This page is referenced by:

• 1 2016-11-13T12:20:48-08:00 Act I 10 Measure for Measure Act I plain 2016-11-29T17:55:36-08:00 Scene 1 Enter Duke, Escalus, Lords, and Attendants.
   
  DUKE  Escalus.
  ESCALUS  My lord.
  DUKE
  Of government the properties to unfold
  Would seem in me t’ affect speech and discourse,
  Since I am put to know that your own science                                       5
  Exceeds, in that, the lists of all advice
  My strength can give you. Then no more remains
  But that, to your sufficiency, as your worth is able,
  And let them work. The nature of our people,
  Our city’s institutions, and the terms                                                     10
  For common justice, you’re as pregnant in
  As art and practice hath enrichèd any
  That we remember. There is our commission,
  He hands Escalus a paper.
  From which we would not have you warp.—Call
  hither,                                                                                                       15
  I say, bid come before us Angelo.
  An Attendant exits.
  What figure of us think you he will bear?
  For you must know, we have with special soul
  Elected him our absence to supply,
  Lent him our terror, dressed him with our love,                                  20
  And given his deputation all the organs
  Of our own power. What think you of it?
  ESCALUS
  If any in Vienna be of worth
  To undergo such ample grace and honor,
  It is Lord Angelo.                                                                                      25
   
  Enter Angelo.
   
  DUKE  Look where he comes.
  ANGELO
  Always obedient to your Grace’s will,
  I come to know your pleasure.
  DUKE  Angelo,
  There is a kind of character in thy life                                                  30
  That to th’ observer doth thy history
  Fully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings
  Are not thine own so proper as to waste
  Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.
  Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,                                        35
  Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues
  Did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike
  As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched
  But to fine issues, nor nature never lends
  The smallest scruple of her excellence                                                  40
  But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
  Herself the glory of a creditor,
  Both thanks and use. But I do bend my speech
  To one that can my part in him advertise.
  Hold, therefore, Angelo.                                                                          45
  In our remove be thou at full ourself.
  Mortality and mercy in Vienna
  Live in thy tongue and heart. Old Escalus,
  Though first in question, is thy secondary.
  Take thy commission.                              He hands Angelo a paper.  50
  ANGELO  Now, good my lord,
  Let there be some more test made of my mettle
  Before so noble and so great a figure
  Be stamped upon it.
  DUKE  No more evasion.                                                                            55
  We have with a leavened and preparèd choice
  Proceeded to you. Therefore, take your honors.
  Our haste from hence is of so quick condition
  That it prefers itself and leaves unquestioned
  Matters of needful value. We shall write to you,                                60
  As time and our concernings shall importune,
  How it goes with us, and do look to know
  What doth befall you here. So fare you well.
  To th’ hopeful execution do I leave you
  Of your commissions.                                                                              65
  ANGELO  Yet give leave, my lord,
  That we may bring you something on the way.
  DUKE  My haste may not admit it.
  Nor need you, on mine honor, have to do
  With any scruple. Your scope is as mine own,                                    70
  So to enforce or qualify the laws
  As to your soul seems good. Give me your hand.
  I’ll privily away. I love the people,
  But do not like to stage me to their eyes.
  Though it do well, I do not relish well                                                  75
  Their loud applause and aves vehement,
  Nor do I think the man of safe discretion
  That does affect it. Once more, fare you well.
  ANGELO
  The heavens give safety to your purposes.
  ESCALUS
  Lead forth and bring you back in happiness.                                       80
  DUKE  I thank you. Fare you well.                                                He exits.
  ESCALUS, to Angelo
  I shall desire you, sir, to give me leave
  To have free speech with you; and it concerns me
  To look into the bottom of my place.
  A power I have, but of what strength and nature                                85
  I am not yet instructed.
  ANGELO
  ’Tis so with me. Let us withdraw together,
  And we may soon our satisfaction have
  Touching that point.
  ESCALUS  I’ll wait upon your Honor.                                                     90
  They exit.
   
