,
And Roman Lucrece for her chastity:
And to conclude, we have 'greed so well together,
That upon Sunday is the wedding-day.
KATHARINA:
I'll see thee hang'd on Sunday first.
GREMIO:
Hark, Petruchio; she says she'll see thee
hang'd first. |