I fear the lords are hindered by our stay.

Exeunt Lords

MORRIS

See, sir, what your ruffian tricks come to.

You think the eye of wisdom does not see

Into the brainsick follies of vain heads,

But with your swaggering you can bear’t away.

FALKNER

Sir, I confess I have been much misgoverned,

And led by idle spleens, which now I see

Are, like themselves, mere sottish vanity.

When in the jail, I better called to mind

The grave rebukes of my Lord Chancellor,

And looked into myself with more respect

Than my rash heat before would let me see.

I caused a barber presently be sent for,

And moved your worship then to speak for me.

But when I fall into like folly again

Cashier me < )

⌈Exeunt⌉

A5. Replaced by 13.53-122.

MORE

Close them not then with tears, for that ostent

Gives a wet signal of your discontent.

If you will share my fortunes, comfort then:

An hundred smiles for one sigh. What, we are men!

Resign wet passion to these weaker eyes,

Which proves their sex, but grants them ne‘er more

wise.

Let’s now survey our state. Here sits my wife

And dear-esteemed issue. Yonder stand

My loving servants. Now the difference

Twixt those and these. Now you shall hear me speak

Like More in melancholy. I conceive that nature

Hath sundry metals, out of which she frames

Us mortals, each in valuation

Outprizing other. Of the finest stuff

The finest features come. The rest of earth

Receive base fortune even before their birth.

Hence slaves have their creation. And I think

Nature provides content for the base mind—

Under the whip, the burden, and the toil

Their low-wrought bodies drudge in patience—

As for the prince, in all his sweet-gorged maw,

And his rank flesh that sinfully renews

The noon’s excess in the night’s dangerous surfeits.

What means or misery from our birth doth flow

Nature entitles to us; that we owe.

But we, being subject to the rack of hate,

Falling from happy life to bondage state,

Having seen better days, now know the lack

Of glory, that once reared each high-fed back.

But you that in your age did ne’er view better,

Challenge not fortune for your thriftless debtor.

CATESBY

Sir, we have seen far better days than these.

MORE

I was the patron of those days, and know

Those were but painted days, only for show.

Then grieve not you to fall with him that gave them.

Pro eris generosis servis gloriosum mori.

Dear Gough, thou art my learnèd secretary—

You, Master Catesby, steward of my house;

The rest, like you, have had fair time to grow

In sunshine of my fortunes. But I must tell ye,

Corruption is fled hence with each man’s office—

Bribes, that make open traffic twixt the soul

And netherland of hell, deliver up

Their guilty homage to their second lords.

Then, living thus untainted, you are well.

Truth is no pilot for the land of hell.

APPENDIX B

The following authorial first drafts are marked for deletion and immediately replaced.

B1. First Version of 9.334-53 in Add. VI.

MORE

Lord Mayor and ladies and the rest, be patient.

The state hath sent, and I must needs be gone.

Lead on there.—What seek’st thou, fellow?

PLAYER of WIT Your lordship sent us eight angels by your man, and I have lost one here amongst the rushes.

MORE Eight angels? Who delivered it? I sent them ten.

SERVINGMAN I, my lord, delivered it. Anon they shall have two more.

PLAYER of WIT That’s more than we heard before, my lord.

MORE Am I a man of equity

Equally to divide true right his own,

And shall I have deceivers in my house?

Go pull the coat over the varlet’s ears.

There are too many such.

Give them their due. Lead on away.

B2. First Version of 17.106-127 (Stay... states) in the Original Text.

Come, let’s to the block.

HANGMAN My lord, I pray ye put off your doublet.

MORE No, my good friend, I have a great cold already, and I would be loath to take more. Point me meet the block, for I was ne’er here before.

HANGMAN

To the east side, my lord.

MORE Then to the east.

We go to sigh; that o’er, to sleep in rest.

No eye salute my trunk with a sad tear.

Our birth to heaven should be thus: void of fear. Exit

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

BY SHAKESPEARE, ADAPTED BY THOMAS MIDDLETON

Measure for Measure, first printed in the 1623 Folio, was performed at court on 26 December 1604. Plague had caused London’s theatres to be closed from May 1603 to April 1604; the play was probably written and first acted during this period. Dislocations and other features of the text as printed suggest that it may have undergone adaptation after Shakespeare’s death. Someone—perhaps Thomas Middleton, to judge by the style—seems to have supplied a new, seedy opening to Act I, Scene 2; and an adapter seems also to have altered 3.1. 517-4.1.63 by transposing the Duke’s two soliloquies, by introducing a stanza from a popular song, and supplying dialogue to follow it, and by adding other short passages. We print the text in what we believe to be its adapted form; a conjectured reconstruction of Shakespeare’s original version of the adapted sections is given in the Additional Passages.