(The set is a large of ce desk and chairs center stage.

At some point before the “curtain” the

DUKE makes his way into his of ce and sits at his desk quietly, reading. He continues to read or
work, even as the pre-show speech is being done, possibly side eyeing or interacting with the
speech, or completely absorbed in his own work.)

Overture

(Music Begins. The DUKE remains at his desk, while above (or downstage) we see
ANGELO and MARIANA meet and “break up” lm noir style. Possibly she hands him
something, a trinket he has given her. She tries to reach out to him, but he coldly and
stoically walks away, leaving her alone. ESCALUS enters with a stack of newspapers for
the DUKE, and to collect some papers from him (of ce Business as usual).)

(The DUKE opens the rst paper - we see “WAR!! PEARL HARBOR ATTACKED” and
“VIENNA CALIFORNIA PREPARES FOR WAR”)

HATHAWAY SISTERS
LA LA LA LA LA LA LA
LA LA LA LA LA LA LA
LA LA LA LA LA
LA LA LA LA LA
LA LA!

Opening

(The DUKE never leaves his desk - but around him materializes the OVERDONE’S club.
LUCIO, his girls, and the ensemble ood the stage. There are Sailors, Zoot suiters, and
girls dancing wildly and having a grand time. At some moment we catch a glimpse of
interaction with CLAUDIO and JULIET interacting romantically- but she never misses a
beat performing (maybe he swings by to give her a ower and a quick kiss).)

LUCIO
Ladies and Gentleman, Cats and Queens, Welcome to Vienna’s seediest, swinginest, hottest spot
to trot. It’s the California dream on the dark side of the street - Welcome to the Dark Lady
Lounge!
HATHAWAY SISTER (SOLO)
OF ALL THE BOYS I’VE KNOWN, AND I’VE KNOWN SOME
UNITL I FIRST MET YOU , I WAS LONESOME
AND WHEN YOU CAME IN SIGHT, DEAR, MY HEART GREW LIGHT
AND THIS OLD WORLD SEEMED NEW TO ME

YOU’RE REALLY SWELL, I HAVE TO ADMIT YOU

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 LUCIO
WHATS THAT?

HATHAWAY SISTER
DESERVE EXPRESSIONS THAT REALLY FIT YOU

LUCIO
OH YES!

HATHAWAY SISTER
AND SO I’VE RACKED MY BRAIN, HOPING TO EXPLAIN
ALL THE THINGS YOU DO TO ME

HATHAWAY SISTERS
BEI MIR BIST DU SCHON, PLEASE LET ME EXPLAIN
BEI MIR BIST DU SCHON MEANS THAT YOU’RE GRAND
BEI MIR BIST DU SCHON, AGAIN AND AGAIN
IT MEANS YOU’RE THE FAIREST IN THE LAND

I COULD SAY BELLA, BELLA, EVEN SAY SEHR WUNDERBAR

EACH LANGUAGE ONLY HELPS ME TELL YOU HOW GRAND YOU ARE!

I’VE TRIED TO EXPLAIN BEI MIR BIST DU SCHON

SO KISS ME AND SAY YOU UNDERSTAND.

LUCIO
I’M AS HAPPY AS A KING,
FEELIN’ GOOD N’ EVERYTHING
JUST LIKE LIKE A BIRD IN THE SPRING
GOT TO LET IT OUT
IT’S MY SWEETIE, CAN’T YOU GUESS?
WILD ABOUT HER, I CONFESS!
DOES SHE LOVE ME?

HATHAWAY SISTERS
OH MY, YES!

LUCIO
THAT’S WHY I SHOUT:
EVERYBODY LOVES MY BABY,
BUT MY BABY DON’T LOVE NOBODY BUT ME.
NOBODY BUT ME.

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 LUCIO HATHAWAY SISTERS
NO, NO, NO, I’VE TRIED TO EXPLAIN
EVERYBODY WANTS MY BEI MIR BIST DU SCHON
BABY, BUT ME— SO KISS ME
AND SAY YOU UNDERSTAND.
THAT’S PLAIN TO SEE

LUCIO, HATHAWAY SISTER (SOLO)

NOW WHEN MY BABY KISSES ME
UPON MY ROSY CHEEKS
WELL I JUST LET THOSE KISSES BE,
DON’T WASH MY FACE FOR WEEKS

LUCIO HATHAWAY SISTERS

EVERYBODY LOVES MY BABY, EVERYBODY WANTS MY BABY,
BUT MY BABY DON’T LOVE BUT MY BABY DON’T WANT
NOBODY BUT ME. NOBODY BUT ME.
NOBODY BUT ME. NOBODY BUT ME.

HATHAWAY SISTER (SOLO)

IF YOUR BLUE AND YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE TO GO TO
WHY DON’T YOU GO WHERE VIENNA SITS,
PUTTIN’ ON THE RITZ

SPANGLED GOWNS UPON A BEVY OF HIGH BROWNS

FROM DOWN THE LEVEE ALL MISFITS,
PUTTIN’ ON THE RITZ

LUCIO
(The following dialogue is subject to heavy doses of improvisation.)

I of course am your master of music, your host with the most, King of swing, Sultan of seduction
— but you all can call me Lucio.

We’ve got a grand night planned for you ne folks, a grand night. We have romance and
heartache, seduction, scandal, suspense, mysteries, revelations, and most importantly we’ll be
asking you for money later on so nd your cash now.

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Don’t worry, this is a Shakespeare show, you’ll get your forty lines of blank verse sir calm down
ALT sir, you’ll get your iambic pentameter, please calm down.
The night is cool and the lights are hot, So tell me, are you ready for a show?

(The crowd cheers.)

Either you’ve all lost your voices or I’m going deaf, let me hear you, I said are you ready for a
show?!

(The crowd cheers.)

Let’s go girls!

LUCIO
COME WITH ME AND WE’LL ATTEND THEIR JUBILEE
AND SEE THEM SPEND THEIR LAST TWO BITS,
PUTTING ON THE RITZ.

EVERYBODY
PUTTING ON THE RITZ.
PUTTING ON THE RITZ.

LUCIO
(The following dialogue is subject to improvisation.)

We are just getting started folks, Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s my pleasure to introduce the
midnight mistress with the soul for sorrow, you know her, you love her, Madam Mariana!

MARIANA
I’M NOBODY’S SWEETHEART NOW,
THERE’S NO PLACE FOR YOU SOMEHOW,
FANCY CLOTHES, SILKEN GOWN,
YOU’LL BE OUT OF PLACE IN YOUR OWN HOMETOWN.

HATHAWAY SISTERS
WHEN YOU WALK DOWN THE AVENUE,
WE JUST CAN’T BELIVE THAT IT’S YOU.

MARIANA
PAINTED LIPS, PAINTED EYES,
WEARING A BIRD OF PARADISE

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 MARIANA, HATHAWAY SISTERS
IT FEELS SO WRONG SOMEHOW,

MARIANA
BUT I’M NOBODY’S SWEETHEART NOW!

LUCIO
(The following dialogue is subject to improvisation.)

Madam Mariana, Ladies and Gentleman!

(Applause)

And nally there would be no Dark Lady without the original West cost Madam, Verona’s
GrandDame of Swing, the Duchess of Desire, put your hands together for Mama Overdone!

OVERDONE
RED HOT MAMA
RED HOT MAMA
YOU’RE THE ONE I KNEED!
RED HOT MAMA
YES INDEED!

I CLAIM THAT YOU SHOULD BE

IN THE FOLLIES, HOT TAMALES!
YOU GOT A PAIR OF EYES,
JUST LIKE OLD SVENGALIS.

(The DUKE opens the nal paper, revealing the headline “zoot suit riot- violence on the
streets” In the middle of the dance oor an altercation begins between a Sailor and Zoot
Suiter. It quickly escalates when one of the sailors opening attacks a Zoot Suiter, who is
outnumbered outnumbering him. The ght quickly spreads is wide spread.)

HATHAWAY SISTERS
I’VE TRIED TO EXPLAIN BEI MIR BIST DU SCHON
SO KISS ME AND SAY YOU UNDERSTAND.

(Sirens are heard, and soon the police are on the scene arresting, and breaking up the
ght. The music ends as everyone clears the scene and the DUKE slams his paper down
on the nal note with a frustration and determination)

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 MEASURE FOR MEASURE
1.1 Enter DUKE, ESCALUS.
(The Of ce of the Duke)

DUKE Escalus.
ESCALUS My lord.
DUKE
Of government the properties to unfold
Would seem in me t’affect speech and discourse,
Since I am put to know that your own science
Exceeds in that the lists of all advice
My strength can give you. Then no more remains
But that, to your suf ciency, as your worth is able,
And let them work. The nature of our people,
Our city’s institutions and the terms
For common justice, you’re as pregnant in
As art and practice hath enriched any
That we remember. There is our commission,
From which we would not have you warp. — Call hither,
I say, bid come before us Angelo. — [Exit a Lord.]
What gure of us think you he will bear?

ESCALUS
If any in Vienna be of worth
To undergo such ample grace and honour,
It is Lord Angelo.

Enter ANGELO.
ANGELO
Always obedient to your grace’s will,
I come to know your pleasure.
DUKE Angelo,
There is a kind of character in thy life
That to th’ observer doth thy history
Fully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings
Are not thine own so proper as to waste
Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.
But I do bend my speech
To one that can my part in him advertise.
Hold therefore, Angelo:
In our remove, be thou at full ourself.
Mortality and mercy in Vienna
Live in thy tongue and heart;

Take thy commission.

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ANGELO Now, good my lord,
Let there be some more test made of my metal
Before so noble and so great a gure
Be stamped upon it.
DUKE No more evasion.
We have with a leavened and prepared choice
Proceeded to you; therefore take your honours.
We shall write to you,
As time and our concernings shall importune[.]
So fare you well.
To th’ hopeful execution do I leave you
Of your commissions.
ANGELO Yet give leave, my lord,
That we may bring you something on the way.
DUKE
My haste may not admit it.
Give me your hand.
your scope is as mine own,
So to enforce or qualify the laws
As to your soul seems good.
Once more, fare you well.
ANGELO
The heavens give safety to your purposes.
ESCALUS
Lead forth and bring you back in happiness.
DUKE
I thank you. Fare you 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 power 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.
Exeunt.

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1.1-1.2 Transition - OH JOHNNY, OH JOHNNY, OH!

(As the scene transitions from the DUKE’S of ce to the club, the HATHAWAY SISTERS
appear above.)

HATHAWAY SISTERS

OH, JOHNNY! OH, JOHNNY!

HOW YOU CAN LOVE
OH, JOHNNY! OH, JOHNNY!
HEAVENS ABOVE
YOU MAKE MY SAD HEART JUMP FOR JOY
AND WHEN YOU’RE NEAR ME I JUST CAN’T SIT STILL A MINUTE
I’M SO, OH, JOHNNY! OH, JOHNNY!
PLEASE TELL ME DEAR
WHAT MAKES ME LOVE YOU SO?
YOU’RE NOT HANDSOME, IT’S TRUE
BUT WHEN I LOOK AT YOU
I JUST, OH JOHNNY!
OH, JOHNNY! OH!

(We are now in the Overdone’s Club, the SISTERS are rehearsing while patrons mill
about.)

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1.2
Enter LUCIO and two others Gentleman.

LUCIO If the Duke, with the other dukes, come not to

composition with the King , why then all
the dukes fall upon the King.
1 GENTLEMAN Heaven grant us its peace, but not the
King!
2 GENTLEMAN Amen.
LUCIO Thou conclud’st like the sanctimonious pirate
that went to sea with the ten commandments, but
scraped one out of the table.
[CLAUDIO] Thou shalt not steal?
LUCIO Ay, that he razed.
1 GENTLEMAN 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.
2 GENTLEMAN I never heard any soldier dislike it.
LUCIO I believe thee, for I think thou never wast where
grace was said.
LUCIO Ay, why not? Grace is grace, despite of all
controversy, as for example, thou thyself art a wicked
villain, despite of all grace.
1 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.
1 GENTLEMAN And thou the velvet[.]
I had as
lief be a list of an English kersey as be piled as
thou art piled 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.

