Measure for Measure

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 proclaimed 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. Angelo

Good night. Exit Escalus.
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 of a credent bulk,
That no particular scandal once can touch
But it confounds the breather. He should have lived,
Save that 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 lived!
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.
Friar Peter	It shall be speeded well. Exit.
	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 advised to do it; He says, to veil full 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.
Friar 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

The city gate.

	Mariana veiled, Isabella, and Friar Peter, at their stand. Enter Duke, Varrius, Lords, Angelo, Escalus, Lucio, Provost, Officers, and Citizens, at several doors.
Duke	My very worthy cousin, fairly met! Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you.
Angelo 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 razure 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.
	Friar Peter and Isabella come forward.
Friar Peter	Now is your time: speak loud and kneel before him.
Isabella	Justice, O royal duke! Vail your regard Upon a wrong’d, I would 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 believed, 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 believest 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