  Scene 2
  Enter Lucio and two other Gentlemen.
   
  LUCIO  If the Duke, with the other dukes, come not to
  composition with the King of Hungary, why then all
  the dukes fall upon the King.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN  Heaven grant us its peace, but not
  the King of Hungary’s!                                                                           5
  SECOND GENTLEMAN  Amen.
  LUCIO  Thou conclud’st like the sanctimonious pirate
  that went to sea with the ten commandments but
  scraped one out of the table.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN  “Thou shalt not steal”?                                 10
  LUCIO  Ay, that he razed.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN  Why, ’twas a commandment to command
  the Captain and all the rest from their functions!
  They put forth to steal. There’s not a soldier of
  us all that in the thanksgiving before meat do relish                       15
  the petition well that prays for peace.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN  I never heard any soldier dislike it.
  LUCIO  I believe thee, for I think thou never wast where
  grace was said.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN  No? A dozen times at least.                         20
  FIRST GENTLEMAN  What? In meter?
  LUCIO  In any proportion or in any language.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN  I think, or in any religion.
  LUCIO  Ay, why not? Grace is grace, despite of all
  controversy; as, for example, thou thyself art a                               25
  wicked villain, despite of all grace.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN  Well, there went but a pair of shears
  between us.
  LUCIO  I grant, as there may between the lists and the
  velvet. Thou art the list.                                                                        30
  FIRST GENTLEMAN  And thou the velvet. Thou art good
  velvet; thou ’rt a three-piled piece, I warrant thee. I
  had as lief be a list of an English kersey as be piled,
  as thou art piled, for a French velvet. Do I speak
  feelingly now?                                                                                        35
  LUCIO  I think thou dost, and indeed with most painful
  feeling of thy speech. I will, out of thine own
  confession, learn to begin thy health, but, whilst I
  live, forget to drink after thee.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN  I think I have done myself wrong,                   40
  have I not?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN  Yes, that thou hast, whether thou
  art tainted or free.
   
  Enter Mistress Overdone, a Bawd.
   
  LUCIO  Behold, behold, where Madam Mitigation
  comes! I have purchased as many diseases under                           45
  her roof as come to—
  SECOND GENTLEMAN  To what, I pray?
  LUCIO  Judge.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN  To three thousand dolors a year.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN  Ay, and more.                                                      50
  LUCIO  A French crown more.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN  Thou art always figuring diseases in
  me, but thou art full of error. I am sound.
  LUCIO  Nay, not, as one would say, healthy, but so sound
  as things that are hollow. Thy bones are hollow.                             55
  Impiety has made a feast of thee.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN, to Bawd  How now, which of your
  hips has the most profound sciatica?
  BAWD  Well, well. There’s one yonder arrested and
  carried to prison was worth five thousand of you all.                     60
  SECOND GENTLEMAN  Who’s that, I pray thee?
  BAWD  Marry, sir, that’s Claudio, Signior Claudio.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN  Claudio to prison? ’Tis not so.
  BAWD  Nay, but I know ’tis so. I saw him arrested, saw
  him carried away; and, which is more, within these                       65
  three days his head to be chopped off.
  LUCIO  But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so!
  Art thou sure of this?
  BAWD  I am too sure of it. And it is for getting Madam Julietta with child.                                                                                 70
  LUCIO  Believe me, this may be. He promised to meet
  me two hours since, and he was ever precise in
  promise-keeping.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN  Besides, you know, it draws something
  near to the speech we had to such a purpose.                                   75
  FIRST GENTLEMAN  But most of all agreeing with the
  proclamation.
  LUCIO  Away. Let’s go learn the truth of it.
  Lucio and Gentlemen exit.
  BAWD  Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat,
  what with the gallows, and what with poverty, I am                       80
  custom-shrunk.
   
  Enter Pompey.
   
