LADY MACDUFF. Wisdom! to leave his wife, to leave his babes, His mansion, and his titles, in a place From whence himself does fly? He loves us not: He wants the natural touch; for the poor wren, The most diminutive of birds, will fight, Her young ones in her nest, against the owl. All is the fear, and nothing is the love; As little is the wisdom, where the flight So runs against all reason.


ROSS. My dearest coz, I pray you, school yourself: but, for your husband, He is noble, wise, judicious, and best knows The fits o' th' season. I dare not speak much further: But cruel are the times, when we are traitors, And do not know ourselves; when we hold rumour From what we fear, yet know not what we fear, But float upon a wild and violent sea Each way and move—I take my leave of you: Shall not be long but I'll be here again. Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward To what they were before.—My pretty cousin, Blessing upon you!


LADY MACDUFF. Father'd he is, and yet he's fatherless.


ROSS. I am so much a fool, should I stay longer, It would be my disgrace and your discomfort: I take my leave at once.


LADY MACDUFF. Sirrah, your father's dead. And what will you do now? How will you live?


SON. As birds do, mother.


LADY MACDUFF. What, with worms and flies?


SON. With what I get, I mean; and so do they.


LADY MACDUFF. Poor bird! thou'dst never fear the net nor lime, The pit-fall nor the gin.


SON. Why should I, mother? Poor birds they are not set for. My father is not dead, for all your saying.


LADY MACDUFF. Yes, he is dead: how wilt thou do for a father?


SON. Nay, how will you do for a husband?


LADY MACDUFF. Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.


SON. Then you'll buy 'em to sell again.


LADY MACDUFF. Thou speak'st with all thy wit; And yet, i' faith, with wit enough for thee.


SON. Was my father a traitor, mother?


LADY MACDUFF. Ay, that he was.


SON. What is a traitor?


LADY MACDUFF. Why, one that swears and lies.


SON. And be all traitors that do so?


LADY MACDUFF. Every one that does so is a traitor, and must be hanged.


SON. And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?


LADY MACDUFF. Every one.


SON. Who must hang them?


LADY MACDUFF. Why, the honest men.


SON. Then the liars and swearers are fools: for there are liars and swearers enow to beat the honest men and hang up them.


LADY MACDUFF. Now, God help thee, poor monkey! But how wilt thou do for a father?


SON. If he were dead, you'ld weep for him: if you would not, it were a good sign that I should quickly have a new father.


LADY MACDUFF. Poor prattler, how thou talk'st!


MESSENGER. Bless you, fair dame! I am not to you known, Though in your state of honour I am perfect. I doubt some danger does approach you nearly: If you will take a homely man's advice, Be not found here; hence, with your little ones. To fright you thus, methinks, I am too savage; To do worse to you were fell cruelty, Which is too nigh your person. Heaven preserve you! I dare abide no longer.


LADY MACDUFF. Whither should I fly? I have done no harm. But I remember now I am in this earthly world, where to do harm Is often laudable; to do good sometime Accounted dangerous folly: why then, alas, Do I put up that womanly defence, To say I have done no harm? What are these faces?


FIRST MURDERER. Where is your husband?


LADY MACDUFF. I hope, in no place so unsanctified Where such as thou mayst find him.


FIRST MURDERER. He's a traitor.


SON. Thou liest, thou shag-ear'd villain!


FIRST MURDERER. What, you egg!


Young fry of treachery!


SON. He has kill'd me, mother: Run away, I pray you!


[Dies. Exit Lady Macduff, crying "Murder!" and pursued by the Murderers.]


SCENE III. England. Before the King's Palace.


Enter Malcolm and Macduff.


MALCOLM. Let us seek out some desolate shade and there Weep our sad bosoms empty.


MACDUFF. Let us rather Hold fast the mortal sword, and, like good men, Bestride our down-fall'n birthdom. Each new morn New widows howl, new orphans cry; new sorrows Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds As if it felt with Scotland, and yell'd out Like syllable of dolour.


MALCOLM. What I believe, I'll wail; What know, believe; and what I can redress, As I shall find the time to friend, I will. What you have spoke, it may be so, perchance. This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues, Was once thought honest: you have loved him well; He hath not touch'd you yet. I am young; but something You may deserve of him through me; and wisdom To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb To appease an angry god.


MACDUFF. I am not treacherous.


MALCOLM. But Macbeth is. A good and virtuous nature may recoil In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your pardon. That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose. Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell: Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, Yet grace must still look so.


MACDUFF. I have lost my hopes.


MALCOLM. Perchance even there where I did find my doubts. Why in that rawness left you wife and child, Those precious motives, those strong knots of love, Without leave-taking?—I pray you, Let not my jealousies be your dishonours, But mine own safeties. You may be rightly just, Whatever I shall think.


MACDUFF. Bleed, bleed, poor country! Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure, For goodness dare not check thee! wear thou thy wrongs; The title is affeer'd.—Fare thee well, lord: I would not be the villain that thou think'st For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp And the rich East to boot.


MALCOLM. Be not offended: I speak not as in absolute fear of you. I think our country sinks beneath the yoke; It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash Is added to her wounds. I think, withal, There would be hands uplifted in my right; And here, from gracious England, have I offer Of goodly thousands: but, for all this, When I shall tread upon the tyrant's head, Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country Shall have more vices than it had before, More suffer, and more sundry ways than ever, By him that shall succeed.


