Measure For Measure

William Shakespeare

• Publisher: HarperPerennial Classics
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781443443425
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Teatro shakespeariano

When Vincentio, the Duke of Vienna, leaves the city under the governance of the strict judge, Angelo, Claudio and Juliet find themselves in violation of Vienna's severe morality laws. As the fate of Claudio and Juliet hangs in the balance, Angelo proves himself to be less than moral as he propositions Claudio's sister, Isabella in exchange for Claudio's life.

Known as "The Bard of Avon, " William Shakespeare is arguably the greatest English-language writer known. Enormously popular during his life, Shakespeare's works continue to resonate more than three centuries after his death, as has his influence on theatre and literature. Shakespeare's innovative use of character, language, and experimentation with romance as tragedy served as a foundation for later playwrights and dramatists, and some of his most famous lines of dialogue have become part of everyday speech.

HarperPerennialClassics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

ACT TWO

SCENE I. A hall in Angelo’s house

Enter ANGELO, ESCALUS, a JUSTICE, PROVOST, Officers, and other Attendants.

ANGELO We must not make a scarecrow of the law,

Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,

And let it keep one shape till custom make it

Their perch, and not their terror.

ESCALUS Ay, but yet

[5]

Let us be keen, and rather cut a little

Than fall and bruise to death. Alas! this gentleman,

Whom I would save, had a most noble father.

Let but your honour know,

Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue,

That, in the working of your own affections,

Had time coher’d with place, or place with

[11]

wishing,

Or that the resolute acting of our blood

Could have attain’d th’ effect of your own purpose,

Whether you had not sometime in your life

[15]

Err’d in this point which now you censure him,

And pull’d the law upon you.

ANGELO ’Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,

Another thing to fall. I not deny

The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life,

[20]

May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two

Guiltier than him they try. What’s open made to justice,

That justice seizes. What knows the laws

That thieves do pass on thieves? ’Tis very pregnant,

The jewel that we find, we stoop and take ’t,

[25]

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 I have had such faults; but rather tell me,

When I, that censure him, do so offend,

[30]

Let mine own judgment pattern out my death,

And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.

ESCALUS Be it as your wisdom will.

ANGELO Where is the Provost?

PROVOST Here, if it like your honour.

ANGELO See that Claudio

Be executed by nine to-morrow morning;

[35]

Bring him his confessor; let him be prepar’d;

For that’s the utmost of his pilgrimage.

[Exit Provost.

ESCALUS [Aside] Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all!

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall:

Some run from breaks of ice, and answer none,

[40]

And some condemned for a fault alone.

Enter ELBOW and Officers with FROTH and POMPEY.

ELBOW Come, bring them away; if these be good people in a commonweal that do nothing bu use their abuses in common houses, I know no law; bring them away.

[45]

ANGELO How now, sir! What’s your name, and what’s the matter?

ELBOW 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.

[51]

ANGELO Benefactors! Well – what benefactors are they? Arc they not malefactors?

[55]

ELBOW 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 Christians ought to have.

ESCALUS This comes off well; here’s a wise officer.

ANGELO Go to; what quality are they of? Elbow is your name? Why dost thou not speak, Elbow?

POMPEY He cannot, sir; he’s out at elbow.

[60]

ANGELO What are you, sir?

ELBOW He, sir? A tapster, sir; parcel-bawd; one that serves a bad woman; whose house, sir, was, as they say, pluck’d down in the suburbs; and now she professes a hot-house, which, I think, is a very ill house too.

[65]

ESCALUS How know you that?

ELBOW My wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour –

ESCALUS How! thy wife!

[70]

ELBOW Ay, sir; whom, I thank heaven, is an honest woman –

ESCALUS Dost thou detest her therefore?

ELBOW I say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as she, that this house, if it be not a bawd’s house, it is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house.

[75]

ESCALUS How dost thou know that, constable?

ELBOW Marry, sir, by my wife; who, if she had been a woman cardinally given, might have been accus’d in fornication, adultery, and all uncleanliness there.

ESCALUS By the woman’s means?

ELBOW Ay, sir, by Mistress Overdone’s means;

[81]

but as she spit in his face, so she defied him.

POMPEY Sir, if it please your honour, this is not so.

ELBOW Prove it before these varlets here, thou honourable man, prove it.

[85]

ESCALUS Do you hear how he misplaces?

POMPEY Sir, she came in great with child; and longing, saving your honour’s reverence, for stew’d prunes. Sir, we had but two in the house, which at that very distant time stood, as it were, in a fruit dish, a dish of some three pence; your honours have seen such dishes; they are not

[91]

China dishes, but very good dishes.

ESCALUS Go to, go to; no matter for the dish, sir.

POMPEY No, indeed, sir, not of a pin; you are therein in the right; but to the point. As I say, this Mistress Elbow, being, as I say, with child, and being great-bellied, and longing, as I said, for prunes; and having but two in the dish, as I said, Master Froth here, this very man, having eaten the rest, as I said, and, as I say, paying for them very honestly; for, as you know, Master

[100]

Froth, I could not give you three pence again –

FROTH No, indeed.

POMPEY Very well; you being then, if you be rememb’red, cracking the stones of the foresaid prunes –

[104]

FROTH Ay, so I did indeed.

POMPEY Why, very well; I telling you then, if you be rememb’red, that such a one and such a one were past cure of t...