William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

ESCALUS.

Every letter he hath writ hath disvouched other.

ANGELO. In most uneven and distracted manner. His actions show much like to madness; pray heaven his wisdom be not tainted! And why meet him at the gates, and redeliver our authorities there?

ESCALUS.

I guess not.

ANGELO. And why should we proclaim it in an hour before his entering that, if any crave redress of injustice, they should exhibit their petitions in the street?

ESCALUS. He shows his reason for that: to have a dispatch of complaints; and to deliver us from devices hereafter, which shall then have no power to stand against us.

ANGELO.

Well, I beseech you, let it be proclaim’d:

Betimes i’ the morn I’ll call you at your house:

Give notice to such men of sort and suit

As are to meet him.

ESCALUS.

I shall, sir: fare you well.

[Exit.]

ANGELO.

Good night.—

This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant,

And dull to all proceedings. A deflower’d maid!

And by an eminent body that enforced

The law against it!—But that her tender shame

Will not proclaim against her maiden loss,

How might she tongue me? Yet reason dares her—no:

For my authority bears a so credent bulk,

That no particular scandal once can touch

But it confounds the breather. He should have liv’d,

Save that his riotous youth, with dangerous sense,

Might in the times to come have ta’en revenge,

By so receiving a dishonour’d life

With ransom of such shame. Would yet he had liv’d!

Alack, when once our grace we have forgot,

Nothing goes right; we would, and we would not.

[Exit.]

SCENE V. Fields without the town.

[Enter DUKE in his own habit, and Friar PETER.]

DUKE.

These letters at fit time deliver me. [Giving letters.]

The provost knows our purpose and our plot.

The matter being afoot, keep your instruction

And hold you ever to our special drift;

Though sometimes you do blench from this to that

As cause doth minister. Go, call at Flavius’ house,

And tell him where I stay: give the like notice

To Valentinus, Rowland, and to Crassus,

And bid them bring the trumpets to the gate;

But send me Flavius first.

PETER.

It shall be speeded well.

[Exit FRIAR.]

[Enter VARRIUS.]

DUKE.

I thank thee, Varrius; thou hast made good haste:

Come, we will walk. There’s other of our friends

Will greet us here anon, my gentle Varrius.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE VI. Street near the City Gate.

[Enter ISABELLA and MARIANA.]

ISABELLA.

To speak so indirectly I am loath;

I would say the truth; but to accuse him so,

That is your part: yet I am advis’d to do it;

He says, to ‘vailfull purpose.

MARIANA.

Be ruled by him.

ISABELLA.

Besides, he tells me that, if peradventure

He speak against me on the adverse side,

I should not think it strange; for ‘tis a physic

That’s bitter to sweet end.

MARIANA.

I would Friar Peter.—

ISABELLA.

O, peace! the friar is come.

[Enter FRIAR PETER.]

PETER.

Come, I have found you out a stand most fit,

Where you may have such vantage on the duke

He shall not pass you. Twice have the trumpets sounded;

The generous and gravest citizens

Have hent the gates, and very near upon

The duke is entering; therefore, hence, away.

[Exeunt.]

ACT V.

SCENE I. A public place near the city gate.

[MARIANA (veiled), ISABELLA, and PETER, at a distance. Enter at opposite doors DUKE, VARRIUS, Lords; ANGELO, ESCALUS, LUCIO, PROVOST, Officers, and Citizens.]

DUKE.

My very worthy cousin, fairly met;—

Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you.

ANGELO and ESCALUS.

Happy return be to your royal grace!

DUKE.

Many and hearty thankings to you both.

We have made inquiry of you; and we hear

Such goodness of your justice that our soul

Cannot but yield you forth to public thanks,

Forerunning more requital.

ANGELO.

You make my bonds still greater.

DUKE.

O, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it

To lock it in the wards of covert bosom,

When it deserves, with characters of brass,

A forted residence ‘gainst the tooth of time

And rasure of oblivion. Give me your hand,

And let the subject see, to make them know

That outward courtesies would fain proclaim

Favours that keep within.—Come, Escalus;

You must walk by us on our other hand:

And good supporters are you.

[Enter PETER and ISABELLA come forward.]

PETER.

Now is your time; speak loud, and kneel before him.

ISABELLA.

Justice, O royal duke! Vail your regard

Upon a wrong’d, I’d fain have said, a maid!

O worthy prince, dishonour not your eye

By throwing it on any other object

Till you have heard me in my true complaint,

And given me justice, justice, justice, justice!

DUKE.

Relate your wrongs. In what? By whom? Be brief:

Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice.

Reveal yourself to him.

ISABELLA.

O worthy duke,

You bid me seek redemption of the devil:

Hear me yourself; for that which I must speak

Must either punish me, not being believ’d,

Or wring redress from you; hear me, O, hear me here!

ANGELO.

My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm:

She hath been a suitor to me for her brother,

Cut off by course of justice.

ISABELLA.

By course of justice!

ANGELO.

And she will speak most bitterly and strange.

ISABELLA.

Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak:

That Angelo’s forsworn, is it not strange?

That Angelo’s a murderer, is’t not strange?

That Angelo is an adulterous thief,

An hypocrite, a virgin-violator,

Is it not strange and strange?

DUKE.

Nay, it is ten times strange.

ISABELLA.

It is not truer he is Angelo

Than this is all as true as it is strange:

Nay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth

To the end of reckoning.

DUKE.

Away with her!—Poor soul,

She speaks this in the infirmity of sense.

ISABELLA.

O prince! I conjure thee, as thou believ’st

There is another comfort than this world,

That thou neglect me not with that opinion

That I am touch’d with madness: make not impossible

That which but seems unlike; ‘tis not impossible

But one, the wicked’st caitiff on the ground,

May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute,

As Angelo; even so may Angelo,

In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms,

Be an arch-villain; believe it, royal prince,

If he be less, he’s nothing; but he’s more,

Had I more name for badness.

DUKE.

By mine honesty,

If she be mad, as I believe no other,

Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense,

Such a dependency of thing on thing,

As e’er I heard in madness.

ISABELLA.

O gracious duke,

Harp not on that: nor do not banish reason

For inequality; but let your reason serve

To make the truth appear where it seems hid

And hide the false seems true.

DUKE.

Many that are not mad

Have, sure, more lack of reason.—What would you say?

ISABELLA.

I am the sister of one Claudio,

Condemn’d upon the act of fornication

To lose his head; condemn’d by Angelo:

I, in probation of a sisterhood,

Was sent to by my brother: one Lucio

As then the messenger;—

LUCIO.

That’s I, an’t like your grace:

I came to her from Claudio, and desir’d her