MACDUFF. What should he be?


MALCOLM. It is myself I mean; in whom I know All the particulars of vice so grafted That, when they shall be open'd, black Macbeth Will seem as pure as snow; and the poor state Esteem him as a lamb, being compar'd With my confineless harms.


MACDUFF. Not in the legions Of horrid hell can come a devil more damn'd In evils to top Macbeth.


MALCOLM. I grant him bloody, Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin That has a name: but there's no bottom, none, In my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters, Your matrons, and your maids, could not fill up The cistern of my lust; and my desire All continent impediments would o'erbear, That did oppose my will: better Macbeth Than such an one to reign.


MACDUFF. Boundless intemperance In nature is a tyranny; it hath been Th' untimely emptying of the happy throne, And fall of many kings. But fear not yet To take upon you what is yours: you may Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty, And yet seem cold—the time you may so hoodwink. We have willing dames enough; there cannot be That vulture in you, to devour so many As will to greatness dedicate themselves, Finding it so inclin'd.


MALCOLM. With this there grows In my most ill-compos'd affection such A staunchless avarice, that, were I king, I should cut off the nobles for their lands; Desire his jewels, and this other's house: And my more-having would be as a sauce To make me hunger more; that I should forge Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal, Destroying them for wealth.


MACDUFF. This avarice Sticks deeper; grows with more pernicious root Than summer-seeming lust; and it hath been The sword of our slain kings: yet do not fear; Scotland hath foisons to fill up your will, Of your mere own. All these are portable, With other graces weigh'd.


MALCOLM. But I have none: the king-becoming graces, As justice, verity, temp'rance, stableness, Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude, I have no relish of them; but abound In the division of each several crime, Acting it many ways. Nay, had I power, I should Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell, Uproar the universal peace, confound All unity on earth.


MACDUFF. O Scotland, Scotland!


MALCOLM. If such a one be fit to govern, speak: I am as I have spoken.


MACDUFF. Fit to govern? No, not to live.—O nation miserable, With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd, When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again, Since that the truest issue of thy throne By his own interdiction stands accus'd, And does blaspheme his breed? Thy royal father Was a most sainted king. The queen that bore thee, Oft'ner upon her knees than on her feet, Died every day she lived. Fare thee well! These evils thou repeat'st upon thyself Have banish'd me from Scotland.—O my breast, Thy hope ends here!


MALCOLM. Macduff, this noble passion, Child of integrity, hath from my soul Wiped the black scruples, reconcil'd my thoughts To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth By many of these trains hath sought to win me Into his power, and modest wisdom plucks me From over-credulous haste: but God above Deal between thee and me! for even now I put myself to thy direction, and Unspeak mine own detraction; here abjure The taints and blames I laid upon myself, For strangers to my nature. I am yet Unknown to woman; never was forsworn; Scarcely have coveted what was mine own; At no time broke my faith; would not betray The devil to his fellow; and delight No less in truth than life: my first false speaking Was this upon myself. What I am truly, Is thine and my poor country's to command: Whither, indeed, before thy here-approach, Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men, Already at a point, was setting forth. Now we'll together, and the chance of goodness Be like our warranted quarrel. Why are you silent?


MACDUFF. Such welcome and unwelcome things at once 'Tis hard to reconcile.


MALCOLM. Well; more anon.—Comes the King forth, I pray you?


DOCTOR. Ay, sir. There are a crew of wretched souls That stay his cure: their malady convinces The great assay of art; but at his touch, Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand, They presently amend.


MALCOLM. I thank you, doctor.


MACDUFF. What's the disease he means?


MALCOLM. 'Tis call'd the evil: A most miraculous work in this good king; Which often, since my here-remain in England, I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven, Himself best knows, but strangely-visited people, All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, The mere despair of surgery, he cures; Hanging a golden stamp about their necks, Put on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken, To the succeeding royalty he leaves The healing benediction. With this strange virtue, He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy; And sundry blessings hang about his throne, That speak him full of grace.


MACDUFF. See, who comes here?


MALCOLM. My countryman; but yet I know him not.


MACDUFF. My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither.


MALCOLM. I know him now. Good God, betimes remove The means that makes us strangers!


MACDUFF. Stands Scotland where it did?


ROSS. Alas, poor country, Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot Be call'd our mother, but our grave, where nothing, But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile; Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks, that rent the air, Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems A modern ecstasy. The dead man's knell Is there scarce ask'd for who; and good men's lives Expire before the flowers in their caps, Dying or ere they sicken.


MACDUFF. O, relation Too nice, and yet too true!


MALCOLM. What's the newest grief?


ROSS. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker; Each minute teems a new one.


MACDUFF. And all my children?


ROSS. Well too.


MACDUFF. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?


ROSS. No; they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.


MACDUFF. Be not a niggard of your speech: how goes't?


ROSS. When I came hither to transport the tidings, Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour Of many worthy fellows that were out; Which was to my belief witness'd the rather, For that I saw the tyrant's power afoot. Now is the time of help. Your eye in Scotland Would create soldiers, make our women fight, To doff their dire distresses.


MALCOLM. Be't their comfort We are coming thither. Gracious England hath Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men; An older and a better soldier none That Christendom gives out.