Enter [OVERDONE, a] bawd.

1 GENTLEMAN Thou art always guring 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.

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OVERDONE Well, well. There’s one yonder arrested and
carried to prison was worth ve thousand of you all.
2 GENTLEMAN Who’s that, I prithee?
OVERDONE Marry, sir, that’s Claudio, Signior Claudio.
1 GENTLEMAN Claudio to prison? ’tis not so.
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 chopped off.
LUCIO Art thou sure of this?
OVERDONE I am too sure of it, and it is for getting
Madam Julietta with child.
Exeunt [Gentlemen].

OVERDONE Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat,
what with the gallows, and what with poverty, I am
custom-shrunk.

Enter POMPEY.

POMPEY Yonder man is carried to prison.

OVERDONE Well, what has he done?
POMPEY A woman.
OVERDONE But what’s his offence?
POMPEY Groping for trouts in a peculiar river.
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?
OVERDONE What proclamation, man?
POMPEY All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be
plucked down.
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.
OVERDONE But shall all our houses of resort in the
suburbs be pulled down?
POMPEY To the ground, mistress.
OVERDONE Why here’s a change indeed in the
commonwealth. What shall become of me?
POMPEY 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.

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 Enter PROVOST, CLAUDIO, JULIET, [and] Of cers.

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.

[Enter LUCIO.]

LUCIO
Why, how now, Claudio! Whence comes this restraint?
CLAUDIO
From too much liberty, my Lucio. Liberty[.]

LUCIO What’s thy offence, Claudio?

LUCIO Lechery?
CLAUDIO Call it so.

One word, good friend — Lucio, a word with you.

LUCIO A hundred, if they’ll do you any good. Is lechery
so looked 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.
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 the tyranny be in his place

Or in his emmence that lls it up
I stagger in — but this new governor
Awakes me all the enrolled penalties
Which have like unscoured armour hung by th’ wall[,]
and for a name
Now puts the drowsy and neglected act
Freshly on me. ’Tis surely for a name.

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LUCIO I warrant it is.

CLAUDIO
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.

LUCIO I’ll to her —

CLAUDIO I thank you, good friend Lucio.
Exeunt.

12
1.2-1.3 Transition

[As LUCIO exits and the Of cers remove CLAUDIO and sever other
patrons, Overdone is left alone in her club. As she cleans off a table, she
hummus a few a cappella bars of “Birth of the Blues”]

OVERDONE

AND FROM A JAIL THEY TOOK THE WAIL

OF A DOWN HEARTED FRAIL,
AND THEY CALLED THAT …

[Instrumental music picks up. OVERDONE exits as we open our next scene
in the Church with THOMAS assisting the DUKE in preparing himself for
his plans.]

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 1.3 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.
THOMAS May your grace speak of it?
DUKE
My holy sir, none better knows than you
How I have ever loved the life removed[.]

I have delivered to Lord Angelo,

A man of stricture and rm abstinence,
My absolute power and place here in Vienna[.]
Now, pious sir,
You will demand of me why I do this.
THOMAS
Gladly, my lord.
DUKE
We have strict statutes and most biting laws,
The needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds,
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
our decrees,
Dead to in iction, to themselves are dead,
And liberty plucks justice by the nose,
The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart
Goes all decorum.
THOMAS It rested in your grace
To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleased,
And it in you more dreadful would have seemed
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 —
Therefore, indeed, my father,
I have on Angelo imposed the of ce,
Who may in th’ambush of my name strike home,
And yet my nature never in the ght
To do in slander. And to behold his sway,

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 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
Like a true friar.
Lord Angelo is precise,
Stands at a guard with envy, scarce confesses
That his blood ows, or that his appetite
Is more to bread than stone. Hence shall we see,
If power change purpose, what our seemers be. Exeunt.

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1.4 Enter ISABELLA and FRANCISCA[,] and Nuns.

LUCIO (within)
Ho! Peace be in this place.

FRANCISCA
Gentle Isabella,
Turn you the key and know his business of him;
You may; I may not.
[Lucio calls within.]
I pray you, answer him.
[Exit.]
ISABELLA
Peace and prosperity. Who is’t that calls?

[Enter LUCIO.]

LUCIO
Hail, virgin, if you be, as those cheek-roses
Proclaim you are no less. Can you so stead me
As bring me to the sight of Isabella,
A novice of this place and the fair sister
To her unhappy brother Claudio?
ISABELLA
Why ‘her unhappy brother’? Let me ask,
The rather for I now must make you know
I am that Isabella and his sister.
LUCIO
Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you;
Not to be weary with you, he’s in prison.
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 ’Tis true.
Your brother and his lover have embraced;
her plenteous womb
Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.
ISABELLA
Someone with child by him? Juliet?
LUCIO She it is.

16
ISABELLA
O, let him marry her.
LUCIO This is the point.
The Duke is very strangely gone from hence[.]
Upon his place
And with full line of his authority
Governs Lord Angelo, a man whose blood
Is very snowbroth[.]
He, to give fear to use and liberty,
Which have for long run by the hideous law
As mice by lions, hath picked 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.

ISABELLA
Doth he so seek his life?
LUCIO
H’as censured him already, and as I hear,
The provost hath a warrant for’s 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 makes 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,
Good sir, adieu.
Exeunt.

17
1.4-2.1 Transition - BIRTH OF THE BLUES

( As ISABELLA and the other sisters leave the stage, the music begins and
LUCIO turns to the audience with a knowing grin.)

LUCIO
THEY HEARD THE BREEZE IN THE TREES
SINGING WEIRD MELODIES
AND THEY MADE THAT
PART OF THE BLUES

AND FROM A JAIL THEY TOOK THE WAIL

OF A DOWN HEARTED FRAIL,
AND THEY PLAYED THAT
IT’S PART OF THE BLUES

FROM A WHIPPOORWILL OUT ON A HILL

THEY TOOK A NEW NOTE
PUSHED IT THROUGH A HORN
‘TIL IT WAS BORN A NEW BLUE NOTE

AND THEN THEY NURSED IT, REHEARSED IT,

AND GAVE OUT THE NEWS
THAT THE SOUTH LANDS
GAVE BIRTH TO THE BLUES!

( By the time LUCIO is nished singing, we are in the of ce of ANGELO.)

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2.1.1 Enter ANGELO, ESCALUS.

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.

Let but your honour know,

That in the working of your own affections,

Whether you had not sometime in your life

Erred in this point which now you censure him
And pulled the law upon you.
ANGELO
’Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
Another thing to fall.

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 provost?

See that Claudio

Be executed by nine tomorrow morning.
Bring him his confessor, let him be prepared,
For that’s the utmost of his pilgrimage.
ESCALUS [aside]
Well, heaven forgive him, and forgive us all:
Some rise by sin and some by virtue fall,

19
2.1.2 Enter ELBOW, POMPEY, Of cers.

( Transition outside ANGELO’S Of ce.)

ELBOW Come, bring [him] away: if these be good people

in a commonweal, that do nothing but use their abuses
in common houses, I know no law. Bring [him] away.
ANGELO How now, sir, 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 [a] notorious benefactor.
ANGELO Benefactor?
not malefactor?
ELBOW If it please your honour, I know not well what
[he is], but precise villain that I am sure
of.
ESCALUS This comes off well.

ANGELO [to Pompey] 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
hothouse, which I think is a very ill house too.
ESCALUS How know you that?
ELBOW My wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and
your honour—
ESCALUS How? Thy wife?
ELBOW Ay, sir, whom I thank heaven is an honest woman—
ESCALUS Dost thou detest her therefore?
ELBOW I say, sir, I will detest myself, also, as well as
she, that this house, if it be not a bawd’s house, it is
pity of her life, for it is a naughty house.

POMPEY Sir, if it please your honour, this is not so.

ELBOW Prove it before these varlets here, thou
honourable man, prove it.
ESCALUS [to Angelo] Do you hear how he misplaces?
POMPEY Sir, she came in great with child, and longing,
saving your honour’s reverence, for stewed prunes;
sir, we had but two in the house, which at that very
distant time stood, as it were, in a fruit dish —a dish of
some threepence — your honours have seen such dishes
— they are not china dishes, but very good dishes.

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 ESCALUS Go to, go to. No matter for the dish, sir.
POMPEY No indeed sir, not of a pin; you are therein in the
right, but to the point. As I say, this Mistress Elbow,
being, as I say, with child, and being great bellied, and
longing, as I said, for prunes, and having but two in the
dish, as I said — Master Froth
having eaten the rest, as I said, and, as I say, paying for
them very honestly. For, as you know, I
could not give [him] threepence again.
[ELBOW] No, indeed.
POMPEY Very well. [He] being then, if you be remembered,
cracking the stones of the foresaid prunes.
FROTH Ay, so.
POMPEY Why, very well. I telling you then, if you be
remembered, that such a one and such a one were past
cure of the thing you wot of, unless they kept very
good diet, as I told you.
FROTH All this is true.
POMPEY Why, very well then.
ESCALUS Come, you are a tedious fool.

ANGELO
This will last out a night in Russia
I’ll take my leave
And leave you to the hearing of the cause,
Hoping you’ll nd good cause to whip them [both].
ESCALUS I think no less.
Exit [Angelo].
Now, sir, come on. What was done to Elbow’s wife,
once more, [that he hath cause to complain of?]
POMPEY Once, sir? There was nothing done to her once.
ELBOW I beseech you, sir, ask him what this man did to
my wife.
POMPEY I beseech your honour, ask me.

ELBOW First, an it like you, the house is a respected

house; next, this is a respected fellow; and his mistress
is a respected woman.
POMPEY By this hand, sir, his wife is a more respected
person than any of us all.
ELBOW Varlet, thou liest; thou liest, wicked varlet. The
time is yet to come that she was ever respected with
man, woman or child.
POMPEY Sir, she was respected with him before he
married with her.

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 ELBOW O thou caitiff, O thou varlet, O thou wicked
Hannibal! I respected with her before I was married
to her? If ever I was respected with her, or she with
me, let not your worship think me the poor Duke's
of cer — prove this, thou wicked Hannibal, or I’ll
have mine action of battery on thee.
ESCALUS If he took you a box o’th’ear, you might have
your action of slander too.
ELBOW What
is’t your worship’s pleasure I shall do with this wicked
caitiff?
ESCALUS Truly, of cer, because he hath some offences
in him that thou wouldst discover if thou couldst, let
him continue in his courses, till thou knowst what
they are.
ELBOW Marry, I thank your worship for it — thou seest,
thou wicked varlet now, what’s come upon thee. Thou
art to continue now, thou varlet, thou art to continue.

ESCALUS So. [to Pompey] What trade are you of, sir?
POMPHEY A tapster; a poor widow’s tapster.
ESCALUS Your mistress’ name?
POMPHEY Mistress Overdone.
ESCALUS Hath she had any more than one husband?
POMPEY Nine, sir;
ESCALUS Nine?
POMPEY Overdone by the last.

ESCALUS
Come you hither to me, Master Tapster. What’s your
name, Master Tapster?
POMPEY Pompey.
ESCALUS What else?
POMPEY Bum, sir.
ESCALUS Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing about
you, so that in the beastliest sense, you are Pompey
the Great. Pompey, you are partly a bawd, Pompey,
howsoever you colour it in being a tapster, are you
not?
POMPEY Truly sir, I am a poor fellow that would live.
ESCALUS How would you live, Pompey? By being a
bawd? Is it
a lawful trade?
POMPEY If the law would allow it, sir.
ESCALUS But the law will not allow it, Pompey, nor it
shall not be allowed in Vienna.

