Measure for Measure

epub:type="z3998:persona">Isabella Woe me! for what? Lucio

For that which, if myself might be his judge,
He should receive his punishment in thanks:
He hath got his friend with child.

Isabella Sir, make me not your story. Lucio

It is true.
I would not⁠—though ’tis my familiar sin
With maids to seem the lapwing and to jest,
Tongue far from heart⁠—play with all virgins so:
I hold you as a thing ensky’d and sainted,
By your renouncement an immortal spirit,
And to be talk’d with in sincerity,
As with a saint.

Isabella You do blaspheme the good in mocking me. Lucio

Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, ’tis thus:
Your brother and his lover have embraced:
As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time
That from the seedness the bare fallow brings
To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb
Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.

Isabella Some one with child by him? My cousin Juliet? Lucio Is she your cousin? Isabella

Adoptedly; as school-maids change their names
By vain though apt affection.

Lucio She it is. Isabella O, let him marry her. Lucio

This is the point.
The duke is very strangely gone from hence;
Bore many gentlemen, myself being one,
In hand and hope of action: but we do learn
By those that know the very nerves of state,
His givings-out were of an infinite distance
From his true-meant design. Upon his place,
And with full line of his authority,
Governs Lord Angelo; a man whose blood
Is very snow-broth; one who never feels
The wanton stings and motions of the sense,
But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
With profits of the mind, study and fast.
He⁠—to give fear to use and liberty,
Which have for long run by the hideous law,
As mice by lions⁠—hath pick’d out an act,
Under whose heavy sense your brother’s life
Falls into forfeit: he arrests him on it;
And follows close the rigour of the statute,
To make him an example. All hope is gone,
Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer
To soften Angelo: and that’s my pith of business
’Twixt you and your poor brother.

Isabella Doth he so seek his life? Lucio

Has censured him
Already; and, as I hear, the provost hath
A warrant for his execution.

Isabella

Alas! what poor ability’s in me
To do him good?

Lucio Assay the power you have. Isabella My power? Alas, I doubt⁠— Lucio

Our doubts are traitors
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo,
And let him learn to know, when maidens sue,
Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,
All their petitions are as freely theirs
As they themselves would owe them.

Isabella I’ll see what I can do. Lucio But speedily. Isabella

I will about it straight;
No longer staying but to give the mother
Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you:
Commend me to my brother: soon at night
I’ll send him certain word of my success.

Lucio I take my leave of you. Isabella Good sir, adieu. Exeunt.

Act II

Scene I

A hall in Angelo’s house.

	Enter Angelo, Escalus, and a Justice, Provost, Officers, and other Attendants, behind.
Angelo	We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it Their perch and not their terror.
Escalus	Ay, but yet Let us be keen, and rather cut a little, Than fall, and bruise to death. Alas, this gentleman, Whom I would save, had a most noble father! Let but your honour know, Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue, That, in the working of your own affections, Had time cohered with place or place with wishing, Or that the resolute acting of your blood Could have attain’d the effect of your own purpose, Whether you had not sometime in your life Err’d in this point which now you censure him, And pull’d the law upon you.
Angelo	’Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus, Another thing to fall. I not deny, The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life, May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try. What’s open made to justice, That justice seizes: what know the laws That thieves do pass on thieves? ’Tis very pregnant, The jewel that we find, we stoop and take’t Because we see it; but what we do not see We tread upon, and never think of it. You may not so extenuate his offence For I have had such faults; but rather tell me, When I, that censure him, do so offend, Let mine own judgment pattern out my death, And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.
Escalus	Be it as your wisdom will.
Angelo	Where is the provost?
Provost	Here, if it like your honour.
Angelo	See that Claudio Be executed by nine to-morrow morning: Bring him his confessor, let him be prepared; For that’s the utmost of his pilgrimage. Exit Provost.
Escalus	Aside. Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all! Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall: Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none: And some condemned for a fault alone.
	Enter Elbow, and Officers with Froth and Pompey.
Elbow	Come, bring them away: if these be good people in a commonweal that do nothing but use their abuses in common houses, I know no law: bring them away.
Angelo	How now, sir! What’s your name? and what’s the matter?
Elbow	If it please your honour, I am the poor duke’s constable, and my name is Elbow: I do lean upon justice, sir, and do bring in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors.
Angelo	Benefactors? Well; what benefactors are they? are they not malefactors?
Elbow	If it please your honour, I know not well what they are: but precise villains they are, that I am sure of; and void of all profanation in the world that good Christians ought to have.
Escalus	This comes off well; here’s a wise officer.
Angelo	Go to: what quality are they of? Elbow is your name? why dost thou not speak, Elbow?
Pompey	He cannot, sir; he’s out at elbow.
Angelo	What are you, sir?
Elbow	He, sir! a tapster, sir; parcel-bawd; one that serves a bad woman; whose house, sir, was, as they say, plucked down in the suburbs; and now she professes a hot-house,