ROSS. Would I could answer This comfort with the like! But I have words That would be howl'd out in the desert air, Where hearing should not latch them.


MACDUFF. What concern they? The general cause? or is it a fee-grief Due to some single breast?


ROSS. No mind that's honest But in it shares some woe, though the main part Pertains to you alone.


MACDUFF. If it be mine, Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.


ROSS. Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever, Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound That ever yet they heard.


MACDUFF. Humh! I guess at it.


ROSS. Your castle is surpris'd; your wife and babes Savagely slaughter'd. To relate the manner Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer, To add the death of you.


MALCOLM. Merciful heaven!— What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows. Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.


MACDUFF. My children too?


ROSS. Wife, children, servants, all That could be found.


MACDUFF. And I must be from thence! My wife kill'd too?


MALCOLM. Be comforted: Let's make us med'cines of our great revenge, To cure this deadly grief.


MACDUFF. He has no children.—All my pretty ones? Did you say all?—O hell-kite!—All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam At one fell swoop?


MACDUFF. I shall do so; But I must also feel it as a man: I cannot but remember such things were, That were most precious to me.—Did heaven look on, And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff, They were all struck for thee! Naught that I am, Not for their own demerits, but for mine, Fell slaughter on their souls: heaven rest them now!


MALCOLM. Be this the whetstone of your sword. Let grief Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.


MACDUFF. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes, And braggart with my tongue!—But, gentle heavens, Cut short all intermission; front to front, Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself; Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape, Heaven forgive him too!


MALCOLM. This tune goes manly. Come, go we to the King. Our power is ready; Our lack is nothing but our leave. Macbeth Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may; The night is long that never finds the day.


SCENE I. Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle.


Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman.


DOCTOR. I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked?


GENTLEWOMAN. Since his Majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon't, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.


DOCTOR. A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching. In this slumbery agitation, besides her walking and other actual performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say?


GENTLEWOMAN. That, sir, which I will not report after her.


DOCTOR. You may to me; and 'tis most meet you should.


GENTLEWOMAN. Neither to you nor anyone; having no witness to confirm my speech.


Enter Lady Macbeth with a taper.


Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.


DOCTOR. How came she by that light?


GENTLEWOMAN. Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; 'tis her command.


GENTLEWOMAN. Ay, but their sense are shut.


DOCTOR. What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands.


GENTLEWOMAN. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands. I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.


LADY MACBETH. Yet here's a spot.


DOCTOR. Hark, she speaks. I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.


LADY MACBETH. Out, damned spot! out, I say! One; two. Why, then 'tis time to do't. Hell is murky! Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?


DOCTOR. Do you mark that?


LADY MACBETH. The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now?—What, will these hands ne'er be clean? No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with this starting.


DOCTOR. Go to, go to. You have known what you should not.


GENTLEWOMAN. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: heaven knows what she has known.


LADY MACBETH. Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!


DOCTOR. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.


GENTLEWOMAN. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.


GENTLEWOMAN. Pray God it be, sir.


DOCTOR. This disease is beyond my practice: yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds.


LADY MACBETH. Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out on's grave.


LADY MACBETH. To bed, to bed. There's knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What's done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed.


DOCTOR. Will she go now to bed?


GENTLEWOMAN. Directly.


DOCTOR. Foul whisp'rings are abroad. Unnatural deeds Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. More needs she the divine than the physician.— God, God, forgive us all! Look after her; Remove from her the means of all annoyance, And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night: My mind she has mated, and amaz'd my sight. I think, but dare not speak.


SCENE II. The Country near Dunsinane.


Enter, with drum and colours Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox and Soldiers.


MENTEITH. The English power is near, led on by Malcolm, His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff. Revenges burn in them; for their dear causes Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm Excite the mortified man.


ANGUS. Near Birnam wood Shall we well meet them. That way are they coming.


CAITHNESS. Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?


LENNOX. For certain, sir, he is not. I have a file Of all the gentry: there is Siward's son And many unrough youths, that even now Protest their first of manhood.


MENTEITH. What does the tyrant?


CAITHNESS. Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies. Some say he's mad; others, that lesser hate him, Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain, He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause Within the belt of rule.


ANGUS. Now does he feel His secret murders sticking on his hands; Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach; Those he commands move only in command, Nothing in love: now does he feel his title Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe Upon a dwarfish thief.


MENTEITH. Who, then, shall blame His pester'd senses to recoil and start, When all that is within him does condemn Itself for being there?


CAITHNESS. Well, march we on, To give obedience where 'tis truly ow'd: Meet we the med'cine of the sickly weal; And with him pour we, in our country's purge, Each drop of us.


LENNOX. Or so much as it needs To dew the sovereign flower, and drown the weeds. Make we our march towards Birnam.


[Exeunt, marching.]


SCENE III. Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle.


Enter Macbeth, Doctor and Attendants.


MACBETH. Bring me no more reports; let them fly all: Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm? Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know All mortal consequences have pronounc'd me thus: "Fear not, Macbeth; no man that's born of woman Shall e'er have power upon thee."—Then fly, false thanes, And mingle with the English epicures: The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear, Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.


The devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac'd loon! Where gott'st thou that goose look?