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POMPEY Does your worship mean to geld and splay all
the youth of the city?
ESCALUS No, Pompey.
POMPEY Truly, sir, in my poor opinion they will to’t
then.
If you head and hang all that offend that way
but for ten year together, you’ll be glad to give out a
commission for more heads.

If you live to see this come to pass, say Pompey

told you so.
ESCALUS Thank you, good Pompey, and in requital of
your prophecy, hark you. I advise you let me not nd
you before me again upon any complaint whatsoever
If I do, Pompey,
I shall beat you to your tent and prove a shrewd Caesar
to you. In plain dealing, Pompey, I shall have you
Whipped. So for this time, Pompey, fare you well.
POMPEY I thank your worship for your good counsel;
[aside] but I shall follow it as the esh and fortune
shall better determine. Exit.
ESCALUS Come hither to me, Master Elbow, come
hither, Master Constable. How long have you been in
this place of constable?
ELBOW Seven year, and a half, sir.

ESCALUS You say seven years together.

ELBOW And a half, sir.

ESCALUS Are there not men in your ward suf cient to serve it?
ELBOW ’Faith, sir, few of any wit in such matters; as
they are chosen, they are glad to choose me for them.

ESCALUS Look you bring me in the names of some six

or seven, the most suf cient of your parish.
Fare you well.
[Exit Elbow.]
ESCALUS
It grieves me for the death of Claudio,
But there’s no remedy.
It is but needful.
Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so;
Pardon is still the nurse of second woe.
Exeunt.

(Instrumental Music transition)

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 2.2
( ANGELO’S Of ce. ANGELO enters to nd the PROVOST waiting for him.)

Enter ANGELO.
ANGELO
Now, what’s the matter, Provost?
PROVOST
Is it your will Claudio shall die tomorrow?
ANGELO
Did not I tell thee yea?
Why dost thou ask again?
PROVOST Lest I might be too rash:
Under your good correction I have seen
When after execution, judgment hath
Repented o'er his doom.
ANGELO Go to; let that be mine,
Do you your of ce or give up your place,
And you shall well be spared.
PROVOST
I crave your honour’s pardon:
What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet?
ANGELO Dispose of her
To some more tter place; and that with speed.

[Enter [Escalus].]

[ESCALUS]
Here is the sister of the man condemned
Desires access to you.

ANGELO Well, let her be admitted. [Exit [Escalus].]

Enter LUCIO and ISABELLA.

ANGELO
Stay a little while. [to Isabella] You’re welcome:
what’s your will?
ISABELLA
I am a woeful suitor to your honour,
’Please but your honour hear me.
ANGELO Well, what’s your suit?
ISABELLA
There is a vice that most I do abhor,
And most desire should meet the blow of justice;
For which I would not plead, but that I must,
For which I must not plead, but that I am

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 At war 'twixt will and will not.
ANGELO Well, the matter?
ISABELLA
I have a brother is condemned to die;
I do beseech you let it be his fault,
And not my brother.
ANGELO
Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?
Why every fault’s condemned ere it be done.

ISABELLA
I had a brother then; heaven keep your honour.
LUCIO [aside to Isabella]
Give’t not o’er so.

You are too cold[.]

ISABELLA
Must he needs die?
ANGELO Maiden, no remedy.
ISABELLA
Yes, I do think that you might pardon him,
And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.
ANGELO
I will not do’t.
ISABELLA But can you if you would?
ANGELO
Look what I will not, that I cannot do.
ISABELLA
But might you do’t and do the world no wrong
If so your heart were touched with that remorse
As mine is to him?
ANGELO
He’s sentenced, ’tis too late.
LUCIO [aside to Isabella]
You are too cold.
ISABELLA
Too late? Why, no. I that do speak a word
May call it again. Well, believe this,
No ceremony that to great ones longs,

Become them with one half so good a grace

As mercy does. If he had been as you
And you as he, you would have slipped like him.
But he, like you, would not have been so stern.
ANGELO

25
 Pray you be gone.
ISABELLA
I would to heaven I had your potency,
And you were Isabel. Should it then be thus?
No. I would tell what ’twere to be a judge,
And what a prisoner.
LUCIO [aside]
Ay, touch him: there’s the vein.

ANGELO Be you content, fair maid,

It is the law, not I, condemn your brother.
Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,
It should be thus with him: he must die tomorrow.
ISABELLA
Tomorrow? O, that’s sudden! Spare him, spare him!
He’s not prepared for death.
Good, good, my lord, bethink you;
Who is it that hath died for this offence?
There’s many have committed it.
LUCIO [aside] Ay, well said.
ANGELO
The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.
Now ’tis awake,
Takes note of what is done,
Either now, or by remissness new conceived,
And so in progress to be hatched and born,
Are now to have no successive degrees,
But ere they live, to end.
ISABELLA Yet show some pity.
ANGELO
I show it most of all when I show justice,

Your brother dies tomorrow; be content.

ISABELLA
So you must be the rst that gives this sentence,
And he that suffers. O, it is excellent
To have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
LUCIO [aside] That’s well said.
ISABELLA Could great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would never be quiet,
For every pelting, petty of cer
Would use his heaven for thunder,
Nothing but thunder.
but man, proud man,
Dressed in a little brief authority,

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 Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep, who with our spleens
Would all themselves laugh mortal.
LUCIO [aside to Isabella]
He’s coming: I perceive’t.
PROVOST [aside] Pray heaven she win him.
ISABELLA
We cannot weigh our brother with ourself.
Great men may jest with saints; ’tis wit in them,
But in the less, foul profanation.

ANGELO
Why do you put these sayings upon me?
ISABELLA
Because authority, though it err like others,
Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself
That skins the vice o’th’ top. Go to your bosom,
Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know
That’s like my brother’s fault. If it confess
A natural guiltiness, such as is his,
Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother’s life.
ANGELO [aside] —Fare you well.
ISABELLA
Gentle my lord, turn back.
ANGELO
I will bethink me: come again tomorrow.
ISABELLA
Hark, how I’ll bribe you; good my lord, turn back.
ANGELO
Bribe me?
ISABELLA
Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.

ANGELO Well, come to me tomorrow.

LUCIO [aside to Isabells] Go to, ’tis well; away.
ISABELLA
Heaven keep your honour safe.
ANGELO Amen.

ISABELLA At what hour tomorrow

Shall I attend your lordship?
ANGELO At any time ’fore noon.
ISABELLA

27
 ’Save your honour. [Exeunt Isabella, Lucio and Provost.]
ANGELO
What’s this? What’s this? Is this her fault or mine?
The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most, ha?
Not she, nor doth she tempt, but it is I
That, lying by the violet in the sun,
Do as the carrion does, not as the ower,
Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be
That modesty may more betray our sense
Than woman’s lightness?
O, e, e, e,
What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?
Dost thou desire her foully for those things
That make her good? O, let her brother live.
Thieves for their robbery have authority,
When judges steal themselves. What, do I love her,
That I desire to hear her speak again
And feast upon her eyes? What is’t I dream on?
O cunning enemy that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook!
Never could the strumpet
With all her double vigour, art and nature,
Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
Subdues me quite. Even till now,
When men were fond, I smiled and wondered how.
Exit.

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2.2-2.3 Transition - OH, SWEET LADY BE GOOD

( ANGELO lingers as the music begins. SISTERS sing over the following scene
transition.)

HATHAWAY SISTERS
OH, SWEET AND LOVELY LADY, BE GOOD
OH, LADY, BE GOOD TO ME
I AM SO AWF’LY MISUNDERSTOOD
SO LADY BE GOOD TO ME
OH,PLEASE HAVE SOME PITY
I’M ALL ALONE IN THIS BIG CITY
I TELL YOU I’M JUST A LONESOME BABE IN THE WOODS,
SO LADY BE GOOD TO ME

( SISTERS exit. We are now in the Police station.)

29
 2.3 Enter DUKE [disguised as a friar] and PROVOST.

DUKE
Hail to you, Provost, so I think you are.
PROVOST
I am the provost. What’s your will, good friar?
DUKE
Bound by my charity and my blest order,
I come to visit the af icted spirits
Here in the prison. Do me the common right
To let me see them and to make me know
The nature of their crimes, that I may minister
To them accordingly.
PROVOST
I would do more than that, if more were needful.

Enter JULIET.

Look here comes one: a gentlewoman of mine,

She is with child,
And he that got it, sentenced — a young man,
More t to do another such offence
Than die for this.
DUKE
When must he die?
PROVOST As I do think, tomorrow—

DUKE
Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?
JULIET
I do, and bear the shame most patiently.
DUKE
I’ll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience
And try your penitence, if it be sound,
Or hollowly put on.
JULIET I’ll gladly learn.
DUKE
Love you the man that wronged you?
JULIET
Yes, as I love the woman that wronged him.
DUKE
So then it seems your most offenceful act
Was mutually committed.
JULIET Mutually.
DUKE

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 Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.
JULIET
I do confess it and repent it, father.
DUKE
’Tis meet so, daughter, but lest you do repent
As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,
Which sorrow is always towards ourselves, not heaven,
Showing we would not spare heaven as we love it,
But as we stand in fear—
JULIET
I do repent me, as it is an evil,
And take the shame with joy.
DUKE There rest.
Your partner, as I hear, must die tomorrow,
And I am going with instruction to him.
Grace go with you, benedicite.
Exit.
JULIET
Must die tomorrow? O injurious love
That respites me a life, whose very comfort
Is still a dying horror.
PROVOST ’Tis pity of him.
Exeunt.

31
 2.3-2.4 Transition - HOW COME YOU DO ME LIKE YOU DO?

(Enter ANGELO and MARIANA (above) as the music begins. ANGELO moves to
the desk and does everything to focus on his work, but it is a struggle.)

MARIANA
HOW COME YOU DO ME LIKE YOU DO DO DO?
HOW COME YOU DO ME LIKE YOU DO?
WHY DO YOU TRY TO MAKE ME FEEL SO BLUE?
I’VE DONE NOTHING TO YOU.

(ISABELLA appears, dressed in Cabaret attire. ANGELO can not take his eyes
off her.)

DO ME RIGHT OR ELSE JUST LET ME BE.

‘CAUSE I CAN BEAT YOU DOING WHAT YOU’RE DOING TO ME.
HOW COME YOU DO ME LIKE YOU DO DO DO?
HOW COME YOU DO ME LIKE YOU DO?

2.4 Enter ANGELO.

ANGELO
When I would pray and think, I think and pray
To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words,
Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
Anchors on Isabel. Heaven in my mouth,
As if I did but only chew his name,
And in my heart the strong and swelling evil
Of my conception. The state whereon I studied
Is like a good thing, being often read,
Grown sere and tedious; yea, my gravity
Wherein, let no man hear me, I take pride,
Could I with boot change for an idle plume

(ISABELLA departs)

Which the air beats for vain. O place, O form,

How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools and tie the wiser souls
To thy false seeming? Blood, thou art blood,
Let’s write good angel on the devil’s horn,
’Tis not the devil’s crest.

(There is a knock at the door, and the music is gone. ANGELO is alone. After a
moment, ESCALUS enters)

32
 [ESCALUS]
One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.
ANGELO
[Exit [Escalus]]
O heavens,
Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,
Making both it unable for itself
And dispossessing all my other parts
Of necessary tness?

Enter ISABELLA.

How now, fair maid?

ISABELLA
I am come to know your pleasure.
ANGELO
That you might know it would much better please me
Than to demand what ’tis. Your brother cannot live.
ISABELLA
Even so. Heaven keep your honour.
ANGELO
Yet may he live a while, and it may be
As long as you or I. Yet he must die.
ISABELLA
Under your sentence?
ANGELO
Yea.
ISABELLA
When, I beseech you: that in his reprieve,
Longer, or shorter, he may be so tted
That his soul sicken not?
ANGELO
Ha? Fie, these lthy vices: it were as good
To pardon him that hath from nature stolen
A man already made, as to remit
Their saucy sweetness that do coin heaven’s image
In stamps that are forbid.

