Measure for Measure

you call, sir? Provost Sirrah, here’s a fellow will help you to-morrow in your execution. If you think it meet, compound with him by the year, and let him abide here with you; if not, use him for the present and dismiss him. He cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath been a bawd. Abhorson A bawd, sir? fie upon him! he will discredit our mystery. Provost Go to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale. Exit. Pompey Pray, sir, by your good favour⁠—for surely, sir, a good favour you have, but that you have a hanging look⁠—do you call, sir, your occupation a mystery? Abhorson Ay, sir; a mystery Pompey Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and your whores, sir, being members of my occupation, using painting, do prove my occupation a mystery: but what mystery there should be in hanging, if I should be hanged, I cannot imagine. Abhorson Sir, it is a mystery. Pompey Proof? Abhorson Every true man’s apparel fits your thief: if it be too little for your thief, your true man thinks it big enough; if it be too big for your thief, your thief thinks it little enough: so every true man’s apparel fits your thief. Re-enter Provost. Provost Are you agreed? Pompey Sir, I will serve him; for I do find your hangman is a more penitent trade than your bawd; he doth oftener ask forgiveness. Provost You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe to-morrow four o’clock. Abhorson Come on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow. Pompey I do desire to learn, sir: and I hope, if you have occasion to use me for your own turn, you shall find me yare; for truly, sir, for your kindness I owe you a good turn. Provost

Call hither Barnardine and Claudio: Exeunt Pompey and Abhorson.
The one has my pity; not a jot the other,
Being a murderer, though he were my brother.

Enter Claudio.

Look, here’s the warrant, Claudio, for thy death:
’Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow
Thou must be made immortal. Where’s Barnardine?

Claudio

As fast lock’d up in sleep as guiltless labour
When it lies starkly in the traveller’s bones:
He will not wake.

Provost

Who can do good on him?
Well, go, prepare yourself. Knocking within. But, hark, what noise?
Heaven give your spirits comfort! Exit Claudio. By and by.
I hope it is some pardon or reprieve
For the most gentle Claudio.

Enter Duke disguised as before. Welcome father. Duke

The best and wholesomest spirts of the night
Envelope you, good Provost! Who call’d here of late?

Provost None, since the curfew rung. Duke Not Isabel? Provost No. Duke They will, then, ere’t be long. Provost What comfort is for Claudio? Duke There’s some in hope. Provost It is a bitter deputy. Duke

Not so, not so; his life is parallel’d
Even with the stroke and line of his great justice:
He doth with holy abstinence subdue
That in himself which he spurs on his power
To qualify in others: were he meal’d with that
Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous;
But this being so, he’s just. Knocking within. Now are they come. Exit Provost.
This is a gentle provost: seldom when
The steeled gaoler is the friend of men. Knocking within.
How now! what noise? That spirit’s possess’d with haste
That wounds the unsisting postern with these strokes.

Re-enter Provost. Provost

There he must stay until the officer
Arise to let him in: he is call’d up.

Duke

Have you no countermand for Claudio yet,
But he must die to-morrow?

Provost None, sir, none. Duke

As near the dawning, provost, as it is,
You shall hear more ere morning.

Provost

Happily
You something know; yet I believe there comes
No countermand; no such example have we:
Besides, upon the very siege of justice
Lord Angelo hath to the public ear
Profess’d the contrary.

Enter a Messenger. This is his lordship’s man. Duke And here comes Claudio’s pardon. Messenger Giving a paper. My lord hath sent you this note; and by me this further charge, that you swerve not from the smallest article of it, neither in time, matter, or other circumstance. Good morrow; for, as I take it, it is almost day. Provost I shall obey him. Exit Messenger. Duke

Aside. This is his pardon, purchased by such sin
For which the pardoner himself is in.
Hence hath offence his quick celerity,
When it is born in high authority:
When vice makes mercy, mercy’s so extended,
That for the fault’s love is the offender friended.
Now, sir, what news?

Provost I told you. Lord Angelo, belike thinking me remiss in mine office, awakens me with this unwonted putting-on; methinks strangely, for he hath not used it before. Duke Pray you, let’s hear. Provost

Reads.

“Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let Claudio be executed by four of the clock; and in the afternoon Barnardine: for my better satisfaction, let me have Claudio’s head sent me by five. Let this be duly performed; with a thought that more depends on it than we must yet deliver. Thus fail not to do your office, as you will answer it at your peril.”

What say you to this, sir?

Duke What is that Barnardine who is to be executed in the afternoon? Provost A Bohemian born, but here nursed un and bred; one that is a prisoner nine years old. Duke How came it that the absent duke had not either delivered him to his liberty or executed him? I have heard it was ever his manner to do so. Provost His friends still wrought reprieves for him: and, indeed, his fact, till now in the government of Lord Angelo, came not to an undoubtful proof. Duke It is now apparent? Provost Most manifest, and not denied by himself. Duke Hath he born himself penitently in prison? how seems he to be touched? Provost A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but as a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless of what’s past, present, or to come; insensible of mortality, and desperately mortal. Duke He wants advice. Provost He will hear none: he hath evermore had the liberty of the prison; give him leave to escape hence, he