SERVANT. There is ten thousand—


MACBETH. Go prick thy face and over-red thy fear, Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch? Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine Are counsellors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face?


SERVANT. The English force, so please you.


MACBETH. Take thy face hence.


Seyton!—I am sick at heart, When I behold—Seyton, I say!—This push Will cheer me ever or disseat me now. I have liv'd long enough: my way of life Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf; And that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but, in their stead, Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not. Seyton!—


SEYTON. What's your gracious pleasure?


MACBETH. What news more?


SEYTON. All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported.


MACBETH. I'll fight till from my bones my flesh be hack'd. Give me my armour.


SEYTON. 'Tis not needed yet.


MACBETH. I'll put it on. Send out more horses, skirr the country round; Hang those that talk of fear. Give me mine armour.— How does your patient, doctor?


DOCTOR. Not so sick, my lord, As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies, That keep her from her rest.


MACBETH. Cure her of that: Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart?


DOCTOR. Therein the patient Must minister to himself.


MACBETH. Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it. Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff: Seyton, send out.—Doctor, the Thanes fly from me.— Come, sir, despatch.—If thou couldst, doctor, cast The water of my land, find her disease, And purge it to a sound and pristine health, I would applaud thee to the very echo, That should applaud again.—Pull't off, I say.— What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug, Would scour these English hence? Hear'st thou of them?


DOCTOR. Ay, my good lord. Your royal preparation Makes us hear something.


MACBETH. Bring it after me.— I will not be afraid of death and bane, Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.


DOCTOR. Were I from Dunsinane away and clear, Profit again should hardly draw me here.


SCENE IV. Country near Dunsinane: a Wood in view.


Enter, with drum and colours Malcolm, old Siward and his Son, Macduff, Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, Ross and Soldiers, marching.


MALCOLM. Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand That chambers will be safe.


MENTEITH. We doubt it nothing.


SIWARD. What wood is this before us?


MENTEITH. The wood of Birnam.


MALCOLM. Let every soldier hew him down a bough, And bear't before him. Thereby shall we shadow The numbers of our host, and make discovery Err in report of us.


SOLDIERS. It shall be done.


SIWARD. We learn no other but the confident tyrant Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure Our setting down before't.


MALCOLM. 'Tis his main hope; For where there is advantage to be given, Both more and less have given him the revolt, And none serve with him but constrained things, Whose hearts are absent too.


MACDUFF. Let our just censures Attend the true event, and put we on Industrious soldiership.


SIWARD. The time approaches, That will with due decision make us know What we shall say we have, and what we owe. Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate, But certain issue strokes must arbitrate; Towards which advance the war.


SCENE V. Dunsinane. Within the castle.


Enter with drum and colours, Macbeth, Seyton and Soldiers.


MACBETH. Hang out our banners on the outward walls; The cry is still, "They come!" Our castle's strength Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie Till famine and the ague eat them up. Were they not forc'd with those that should be ours, We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, And beat them backward home.


[A cry of women within.]


What is that noise?


SEYTON. It is the cry of women, my good lord.


MACBETH. I have almost forgot the taste of fears. The time has been, my senses would have cool'd To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir As life were in't. I have supp'd full with horrors; Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, Cannot once start me.


Wherefore was that cry?


SEYTON. The Queen, my lord, is dead.


MACBETH. She should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a word. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.


Thou com'st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.


MESSENGER. Gracious my lord, I should report that which I say I saw, But know not how to do't.


MESSENGER. As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought, The wood began to move.


MESSENGER. Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so. Within this three mile may you see it coming; I say, a moving grove.


MACBETH. If thou speak'st false, Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive, Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth, I care not if thou dost for me as much.— I pull in resolution; and begin To doubt th' equivocation of the fiend, That lies like truth. "Fear not, till Birnam wood Do come to Dunsinane;" and now a wood Comes toward Dunsinane.—Arm, arm, and out!— If this which he avouches does appear, There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here. I 'gin to be aweary of the sun, And wish th' estate o' th' world were now undone.— Ring the alarum bell!—Blow, wind! come, wrack! At least we'll die with harness on our back.


SCENE VI. The same. A Plain before the Castle.


Enter, with drum and colours, Malcolm, old Siward, Macduff and their Army, with boughs.


MALCOLM. Now near enough. Your leafy screens throw down, And show like those you are.—You, worthy uncle, Shall with my cousin, your right noble son, Lead our first battle: worthy Macduff and we Shall take upon's what else remains to do, According to our order.


SIWARD. Fare you well.— Do we but find the tyrant's power tonight, Let us be beaten, if we cannot fight.


MACDUFF. Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath, Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.


SCENE VII. The same. Another part of the Plain.


Alarums. Enter Macbeth.


MACBETH. They have tied me to a stake. I cannot fly, But, bear-like I must fight the course.—What's he That was not born of woman? Such a one Am I to fear, or none.


YOUNG SIWARD. What is thy name?


MACBETH. Thou'lt be afraid to hear it.


YOUNG SIWARD. No; though thou call'st thyself a hotter name Than any is in hell.


MACBETH. My name's Macbeth.


YOUNG SIWARD. The devil himself could not pronounce a title More hateful to mine ear.


MACBETH. No, nor more fearful.


YOUNG SIWARD. Thou liest, abhorred tyrant. With my sword I'll prove the lie thou speak'st.


