William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (388 page)

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Authors: William Shakespeare

Tags: #Drama, #Literary Criticism, #Shakespeare

BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
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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.
Exit
Enter Elbow, Clown, and officers
 
ELBOW Nay, if there be no remedy for it but that you will needs buy and sell men and women like beasts, we shall have all the world drink brown and white bastard.
DUKE O heavens, what stuff is here?
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.—Btess 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 (to Pompey)
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, or faults from seeming free.
ELBOW His neck will come to your waist: a cord, sir.
Enter Lucio
 
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 clutched? What reply, ha? What sayst thou to this tune, matter, and method? Is’t not drowned i’th’ last rain, ha? What sayst 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?
POMPEY Yes, faith, sir.
LUCIO Why ’tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell. Go; say I sent thee thither. For debt, Pompey, or how?
ELBOW For being a bawd, for being a bawd.
LUCIO Well then, imprison him. If imprisonment be the due of a bawd, why, ’tis his right. Bawd is he doubtless, and of antiquity too—bawd born. Farewell, good Pompey. Commend me to the prison, Pompey. You will turn good husband now, Pompey; you will keep the house.
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.
DUKE And you.
LUCIO Does Bridget paint still, Pompey, ha?
ELBOW (to Pompey) Come your ways, sir, come.
POMPEY (to Lucio) You will not bail me then, sir?
LUCIO Then, Pompey, nor now.—What news abroad, friar, what news?
ELBOW (to Pompey) Come your ways, sir, come.
LUCIO Go to kennel, Pompey, go.
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. 361
DUKE He does well in’t.
LUCIO A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in him. Something too crabbed that way, friar.
DUKE It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it.
LUCIO Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred, it is well allied. But it is impossible to extirp it quite, friar, till eating and drinking be put down. They say this Angelo was not made by man and woman, after this downright way of creation. Is it true, think you?
DUKE How should he be made, then?
LUCIO Some report a sea-maid spawned him, some that he was begot between two stockfishes. But it is certain that when he makes water his urine is congealed ice; that I know to be true. And he is a motion ungenerative; that’s infallible.
DUKE You are pleasant, sir, and speak apace.
LUCIO Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the rebellion of a codpiece to take away the life of a man! Would the Duke that is absent have done this? Ere he would have hanged a man for the getting a hundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing a thousand. He had some feeling of the sport, he knew the service, and that instructed him to mercy.
DUKE I never heard the absent Duke much detected for women; he was not inclined that way.
LUCIO O sir, you are deceived.
DUKE ’Tis not possible.
LUCIO Who, not the Duke? Yes, your beggar of fifty; and his use was to put a ducat in her clack-dish. The Duke had crochets in him. He would be drunk too, that let me inform you.
DUKE You do him wrong, surely.
LUCIO Sir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the Duke, and I believe I know the cause of his withdrawing.
DUKE What, I prithee, might be the cause?
LUCIO No, pardon, ’tis a secret must be locked within the teeth and the lips. But this I can let you understand. The greater file of the subject held the Duke to be wise.
DUKE Wise? Why, no question but he was.
LUCIO A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.
DUKE Either this is envy in you, folly, or mistaking. The very stream of his life, and the business he hath helmed, must, upon a warranted need, give him a better proclamation. Let him be but testimonied in his own bringings-forth, and he shall appear to the envious a scholar, a statesman, and a soldier. Therefore you speak unskilfully, or, if your knowledge be more, it is much darkened in your malice.
LUCIO Sir, I know him and I love him. 410
DUKE Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer love.
LUCIO Come, sir, I know what I know.
DUKE I can hardly believe that, since you know not what you speak. But if ever the Duke return, as our prayers are he may, let me desire you to make your answer before him. If it be honest you have spoke, you have courage to maintain it. I am bound to call upon you; and I pray you, your name?
LUCIO Sir, my name is Lucio, well known to the Duke.
DUKE He shall know you better, sir, if I may live to report you.
LUCIO I fear you not.
DUKE O, you hope the Duke will return no more, or you imagine me too unhurtful an opposite. But indeed I can do you little harm; you’ll forswear this again.
LUCIO I’ll be hanged first. Thou art deceived in me, friar. But no more of this. Canst thou tell if Claudio die tomorrow or no?
DUKE Why should he die, sir?
LUCIO Why? For filling a bottle with a tundish. I would the Duke we talk of were returned again; this ungenitured agent will unpeople the province with continency. Sparrows must not build in his house-eaves, because they are lecherous. The Duke yet would have dark deeds darkly answered: he would never bring them to light. Would he were returned. Marry, this Claudio is condemned for untrussing. Farewell, good friar. I prithee pray for me. The Duke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on Fridays. He’s not past it yet, and, I say to thee, he would mouth with a beggar, though she smelt brown bread and garlic. Say that I said so. Farewell. Exit
DUKE
No might nor greatness in mortality
Can censure scape; back-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?
Enter Escalus, the Provost,
and
Mistress Overdone
 
But who comes here?
ESCALUS (to the Provost) Go, away with her to prison.
MISTRESS OVERDONE Good my lord, be good to me. Your honour is accounted a merciful man, good my lord.
ESCALUS Double and treble admonition, and still forfeit in the same kind! This would make mercy swear and play the tyrant.
PROVOST A bawd of eleven years’ continuance, may it please your honour.
MISTRESS OVERDONE My lord, this is one Lucio’s information against me. Mistress Kate Keepdown was with child by him in the Duke’s time; he promised her marriage. His child is a year and a quarter old come Philip and Jacob. I have kept it myself; and see how he goes about to abuse me.
ESCALUS That fellow is a fellow of much licence. Let him be called before us. Away with her to prison. Go to, no more words. Provost, my brother Angelo will not be altered; Claudio must die tomorrow. Let him be furnished with divines, and have all charitable preparation. If my brother wrought by my pity, it should not be so with him.
PROVOST So please you, this friar hath been with him and advised him for th’entertainment of death.
Exeunt Provost and Mistress Overdone
ESCALUS Good even, good father.
DUKE Bliss and goodness on you.
ESCALUS Of whence are you?
DUKE
Not of this country, though my chance is now
To use it for my time. I am a brother
Of gracious order, late come from the See
In special business from his Holiness.

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