That his blood flows, or that his appetite
Is more to bread than stone: hence shall we see,
If power change purpose, what our seemers be. [Exeunt,

SCENE VIII. A Nunnery.

Enter Isabella and Francisca.
Isab. And have you Nuns no farther privileges ?
Nun, Are not these large enough?

Isab. Yes truly; I speak not as defiring more,
But rather wishing a more strict restraint
Upon the sister votarists of Saint Clare.

Lucio within,
Lucio. Hoa ! peace be in this place !
Isab. Who's that which calls ?

Nun. It is a man's voice : gentle Isabella, Turn you the key, and know his business of him ; You may ; I may not ; you are yet unsworn : When you have vow'd, you must not speak with men But in the presence of the Prioress; Then if you speak, you must not thew your face, Or if you shew your face, you must not speak. He calls again ; I pray you, answer him. [Exit Franc. Ifab. 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 light of Isabella,
A novice of this place, and the fair Gifter
To her unhappy brother Claudio ?

Ifab. Why her unhappy brother? let me ask
The rather, for I now must make you know
I am that isabella, and his fifter.

Lucio. Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you ; Not to be weary with you, he's in prison.

Isab. Wo me, for what?

Lucio. For that, which, if myself might be his judge,
He should receive his punishment in thanks j
He hath got his friend with child.

Isab. Sir, make me not your story:
Lucio. I would not, thotis my familias sin

With

With maids to seem the lapwing *, and to jest,
Tongue far from heart, play with all virgins fo.
I hold you as a thing ensky'd and sainted,
By your renouncement an immortal spirit,
And to be talk'd with in fincerity,
As with a faint.

Isab. You do blaspheme the good, in mocking me.

Lucio. Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, 'tis thus; Your brother and his lover having embrac'd, As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time Doth from the seedness the bare fallow bring To teeming foyson; so her plenteous womb Expresseth its full tilth and husbandry.

Isab. Some one with child by him? my cousin Juliet? Lucio. Is she

your

coufin? fab. Adoptedly, as school maids change their names, By vain, tho' apt, affection. Lucio. She it is, Isab. Let him then marry her.

Lucio. This is the point.
The Duke is very strangely gone from hence ;
Bore many gentlemen, my self being one,
In hand and hope of action ; but we learn,
By those that know the very nerves of state,
His givings out were of an infinite distance
From his true meant design. Upon his place,
And with full line of his authority,
Governs lord Angelo; a man whose blood
Is very snow. broth, one who never feels
The wanton stings and motions of the sense ;
But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
With profits of the mind, study and fast.
He, to give fear to use and liberty,
Which have long time run by the hideous law
As mice by lions ; hath picke out an act,
Under whose heavy sense your brother's life
Falls into forfeit ; he arrests him on it,
And follows close the rigor of the statute,

* The lapwings fy with seeming fright and anxiety far from their neits to deceive those who seek their young.

Το

To make him an example; all hope's gone,
Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer
To soften Angelo; and that's my pith
Of business betwixt you and your poor brother.

Isab. Doth he so seek his life?"

Lucio, H’as censur'd him
Already, and, I hear, the Provost hath
A warrant for his execution.

Isab. Alas! what poor ability's in me
To do him good ?

Lucio. Affay the power you have.
Isab. My power alas ! I doubt.

Lucio. Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt. Go to lord Angelo,
And let him learn to know, when maidens fue
Men give like Gods; but when they weep and kneel,
All their petitions are as truly theirs,
As they themselves would owe them.

Isab. I'll see what I can do.
Lucio. But speedily.

Isab. I will about it strait;
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.
Ifab. Good Sir, adieu.

[Exeunt.

A CT II. SCENE 1.

The Palace.
Enter Angelo, Escalus, a Justice, and Attendants.

E must not make a scare-crow of the law,

Ang. W. Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,

yet

And let it keep one shape, 'till custom make it
Their perch, and not their terror.

Escal. Ay, but
Let us be keen, and rather cut a little,
Than fall, and bruise to death. Alas! this gentleman,
Whom I would save, had a moft noble father ;

Let

Let but your honour know, whom I believe
To be most strait in virtue, whether in
The working of your own affections,
Had time coher'd with place, or place with wishing,
Or that the resolute acting of your blood
Could have attain'd th' effect of your own purpose,
Whether you had not sometime in your life
Enr'd in this point you censure now in him,
And pull'd the law upon you.

Ang. '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's open made
To justice, that it seizes on. What know
The laws that thieves do pass on thieves ? 'tis 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 1 have had such faults; but rather tell me
When I, that censure him, do fo offend,
Let mine own judgment pattern out my death,
And nothing come in partial. He muit die.

Enter Provost.
Escal. Be't as your wisdom will.
Ang. Where is the Provost ?
Prov. Here, if it like your honour.

Ang. See that Claudio
Be executed by nine to-morrow morning.
Bring him his confeffor, let him be prepar’d,
For that's the utmost of his pilgrimage. [Exit Provost.

Efcal. Well, heav'n forgive him! and forgive us all! Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall: Some run through brakes of vice, and answer none And some condemned for one fault alone..

SCEN E II. Enter Elbow, Froth, Clown, and Officers. El. Come, bring them away; it these be good people

3

ins

in a common-weal, that do nothing but use their abuses in common houses, I know no law; bring them away.

Ang. How now, Sir, what's your name? and what's the matter?

Elb. 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.

Ang. Benefactors ? well; what benefactors are they ? are they not malefactors?

Elb. 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 chriftians ought to have.

Escal. This comes off well; here's a wise officer.

Ang. Go to: what quality are you of? Elbow is your name? Why dost thou not speak, Elbow ?

Clown. He cannot, Sir; he's out at elbow.
Ang. What are you, Sir ?

Elb. He, Sir ? a tapster, Sir ; parcel-bawd ; one that serves a bad woman; whose house, Sir, was, as they say, pluckt down in the suburbs ; and now she professes a hothouse ; which, I think, is a very ill house too.

Escal. How know you that ?
Élb. My wife, Sir, whom I detest before heav'n and
Escal. How! thy wife?
Elb. Ay, Sir ; whom I thank heav'n is an honest woman.
Escal. Doft thou deteft her therefore ?

Elb. I say, Sir, I will deteft myself also, as well as fhe, that this house, if it be not a bawd's house, it is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house.

Escal. How doft thou know that, conftable ?

Elb. Marry, Sir, by my wife; who, if she had been a woman.cardinally given, might have been accused in fornication, adultery, and all uncleanness there.

Escal. By that woman's means?

Elb. Ay, Sir, by mistress Over-don's means ; but as the (pit in his face, so the defy'd him. Clown, Sir, if it please your honour, this is not so.

Elb.

your honour.