And shall be absent..

- For my poor self,

Wend you with this letter: Command these fretting waters from your eyes With a light heart; trust not my holy order, If I pervert your course. Who's here?

Enter LUCIO.

Lucio.

Good even! [Exit ISABELLA

Friar, where is the Provost ?

Duke.

Not within, sir. Lucio. O, pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart, to see thine eyes so red :-If the old fantastical duke of dark corners had been at home, thy brother had lived.

Duke. Sir, the duke is marvellous little beholden to your reports; but the best is, he lives not in them.

Lucio. Friar, thou know'st not the duke so well as I do: he's a better woodman, than thou takest him for.

Duke. Well, you'll answer this one day. Fare ye well.

Lucio. Nay, tarry; I'll go along with thee; I can tell thee pretty tales of the duke.

Duke. You have told me too many of him already, sir, if they be true; if not true, none were enough.

Lucio. I was once before him for getting a wench with child.

Duke. Did you such a thing?

Lucio. Yes, marry, did I: but I was fain to forswear it; they would else have married me to her. Duke. Sir, your company is fairer than honest: Rest you well.

Lucio. By my troth, I'll go with thee to the lane's end:-Nay, friar, I am a kind of burr, I shall stick. [Exeunt the DUKE and LUCIO.

SCENE II.

Angelo's House.

Enter ESCALUS and ANGELO with Letters.

Esca. Every letter he hath writ has disvouched other.

Ang. In most uneven and distracted manner. His actions show much like to madness- 'Pray Heaven, his wisdom be not tainted! And why meet him at the gates, and deliver our authorities there?

Esca. I guess not.

Ang. And why should we proclaim it in an hour before his entering, that, if any crave redress of injustice, they should exhibit their petitions in the street?

Esca. He shows his reason for that: to have a dispatch of complaints; and to deliver us from devices hereafter, which shall then have no power to stand against us.

Ang. Well, I beseech you, let it be proclaim'd:I'll call you at your house:

Give notice to such men of sort and suit,

As are to meet him.

Esca.

I shall, sir: fare you well. [Exit ESCALUS, Ang. This deed unshapes me quite, makes me

unpregnant,

And dull to all proceedings. A deflower'd maid! And by an eminent body, that enforced

7 Figure and rank.

But that her tender shame

The law against it!

Will not proclaim against her maiden loss,
How might she tongue me?

He should have lived,

Save that his riotous youth, with dangerous sense, Might, in the times to come, have ta'en revenge, By so receiving a dishonour'd life,

With ransom of such shame,—'Would yet he had lived!

Alack, when once our grace we have forgot, Nothing goes right! we would, and we would not. [Exit.

ACT THE FIFTH.

SCENE 1.

Before the Gates of Vienna.

Flourish of Trumpets and Drums.

Enter, from the City, Guards, ANGELO, ESCAlus, Lucio, two Apparitors, and Gentlemen: towards the City, Guards, the DUKE, FREDERICK, LEOPOLD, Provost, and Gentlemen.

ANGELO and ESCALUS kneel, and deliver their Commissions to the DUKE.

Duke. My very worthy cousin, fairly met :Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you. Ang. Happy return be to your royal grace! Duke. Many and hearty thankings to you both. We have made enquiry of you; and we hear Such goodness of your justice, that our soul Cannot but yield you forth to public thanks, Forerunning more requital.

Ang. You make my bonds still greater.

Duke. O, your desert speaks aloud: Give me your hand,

And let the subjects 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.

Enter Friar PETER and ISABELLA, from the City.

Isa. Justice, O royal duke! Vail your regard
Upon a wrong'd, I'd 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.

Isa.

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

Isa.

By course of justice! Ang. And she will speak most bitterly, and strange. Isa. Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak : That Angelo's forsworn; is it not strange? That Angelo's a murderer; is't not strange? That Angelo is

A hypocrite, a virgin violator;

Is it not strange, and strange?
Duke.

Nay, it is ten times strange.

8 Lower.

Isa. It is not truer he is Angelo,
Than this is all as true as it is strange :
Nay, it is ten times true: for truth is truth
To the end of reckoning.

Duke. Away with her :- - Poor soul! She speaks this in the infirmity of sense.

Isa. O, I conjure thee, prince, as thou believ'st There is another comfort than this world,

That thou neglect me not, with that opinion
That I am touch'd with madness: make not impos-
sible

That which but seems unlike: 'tis not impossible,
But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground,
May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute,
As Angelo; even so may Angelo,

In all his dressings', characts, titles, forms,
Be an arch villain; believe it, royal prince,
If he be less, he's nothing; but he's more,
Had I more name for badness.

Duke.

By mine honesty,

If she be mad, (as I believe no other,)
Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense,
Such a dependency of thing on thing,
As ne'er I heard in madness.

Isa. O, gracious duke, Harp not on that; nor do not banish reason For inequality but let your reason serve To make the truth appear.

Duke.

:

Many, that are not mad,

Have, sure, more lack of reason. What would

you say?

Isa. I am the sister of one Claudio,

Condemn'd upon the act of fornication,
To lose his head; condemn'd by Angelo:
I, in probation of a sisterhood,

Was sent to by my brother: one Lucio
Was then the messenger.

9 Habits and characters of office.