  How now? What’s the news with you?
  POMPEY  Yonder man is carried to prison.
  BAWD  Well, what has he done?
  POMPEY  A woman.                                                                                   85
  BAWD  But what’s his offense?
  POMPEY  Groping for trouts in a peculiar river.
  BAWD  What? Is there a maid with child by him?
  POMPEY  No, but there’s a woman with maid by him.
  You have not heard of the proclamation, have you?                       90
  BAWD  What proclamation, man?
  POMPEY  All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be plucked down.
  BAWD  And what shall become of those in the city?
  POMPEY  They shall stand for seed. They had gone down                  95
  too, but that a wise burgher put in for them.
  BAWD  But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs
  be pulled down?
  POMPEY  To the ground, mistress.
  BAWD  Why, here’s a change indeed in the commonwealth!           100
  What Shall become of me? 
  POMPEY  Come, fear not you. Good counselors lack no
  clients. Though you change your place, you need
  not change your trade. I’ll be your tapster still.
  Courage. There will be pity taken on you. You that                     105
  have worn your eyes almost out in the service, you
  will be considered.
   
  Enter Provost, Claudio, Juliet, and Officers.
   
  BAWD  What’s to do here, Thomas Tapster? Let’s
  withdraw.
  POMPEY  Here comes Signior Claudio, led by the Provost              110
  to prison. And there’s Madam Juliet.
  Bawd and Pompey exit.
  CLAUDIO, to Provost
  Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to th’ world?
  Bear me to prison, where I am committed.
  PROVOST
  I do it not in evil disposition, But from Lord Angelo by special charge.                                          115
  CLAUDIO
  Thus can the demigod Authority
  Make us pay down for our offense, by weight,
  The words of heaven: on whom it will, it will;
  On whom it will not, so; yet still ’tis just.
   
  Enter Lucio and Second Gentleman.
   
  LUCIO
  Why, how now, Claudio? Whence comes this                                  120
  restraint?
  CLAUDIO
  From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty.
  As surfeit is the father of much fast,
  So every scope by the immoderate use
  Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue,                                          125
  Like rats that raven down their proper bane,
  A thirsty evil, and when we drink, we die.
  LUCIO  If I could speak so wisely under an arrest, I
  would send for certain of my creditors. And yet, to
  say the truth, I had as lief have the foppery of                               130
  freedom as the mortality of imprisonment. What’s
  thy offense, Claudio?
  CLAUDIO
  What but to speak of would offend again.
  LUCIO  What, is ’t murder?
  CLAUDIO  No.                                                                                           135
  LUCIO  Lechery?
  CLAUDIO  Call it so.
  PROVOST  Away, sir. You must go.
  CLAUDIO
  One word, good friend.—Lucio, a word with you.
  LUCIO  A hundred, if they’ll do you any good. Is lechery                 140
  so looked after?
  CLAUDIO
  Thus stands it with me: upon a true contract
  I got possession of Julietta’s bed.
  You know the lady. She is fast my wife,
  Save that we do the denunciation lack                                                145
  Of outward order. This we came not to
  Only for propagation of a dower
  Remaining in the coffer of her friends,
  From whom we thought it meet to hide our love
  Till time had made them for us. But it chances                                 150
  The stealth of our most mutual entertainment
  With character too gross is writ on Juliet.
  LUCIO
  With child, perhaps?
  CLAUDIO  Unhappily, even so.
  And the new deputy now for the Duke—                                           155
  Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness,
  Or whether that the body public be
  A horse whereon the governor doth ride,
  Who, newly in the seat, that it may know
  He can command, lets it straight feel the spur;                                 160
  Whether the tyranny be in his place
  Or in his eminence that fills it up,
  I stagger in—but this new governor
  Awakes me all the enrollèd penalties
  Which have, like unscoured armor, hung by th’ wall                      165
  So long that nineteen zodiacs have gone round,
  And none of them been worn; and for a name
  Now puts the drowsy and neglected act
  Freshly on me. ’Tis surely for a name.
  LUCIO  I warrant it is. And thy head stands so tickle on                    170 thy shoulders that a milkmaid, if she be in love, may sigh it off. Send after the Duke and appeal to him.
  CLAUDIO
  I have done so, but he’s not to be found.
  I prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service:
  This day my sister should the cloister enter                                       175
  And there receive her approbation.
  Acquaint her with the danger of my state;
  Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends
  To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him.
  I have great hope in that, for in her youth                                          180
  There is a prone and speechless dialect
  Such as move men. Besides, she hath prosperous art
  When she will play with reason and discourse,
  And well she can persuade.
  LUCIO  I pray she may, as well for the encouragement of                 185
  the like, which else would stand under grievous
  imposition, as for the enjoying of thy life, who I
  would be sorry should be thus foolishly lost at a
  game of tick-tack. I’ll to her.
  CLAUDIO  I thank you, good friend Lucio.                                          190
  LUCIO  Within two hours.
  CLAUDIO  Come, officer, away.
  They exit.
   
