ANG.
You make my bonds still greater.
DUKE. O, your desert speaks loud; and I should
wrong it,

To lock it in the wards of covert bosom,
When it deserves, with characters of brass,
A forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time,
And razure of oblivion. Give me your hand,
And let the subject see, to make them know
That outward courtesies would fain proclaim
Favours that keep within.-Come, Escalus;
You must walk by us on our other hand:-
And good supporters are you.

FRIAR PETER and ISABELLA come forward.

F. PETER. Now is your time: speak loud, and kneel before him.

ISAB. Justice, O royal duke! Vail your regard
Upon a wronged, I would fain have said, a maid!
O worthy prince, dishonour not your eye
By throwing it on any other object,
Till you have heard me in my true complaint,
And given me justice, justice, justice, justice!
DUKE. Relate your wrongs: in what? by whom?
be brief.

Here is lord Angelo shall give you justice:
Reveal yourself to him.

ISAB.
O, worthy duke!
You bid me seek redemption of the devil:
Hear me yourself; for that which I must speak
Must either punish me, not being believ'd,

Or wring redress from you: hear me, O, hear me, here!

ANG. My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm: She hath been a suitor to me for her brother, Cut off by course of justice,— ISAB. By course of justice ! ANG. And she will speak most bitterly and strange.

[speak:

DUKE. It may be right; but you are i' the To speak before your time.-Proceed. ISAB.

I went

To this pernicious caitiff deputy,-
DUKE. That's somewhat madly spoken.
ISAB.

The phrase is to the matter.

Pardon it:

DUKE. Mended again: the matter;-proceed. ISAB. In brief,-to set the needless process by,

"As ne'er I heard in madness."

How I persuaded, how I pray'd, and kneel'd,
How he refell'd me, and how I replied,-
For this was of much length,—the vile conclusion
I now begin with grief and shame to utter:
He would not, but by gift of my chaste body
To his concupiscible intemperate lust,
Release my brother; and, after much debatement,
My sisterly remorse" confutes mine honour,
And I did yield to him: but the next morn betimes,
His purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant
For my poor brother's head.

DUKE.
This is most likely!
ISAB. O, that it were as like as it is true!o
DUKE. By heaven, fond wretch! thou know'st
not what thou speak'st,

Or else thou art suborn'd against his honour
In hateful practice. First, his integrity
Stands without blemish: next, it imports no reason,
That with such vehemency he should pursue
Faults proper to himself; if he had so offended,
He would have weigh'd thy brother by himself,
And not have cut him off. Some one hath set
you on:

Confess the truth, and say by whose advice
Thou cam'st here to complain.

ISAB.

And is this all?

Then, O, you blessed ministers above,
Keep me in patience, and, with ripen'd time,
Unfold the evil which is here wrapt up
In countenance !-Heaven shield your grace from
As I, thus wrong'd, hence unbelieved go!

[woe,

DUKE. I know you'd fain be gone.-An officer! To prison with her!-Shall we thus permit A blasting and a scandalous breath to fall

On him so near us? This needs must be a practice.

Who knew of your intent and coming hither?
ISAB. One that I would were here, friar
Lodowick.
[that Lodowick?
DUKE. A ghostly father, belike.-Who knows
LUCIO. My lord, I know him; 'tis a meddling
friar ;

I do not like the man: had he been lay, my lord,
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.
LUCIO. But yesternight, my lord, she and that
friar,

I saw them at the prison: a saucy friar,

F. PETER.

Bless'd be your royal grace!

I have stood by, my lord, and I have heard
Your royal ear abus'd. First, hath this woman
Most wrongfully accus'd 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?
F. 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.
F. 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 com-
plaint

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 wo-

man,

To justify this worthy nobleman,
So vulgarly and personally accus'd,
Her shall you hear disproved to her eyes,
Till she herself confess it.
DUKE.

Good friar, let's hear it. [ISABELLA is carried off guarded; and MARIANA comes forward.

Do you not smile at this, lord Angelo ?-
O heaven, the vanity of wretched fools !—
Give us some seats.-Come, cousin Angelo;
In this I'll be impartial; be you judge
Of your own cause. Is this the witness, friar?
First, let her show her face, and after speak.
MARI. Pardon, my lord, I will not show my
face,
Until my husband bid me.

DUKE.

MARI. No, my lord.

DUKE. MARI.

What, are you married?

Are you a maid?

DUKE. A widow then? MARI.

No, my lord. 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.

e This a good friar,-] Meaning, "This is a good friar;" an habitual turn of expression in old language.

f Convented.] That is, summoned, cited.

g I'll be impartial;] Although impartial is sometimes used by our old writers for most partial, it means in this place no more than neutral.

Lucio.. Well, my lord.

DUKE. This is no witness for lord Angelo.
MARI. 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 the effect of love.

ANG.

Charges she more than me?

MARI. Not that I know.
DUKE.
No? you say your husband.
MARI. 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.
ANG. This is a strange abuse."-Let's see thy
face.

MARI. My husband bids me; now I will un-
mask.
[Unveiling.

This is that face, thou cruel Angelo,
Which once thou swor'st was worth the looking on:
This is the hand, which, with a vow'd contract,
Was fast belock'd in thine: this is the body
That took away the match from Isabel,
And did supply thee at thy garden-house
In her imagin'd person.

DUKE.

Know you this woman

LUCIO. Carnally, she says. DUKE.

?

Sirrah, no more! [woman;

LUCIO. Enough, my lord.
ANG. My lord, I must confess I know this
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

[her,

I never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from Upon my faith and honour.

MARI.

Noble prince,

As there comes light from heaven, and words from breath,

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

I am affianc'd 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 for ever be confixed here,
A marble monument!
ANG.
I did but smile till now:
Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice;
My patience here is touch'd. 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,
To find this practice out.

DUKE.
Ay, with my heart;
And punish them to your height of pleasure.-
Thou foolish friar; and thou pernicious woman,
Compact with her that's gone, think'st thou thy
oaths,

[saint, Though they would swear down each particular Were testimonies against his worth and credit, That's seal'd in approbation?-You, lord Escalus, Sit with my cousin: lend him your kind pains To find out this abuse, whence 't is deriv'd.There is another friar that set them on; Let him be sent for.

F. 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.

Go, do it instantly.—
[Exit Provost.
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.

ESCAL. My lord, we'll do it throughly.-[Exit DUKE.] Signior 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.

ESCAL. 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.

ESCAL. Call that same Isabel here once again :

I would speak with her. [Exit an Attendant.] Pray you, my lord, give me leave to question; you shall see how I'll handle her.

b Informal-] Deranged, infatuated.

To hear this matter forth,-] That is, to hear it out.