[They fight, and young Siward is slain.]


MACBETH. Thou wast born of woman. But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn, Brandish'd by man that's of a woman born.


MACDUFF. That way the noise is.—Tyrant, show thy face! If thou be'st slain and with no stroke of mine, My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still. I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms Are hired to bear their staves. Either thou, Macbeth, Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd edge, I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be; By this great clatter, one of greatest note Seems bruited. Let me find him, Fortune! And more I beg not.


Enter Malcolm and old Siward.


SIWARD. This way, my lord;—the castle's gently render'd: The tyrant's people on both sides do fight; The noble thanes do bravely in the war, The day almost itself professes yours, And little is to do.


MALCOLM. We have met with foes That strike beside us.


SIWARD. Enter, sir, the castle.


SCENE VIII. The same. Another part of the field.


MACBETH. Why should I play the Roman fool, and die On mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes Do better upon them.


MACDUFF. Turn, hell-hound, turn!


MACBETH. Of all men else I have avoided thee: But get thee back; my soul is too much charg'd With blood of thine already.


MACDUFF. I have no words; My voice is in my sword: thou bloodier villain Than terms can give thee out!


MACBETH. Thou losest labour: As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed: Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests; I bear a charmed life, which must not yield To one of woman born.


MACDUFF. Despair thy charm; And let the angel whom thou still hast serv'd Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb Untimely ripp'd.


MACBETH. Accursed be that tongue that tells me so, For it hath cow'd my better part of man! And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd, That palter with us in a double sense; That keep the word of promise to our ear, And break it to our hope!—I'll not fight with thee.


MACDUFF. Then yield thee, coward, And live to be the show and gaze o' th' time. We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, Painted upon a pole, and underwrit, "Here may you see the tyrant."


MACBETH. I will not yield, To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet, And to be baited with the rabble's curse. Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane, And thou oppos'd, being of no woman born, Yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield: lay on, Macduff; And damn'd be him that first cries, "Hold, enough!"


[Exeunt fighting. Alarums.]


Retreat. Flourish. Enter, with drum and colours, Malcolm, old Siward, Ross, Thanes and Soldiers.


MALCOLM. I would the friends we miss were safe arriv'd.


SIWARD. Some must go off; and yet, by these I see, So great a day as this is cheaply bought.


MALCOLM. Macduff is missing, and your noble son.


ROSS. Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt: He only liv'd but till he was a man; The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd In the unshrinking station where he fought, But like a man he died.


SIWARD. Then he is dead?


ROSS. Ay, and brought off the field. Your cause of sorrow Must not be measur'd by his worth, for then It hath no end.


SIWARD. Had he his hurts before?


ROSS. Ay, on the front.


SIWARD. Why then, God's soldier be he! Had I as many sons as I have hairs, I would not wish them to a fairer death: And so his knell is knoll'd.


MALCOLM. He's worth more sorrow, And that I'll spend for him.


SIWARD. He's worth no more. They say he parted well and paid his score: And so, God be with him!—Here comes newer comfort.


Enter Macduff with Macbeth's head.


MACDUFF. Hail, King, for so thou art. Behold, where stands Th' usurper's cursed head: the time is free. I see thee compass'd with thy kingdom's pearl, That speak my salutation in their minds; Whose voices I desire aloud with mine,— Hail, King of Scotland!


ALL. Hail, King of Scotland!


MALCOLM. We shall not spend a large expense of time Before we reckon with your several loves, And make us even with you. My thanes and kinsmen, Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland In such an honour nam'd. What's more to do, Which would be planted newly with the time,— As calling home our exil'd friends abroad, That fled the snares of watchful tyranny; Producing forth the cruel ministers Of this dead butcher, and his fiend-like queen, Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands Took off her life;—this, and what needful else That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace, We will perform in measure, time, and place. So thanks to all at once, and to each one, Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.


ACT I Scene I. An apartment in the Duke's palace Scene II. A street Scene III. A monastery Scene IV. A nunnery


ACT II Scene I. A hall in Angelo's house Scene II. Another room in the same Scene III. A room in a prison Scene IV. A room in Angelo's house


ACT III Scene I. A room in the prison Scene II. The street before the prisons


ACT IV Scene I. A room in Mariana's house Scene II. A room in the prison Scene III. Another room in the same Scene IV. A room in Angelo's house Scene V. Fields without the town Scene VI. Street near the city gate


ACT V Scene I. A public place near the city gate


Vincentio, DUKE of Vienna ESCALUS, an ancient Lord PROVOST ELBOW, a simple constable ABHORSON, an executioner A JUSTICE VARRIUS, a Gentleman, Servant to the Duke


ANGELO, Deputy to the Duke MARIANA, betrothed to Angelo BOY, singer SERVANT, to Angelo MESSENGER, from Angelo


CLAUDIO, a young Gentleman JULIET, betrothed to Claudio LUCIO, a fantastic Two GENTLEMEN


Mistress Overdone, a BAWD POMPEY, Servant to Mistress Overdone FROTH, a foolish gentleman BARNARDINE, a dissolute prisoner


Lords, Officers, Servants, Citizens and Attendants


SCENE I. An apartment in the Duke's palace.


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 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 For common justice, you're as pregnant in As art and practice hath enriched any That we remember. There is our commission, From which we would not have you warp.—Call hither, I say, bid come before us, Angelo.