  Scene 3
  Enter Duke and Friar Thomas.
   
  DUKE
  No, holy father, throw away that thought.
  Believe not that the dribbling dart of love
  Can pierce a complete bosom. Why I desire thee
  To give me secret harbor hath a purpose
  More grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends                                 5
  Of burning youth.
  FRIAR THOMAS  May your Grace speak of it?
  DUKE
  My holy sir, none better knows than you
  How I have ever loved the life removed,
  And held in idle price to haunt assemblies                                           10
  Where youth and cost witless bravery keeps.
  I have delivered to Lord Angelo,
  A man of stricture and firm abstinence,
  My absolute power and place here in Vienna,
  And he supposes me traveled to Poland,                                              15
  For so I have strewed it in the common ear,
  And so it is received. Now, pious sir,
  You will demand of me why I do this.
  FRIAR THOMAS  Gladly, my lord.
  DUKE
  We have strict statutes and most biting laws,                                      20
  The needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds,
  Which for this fourteen years we have let slip,
  Even like an o’ergrown lion in a cave
  That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers,
  Having bound up the threat’ning twigs of birch                                  25
  Only to stick it in their children’s sight
  For terror, not to use—in time the rod
  More mocked than feared—so our decrees,
  Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead,
  And liberty plucks justice by the nose,                                                 30
  The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart
  Goes all decorum.
  FRIAR THOMAS  It rested in your Grace
  To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleased,
  And it in you more dreadful would have seemed                                35
  Than in Lord Angelo.
  DUKE  I do fear, too dreadful.
  Sith ’twas my fault to give the people scope,
  ’Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall them
  For what I bid them do; for we bid this be done                                 40
  When evil deeds have their permissive pass
  And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my
  father,
  I have on Angelo imposed the office,
  Who may in th’ ambush of my name strike home,                             45
  And yet my nature never in the fight
  To do in slander. And to behold his sway
  I will, as ’twere a brother of your order,
  Visit both prince and people. Therefore I prithee
  Supply me with the habit, and instruct me                                           50
  How I may formally in person bear
  Like a true friar. More reasons for this action
  At our more leisure shall I render you.
  Only this one: Lord Angelo is precise,
  Stands at a guard with envy, scarce confesses                                     55
  That his blood flows or that his appetite
  Is more to bread than stone. Hence shall we see,
  If power change purpose, what our seemers be.
  They exit.
   
  Scene 4
  Enter Isabella and Francisca, a Nun.
   