ISABELLA
’Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.
ANGELO
Say you so? Then I shall pose you quickly.
Which had you rather, that the most just law
Now took your brother’s life, or, to redeem him
Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness
As she that he hath stained?

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ISABELLA Sir, believe this:
I had rather give my body than my soul.
ANGELO
I talk not of your soul; our compelled sins
Stand more for number than for account.
ISABELLA How say you?
ANGELO
Nay, I’ll not warrant that, for I can speak
Against the thing I say. Answer to this:
I, now the voice of the recorded law,
Pronounce a sentence on your brother’s life.
Might there not be a charity in sin
To save this brother’s life?
ISABELLA Please you to do’t,
I’ll take it as a peril to my soul,
It is no sin at all, but charity.
ANGELO
Pleased you to do’t at peril of your soul
Were equal poise of sin and charity.
ISABELLA
That I do beg his life, if it be sin,
Heaven let me bear it. You granting of my suit,
If that be sin, I’ll make it my morn prayer
To have it added to the faults of mine
And nothing of your answer.
ANGELO Nay, but hear me.
Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant,
Or seem so, craftily; and that’s not good.
ISABELLA
Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good,
But graciously to know I am no better.
ANGELO
Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright
When it doth tax itself,
But [here] mark me,
To be received plain, I’ll speak more gross:
Your brother is to die.
ISABELLA So.
ANGELO
And his offence is so, as it appears,
Accountant to the law upon that pain.
ISABELLA True.
ANGELO
Admit no other way to save his life,
that you, his sister,
Finding yourself desired of such a person

34
 Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,
Could fetch your brother from the manacles
Of the all-building law, and that there were
No earthly mean to save him, but that either
You must lay down the treasures of your body
To this supposed, or else to let him suffer:
What would you do?
ISABELLA
As much for my poor brother as myself:
That is, were I under the terms of death,
Th’ impression of keen whips I’d wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death, as to a bed
That longing have been sick for, ere I’d yield
My body up to shame.
ANGELO
Then must your brother die.
ISABELLA
And ’twere the cheaper way:
Better it were a brother died at once,
Than that a sister by redeeming him
Should die for ever.
ANGELO
Were not you then as cruel as the sentence
That you have slandered so?
ISABELLA
Ignomy in ransom and free pardon
Are of two houses: lawful mercy
Is nothing kin to foul redemption.
ANGELO
You seemed of late to make the law a tyrant,
And rather proved the sliding of your brother
A merriment than a vice.
ISABELLA
O, pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out
To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean.
I something do excuse the thing I hate
For his advantage that I dearly love.
ANGELO
We are all frail.
ISABELLA Else let my brother die,
If not a feodary, but only he
Owe and succeed thy weakness.
ANGELO
Nay, women are frail too.

35
 ISABELLA
Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves,
Which are as easy broke as they make forms.
Women? Help heaven, men their creation mar
In pro ting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail,
For we are soft as our complexions are
And credulous to false prints.
ANGELO I think it well.
And from this testimony of your own sex,
Since I suppose we are made to be no stronger
Than faults may shake our frames, let me be bold;
I do arrest your words. Be that you are,
That is, a woman; if you be more, you’re none.
If you be one, as you are well expressed
By all external warrants, show it now
By putting on the destined livery.
ISABELLA
I have no tongue but one; gentle my lord,
Let me entreat you speak the former language.
ANGELO
Plainly conceive I love you.

ISABELLA
My brother did love Juliet,
And you tell me that he shall die for’t.
ANGELO
He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.
ISABELLA
I know your virtue hath a licence in’t,
Which seems a little fouler than it is
To pluck on others.
ANGELO Believe me, on mine honour,
My words express my purpose.
ISABELLA
Ha! Little honour, to be much believed,
And most pernicious purpose. Seeming, seeming!
I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for’t.
Sign me a present pardon for my brother,
Or with an outstretched throat I’ll tell the world aloud
What man thou art.
ANGELO Who will believe thee, Isabel?
My unsoiled name, th’ austereness of my life,
My vouch against you and my place i’th’ state
Will so your accusation overweigh
That you shall sti e in your own report

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 And smell of calumny. I have begun,
And now I give my sensual race the rein;
Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite,
Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes
That banish what they sue for, redeem thy brother
By yielding up thy body to my will,
Or else he must not only die the death,
But thy unkindness shall his death draw out
To lingering sufferance. Answer me tomorrow,
Or by the affection that now guides me most,
I’ll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,
Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true.
Exit.

ISABELLA
To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,
Who would believe me? O perilous mouths
That bear in them one and the selfsame tongue
Either of condemnation or approof,
Bidding the law make curtsy to their will,
Hooking both right and wrong to th’ appetite,
To follow as it draws. I’ll to my brother;
Though he hath fallen by prompture of the blood,
Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour
That had he twenty heads to tender down
On twenty bloody blocks, he’d yield them up
Before his sister should her body stoop
To such abhorred pollution.
Then Isabel live chaste, and brother die:
More than our brother is our chastity.
I’ll tell him yet of Angelo’s request,
And t his mind to death for his soul's rest.
Exit.

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 2.4-3.1 Transition - HOW COME YOU DO ME LIKE YOU DO? - reprise

(The Music begins. As ISABELLA makes her exit, LUCIO appears above.)

LUCIO

HOW COME YOU DO ME LIKE YOU DO DO DO?

HOW COME YOU DO ME LIKE YOU DO?
WHY DO YOU TRY TO MAKE ME FEEL SO BLUE?
I’VE DONE NOTHING TO YOU.

DO ME RIGHT OR ELSE JUST LET ME BE.

‘CAUSE I CAN BEAT YOU DOING WHAT YOU’RE DOING TO ME.
HOW COME YOU DO ME LIKE YOU DO DO DO?
HOW COME YOU DO ME LIKE YOU DO?

(LUCIO exits as we transition to the prison.)

38
 3.1 Enter DUKE [disguised as a friar], CLAUDIO.

DUKE
So then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?
CLAUDIO
The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope:
I’ve hope to live, and am prepared to die.
DUKE
Be absolute for death; either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep; a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyey in uences
That dost this habitation where thou keepst
Hourly af ict. Merely, thou art death’s fool,
For him thou labour’st by thy ight to shun
And yet run’st toward him still. Thou art not noble,
For all th’ accommodations that thou bear’st
Are nursed by baseness. Thou’rt by no means valiant,
For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork
Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,
And that thou oft provok’st, yet grossly fear’st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself,
For thou exists on many a thousand grains
That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not,
For what thou hast not still thou striv’st to get,
And what thou hast, forget’st. Thou art not certain,
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou’rt poor,
For like an ass, whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear’st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none,
For thine own bowels which do call thee sire,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,
Do curse the gout, serpigo and the rheum
For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age,
But as it were an after-dinner’s sleep,
Dreaming on both, for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged and doth beg the alms
Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb nor beauty
To make thy riches pleasant. What’s yet in this
That bears the name of life? Yet in this life
Lie hid mo thousand deaths; yet death we fear
That makes these odds all even.

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CLAUDIO I humbly thank you.

Enter ISABELLA [and Provost].

PROVOST Look, signior, here’s your

sister.
DUKE Provost, a word with you.
PROVOST As many as you please.
DUKE Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be
concealed.
[Exeunt Duke and Provost]
CLAUDIO
Now sister, what’s the comfort?
ISABELLA Why,
Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,
Intends you for his swift ambassador,

Tomorrow you set on.

CLAUDIO Is there no remedy?
ISABELLA
None, but such remedy as to save a head
To cleave a heart in twain.

There is a devilish mercy in the judge,

If you’ll implore it, that will free your life
But fetter you till death.
CLAUDIO Perpetual durance?
ISABELLA
Ay, just, perpetual durance, a restraint,
Though all the world’s vastidity you had,
To a determined scope.
CLAUDIO But in what nature?
ISABELLA
In such a one as, you consenting to’t,
Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear
And leave you naked.
CLAUDIO Let me know the point.
ISABELLA
O, I do fear thee, Claudio,
Dar’st thou die?
The sense of death is most in apprehension,
And the poor beetle that we tread upon
In corporal sufferance nds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.

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 CLAUDIO
Why give you me this shame?
If I must die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride
And hug it in mine arms.
ISABELLA
There spake my brother. There my father’s grave
Did utter forth a voice. Yes, thou must die;
This outward-sainted deputy,
is yet a devil;
His lth within being cast, he would appear
A pond as deep as hell.
CLAUDIO The prenzie Angelo?
ISABELLA
O, ’tis the cunning livery of hell,
The damned’st body to invest and cover
In prenzie guards; dost thou think, Claudio,
If I would yield him my virginity
Thou might’st be freed?
CLAUDIO O heavens, it cannot be.
ISABELLA
Yes, he would give’t thee;
This night’s the time
That I should do what I abhor to name,
Or else thou diest tomorrow.
CLAUDIO
Thou shalt not do’t.
ISABELLA
O, were it but my life,
I’d throw it down for your deliverance
As frankly as a pin.
CLAUDIO
Thanks, dear Isabel.
ISABELLA
Be ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow.
CLAUDIO
Yes. Has he affections in him
That thus can make him bite the law by th’ nose
When he would force it? Sure it is no sin,
Or of the deadly seven it is the least.
ISABELLA
Which is the least?
CLAUDIO
If it were damnable, he being so wise,
Why would he for the momentary trick
Be perdurably ned? O Isabel!

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 ISABELLA
What says my brother?
CLAUDIO
Death is a fearful thing.
ISABELLA
And shamed life a hateful.
CLAUDIO
Ay, but to die and go we know not where,
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot,
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod, and the delighted spirit
To bathe in ery oods or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice,
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world: or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling: ’tis too horrible.
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
ISABELLA
Alas, alas.
CLAUDIO
Sweet sister, let me live.
What sin you do to save a brother’s life,
Nature dispenses with the deed so far
That it becomes a virtue.
ISABELLA O you beast,
O faithless coward, O dishonest wretch,
Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?
Is’t not a kind of incest to take life
From thine own sister’s shame? What should I think?
Heaven shield my mother played my father fair,
For such a warped slip of wilderness
Ne’er issued from his blood. Take my de ance,
Die, perish. Might but my bending down
Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed.
I’ll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,
No word to save thee.
CLAUDIO
Nay, hear me, Isabel.
ISABELLA
O e, e, e:
Thy sin’s not accidental, but a trade;

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 Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd.
’Tis best thou diest quickly.
CLAUDIO
O hear me, Isabella.

