MARI. Good Friar, I know you do; and I have found it. I shall attend1 your leisure. But make haste: The vaporous night approaches. MARI. Will 't please you walk aside? [Exeunt MARIANA and ISABELLA. DUKE. O Place and Greatness, millions of false eyes Are stuck upon thee! Volumes of report Make thee the father of their idle dreams, And rack thee in their fancies !— Re-enter MARIANA and ISABELLA. 61 Welcome! How agreed? ISAB. She'll take the enterprise upon her, Father, DUKE. Nor, gentle Daughter, fear you not at all. He is your husband on a pre-contract: To bring you thus together, 'tis no sin, ACT IV PROV. Come hither, sirrah! Can you cut off a man's head? CLO. 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. Sc. II ACT IV PROVv. 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. 14 CLO. Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd, time out of Enter ABHORSON. 20 ABHOR. Do you call, Sir? ABHOR. A bawd, Sir? Fie upon him! He will discredit 28 PROV. Go to, Sir: you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale. [exit. CLO. Pray, Sir, by your good favour (for surely, Sir, a good favour1 you have, but that you have a hanging look), do you call, Sir, your occupation a mystery? ABHOR. Ay, Sir; a mystery. CLO. 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 hang'd I cannot imagine. ABHOR. Sir, it is a mystery. CLO. Proof. ABHOR. Every true man's apparel fits your thief. 40 CLO. If it be too little for your thief, your true man thinks 1 countenance. it big enough; if it be too big for your thief, your thief ACT IV thinks it little enough. So every true man's apparel Sc. II fits your thief. Re-enter Provost. PROV. Are you agreed? CLO. Sir, I will serve him; for I do find your hangman is a more penitent trade than your bawd: he doth oftener ask forgiveness. 50 PROV. You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe to-morrow four o'clock. ABHOR. Come on, Bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow. CLO. 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.1 For, truly, Sir, for your kindness I owe you a good turn. PROV. Call hither Barnardine and Claudio. [Exeunt Clown and ABHORSON. The one has my pity; not a jot the other, Being a murderer, though he were my brother. Enter CLAUDIO. Look, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death: He will not wake. PROV. Who can do good on him? Well, go, prepare yourself. But hark, what noise? 60 [Knocking within. Heaven give your spirits comfort! [Exit CLAUDIO.] By-and-by!— I hope it is some pardon or reprieve For the most gentle Claudio.-Welcome, Father. Enter DUKE. DUKE. The best and wholesomest Spirits of the night 70 Envelope you, good Provost! Who call'd here of late? PROV. None, since the curfew rung. 1 ready. PROV. It is a bitter Deputy. DUKE. 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 power To qualify1 in others. Were he meal'd2 80 [Knocking within. Provost goes out. This is a gentle Provost! Seldom-when3 The steeled gaoler is the friend of men. How now? What noise? That spirit's possess'd with haste, That wounds the unsisting1 postern with these strokes. Enter Provost (speaking to one at the door). PROV. There he must stay until the Officer Arise to let him in: he is call'd up. DUKE. Have you no countermand for Claudio yet, PROV. None, Sir, none. DUKE. As near the dawning, Provost, as it is, You shall hear more ere morning. PROV. 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 90 Profess'd the contrary. [Enter a Messenger.] This is his Lordship's man. DUKE. And here comes Claudio's pardon. 3 rarely. 4 (?). 5 haply. 6 seat. PROV. I shall obey him. [Exit Messenger. ACT IV DUKE. This is his pardon; purchas'd by such sin For which the pardoner himself is in. Hence hath offence his quick celerity, When vice makes mercy, mercy's so extended ΙΙΟ PROV. I told you: Lord Angelo, belike thinking me remiss in mine office, awakens me with this unwonted putting-on:1 methinks strangely, for he hath not used it before. DUKE. Pray you, let's hear. 117 PROV. [reads.] Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let Claudio be executed by four of the clock; and, in the afternoon, Barnardine: for my better satisfaction, let me have Claudio's head sent me by five. Let this be duly perform'd; with a thought that more depends on it than we must yet deliver. Thus fail not to do your office, as you will answer it at your peril. What say you to this, Sir? DUKE. What is that Barnardine, who is to be executed in the afternoon? 129 PROV. A Bohemian born, but here nurs'd up and bred: PROV. His friends still wrought reprieves for him; and, DUKE. Is it now apparent? PROV. Most manifest, and not denied by himself. DUKE. Hath he borne himself penitently in prison? How seems he to be touch'd? 139 PROV. 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.2 DUKE. He wants advice. 1 incentive. 2 heedless of death, howbeit hopeless of life. |