  ISABELLA
  And have you nuns no farther privileges?
  NUN  Are not these large enough?
  ISABELLA
  Yes, truly. I speak not as desiring more,
  But rather wishing a more strict restraint
  Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.                                 5
  LUCIO, within
  Ho, peace be in this place!
  ISABELLA  Who’s that which calls?
  NUN
  It is a man’s voice. Gentle Isabella,
  Turn you the key and know his business of him.
  You may; I may not. You are yet unsworn.                                         10
  When you have vowed, you must not speak with men
  But in the presence of the Prioress.
  Then, if you speak, you must not show your face;
  Or if you show your face, you must not speak.
  He calls again. I pray you answer him.                                                 15
  ISABELLA
  Peace and prosperity! Who is ’t that calls?
   
  Enter Lucio.
   
  LUCIO
  Hail, virgin, if you be, as those cheek-roses
  Proclaim you are no less. Can you so stead me
  As bring me to the sight of Isabella,
  A novice of this place and the fair sister                                               20
  To her unhappy brother, Claudio?
  ISABELLA
  Why “her unhappy brother”? Let me ask,
  The rather for I now must make you know
  I am that Isabella, and his sister.
  LUCIO
  Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you.                                 25
  Not to be weary with you, he’s in prison.
  ISABELLA  Woe me, for what?
  LUCIO
  For that which, if myself might be his judge,
  He should receive his punishment in thanks:
  He hath got his friend with child.                                                           30
  ISABELLA
  Sir, make me not your story.
  LUCIO  ’Tis true.
  I would not, though ’tis my familiar sin
  With maids to seem the lapwing and to jest,
  Tongue far from heart, play with all virgins so.                                  35
  I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted,
  By your renouncement an immortal spirit,
  And to be talked with in sincerity
  As with a saint.
  ISABELLA
  You do blaspheme the good in mocking me.                                       40
  LUCIO
  Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, ’tis thus:
  Your brother and his lover have embraced;
  As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time
  That from the seedness the bare fallow brings
  To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb                                45
  Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.
  ISABELLA
  Someone with child by him? My cousin Juliet?
  LUCIO  Is she your cousin?
  ISABELLA
  Adoptedly, as schoolmaids change their names
  By vain though apt affection.                                                                  50
  LUCIO  She it is.
  ISABELLA
  O, let him marry her!
  LUCIO  This is the point.
  The Duke is very strangely gone from hence;
  Bore many gentlemen, myself being one,                                            55
  In hand, and hope of action; but we do learn,
  By those that know the very nerves of state,
  His givings-out were of an infinite distance
  From his true-meant design. Upon his place,
  And with full line of his authority,                                                        60
  Governs Lord Angelo, a man whose blood
  Is very snow-broth; one who never feels
  The wanton stings and motions of the sense,
  But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
  With profits of the mind: study and fast.                                              65
  He—to give fear to use and liberty,
  Which have for long run by the hideous law
  As mice by lions—hath picked out an act
  Under whose heavy sense your brother’s life
  Falls into forfeit. He arrests him on it,                                                  70
  And follows close the rigor of the statute
  To make him an example. All hope is gone
  Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer
  To soften Angelo. And that’s my pith of business
  ’Twixt you and your poor brother.                                                         75
  ISABELLA  Doth he so
  Seek his life?
  LUCIO  Has censured him already,
  And, as I hear, the Provost hath a warrant
  For ’s execution.                                                                                        80
  ISABELLA
  Alas, what poor ability’s in me
  To do him good?
  LUCIO  Assay the power you have.
  ISABELLA
  My power? Alas, I doubt—
  LUCIO  Our doubts are traitors                                                                  85
  And makes us lose the good we oft might win
  By fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo
  And let him learn to know, when maidens sue
  Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,
  All their petitions are as freely theirs                                                    90
  As they themselves would owe them.
  ISABELLA  I’ll see what I can do.
  LUCIO  But speedily!
  ISABELLA  I will about it straight,
  No longer staying but to give the Mother                                             95
  Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you.
  Commend me to my brother. Soon at night
  I’ll send him certain word of my success.
  LUCIO
  I take my leave of you.
  ISABELLA  Good sir, adieu.                                                                    100
  They exit.