To find this practice out.

DUKE (standing)

Ay, with my heart,

And punish them even to your height of pleasure.—

Thou foolish friar, and thou pernicious woman

Compact with her that’s gone, 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

To find out this abuse, whence ’tis derived.

There is another friar that set them on.

Let him be sent for.

Escalus sits

FRIAR PETER

Would he were here, my lord, for he indeed

Hath set the women on to this complaint.

Your Provost knows the place where he abides,

And he may fetch him.

DUKE (to one or more)

Go, do it instantly.

Exit one or more

(To Angelo) And you, my noble and well-warranted

cousin,

Whom it concerns to hear this matter forth,

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

Signor 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 villainous speeches of the Duke.

ESCALUS We shall entreat you to abide here till he come, and enforce them against him. We shall find this friar a notable fellow.

LUCIO As any in Vienna, on my word.

ESCALUS Call that same Isabel here once again; I would speak with her. Exit one or more (To Angelo) Pray you, my lord, give me leave to question. You shall see how I’ll handle her.

LUCIO Not better than he, by her own report.

ESCALUS Say you?

LUCIO Marry, sir, I think if you handled her privately, she would sooner confess; perchance publicly she’ll be ashamed.

ESCALUS I will go darkly to work with her.

LUCIO That’s the way, for women are light at midnight. Enter Isabella, guarded

ESCALUS (to Isabella) Come on, mistress, here’s a gentlewoman denies all that you have said.

Enter the Duke, disguised as a friar, hooded, and the Provost

LUCIO My lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of, here with the Provost.

ESCALUS In very good time. Speak not you to him till we call upon you.

LUCIO Mum.

ESCALUS (to the Duke) Come, sir, did you set these women on to slander Lord Angelo? They have confessed you did.

DUKE ’Tis false.

ESCALUS How! Know you where you are?

DUKE

Respect to your great place, and let the devil

Be sometime honoured fore 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.

(To Isabella and Mariana) 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.

LUCIO

This is the rascal, this is he I spoke of.

ESCALUS

Why, thou unreverend and unhallowed friar,

Is’t not enough thou hast suborned these women

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?

Take him hence; to th’ rack with him. We’ll touse you

Joint by joint—but we will know his purpose.

What, ‘unjust’?

DUKE

Be not so hot. The Duke

Dare no more stretch this finger of mine than he

Dare rack his own. His subject am I not,

Nor here provincial. 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!

Away with him to prison.

ANGELO

What can you vouch against him, Signor Lucio?

Is this the man that you did tell us of?

LUCIO ’Tis he, my lord.—Come hither, goodman Bald-pate. Do you know me?

DUKE I remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice. 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?

DUKE Most notedly, sir.

LUCIO Do you so, sir? And was the Duke a fleshmonger, 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. You indeed spoke so of him, and much more, much worse.

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 him to prison. Lay bolts enough upon him. Let him speak no more. Away with those giglets too, and with the other confederate companion.

⌈Mariana is raised to her feet, and is guarded⌉

The Provost makes to seize the Duke

DUKE Stay, sir, stay a while.

ANGELO What, resists he? Help him, Lucio.

LUCIO (to the Duke) Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir! Foh, sir! Why, you bald-pated lying rascal, you must be hooded, must you? Show your knave’s visage, with a pox to you! Show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour! Will’t not off?

He pulls off the friar’s hood, and discovers the Duke.

⌈Angelo and Escalus rise⌉

DUKE

Thou art the first knave that e’er madest a duke.

First, Provost, let me bail these gentle three.

(To Lucio) Sneak not away, sir, for the friar and you