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, drest him with our love, 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 honour, It is Lord 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 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, 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 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. 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.


ANGELO. Now, good my lord, Let there be some more test made of my metal, Before so noble and so great a figure Be stamped upon it.


DUKE. No more evasion. We have with a leavened and prepared choice Proceeded to you; therefore take your honours. 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, 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.


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 honour, have to do With any scruple. Your scope is as mine own, 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 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.


DUKE. I thank you. Fare you well.


ESCALUS. 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 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 honour.


SCENE II. A street.


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!


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"?


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 the petition well that prays for peace.


LUCIO. I believe thee; for I think thou never wast where grace was said.


SECOND GENTLEMAN. No? A dozen times at least.


FIRST GENTLEMAN. What? In metre?


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 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.


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?


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, have I not?


SECOND GENTLEMAN. Yes, that thou hast, whether thou art tainted or free.


LUCIO. Behold, behold, where Madam Mitigation comes! I have purchased as many diseases under her roof as come to—


SECOND GENTLEMAN. To what, I pray?


SECOND GENTLEMAN. To three thousand dolours a year.


FIRST GENTLEMAN. Ay, and more.


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. Impiety has made a feast of thee.


FIRST GENTLEMAN. 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.


FIRST 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 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.


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.


FIRST GENTLEMAN. But most of all agreeing with the proclamation.


LUCIO. Away! Let's go learn the truth of it.


BAWD. Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what with the gallows, and what with poverty, I am 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.


BAWD. But what's his offence?


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?


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 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! What shall become of me?


POMPEY. Come, fear not you. Good counsellors 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 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 to prison. And there's Madam Juliet.


[Exeunt Bawd and Pompey.]


CLAUDIO. Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to the world? Bear me to prison, where I am committed.


PROVOST. I do it not in evil disposition, But from Lord Angelo by special charge.


CLAUDIO. Thus can the demi-god Authority Make us pay down for our offence 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 two Gentlemen.


LUCIO. Why, how now, Claudio? Whence comes this 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, Like rats that ravin 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 freedom as the morality of imprisonment. What's thy offence, Claudio?


CLAUDIO. What but to speak of would offend again.


LUCIO. What, is't murder?


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 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 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 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— 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; 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 enrolled penalties Which have, like unscoured armour, hung by th' wall 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 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, 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 There is a prone and speechless dialect Such as moves men; beside, 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 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.


LUCIO. Within two hours.


CLAUDIO. Come, officer, away.


SCENE III. A monastery.


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 harbour hath a purpose More grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends 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 Where youth, and cost, a 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 travelled to Poland; 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?


DUKE. We have strict statutes and most biting laws, 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, Only to stick it in their children's sight For terror, not to use, in time the rod Becomes more mocked than feared: so our decrees, Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead, And liberty plucks justice by the nose, 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 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 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, 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 How I may formally in person bear Like a true friar. Moe 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 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.


SCENE IV. A nunnery.


ISABELLA. And have you nuns no farther privileges?


FRANCISCA. 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.


LUCIO. [Within.] Ho! Peace be in this place!


ISABELLA. Who's that which calls?


FRANCISCA. 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. 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.


ISABELLA. Peace and prosperity! Who is't that calls?


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 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. 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.


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. 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.


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 Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.


ISABELLA. Someone with child by him? My cousin Juliet?


LUCIO. Is she your cousin?


ISABELLA. Adoptedly, as school-maids change their names By vain though apt affection.


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, 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, 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. 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, And follows close the rigour 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.


ISABELLA. Doth he so Seek his life?


LUCIO. Has censured him already; And, as I hear, the Provost hath a warrant For's execution.


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, And make 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 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 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.


SCENE I. A hall in Angelo's house.


Enter Angelo, Escalus, Servants, and a Justice.


ANGELO. We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape till custom make it Their perch, and not their terror.


ESCALUS. Ay, but yet Let us be keen, and rather cut a little Than fall and bruise to death. Alas, this gentleman, Whom I would save, had a most noble father. Let but your honour know, Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue, That, in the working of your own affections, Had time cohered with place, or place with wishing, Or that the resolute acting of your blood Could have attained th' effect of your own purpose, Whether you had not sometime in your life Erred in this point which now you censure him, And pulled the law upon you.


ANGELO. 'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus, Another thing to fall. I not deny The jury passing on the prisoner's life May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try. What's open made to justice, That justice seizes. What knows the laws That thieves do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant, The jewel that we find, we stoop and take 't, Because we see it; but what we do not see, We tread upon, and never think of it. You may not so extenuate his offence For I have had such faults; but rather tell me, When I that censure him do so offend, Let mine own judgement pattern out my death, And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.


ESCALUS. Be it as your wisdom will.


ANGELO. Where is the Provost?


PROVOST. Here, if it like your honour.


ANGELO. See that Claudio Be executed by nine tomorrow morning. Bring him his confessor, let him be prepared, For that's the utmost of his pilgrimage.


ESCALUS. Well, heaven forgive him; and forgive us all. Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall. Some run from brakes of vice, and answer none, And some condemned for a fault alone.


Enter Elbow and Officers with Froth and Pompey.