[Enter DUKE and PROVOST]

DUKE
Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.
ISABELLA What is your will?
DUKE Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by
and by have some speech with you. The satisfaction I
would require is likewise your own bene t.
ISABELLA I have no super uous leisure, my stay must be
stolen out of other affairs, but I will attend you awhile.
DUKE Son, I have overheard what hath passed between
you and your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to
corrupt her; only he hath made an assay of her virtue, to
practise his judgment with the disposition of natures.
She, having the truth of honour in her, hath made him
that gracious denial which he is most glad to receive. I
am confessor to Angelo, and I know this to be true;
therefore prepare yourself to death. Do not satisfy your
resolution with hopes that are fallible, tomorrow you
must die. Go to your knees and make ready.
CLAUDIO Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of
love with life that I will sue to be rid of it.
DUKE Hold you there. Farewell. Provost, a word with
you.
Exit [Provost with Claudio].
(During this next exchange we transition to outside of the Prison)

DUKE [to Isabella] The hand that hath made you fair
hath made you good;
The assault that Angelo hath made to
you fortune hath conveyed to my understanding[.]
How will you do to content this
substitute and to save your brother?
ISABELLA I am now going to resolve him. I had rather my
brother die by the law than my son should be unlawfully
born. But, O, how much is the good Duke deceived in
Angelo; if ever he return and I can speak to him, I will
open my lips in vain, or discover his government.
DUKE That shall not be much amiss, yet as the matter
now stands, he will avoid your accusation: he made
trial of you only. Therefore, fasten your ear on my

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 advisings. To the love I have in doing good a remedy
presents itself. I do make myself believe that you may
most uprighteously do a poor wronged lady a merited
bene t; redeem your brother from the angry law; do
no stain to your own gracious person; and much
please the absent Duke, if peradventure he shall ever
return to have hearing of this business.
ISABELLA I have spirit to
do anything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.
DUKE Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have
you not heard speak of Mariana[.]
ISABELLA I have heard of the lady[.]
DUKE She should this Angelo have married, was
af anced to her by oath[.] But she lost a noble and renowned
brother; with him, the portion and sinew of her fortune; with
both, her combinate husband, this well-seeming Angelo.
ISABELLA Can this be so? Did Angelo so leave her?
DUKE Left her in her tears and dried not one of them[.]
ISABELLA But how out of this can she avail?
DUKE It is a rupture that you may easily heal, and the
cure of it not only saves your brother, but keeps you
from dishonour in doing it.
ISABELLA Show me how, good father.
DUKE Go you to Angelo, answer his requiring with a
plausible obedience, agree with his demands to the
point, only refer yourself to this advantage: rst, that
your stay with him may not be long; that the time may
have all shadow and silence in it; and the place answer
to convenience. This being granted in course —
we shall advise this wronged maid to
stead up your appointment, go in your place. If the
encounter acknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel
him to her recompense; and here, by this is your brother
saved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana
advantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled.
ISABELLA The image of it gives me content already, and
I trust it will grow to a most prosperous perfection.
DUKE Haste you speedily
to Angelo. If for this night he entreat you to his bed,
give him promise of satisfaction. I will presently to
[the] dejected Mariana.
ISABELLA I thank you for this comfort. Fare you well,
good father.
Exit.

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 [3.2] Enter ELBOW, POMPEY, [DUKE], Of cers.

ELBOW Come your way, sir. ’Bless you, good father friar.
DUKE And you, good brother father. What offence hath
this man made you, sir?
ELBOW Marry, sir, he hath offended the law; and, sir, we
take him to be a thief too, sir: for we have found upon
him, sir, a strange picklock[.]
DUKE
Fie, sirrah,
The evil that thou causest to be done,
That is thy means to live. Do thou but think
What ’tis to cram a maw or clothe a back
From such a lthy vice.
Go mend, go mend.
POMPEY Indeed, it does stink in some sort, sir, but yet,
sir, I would prove—

Enter LUCIO.

I cry bail. Here’s a gentleman

and a friend of mine.
LUCIO How now, noble Pompey? What, at the wheels of
Caesar? Art thou led in triumph?
What reply? Ha? Art going to prison, Pompey?
POMPEY Yes, faith, sir.
LUCIO Why ’tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell; go say I
sent thee thither. For debt, Pompey? Or how?
ELBOW For being a bawd, for being a bawd.
LUCIO Bawd is he doubtless, and
of antiquity too. Bawd born. Farewell, good Pompey.
Commend me to the prison, Pompey —
POMPEY I hope, sir, your good worship will be my bail?
LUCIO No indeed will I not, Pompey, it is not the wear. I
will pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage; If you
take it not patiently, why, your mettle is the more.
Adieu, trusty Pompey. —Bless you, friar.
DUKE And you.

ELBOW Come your ways, sir, come.

POMPEY You will not bail me then?
LUCIO Then, Pompey, nor now. —What news abroad,
friar? What news?
ELBOW Come your ways, sir, come.
LUCIO Go to kennel, Pompey, go.

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 [Exeunt Elbow, Pompey and Of cers]

What news, friar, of the Duke?

DUKE I know none. Can you tell me of any?
LUCIO Some say he is with the Emperor other
some, he is in Rome. But where is he, think you?
DUKE I know not where, but wheresoever, I wish him well.
LUCIO It was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from
the state and usurp the beggary he was never born to.
Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence; he puts
transgression to’t.
DUKE He does well in’t.
LUCIO A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm
in him: something too crabbed that way, friar.
They say
this Angelo was not made by man and woman, after
this downright way of creation. Is it true, think you?
DUKE How should he be made, then?
LUCIO Some report a sea-maid spawned him. Some, that
he was begot between two stock shes. But it is certain
that when he makes water his urine is congealed
ice, that I know to be true.
Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the
rebellion of a codpiece to take away the life of a man!
Would the Duke that is absent have done this?

He had some feeling of the sport; he knew

the service, and that instructed him to mercy.
DUKE I never heard the absent Duke much detected for
women; he was not inclined that way.
LUCIO O sir, you are deceived.
DUKE ’Tis not possible.
LUCIO the Duke
had crotchets in him. He would be drunk too, that let
me inform you.
DUKE You do him wrong, surely.
LUCIO Sir, I was an inward of his: a shy fellow was the
Duke, and I believe I know the cause of his withdrawing.
DUKE What, I prithee, might be the cause?
LUCIO No, pardon: ’tis a secret must be locked within
the teeth and the lips, but this I can let you understand,
the greater le of the subject held the Duke to be wise.
DUKE Wise? Why, no question but he was.
LUCIO A very super cial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.
DUKE Either this is the envy in you, folly or mistaking.

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LUCIO Sir, I know him, and I love him.
DUKE Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge
with dearer love.
LUCIO Come, sir, I know what I know.
DUKE I can hardly believe that, since you know not what
you speak. But if ever the Duke return (as our prayers
are he may), let me desire you to make your answer
before him.
I am bound to call upon you,
and I pray you, your name?
LUCIO Sir, my name is Lucio, well known to the Duke.
DUKE He shall know you better, sir, if I may live to
report you.
LUCIO I fear you not.
But no more of this. Canst thou tell if Claudio
die tomorrow, or no?
DUKE Why should he die, sir?
LUCIO Why? For lling a bottle with a tundish. I would
the Duke we talk of were returned again; this
ungenitured agent will unpeople the province with
continency.
Farewell, good friar, I prithee, pray for me. The Duke
(I say to thee again) would eat mutton on Fridays.
He’s not past it, yet (and I say to thee) he would
mouth with a beggar, though she smelt brown bread
and garlic. Say that I said so. Farewell.
Exit.

DUKE
No might nor greatness in mortality
Can censure scape; back-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes.

Enter ESCALUS, PROVOST[, Of cers] and OVERDONE.

OVERDONE Good my lord, be good to me, your honour

is accounted a merciful man, good my lord—
ESCALUS Double and treble admonition, and still forfeit
in the same kind? This would make mercy swear and
play the tyrant.

OVERDONE My lord, this is one Lucio’s information

against me. [I] was with child
by him in the Duke’s time, he promised [me] marriage.
His child — I have kept it myself — and see how he goes
about to abuse me.

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ESCALUS That fellow is a fellow of much licence. Let
him be called before us.
Go to, no more words.
[Exeunt Overdone and Of cers.]
Provost, my brother Angelo will not be altered,
Claudio must die tomorrow. Let him be furnished
with divines and have all charitable preparation.

PROVOST So please you, this friar hath been with him

and advised him for th’ entertainment of death.
ESCALUS Good e’en, good father.
DUKE Bliss and goodness on you.
ESCALUS Of whence are you?
DUKE
Not of this country, though my chance is now
To use it for my time.

ESCALUS What news abroad i’th’ world?

DUKE None, but that there is so great a fever on goodness
that the dissolution of it must cure it.
Much upon this riddle runs the
wisdom of the world; this news is old enough, yet it is
every day’s news. I pray you, sir, of what disposition
was the Duke?
ESCALUS One that above all other strifes contended
especially to know himself.
DUKE What pleasure was he given to?
ESCALUS Rather rejoicing to see another merry than
merry at anything which professed to make him
rejoice. A gentleman of all temperance. But leave we
him to his events, with a prayer they may prove
prosperous, and let me desire to know how you nd
Claudio prepared? I am made to understand that you
have lent him visitation.
DUKE He professes to have received no sinister measure
from his judge, but most willingly humbles himself
to the determination of justice:
he resolved to die.
ESCALUS
I have
laboured for the poor gentleman to the extremest
shore of my modesty, but my brother justice have I
found so severe that he hath forced me to tell him, he
is indeed Justice.
DUKE If his own life answer the straitness of his
proceeding, it shall become him well; wherein if he

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 chance to fail he hath sentenced himself.
ESCALUS I am going to visit the prisoner, fare you well.
DUKE Peace be with you!
[Exeunt Escalus and Provost.]

Exit.

49
 3.1Finale- COME HOME MEDLEY

HATHAWAY SISTERS
OH BABY, WON’T YOU PLEASE COME HOME
CAUSE YOUR MAMA’S ALL ALONE
I HAVE TRIED IN VAIN,
EVERMORE TO CALL YOUR NAME
WHEN YOU LEFT YOU BROKE MY HEART
THAT WILL NEVER MAKE US PART
EVERY HOUR IN THE DAY
YOU WILL HEAR ME SAY
BABY WON’T YOU PLEASE COME HOME.

LUCIO
THERE AIN’T NOTHING I CAN DO, NOTHIN’ I CAN SAY
WHERE FOLKS WONT CRITICIZE ME
SO IM GOING TO DO JUST WHAT I WANT TO ANYWAY
AND I DON’T CARE WHAT PEOPLE SAY

IF I SHOULD TAKE THE NOTION TO JUMP INTO THE OCEAN

TAIN’T NOBODY’S BUISNESS IF I DO

HATHAWAY SISTERS
OH BABY, WON’T YOU PLEASE COME HOME

LUCIO
IF I GO TO CHURCH ON SUNDAY THEN BURN IT ALL DOWN MONDAY
TAIN’T NOBODY’S BUSINESS IF I DO

HATHAWAY SISTERS
OH BABY, WON’T YOU PLEASE COME HOME

LUCIO
IF MY BABY AIN’T GOT NO MONEY, AND I GIVE HER ALL OF MINE HONEY
TAIN’T NOBODY’S BUSINESS IF I DO

(The DUKE exits, and offstage we hear a bloodcurdling cry. OVERDONE enters, locks eyes with
LUCIO, and brandishes a rolling pin)

OVERDONE
WON’T YOU COME HOME, BILL BAILY? WON’T YOU COME HOME?
I CRIED THE WHOLE NIGHT LONG
I’LL DO THE COOKING, HONEY, I’LL PAY THE RENT
I KNOW I’VE DONE YOU WRONG

REMEMBER THAT RAINY EVENING I THROUGH YOU OUT

DUKE
What?!

50
 OVERDONE
WITH NOTHING BUT A FINE TOOTH COMB
YES, I KNOW THAT I’M TO BLAME AND AIN’T THAT A SHAME
BILL BAILEY, WON’T YOU PLEASE COME HOME?

