"T is that he sent me of the duke's return: And shall be absent. Wend you with this letter: 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 tomorrow. By my troth, Isabel, I loved thy brother: if the old fantastical duke of dark corners had been at home, he had lived. [Exit ISABELLA. DUKE. Sir, the duke is marvellous little beholden 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 woodmana than thou takest him for. DUKE. Well, you'll answer this one day. LUCIO. Nay, tarry; I'll go along with thee: I can tell thee pretty tales of the duke. Fare ye well. DUKE. 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. LUCIO. Yes, marry, did I; but I was fain to forswear it; they would else have married me to the rotten medlar. DUKE. 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. [Exeunt. SCENE IV-A Room in Angelo's House. Enter ANGELO and ESCALUS. ESCAL. Every letter he hath writ hath disvouched other. Woodman-] A cant term for a wencher. much like to madness: pray heaven his wisdom be not tainted! And why meet him at the gates, and re-deliver our authorities there? ESCAL. I guess not. ANG. 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? ESCAL. 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. ANG. Well, I beseech you, let it be proclaim'd: 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. ESCAL. ANG. Good night. I shall, sir: fare you well. This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant,b And by an eminent body that enforc'd The law against it!-But that her tender shame Will not proclaim against her maiden loss, [Exit ESCALUS. How might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her no;c That no particular scandal once can touch, But it confounds the breather. He should have liv'd, With ransom of such shame. Would yet he had liv'd! SCENE V.-An open Place without the City. Enter DUKE, in his own habit, and FRIAR PETER. DUKE. These letters at fit time deliver me: The provost knows our purpose and our plot. a Re-deliver-] The first folio has reliver; the second, deliver. Unpregnant,-] Inapt, unable. [Exit. [Giving letters. e Yet reason dares her no;] The meaning seems to be, reason overawes, or frights her not to impeach me. d For my authority rears of a credent bulk-] The old copies have, "For my authority beares of a credent bulke," &c. which is plainly wrong. In modern editions the reading is, The matter being afoot, keep your instruction Though sometimes you do blench from this to that, F. PETER. It shall be speeded well. [Exit F. PETER. Enter VARRIUS. DUKE. I thank thee, Varrius; thou hast made good haste : Come, we will walk. There's other of our friends Will greet us here anon, my gentle Varrius. SCENE VI.-Street near the City Gate. Enter ISABELLA and MARIANA. ISAB. To speak so indirectly I am loth: MARI. Be rul'd by him. I should not think it strange; for 't is a physic, MARI. I would friar Peter- O, peace! the friar is come. [Exeunt. Enter FRIAR PETER. F. PETER. Come, I have found you out a stand most fit, He shall not pass you. Twice have the trumpets sounded: Have hent the gates, and very near upon The duke is ent'ring: therefore, hence, away! (*) Old text, Flavia's. [Exeunt. (†) Old text, Valencius. To veil full purpose.] Theobald, whose lection has been generally adopted, reads,— "to 'vailful purpose." b Generous- In the Latin sense, as in "Othello," Act III. Sc. 3, "the generous islanders," &c. Hent- From the Saxon hentan, to take, catch, or lay hold of. ACT V. SCENE I-A public Place near the City Gate. MARIANA (veiled), ISABELLA, and FRIAR PETER, at a distance. Enter from one side, DUKE, VARRIUS, Lords; from the other, ANGELO, ESCALUS, LUCIO, Provost, Officers, and Citizens. DUKE. My very worthy cousin, fairly met: Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you. ANG. and ESCAL. Happy return be to your royal grace! DUKE. Many and hearty thankings to you both. ANG. You make my bonds still greater. FRIAR PETER and ISABELLA come forward. F. PETER. Now is your time: speak loud, and kneel before him. ISAB. Justice, O royal duke! Vail your regard Upon a wronged, 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. Relate your wrongs: in what? by whom? be brief. Here is lord Angelo shall give you justice: Reveal yourself to him. ISAB. 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 believ'd, Or wring redress from you: hear me, O, hear me, here! ANG. 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, ISAB. That Angelo's a murderer, is 't not strange? That Angelo is an adulterous thief, An hypocrite, a virgin-violator, Nay, it is ten times strange. ISAB. It is not truer he is Angelo, Than this is all as true as it is strange: DUKE. Away with her!-Poor soul, She speaks this in the infirmity of sense. ISAB. O prince, I conjure thee, as thou believ'st 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: 't is 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, Harp not on that; nor do not banish reason To make the truth appear where it seems hid, DUKE. Many that are not mad, Have, sure, more lack of reason.—What would you say? ISAB. 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: As e'er-] We agree in thinking with Malone that Shakespeare wrote:→→→ "As ne'er I heard in madness." VOL. III. R |