ACT TWO
SCENE I. A hall in Angeloâs 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
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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 coherâd with place, or place with
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wishing,
Or that the resolute acting of our blood
Could have attainâd thâ effect of your own purpose,
Whether you had not sometime in your life
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Errâd in this point which now you censure him,
And pullâd the law upon you.
ANGELO âTis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
Another thing to fall. I not deny
The jury, passing on the prisonerâs life,
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May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two
Guiltier than him they try. Whatâs open made to justice,
That justice seizes. What knows the laws
That thieves do pass on thieves? âTis very pregnant,
The jewel that we find, we stoop and take ât,
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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,
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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;
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Bring him his confessor; let him be preparâd;
For thatâs 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,
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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.
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ANGELO How now, sir! Whatâs your name, and whatâs the matter?
ELBOW If it please your honour, I am the poor Dukeâs constable, and my name is Elbow; I do lean upon justice, sir, and do bring in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors.
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ANGELO Benefactors! Well â what benefactors are they? Arc they not malefactors?
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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; hereâs 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; heâs out at elbow.
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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, pluckâd down in the suburbs; and now she professes a hot-house, which, I think, is a very ill house too.
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ESCALUS How know you that?
ELBOW My wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour â
ESCALUS How! thy wife!
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ELBOW Ay, sir; whom, I thank heaven, is an honest woman â
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 bawdâs house, it is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house.
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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 accusâd in fornication, adultery, and all uncleanliness there.
ESCALUS By the womanâs means?
ELBOW Ay, sir, by Mistress Overdoneâs means;
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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.
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ESCALUS Do you hear how he misplaces?
POMPEY Sir, she came in great with child; and longing, saving your honourâs reverence, for stewâd 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
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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
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Froth, I could not give you three pence again â
FROTH No, indeed.
POMPEY Very well; you being then, if you be remembâred, cracking the stones of the foresaid prunes â
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FROTH Ay, so I did indeed.
POMPEY Why, very well; I telling you then, if you be remembâred, that such a one and such a one were past cure of t...