HATHAWAY SISTERS
BABY, WON’T YOU PLEASE COME HOME

HATHAWAY SISTERS LUCIO OVERDONE

IF I SHOULD TAKE THE WON’T YOU COME HOME,

NOTION TO JUMP INTO BILL BAILY? WON’T YOU
THE OCEAN COME HOME?
BABY, WON’T YOU TAIN’T NOBODY’S I CRIED THE WHOLE
PLEASE COME HOME BUISNESS IF I DO NIGHT LONG
BABY, WON’T YOU I’LL DO THE COOKING,
PLEASE COME HOME IF I GO TO CHURCH ON HONEY, I’LL PAY THE
SUNDAY THEN BURN IT RENT
BABY, WON’T YOU ALL DOWN MONDAY I KNOW I’VE DONE YOU
PLEASE COME HOME TAIN’T NOBODY’S WRONG
BABY, WON’T YOU BUSINESS IF I DO
PLEASE COME HOME
IF MY BABY AIN’T GOT REMEMBER THAT RAINY
WHEN YOU LFET YOU NO MONEY, AND I GIVE EVENING I THROUGH YOU
BROKE MY HEART HER ALL OF MINE HONEY OUT
BABY, WON’T YOU TAIN’T NOBODY’S WITH NOTHING BUT A
PLEASE COME HOME BUSINESS IF I DO FINE TOOTH COMB

EVERYONE
I KNOW THAT I’M TO BLAME AND AIN’T THAT A SHAME
BILL BAILEY, WON’T YOU PLEASE COME HOME?
BILL BAILEY, WON’T YOU PLEASE COME HOME?
BILL BAILEY, WON’T YOU PLEASE COME HOME?

(OVERDONE Chases LUCIO from the stage. The SISTERS are left to strike a nal pose. The
SISTERS exit. Intermission.)

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 4.1 - TAKE O TAKE

MARIANA
TAKE, O TAKE THOSE LIPS AWAY,

TAKE, O TAKE THOSE LIPS AWAY,

THAT SO SWEETLY WERE FORSWORN,
AND THOSE EYES, THE BREAK OF DAY,
LIGHTS THAT DO MISLEAD THE MORN.

BUT MY KISSES BRING AGAIN,

BUT MY KISSES BRING AGAIN,
BUT MY KISSES BRING AGAIN,
SEALS OF LOVE, BUT SEALED IN VEIN, SEALED IN VAIN.

TAKE, O TAKE THOSE LIPS AWAY.

DUKE
’Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm
To make bad good, and good provoke to harm.

MARIANA
Let me excuse me, and believe me so,
My mirth it much displeased, but pleased my woe.

Enter ISABELLA.

DUKE I shall crave your forbearance a little;

Very well met, and welcome.

What is the news from this good deputy?
ISABELLA
I made my promise
Upon the heavy middle of the night
To call upon him.

DUKE ’Tis well borne up.

I pray you be acquainted with this maid.

She comes to do you good.
ISABELLA I do desire the like.
DUKE
Do you persuade yourself that I respect you?
MARIANA
you do[.]
DUKE

52
 Take then this your companion by the hand,
Who hath a story ready for your ear.
I shall attend your leisure, but make haste[.]

MARIANA [to Isabella]

Will’t please you walk aside?
Exeunt [Mariana and Isabella].
DUKE
O place and greatness, millions of false eyes
Are stuck upon thee; volumes of report
Run with these false and most contrarious quests
Upon thy doings; thousand escapes of wit
Make thee the father of their idle dreams
And rack thee in their fancies.

Enter MARIANA and ISABELLA.

ISABELLA
She’ll take the enterprise upon her, father,
If you advise it.
DUKE It is not my consent,
But my entreaty too.
ISABELLA Little have you to say
When you depart from him, but soft and low,
‘Remember now my brother’.
MARIANA Fear me not.
DUKE
Nor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all.
He is your husband on a pre-contract;
To bring you thus together, ’tis no sin,
Sith that the justice of your title to him
Doth ourish the deceit. Come, let us go:
Our corn’s to reap, for yet our tithe’s to sow.
Exeunt.

(Music transition: TAKE O TAKE reprise)

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4.2.1 Enter PROVOST and POMPEY.
(The Police Station)

PROVOST Come hither, sirrah. Can you cut off a man’s

head?
POMPEY If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can, but if he be
a married man, he’s his wife’s head, and I can never
cut off a woman’s head.
PROVOST Come, sir, leave me your snatches and yield
me a direct answer.
Here is in our prison a
common executioner who in his of ce lacks a helper.
If you will take it on you to assist him, it shall redeem
you from your gyves[.]

Enter ABHORSON.

ABHORSON Do you call, sir?

PROVOST Sirrah, here’s a fellow will help you tomorrow
in your execution. If you think it meet[.]
He
cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath been a
bawd.
ABHORSON A bawd, sir?
[PROVOST Are you agreed?]
ABHORSON He will discredit our mystery.
POMPEY Do you call, sir, your occupation a mystery?
ABHORSON Ay, sir, a mystery
POMPEY What mystery there should be in hanging, if I
should be hanged, I cannot imagine.
ABHORSON Sir, it is a mystery.

Enter PROVOST.

POMPEY Sir, I will serve him, for I do nd your hangman

is a more penitent trade than your bawd[.]
PROVOST You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe
tomorrow[.]
ABHORSON Come on, bawd, I will instruct thee in my
trade.
POMPEY I do desire to learn, sir, and I hope, if you have
occasion to use me for your own turn, you shall nd
me yare. Exeunt [Pompey and Abhorson].

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 4.2 - ROCK STEP WITH ME

(ANGELO at desk— he hands some documents to a waiting of cer. As the man leaves, ANGELO
is left center stage. MARIANA appears disguised as ISABELLA, her face vailed, behind
ANGELO. The music dips to silence. He is aware of her, but says nothing. When MARIANA
begins to sing, she does so a cappella, with the music coming in after the rst line or two.)

MARIANA
I'M NOT A SKELETON OR GHOST
BUT I'M NOT HERE TOO HIM THE MOST
AND LAST I CHECKED I'VE GOT TWO EYES,
BUT THEY'RE TOO TIRED TO EVEN CRY

I’M SCARED OF FADING —

(ISABELLA enters above. She is watching the scene unfold with MARIANA and
ANGELO, but very quickly her eye is drawn to the DUKE, who is standing alone, in his
contemplative solitude across the way.)

(MARIANA takes ANGELO by the hand.)

MARIANA
ROCK STEP WITH ME
THE BAND HAS CALLED THE FINAL DANCES
ROCK STEP WITH ME
THERE'LL BE NO TIME FOR SECOND CHANCES

ISABELLA
OH LOVELY CREATURE TO BEHOLD
BUT IS YOUR LOVE WORTH ALL MY SOUL?
MY CONSCIENCE BURNS I CANNOT LIE,
I CAN’T KEEP HOLDING THIS INSIDE

I CAN'T KEEP WONDERING —

MARIANA
I CAN'T KEEP HOPING —

MARIANA, ISABELLA
ROCK STEP WITH ME
THE BAND HAS CALLED THE FINAL DANCES
ROCK STEP WITH ME
THERE'LL BE NO TIME FOR SECOND CHANCES

WHEN THE SUN COMES ROUND

THEY'LL PUT MY LOVE INTO THE GROUND

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(JULIET and CLAUDIO appear sitting side by side on a prison bench: JULIET faces the
audience, CLAUDIO facing upstage.)

JULIET
IN TRAGIC ENDINGS WE ARE BOUND
THEY’VE COME TO PUT US IN THE GROUND
I’LL LOOK FOR YOU IN EVERY PLACE,
I'LL TEACH YOUR CHILD TO KNOW YOUR FACE

(CLAUDIO breaks and nally faces JULIET, they embrace. ANGELO moves to remove
MARIANA’S vail, but she stops him. Above, ISABELLA is focused on the out-of-reach
DUKE.)
MARIANA, ISABELLA, JULIET
ROCK STEP WITH ME
THE BAND HAS CALLED THE FINAL DANCES
ROCK STEP WITH ME
THERE'LL BE NO TIME FOR SECOND CHANCES

MARIANA
WHEN THE SUN COMES ROUND
I WILL PUT MY LOVE INTO THE GROUND

(MARIANA takes ANGELO by the hand and leads him away. The DUKE puts out his
cigaret and begins to exit.)
JULIET
WHEN THE SUN COMES ROUND
I WILL PUT MY LOVE INTO THE GROUND

(JULIET leaves as CLAUDIO is removed by the guards. ISABELLA is alone on the stage
staring at where the DUKE once was)

ISABELLA
WHEN THE SUN COMES ROUND
I WILL PUT MY LOVE INTO THE GROUND

I WILL PUT MY LOVE INTO THE GROUND

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4.2.2 Enter DUKE [disguised as a friar].
(The Police Station)

PROVOST Welcome, father.

DUKE
Who called here of late?
PROVOST
None since the curfew rung.
DUKE Not Isabel?
PROVOST
No.
DUKE They will then, ere’t be long.

Have you no countermand for Claudio yet,

But he must die tomorrow?
PROVOST None, sir, none.
It is a bitter deputy.
DUKE
Not so, not so. His life is paralleled
Even with the stroke and line of his great justice:

Were he mealed with that

Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous,
But this being so, he’s just. —

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
Professed the contrary.

DUKE And here comes Claudio’s pardon.

[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 borne in high authority.
When vice makes mercy, mercy’s so extended
That for the fault’s love is th’offender friended.
Now, sir, what news?

Pray you, let’s hear.

PROVOST Whatsoever [I] may hear to the

57
 contrary, let Claudio be executed by four of the clock,
and in the afternoon Barnardine. For [Angelo’s] better
satisfaction, Claudio’s head sent [to him] by
ve.
What say you to this, sir?

DUKE There is written in your brow,

Provost, honesty and constancy. If I read it not truly,
my ancient skill beguiles me, but in the boldness of
my cunning, I will lay myself in hazard. Claudio,
whom here you have warrant to execute, is no greater
forfeit to the law than Angelo who hath sentenced
him. To make you understand this in a manifested
effect, I crave but four days’ respite; for the which
you are to do me both a present and a dangerous
courtesy.
PROVOST Pray, sir, in what?
DUKE In the delaying death.
PROVOST Alack, how may I do it? Having the hour
limited and an express command —
DUKE let this Barnardine be
this morning executed, and his head born to Angelo.
PROVOST Angelo hath seen them both and will discover
the favour.
DUKE O, death’s a great disguiser, and you may add to
it: shave the head and tie the beard and say it was the
desire of the penitent to be so bared before his death.

PROVOST it is against my oath.

DUKE Were you sworn to the Duke, or to the deputy?
PROVOST To him and to his substitutes.
DUKE You will think you have made no offence if the
Duke avouch the justice of your dealing?
PROVOST But what likelihood is in that?
DUKE Not a resemblance, but a certainty.
Look you,
sir, here is the hand and seal of the Duke; you know
the character, I doubt not, and the signet is not strange
to you.
PROVOST I know them both.
DUKE You
shall anon over-read it at your pleasure, where you
shall nd within these two days he will be here. This
is a thing that Angelo knows not, for he this very
day receives letters of strange tenor, perchance of the
Duke’s death, perchance entering into some monastery,

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but by chance nothing of what is writ.
Put not yourself
into amazement how these things should be;
Call
your executioner and off with Barnardine’s head. I will
give him a present shrift and advise him for a better
place. Yet you are amazed, but this shall absolutely
resolve you. Come away, it is almost clear dawn. Exeunt.

59
4.2-4.3 Transition- ST. JAMES INFIRMARY

(As we transition form the police station to the prison a dark eerie mood overtakes the
stage as the music begins. LUCIO appears above, moving and strutting.)
LUCIO
I WENT DOWN TO SAINT JAMES INFIRMARY,
TO SEE MY BABY THERE,
SHE WAS STRETCHED OUT ON A LONG WHITE TABLE
SO COLD, SO SWEET, SO PALE.

LET HER GO, LET HER GO, GOD BLESS HER,

WHEREVER SHE MAY BE.
SHE CAN LOOK THIS WHOL WIDE WORLD OVER,
BUT SHE’LL NEVER FIND A MAN LIKE ME.

WHEN I DIE, BURY ME IN STRAIGHT-LACED BOOTS,

A BOX-BACKED SUIT AND A STETSON HAT.
PUT A TWENTY-DOLLAR GOLD PIECE ON MY WATCH CHAIN,
SO THE BOYS KNOW I DIED STANDING PAT.

