For certain words he spake against your grace

In your retirement, I had swinged him soundly.

DUKE

Words against me? This’ a good friar, belike!

And to set on this wretched woman here

Against our substitute! Let this friar be found.

⌈Exit one or more⌉

LUCIO

But yesternight, my lord, she and that friar,

I saw them at the prison. A saucy friar,

A very scurvy fellow.

FRIAR PETER

Blessed be your royal grace!

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?

FRIAR PETER

I know him for a man divine and holy,

Not scurvy, nor a temporary meddler,

As he’s reported by this gentleman;

And, on my trust, a man that never yet

Did, as he vouches, misreport your grace.

LUCIO My lord, most villainously; believe it.

FRIAR PETER

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,

Being come to knowledge that there was complaint

Intended ’gainst Lord Angelo, came I hither

To speak, as from his mouth, what he doth know

Is true and false, and what he with his oath

And all probation will make up full clear

Whensoever he’s convented. 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

Good friar, let’s hear it.

⌈Exit Friar Peter⌉

Do you not smile at this, Lord Angelo?

O heaven, the vanity of wretched fools!

Give us some seats.

⌈Seats are brought in⌉

Come, cousin Angelo,

In this I’ll be impartial; be you judge

Of your own cause.

The Duke and Angelo sit.

Enter ⌈Friar Peter, and⌉ Mariana, veiled

Is this the witness, friar?

First let her show her face, and after speak.

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.

DUKE Silence that fellow. I would he had some cause to prattle for himself.

LUCIO 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 benefit 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 more 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

This is a strange abuse. Let’s see thy face.

MARIANA (unveiling)

My husband bids me; now I will unmask.

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,

And did supply thee at thy garden-house

In her imagined person.

DUKE (to Angelo) Know you this woman?

LUCIO Carnally, she says.

DUKE Sirrah, no more!

LUCIO Enough, my lord.

ANGELO

My lord, I must confess I know this woman;

And five years since there was some speech of

marriage

Betwixt myself and her, which was broke off,

Partly for that her promised proportions

Came short of composition, but in chief

For that her reputation was disvalued

In levity; since which time of five years

I never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her,

Upon my faith and honour.

MARIANA ⌈kneeling before the Duke⌉ Noble prince,

As there comes light from heaven, and words from

breath,

As there is sense in truth, and truth in virtue,

I am affianced this man’s wife, as strongly

As words could make up vows. And, my good lord,

But Tuesday night last gone, in’s garden-house,

He knew me as a wife. As this is true,

Let me in safety raise me from my knees,

Or else forever be confixèd here,

A marble monument.

ANGELO

I did but smile till now.

Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice.

My patience here is touched. 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,