Measure for Measure - William Shakespeare (best book clubs txt) 📗

Angelo so leave her?

DUKE.
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, bestow'd 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.
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.
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.
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 despatch with Angelo, that it may be quickly.

ISABELLA.
I thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father.

[Exeunt severally.]


Scene II. The Street before the Prison.

[Enter DUKE, as a Friar; to him, ELBOW, CLOWN and Officers.]

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.
O heavens! what stuff is here?

CLOWN.
'Twas never merry world since, of two usuries, the merriest was
put down, and the worser allowed by order of law a furred gown
to keep him warm; and furred with fox on 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.
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.
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.

CLOWN.
Indeed, it does stink in some sort, sir; but yet, sir, I would
prove -

DUKE.
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 whoremaster,
and comes before him, he were as good go a mile on his errand.

DUKE.
That we were all, as some would seem to be,
Free from our faults, as faults from seeming free!

ELBOW.
His neck will come to your waist, a cord, sir.

CLOWN.
I spy comfort; I cry bail! Here's a gentleman, and a friend of
mine.

[Enter LUCIO.]

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 clutched? What reply, ha? What say'st thou to
this tune, matter, and method? Is't not drowned i' the last rain,
ha? What say'st thou to't? Is the world as it was, man? Which
is the way? Is it sad, and few words? or how? The trick of it?

DUKE.
Still thus, and thus! still worse!

LUCIO.
How doth my dear morsel, thy mistress? Procures she still, ha?

CLOWN.
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?

CLOWN.
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.

CLOWN.
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.
And you.

LUCIO.
Does Bridget paint still, Pompey, ha?

ELBOW.
Come your ways, sir; come.

CLOWN.
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:

[Exeunt ELBOW, CLOWN, and Officers.]

What news, friar, of the duke?

DUKE.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 ungenerative; that's infallible.

DUKE.
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.
I never heard the absent duke much detected for women; he was not
inclined that way.

LUCIO.
O, sir, you are deceived.

DUKE.
'Tis not possible.

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.
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.
What, I pr'ythee, 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.
Wise? why, no question but he was.

LUCIO.
A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.

DUKE.
Either this is 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.
Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer love.


LUCIO.
Come, sir, I know what I know.

DUKE.
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.
He shall know you better, sir, if I may live to report you.

LUCIO.
I fear you not.

DUKE.
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.
Why should he die, sir?

LUCIO.
Why? for filling a bottle with a tun-dish. I would the duke we
talk of were returned again: this 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 pr'ythee pray
for me. The duke, I say