(POMPEY enters with ABHORSON, nameless prisoner (and possibly PETER, if the quick
change can be managed) . They go through the motions of preparing the nameless
prisoner for execution, POMPEY happily helping where he can.)

I WANT SIX CRAP-SHOOTERS FOR PALL-BEARORS,

LET THE CHORUS GIRL SING ME A SONG.
PUT A JAZZ BAND ON MY HEARSE WASON,
THEY CAN RAIS HELL AS I ROLL ALONG

(There is a sharp change as POMPEY watches the nameless prisoner electrocuted off-
stage. There is a bright ash of light, POMPEY stares, dumbfounded.)

OH, NOW THAT YOU KNOW MY STORY,

I’LL TAKE ANOTHER SHOT OF BOOZE.
AND IF ANYONE SHOULD HAPPEN TO ASK YOU,
TELL THEM I’VE GOT THOSE GAMBLN’ BLUES.

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fl
 4.3 Enter POMPEY.

POMPEY I am as well acquainted here as I was in our

house of profession; one would think it were Mistress
Overdone’s own house, for here be many of her old
customers.
Enter ABHORSON [and DUKE [disguised as a friar].]

ABHORSON Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither.

POMPEY Master Barnardine, you must rise and be
hanged, Master Barnardine.

DUKE What is that Barnardine who is to be executed?

[ABHORSON] A Bohemian born, but here nursed up and
bred; one that is a prisoner nine years old.

[POMPEY] What ho, Barnardine.

DUKE Hath he born himself penitently in prison?
BARNARDINE (within) A pox o’your throats. Who makes
that noise there?
POMPEY Your friends, sir, the hangman. You must be so
good, sir, to rise and be put to death.
BARNARDINE [within] Away, you rogue, I am sleepy.

POMPEY Pray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are

executed and sleep afterwards.
ABHORSON Go in to him and fetch him out.

DUKE How seems he to be touched?

[ABHORSON] 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.
He hath evermore had the
liberty of the prison; give him leave to escape hence,
he would not.
Enter BARNARDINE.

BARNARDINE How now, Abhorson? What’s the news

with you?
ABHORSON Truly, sir, I would desire you to clap into
your prayers: for look you, the warrant’s come.
BARNARDINE You rogue, I have been drinking all night.
I am not tted for’t.
POMPEY O, the better, sir, for he that drinks all night and

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 is hanged betimes in the morning may sleep the
sounder all the next day.

ABHORSON Look you, sir, here your ghostly

father. Do we jest now, think you?
DUKE Sir, induced by my charity and hearing how
hastily you are to depart, I am come to advise you,
comfort you and pray with you.
BARNARDINE Friar, not I. I have been drinking hard all
night, and I will have more time to prepare me, or
they shall beat out my brains with billets. I will not
consent to die this day, that’s certain.
DUKE
O, sir, you must, and therefore I beseech you
Look forward on the journey you shall go.
BARNARDINE I swear I will not die today for any man’s
persuasion.
DUKE But hear you —
BARNARDINE Not a word. If you have anything to say to
me, come to my ward, for thence will not I today. Exit.

Enter PROVOST.

DUKE
Un t to live or die. O gravel heart!
[Exeunt Abhorson and Pompey.]

PROVOST Here in the prison, father,

There died this morning of a cruel fever
One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate,
A man of Claudio’s years, his beard and head
Just of his colour. What if we do omit
This reprobate till he were well inclined
And satisfy the deputy with the visage
Of Ragozine, more like to Claudio?
DUKE
O, ’tis an accident that heaven provides!

DUKE Let this be done:

Put them in secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio;
Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting
To yonder generation, you shall nd
Your safety manifested.
PROVOST
I am your free dependant.
DUKE

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 Quick, dispatch, and send the head to Angelo. Exit [Provost].
Now will I write letters to Angelo —
The provost, he shall bear them — whose contents
Shall witness to him I am near at home,
And that by great injunctions I am bound
To enter publicly. Him I’ll desire
To meet me at the consecrated fount
A league below the city, and from thence
By cold gradation and well-balanced form
We shall proceed with Angelo.

ISABELLA (within)
Peace, ho, be here.
DUKE
The tongue of Isabel. She’s come to know
If yet her brother’s pardon be come hither,
But I will keep her ignorant of her good,
To make her heavenly comforts of despair
When it is least expected.
Enter ISABELLA.

ISABELLA Ho, by your leave.

DUKE
Good morning to you, fair and gracious daughter.
ISABELLA
The better given me by so holy a man.
Hath yet the deputy sent my brother’s pardon?
DUKE
He hath released him, Isabel, from the world;
His head is off and sent to Angelo.
ISABELLA
Nay, but it is not so.
DUKE It is no other.
Show your wisdom, daughter, in your close patience.
ISABELLA
O, I will to him and pluck out his eyes.
DUKE
You shall not be admitted to his sight.
ISABELLA
Unhappy Claudio, wretched Isabel.
Injurious world, most damned Angelo!
DUKE
This nor hurts him, nor pro ts you a jot.
Forbear it therefore; give your cause to heaven.

The Duke comes home tomorrow — nay, dry your eyes —

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 One of our convent, and his confessor,
Gives me this instance; already he hath carried
Notice to Escalus and Angelo,
Who do prepare to meet him at the gates,
There to give up their power. If you can, pace your wisdom
In that good path that I would wish it go,
And you shall have your bosom on this wretch,
Grace of the Duke, revenges to your heart
And general honour.
ISABELLA I am directed by you.
DUKE
This letter then to Friar Peter give —
he shall bring you
Before the Duke, and to the head of Angelo
Accuse him home and home. For my poor self,
I am combined by a sacred vow
And shall be absent. Wend you with this letter.
Command these fretting waters from your eyes
With a light heart[.]
Enter LUCIO.

LUCIO Good e’en;

Friar, where’s the provost?
DUKE Not within, sir.
LUCIO O, pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart to see
thine eyes so red: thou must be patient.
By my
troth, Isabel, I loved thy brother; if the old fantastical
duke of dark corners had been at home, he had lived.
[Exit Isabella.]
DUKE Sir, the Duke is marvellous little beholding to your
reports, but the best is he lives not in them.
LUCIO Friar, thou knowest not the Duke so well as I do;
he’s a better woodman than thou tak’st him for.
DUKE Well, you’ll answer this one day. Fare ye well.
LUCIO Nay, tarry, I’ll go along with thee. I can tell thee
pretty tales of the Duke.
DUKE You have told me too many of him already, sir, if
they be true: if not true, none were enough.
LUCIO I was once before him for getting a wench with
child.
DUKE Did you such a thing?
LUCIO Yes, marry, did I, but I was fain to forswear it; they
would else have married me to the rotten medlar.
DUKE Sir, your company is fairer than honest. Rest you well.
LUCIO Nay, friar, I am a kind of burr, I shall stick. Exeunt.

64
 4.4-4.6 - MUSIC MONTAGE

4.4 -4.6 [Music]

Enter ANGELO and ESCALUS.

ESCALUS Every letter he hath writ hath disvouched other.

ANGELO 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
that if any crave redress of injustice,
they should exhibit their petitions in the street?
ESCALUS He shows his reason for that:
to deliver us from devices hereafter,
which shall then have no power to stand against us.

Enter DUKE [in his own robes] and Friar PETER.

DUKE
The provost knows our purpose and our plot;
keep your instruction
And hold you ever to our special drift,
Go, call at Flavius’ house
And tell him where I stay. Give the like notice
To Valentinus, Rowland and to Crassus,
But send me Flavius rst.

[Music]
Enter ISABELLA and MARIANA.
ISABELLA
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,
MARIANA ’tis a physic
That’s bitter to sweet end.

ANGELO I beseech you let it be proclaimed betimes

i’th’ morn. I’ll call you at your house. Give notice to
such men of sort and suit as are to meet him.

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fi
 Exit [Escalus].
This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant
And dull to all proceedings. A de owered 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 dishonoured 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.

[Music]

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5.1 Enter DUKE [in his robes], Varrius, Lords,
ANGELO, ESCALUS, LUCIO, [PROVOST, Of cers.]
Citizens at several doors.
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 —

Enter [Friar] PETER and ISABELLA.

ISABELLA
Justice, O royal Duke, vail your regard
Upon a wronged — 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. 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 rm.
She hath been a suitor to me, for her brother

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,

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 An hypocrite, a virgin-violator,
Is it not strange and strange?
DUKE Nay, it is ten times strange.
ISABELLA
Nay, it is ten times true, for truth is truth
To th’ end of reckoning.
DUKE Poor soul,
She speaks this in th’ in rmity of sense.
ISABELLA
O prince,
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.
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,
Condemned upon the act of fornication
To lose his head, condemned 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 desired her
To try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo
For her poor brother’s pardon.

DUKE [to Lucio]

You were not bid to speak.
LUCIO No, my good lord.
Nor wished to hold my peace.
DUKE I wish you now, then.
Pray you take note of it, and when you have
A business for yourself, pray heaven you then
Be perfect.
—Proceed.
ISABELLA I went
To this pernicious caitiff deputy —

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DUKE
That’s somewhat madly spoken.
ISABELLA Pardon it,
The phrase is to the matter.

In brief, to set the needless process by —

How I persuaded, how I prayed and kneeled,
How he refelled me and how I replied,
For this was of much length — the vile conclusion
I now begin with grief and shame to utter.
He would not, but by gift of my chaste body
To his concupiscible intemperate lust,
Release my brother; and after much debatement
My sisterly remorse confutes mine honour,
And I did yield to him. But the next morn betimes,
His purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant
For my poor brother’s head.
DUKE This is most likely.
ISABELLA
O that it were as like as it is true.
DUKE
By heaven, fond wretch, thou knowst not what thou speak’st,
Or else thou art suborned against his honour
In hateful practise. First, his integrity
Stands without blemish; next, it imports no reason
That with such vehemency he should pursue
Faults proper to himself. If he had so offended
He would have weighed thy brother by himself
And not have cut him off. Someone hath set you on.
Confess the truth and say by whose advice
Thou cam’st here to complain.
ISABELLA And is this all?
Then, O you blessed ministers above,
Keep me in patience and with ripened time
Unfold the evil which is here wrapped up
In countenance. Heaven shield your grace from woe,
As I, thus wronged, hence unbelieved go.
DUKE
—An of cer!
To prison with her. — Shall we thus permit
A blasting and a scandalous breath to fall
On him so near us? This needs must be a practise. —
Who knew of your intent and coming hither?
ISABELLA
One that I would were here, Friar Lodowick. [Exit guarded.]

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LUCIO
My lord, I know him, ’tis a meddling friar,
I do not like the man. Had he been lay, my lord,
For certain words he spake against your grace
In your retirement, I had swinged him soundly.
DUKE
Words against me?

LUCIO
But yesternight, my lord, she and that friar,
I saw them at the prison: a saucy friar,
A very scurvy fellow.
PETER
I have stood by, my lord, and I have heard
Your royal ear abused. First hath this woman
Most wrongfully accused your substitute,
Who is as free from touch or soil with her
As she from one ungot.
DUKE We did believe no less.
Know you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of?
PETER
I know him for a man divine and holy,
Not scurvy nor a temporary meddler
As he’s reported by this gentleman.

Well, he in time may come to clear himself,

But at this instant he is sick, my lord,
Of a strange fever. Upon his mere request,
came I hither
To speak as from his mouth what he doth know
Is true and false[.]
First, for this woman:
To justify this worthy nobleman
So vulgarly and personally accused,
Her shall you hear disproved to her eyes,
Till she herself confess it.
DUKE
Do you not smile at this, Lord Angelo?
Come,
In this I’ll be impartial: be you judge
Of your own cause.

Enter MARIANA [veiled, with Friar PETER].

Is this the witness, friar?

First, let her show her face and after speak.