ELBOW. Come, bring them away. If these be good people in a commonweal that do nothing but use their abuses in common houses, I know no law. Bring them away.


ANGELO. How now, sir, what's your name? And what's the matter?


ELBOW. If it please your honour, I am the poor Duke's constable, and my name is Elbow. I do lean upon justice, sir, and do bring in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors.


ANGELO. Benefactors? Well, what benefactors are they? Are they not malefactors?


ELBOW. If it please your honour, I know not well what they are, but precise villains they are, that I am sure of, and void of all profanation in the world that good Christians ought to have.


ESCALUS. This comes off well. Here's a wise officer.


ANGELO. Go to. What quality are they of? Elbow is your name? Why dost thou not speak, Elbow?


POMPEY. He cannot, sir. He's out at elbow.


ANGELO. What are you, sir?


ELBOW. He, sir? A tapster, sir; parcel bawd; one that serves a bad woman; whose house, sir, was, as they say, plucked down in the suburbs; and now she professes a hot-house, which, I think is a very ill house too.


ESCALUS. How know you that?


ELBOW. My wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour—


ESCALUS. How? Thy wife?


ELBOW. Ay, sir, whom I thank heaven is an honest woman—


ESCALUS. Dost thou detest her therefore?


ELBOW. I say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as she, that this house, if it be not a bawd's house, it is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house.


ESCALUS. How dost thou know that, constable?


ELBOW. Marry, sir, by my wife, who, if she had been a woman cardinally given, might have been accused in fornication, adultery, and all uncleanliness there.


ESCALUS. By the woman's means?


ELBOW. Ay, sir, by Mistress Overdone's means; but as she spit in his face, so she defied him.


POMPEY. Sir, if it please your honour, this is not so.


ELBOW. Prove it before these varlets here, thou honourable man, prove it.


ESCALUS. [To Angelo.] Do you hear how he misplaces?


POMPEY. Sir, she came in great with child; and longing, saving your honour's reverence, for stewed prunes; sir, we had but two in the house, which at that very distant time stood, as it were, in a fruit dish, a dish of some threepence; your honours have seen such dishes; they are not china dishes, but very good dishes—


ESCALUS. Go to, go to. No matter for the dish, sir.


POMPEY. No, indeed, sir, not of a pin; you are therein in the right. But to the point. 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 honestly; for, as you know, Master Froth, I could not give you threepence again—


POMPEY. Very well. You being then, if you be remembered, cracking the stones of the foresaid prunes—


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 fourscore 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.


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 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 is 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' th' 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 know'st 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. [To Froth.] Where were you born, friend?


ESCALUS. Are you of fourscore pounds a year?


FROTH. Yes, an't please you, sir.


ESCALUS. So. [To Pompey.] What trade are you of, sir?


POMPEY. A tapster, a poor widow's tapster.


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 taphouse but I am drawn in.


ESCALUS. Well, no more of it, Master Froth. Farewell.


[Exit Froth.]


Come you hither to me, Master tapster. What's your name, Master tapster?


POMPEY. Pompey.


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?


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 is 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 threepence 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 whipped. So for this time, Pompey, fare you well.


POMPEY. I thank your worship for your good counsel. [Aside.] 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's not whipped 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 the readiness in the office, you had continued in it sometime. 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.


[Exit Elbow.]


What's o'clock, think you?


ESCALUS. 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.


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's no remedy. Come, sir.


SCENE II. Another room in the same.


Enter Provost and a Servant.


SERVANT. He's hearing of a cause. He will come straight. I'll tell him of you.


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, judgement 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 condemned 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 her have needful but not lavish means; There shall be order for it.


PROVOST. [Offering to retire.] Save your honour!


ANGELO. Stay a little while. [To Isabella.] You are 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 condemned to die; I do beseech you, let it be his fault, And not my brother.


PROVOST. Heaven give thee moving graces.


ANGELO. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it? Why, every fault's condemned ere it be done. Mine were the very cipher of a function To find 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. [To Isabella.] Give't not o'er so. To him again, entreat him, Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown; You are too cold. If you should need a pin, You could not with more tame a tongue desire it. To him, I say.


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. But might you do't, and do the world no wrong, If so your heart were touched with that remorse As mine is to him?


ANGELO. He's sentenced, 'tis too late.


LUCIO. [To Isabella.] You are too cold.


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 slipped 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. [Aside.] Ay, touch him; there's the vein.


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 judgement, 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, condemns your brother. Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son, It should be thus with him. He must die tomorrow.


ISABELLA. Tomorrow? 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.


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 th' edict infringe Had answered 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 now, or by remissness new conceived, And so in progress to be hatched and born, Are now to have no successive degrees, But, where 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 dismissed offence would after gall, And do him right that, answering one foul wrong, Lives not to act another. Be satisfied; Your brother dies tomorrow; be content.


ISABELLA. So you must be the first that gives this sentence, And he that suffers. O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant.


LUCIO. That's well said.


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 Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, Than the soft myrtle. But man, proud man, Dressed 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 makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens, Would all themselves laugh mortal.


LUCIO. O, to him, to him, wench! He will relent; He's coming. I perceive 't.


PROVOST. Pray heaven she win him.


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' th' right, girl; more o' that.


ISABELLA. That in the captain's but a choleric word Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.


LUCIO. Art advised o' that? More on't.


