Of business ’twixt you and your poor brother.

ISABELLA

Doth he so seek his life?

LUCIO

Has censured him already,

And, as I hear, the Provost hath a warrant

For’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,

No longer staying but to give the Mother

Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you.

Commend me to my brother. Soon at night

I’ll send him certain word of my success.

LUCIO

I take my leave of you.

ISABELLA

Good sir, adieu.

Exeunt ⌈Isabella and Francesca at one door,

Lucio at another door⌉

2.1 Enter Angelo, Escalus, and servants; a Justice

ANGELO

We must not make a scarecrow of the law,

Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,

And let it keep one shape till custom make it

Their perch, and not their terror.

ESCALUS

Ay, but yet

Let us be keen, and rather cut a little

Than fall and bruise to death. Alas, this gentleman

Whom I would save had a most noble father.

Let but your honour know—

Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue—

That in the working of your own affections,

Had time cohered with place, or place with wishing,

Or that the resolute acting of your blood

Could have attained th’effect of your own purpose—

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. I not deny

The jury passing on the prisoner’s life

May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two

Guiltier than him they try. What knows the law

That thieves do pass on thieves? What’s open made to

justice,

That justice seizes. ’Tis very pregnant:

The jewel that we find, we stoop and take’t

Because we see it, but what we do not see

We tread upon and never think of it.

You may not so extenuate his offence

For I have had such faults; but rather tell me,

When I that censure him do so offend,

Let mine own judgement pattern out my death,

And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.

ESCALUS

Be it as your wisdom will.

ANGELO

Where is the Provost?

Enter Provost

PROVOST

Here, if it like your honour.

ANGELO

See that Claudio

Be execute by nine tomorrow morning.

Bring him his confessor, let him be prepared,

For that’s the utmost of his pilgrimage.

Exit Provost

ESCALUS

Well, heaven forgive him, and forgive us all!

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

Some run from brakes of vice, and answer none;

And some condemned for a fault alone.

Enter Elbow, Froth, Pompey, and officers

ELBOW Come, bring them away. If these be good people in a commonweal, that do nothing but use their abuses in common houses, I know no law. Bring them away.

ANGELO

How now, sir? What’s your name? And what’s the

matter?

ELBOW If it please your honour, I am the poor Duke’s constable, and my name is Elbow. I do lean upon justice, sir; and do bring in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors.

ANGELO Benefactors? Welll What benefactors are they? Are they not malefactors?

ELBOW If it please your honour, I know not well what they are; but precise villains they are, that I am sure of, and void of all profanation in the world that good Christians ought to have.

ESCALUS (to Angelo) This comes off well; here’s a wise officer!

ANGELO Go to, what quality are they of? Elbow is your name? Why dost thou not speak, Elbow?

POMPEY He cannot, sir; he’s out at elbow.

ANGELO What are you, sir?

ELBOW He, sir? A tapster, sir, parcel bawd; one that serves a bad woman whose house, sir, was, as they say, plucked down in the suburbs; and now she professes a hot-house, 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 therefor?

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.

ESCALUS How dost thou know that, constable?

ELBOW Marry, sir, by my wife, who, if she had been a woman cardinally given, might have been accused in fornication, adultery, and all uncleanliness there.

ESCALUS By the woman’s means?

ELBOW Ay, sir, by Mistress Overdone’s means. But as she spit in his face, so she defied him.

POMPEY (to Escalus) 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.

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 here, this very man, having eaten the rest, as I said, and, as I say, paying for them very honestly; for, as you know, Master Froth, I could not give you threepence again.