70
 MARIANA
Pardon, my lord, I will not show my face
Until my husband bid me.
DUKE What, are you married?
MARIANA No, my lord.
DUKE Are you a maid?
MARIANA No, my lord.
DUKE A widow, then?
MARIANA Neither, my lord.
DUKE Why, you are nothing then: neither maid, widow
nor wife!
LUCIO My lord, she may be a punk, for many of them
are neither maid, widow nor wife.

Well, my lord.
MARIANA
My lord, I do confess I ne’er was married,
And I confess besides I am no maid;
I have known my husband, yet my husband
Knows not that ever he knew me.
LUCIO He was drunk then, my lord, it can be no better.
DUKE
For the bene t of silence, would thou wert so too.
LUCIO Well, my lord.
DUKE
This is no witness for Lord Angelo.
MARIANA
Now I come to’t, my lord.
She that accuses him of fornication
In self-same manner doth accuse my husband
And charges him, my lord, with such a time
When I’ll depose I had him in mine arms
With all th’effect of love.
ANGELO
Charges she mo than me?
MARIANA Not that I know.
DUKE
No? You say your husband.
MARIANA
Why just, my lord, and that is Angelo,
Who thinks he knows that he ne’er knew my body,
But knows, he thinks, that he knows Isabel’s.
ANGELO
Let’s see thy face.
MARIANA [Unveils.]
My husband bids me, now I will unmask.

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 This is that face, thou cruel Angelo,
Which once thou swor’st was worth the looking on.
This is the hand, which, with a vowed contract
Was fast belocked in thine. This is the body
That took away the match from Isabel

In her imagined person.

DUKE Know you this woman?
LUCIO Carnally, she says.
DUKE Sirrah —
LUCIO Enough, my lord.
ANGELO
My lord, I must confess, I know this woman,
And years since there was some speech of marriage
Betwixt myself and her — which was broke off[.]
Since which time
I never spake with her, saw her nor heard from her
Upon my faith and honour.
MARIANA [Kneels.] Noble prince,
As there comes light from heaven and words from breath,

I am af anced this man’s wife as strongly

As words could make up vows. And, my good lord,
But Tuesday night last gone,
He knew me as a wife.

ANGELO I did but smile till now.

Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice,
I do perceive
These poor informal women are no more
But instruments of some more mightier member
That sets them on. Let me have way, my lord,
To nd this practise out.
DUKE Ay, with my heart,
And punish them to your height of pleasure.
think’st thou thy oaths,
Though they would swear down each particular saint,
Were testimonies against his worth and credit
That’s sealed in approbation? You, Lord Escalus,
Sit with my cousin, lend him your kind pains[.]

There is another friar that set them on.

Let him be sent for.
PETER
Your provost knows the place where he abides
And he may fetch him.

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DUKE Go, do it instantly. — [Exit Provost.]

Do with your injuries as seems you best

In any chastisement. I for a while will leave you,
But stir not you till you have well determined
Upon these slanderers.
ESCALUS My lord, we’ll do it throughly. Exit [Duke].
Signior Lucio, did not you say you knew that Friar
Lodowick to be a dishonest person?
LUCIO Cucullus non facit monachum. Honest in nothing
but in his clothes, and one that hath spoke most
villanous speeches of the Duke.
ESCALUS We shall entreat you to abide here till he come
and enforce them against him. We shall nd this friar
a notable fellow.
LUCIO As any in Vienna, on my word.
ESCALUS
Pray you, my lord, give me leave to question.

Enter DUKE [as friar,] PROVOST, ISABELLA [and Of cers].

ESCALUS Come on, mistress, here’s a gentlewoman

denies all that you have said.
LUCIO My lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of.
ESCALUS Come, sir, did you set these women on to
slander Lord Angelo?
DUKE ’Tis false.
ESCALUS How? Know you where you are?
DUKE
Respect to your great place, and let the devil
Be sometime honoured for his burning throne.
Where is the Duke? ’Tis he should hear me speak.
ESCALUS
The Duke’s in us, and we will hear you speak.
Look you speak justly.
DUKE
Boldly, at least. But O, poor souls,
Come you to seek the lamb here of the fox?
Good night to your redress. Is the Duke gone?
Then is your cause gone too. The Duke’s unjust
Thus to retort your manifest appeal
And put your trial in the villain’s mouth
Which here you come to accuse.
ESCALUS
Why, thou unreverend and unhallowed friar!
Is’t not enough thou hast suborned these women

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 To accuse this worthy man, but in foul mouth
And in the witness of his proper ear
To call him villain? And then to glance from him
To th’ Duke himself, to tax him with injustice?
DUKE
Be not so hot.

My business in this state

Made me a looker-on here in Vienna,
Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble
Till it o’errun the stew. Laws for all faults,
But faults so countenanced that the strong statutes
Stand like the forfeits in a barber’s shop,
As much in mock as mark.
ESCALUS
Slander to th’ state.
ANGELO
What can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio?
Is this the man that you did tell us of?
LUCIO ’Tis he, my lord.

DUKE I remember you, sir. I

met you at the prison, in the absence of the Duke.
LUCIO O, did you so? And do you remember what you
said of the Duke?
was the Duke a eshmonger,
a fool and a coward, as you then reported him to be?
DUKE You must, sir, change persons with me ere you
make that my report.

LUCIO O, thou damnable fellow! Did not I pluck thee by

the nose for thy speeches?
DUKE I protest, I love the Duke as I love myself.
ANGELO Hark how the villain would close now after his
treasonable abuses.
ESCALUS Such a fellow is not to be talked withal. Away
with him to prison! Where is the provost?
Away with those giglets too, and with
the other confederate companion!
DUKE Stay, sir; stay awhile.

LUCIO Come sir, come sir, come sir! Faugh, sir, why you
lying rascal,
Show your knave’s visage, with a pox to you.
Show your sheep-biting face and be hanged an hour.
Will’t not off? [Pulls off the Friar's hood and reveals

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 the Duke. Angelo and Escalus stand.]
DUKE
Thou art the rst knave that e’er mad’st a duke.
First, Provost, let me bail these gentle three.
Sneak not away, sir, for the friar and you
Must have a word anon. Lay hold on him.
LUCIO This may prove worse than hanging.
DUKE [to Escalus]
What you have spoke, I pardon;
We’ll borrow place of him. [to Angelo] Sir, by your leave.
Hast thou or word, or wit, or impudence
That yet can do thee of ce? If thou hast,
Rely upon it till my tale be heard
And hold no longer out.
ANGELO O, my dread lord,
I should be guiltier than my guiltiness
To think I can be undiscernible,
When I perceive your grace, like power divine,
Hath looked upon my passes. Then, good prince,
No longer session hold upon my shame,
But let my trial be mine own confession.
Immediate sentence, then, and sequent death
Is all the grace I beg.

DUKE Come hither, Isabel.

Your friar is now your prince. As I was then,
Advertising and holy to your business,
Not changing heart with habit, I am still
Attorneyed at your service.
ISABELLA O, give me pardon
That I, your vassal, have employed and pained
Your unknown sovereignty.
DUKE You are pardoned, Isabel.
And now, dear maid, be you as free to us.

DUKE Come hither, Mariana. —

Say: wast thou e’er contracted to this woman?
ANGELO
I was, my lord.
DUKE
[You should] take her hence and marry her instantly.
But as [you] adjudged [Isabella’s] brother,
Being criminal in double violation,
Of sacred chastity and of promise-breach
Thereon dependent for [her] brother’s life,
The very mercy of the law cries out

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 Most audible, even from his proper tongue:
‘An Angelo for Claudio, death for death;’
Haste still pays haste and leisure answers leisure;
Like doth quit like and measure still for measure.’
Then, Angelo, thy faults thus manifested,
Which though thou wouldst deny denies thee vantage,
We do condemn thee to the very block
Where Claudio stooped to death, and with like haste.
Away with him.
MARIANA O, my most gracious lord,
I hope you will not mock me with a husband?
DUKE
It is your husband mocked you with a husband.
For his possessions,
Although by con scation they are ours,
We do instate and widow you with all
To buy you a better husband.
MARIANA O my dear lord,
I crave no other nor no better man.
DUKE
Never crave him, we are de nitive.
MARIANA
Gentle my liege —
DUKE You do but lose your labour.
Away with him to death. [to Lucio]. Now, sir, to you.
MARIANA [Kneels.]
O, my good lord — sweet Isabel, take my part;
Lend me your knees, and all my life to come
I’ll lend you all my life to do you service.
DUKE
Against all sense you do importune her:
Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact,
Her brother’s ghost his paved bed would break
And take her hence in horror.
[ANGELO]
I am sorry that such sorrow I procure,

’Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it.

MARIANA Isabel!
Sweet Isabel,
Hold up your hands; say nothing: I’ll speak all —
They say best men are moulded out of faults
And for the most become much more the better
For being a little bad. So may my husband —
O Isabel —

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 DUKE
He dies for Claudio’s death.
ISABELLA [Kneels.] Most bounteous sir,
Look, if it please you, on this man condemned
As if my brother lived. I partly think
A due sincerity governed his deeds
Till he did look on me. Since it is so,
Let him not die. My brother had but justice,
In that he did the thing for which he died.
For Angelo,
His act did not o’ertake his bad intent
And must be buried but as an intent
That perished by the way. Thoughts are no subjects;
Intents, but merely thoughts.
MARIANA Merely, my lord.
DUKE
Provost, how came it Claudio was beheaded
At an unusual hour?
PROVOST It was commanded so.
DUKE
Had you a special warrant for the deed?
PROVOST
No, my good lord; it was by private message.

I thought it was a fault, but knew it not,

Yet did repent me after more advice.
For testimony whereof, one in the prison
That should by private order else have died,
I have reserved alive.
DUKE What’s he?

Enter CLAUDIO [muf ed], JULIET.

PROVOST
This is another prisoner that I saved,
Who should have died when Claudio lost his head,
As like almost to Claudio as himself.
[Unmuf es Claudio.]
DUKE [to Isabella]
If he be like your brother, for his sake
Is he pardoned, and for your lovely sake
Give me your hand and say you will be mine,
He is my brother too. But tter time for that.
By this Lord Angelo perceives he’s safe —
Methinks I see a quickening in his eye.
Well, Angelo, your evil quits you well.

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 Look that you love your wife: her worth, worth yours.
I nd an apt remission in myself;
And yet here’s one in place I cannot pardon.
[to Lucio] You, sirrah, that knew me for a fool, a coward,
One all of luxury, an ass, a madman:
Wherein have I so deserved of you
That you extol me thus?
LUCIO ’Faith, my lord, I spoke it but according to the
trick. If you will hang me for it you may, but I had
rather it would please you I might be whipped.
DUKE
Whipped rst, sir, and hanged after.
Proclaim it, Provost, round about the city,
Is any woman wronged by this lewd fellow —
As I have heard him swear himself there’s one
Whom he begot with child — let her appear,
And he shall marry her.

LUCIO I beseech your highness do not marry me to a

whore. Your highness said even now I made you a
Duke; good my lord, do not recompense me in making
me a cuckold.
DUKE
Upon mine honour, thou shalt marry her.
Thy slanders I forgive and therewithal
Remit thy other forfeits.

LUCIO Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death,

whipping and hanging.
DUKE

She, Claudio, that you wronged, look you restore.

Joy to you, Mariana; love her, Angelo,
I have confessed her and I know her virtue.
Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness,
There’s more behind that is more gratulate.
Thanks, Provost, for thy care and secrecy;
We shill employ thee in a worthier place.
Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home
The head of Ragozine for Claudio’s;
Th’ offence pardons itself. Dear Isabel,
I have a motion much imports your good,
Whereto if you’ll a willing ear incline,
What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.
So bring us to our palace, where we’ll show
What’s yet behind, that’s meet you all should know. [Exeunt.]

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