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' th' 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. She speaks, and 'tis such sense That my sense breeds with it. [Going.] Fare you well.


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.


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 sunrise, prayers from preserved souls, From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate To nothing temporal.


ANGELO. Well; come to me tomorrow.


LUCIO. [Aside to Isabella.] Go to, 'tis well; away.


ISABELLA. Heaven keep your honour safe.


ANGELO. [Aside.] Amen. For I am that way going to temptation, Where prayers cross.


ISABELLA. At what hour tomorrow Shall I attend your lordship?


ANGELO. At any time 'fore noon.


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? 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. Ever till now When men were fond, I smiled and wondered how.


SCENE III. A room in a prison.


Enter Duke disguised as a Friar, and Provost.


DUKE. Hail to you, Provost, so I think you are.


PROVOST. I am the Provost. What's your will, good friar?


DUKE. Bound by my charity and my blessed 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 blistered 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.


PROVOST. As I do think, tomorrow. [To Juliet.] I have provided for you; stay a while And you shall be conducted.


DUKE. Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?


JULIET. I do; and bear the shame most patiently.


DUKE. I'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience, And try your penitence, if it be sound Or hollowly put on.


DUKE. Love you the man that wronged you?


JULIET. Yes, as I love the woman that wronged him.


DUKE. So then it seems your most offenceful act Was mutually committed?


JULIET. Mutually.


DUKE. Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.


JULIET. I do confess it, and repent it, father.


DUKE. 'Tis meet so, daughter; but lest you do repent As that the sin hath brought you to this shame, Which sorrow is always toward 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. There rest. Your partner, as I hear, must die tomorrow, And I am going with instruction to him. Grace go with you! Benedicite!


JULIET. Must die tomorrow? 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 sere 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 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-wished king Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love Must needs appear offence.


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.


ANGELO. Yet may he live a while. And, it may be, As long as you or I. Yet he must die.


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 stained?


ISABELLA. Sir, believe this: I had rather give my body than my soul.


ANGELO. I talk not of your soul. Our compelled sins Stand more for number than for accompt.


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, crafty; 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 Than beauty could, displayed. But mark me; To be received plain, I'll speak more gross. Your brother is to die.


ANGELO. And his offence is so, as it appears, Accountant to the law upon that pain.


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-binding 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, Th' impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies, And strip myself to death as to a bed That longing have been sick for, ere I'd 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 slandered so?


ISABELLA. Ignominy in ransom and free pardon Are of two houses. Lawful mercy Is nothing kin to foul redemption.


ANGELO. You seemed of late to make the law a tyrant, 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 by 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 expressed 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 intreat 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 't.


ANGELO. He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.


ISABELLA. I know your virtue hath a license 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 outstretched throat I'll tell the world aloud What man thou art.


ANGELO. Who will believe thee, Isabel? My unsoiled name, th' austereness of my life, My vouch against you, and my place i' th' 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 ling'ring sufferance. Answer me tomorrow, 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 curtsy to their will, Hooking both right and wrong to th' appetite, To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother. Though he hath fall'n 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'd yield them up Before his sister should her body stoop To such abhorred 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.


SCENE I. A room in the prison.


Enter Duke, Claudio and Provost.


DUKE. So then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?


CLAUDIO. The miserable have no other medicine But only hope. I have hope to live, and am prepared to die.


DUKE. 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; For all th' 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 provok'st, yet grossly fear'st Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself; For thou exists on many a thousand grains That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not; For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st 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'st 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 more 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. [Within.] What ho! Peace here; grace and good company!


PROVOST. Who's there? Come in. The wish deserves a welcome.


DUKE. 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. Provost, a word with you.


PROVOST. As many as you please.


DUKE. 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; Tomorrow 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.


ISABELLA. Ay, just; perpetual durance; a restraint, 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. Dar'st 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' th' head, and follies doth enew 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 precise Angelo?


ISABELLA. O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell The damned'st body to invest and cover In precise 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 it 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 tomorrow.


CLAUDIO. Thou shalt not do't.


ISABELLA. O, were it but my life, I'd 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 th' 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 regions of thick-ribbed ice; To be imprisoned 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.


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 played 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. Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd. 'Tis best that thou diest quickly.


CLAUDIO. O, hear me, Isabella.


DUKE. Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.


ISABELLA. What is your will?


DUKE. 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 a while.


DUKE. [To Claudio aside.] 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 assay of her virtue, to practise his judgement 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. Hold you there. Farewell.


Provost, a word with you.


PROVOST. What's your will, father?


DUKE. That, now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me a while with the maid; my mind promises with my habit no loss shall touch her by my company.


PROVOST. In good time.


DUKE. 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. 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. 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. She should this Angelo have married, was affianced to her 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. 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. 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 dispatch with Angelo, that it may be quickly.


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


SCENE II. The street before the prison.


Enter Elbow, Pompey 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?


POMPEY. '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 lambskins 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.


POMPEY. 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 whoremonger 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.


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 clutched? What reply, ha? What say'st thou to this tune, matter, and method? Is't not drowned i' th' last rain, ha? What say'st 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. 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?


LUCIO. Why, 'tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell. Go, say I sent thee thither. For debt, Pompey? Or how?


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.


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?


[Exeunt Elbow, Pompey 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.


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?