The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare [book recommendations based on other books txt] 📗

well. Exit 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 pow’r 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. Exeunt

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!

SECOND GENTLEMAN. Amen.

LUCIO. Thou conclud’st like the sanctimonious pirate that went to sea with the Ten Commandments, but scrap’d one out of the table.

SECOND GENTLEMAN. ‘Thou shalt not steal’?

LUCIO. Ay, that he raz’d.

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.

SECOND GENTLEMAN. I never heard any soldier dislike it.

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

SECOND GENTLEMAN. No? A dozen times at least.

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-pil’d piece, I warrant thee. I had as lief be a list of an English kersey as be pil’d, as thou art pil’d, 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.

 

Enter MISTRESS OVERDONE

 

LUCIO. Behold, behold, where Madam Mitigation comes! I have purchas’d as many diseases under her roof as come to-SECOND GENTLEMAN. To what, I pray?

FIRST GENTLEMAN. Judge.

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?

MRS. OVERDONE. 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?

MRS. OVERDONE. Marry, sir, that’s Claudio, Signior Claudio.

FIRST GENTLEMAN. Claudio to prison? ‘Tis not so.

MRS. OVERDONE. 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 chopp’d off.

LUCIO. But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so. Art thou sure of this?

MRS. OVERDONE. I am too sure of it; and it is for getting Madam Julietta with child.

LUCIO. Believe me, this may be; he promis’d 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.

Exeunt Lucio and GENTLEMEN

MRS. OVERDONE. 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.

MRS. OVERDONE. Well, what has he done?

POMPEY. A woman.

MRS. OVERDONE. But what’s his offence?

POMPEY. Groping for trouts in a peculiar river.

MRS. OVERDONE. 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?

MRS. OVERDONE. What proclamation, man?

POMPEY. All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be pluck’d down.

MRS. OVERDONE. 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.

MRS. OVERDONE. But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be pull’d down?

POMPEY. To the ground, mistress.

MRS. OVERDONE. 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.

MRS. OVERDONE. 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 Enter PROVOST, CLAUDIO, JULIET, and OFFICERS; LUCIO following CLAUDIO. Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to th’ world?

Bear me to prison, where I am committed.

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

CLAUDIO. Thus can the demigod 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.

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?

CLAUDIO. No.

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 look’d 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 dow’r

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 unscour’d 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 move 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. Exeunt

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. May your Grace speak of it?

DUKE. My holy sir, none better knows than you How I have ever lov’d the life removed, And held in idle price to haunt assemblies Where youth, and cost, a witless bravery keeps.

I have deliver’d to Lord Angelo,

A man of stricture and firm abstinence, My absolute power and place here in Vienna, And he supposes me travell’d to Poland; For so I have strew’d it in the common ear, And so it is received. Now, pious sir, You will demand of me why I do this.

FRIAR. Gladly, my lord.

DUKE. We have strict statutes and most biting laws, The needful bits and curbs to headstrong steeds, 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 mock’d than fear’d; 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. It rested in your Grace

To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleas’d; And it in you more dreadful would have seem’d 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 impos’d 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 me

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