The city gate. MARIANA veiled, ISABELLA, and FRIAR PETER, at their stand.
Enter DUKE VINCENTIO, VARRIUS, Lords, ANGELO, ESCALUS, LUCIO, Provost, Officers, and Citizens, at several doors DUKE VINCENTIO My very worthy cousin, fairly met!
Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you. ANGELO ESCALUS Happy return be to your royal grace! DUKE VINCENTIO Many and hearty thankings to you both.
We have made inquiry of you; and we hear Such goodness of your justice, that our soul Cannot but yield you forth to public thanks, Forerunning more requital. ANGELO You make my bonds still greater. DUKE VINCENTIO 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 FRIAR PETER Now is your time: speak loud and kneel before him. ISABELLA Justice, O royal duke! Vail your regard Upon a wrong'd, 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 VINCENTIO Relate your wrongs; in what? by whom?
be brief.
Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice:
Reveal yourself to him. ISABELLA 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, here! ANGELO 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,-- ISABELLA By course of justice! ANGELO And she will speak most bitterly and strange. ISABELLA 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 an adulterous thief, An hypocrite, a virgin-violator;Is it not strange and strange? DUKE VINCENTIO Nay, it is ten times strange. ISABELLA 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 VINCENTIO Away with her! Poor soul, She speaks this in the infirmity of sense. ISABELLA O prince, I conjure thee, as thou believest There is another comfort than this world, That thou neglect me not, with that opinion That I am touch'd with madness! Make not impossible 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 VINCENTIO 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 e'er I heard in madness. ISABELLA O gracious duke, Harp not on that, nor do not banish reason For inequality; but let your reason serve To make the truth appear where it seems hid, And hide the false seems true. DUKE VINCENTIO Many that are not mad Have, sure, more lack of reason. What would you say? ISABELLA 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 As then the messenger,-- LUCIO That's I, an't like your grace:
I came to her from Claudio, and desired her To try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo For her poor brother's pardon. ISABELLA That's he indeed. DUKE VINCENTIO You were not bid to speak. LUCIO No, my good lord;Nor wish'd to hold my peace. DUKE VINCENTIO I wish you now, then;Pray you, take note of it: and when you have A business for yourself, pray heaven you then Be perfect. LUCIO I warrant your honour. DUKE VINCENTIO The warrants for yourself; take heed to't. ISABELLA This gentleman told somewhat of my tale,-- LUCIO Right. DUKE VINCENTIO It may be right; but you are i' the wrong To speak before your time. Proceed. ISABELLA I went To this pernicious caitiff deputy,-- DUKE VINCENTIO That's somewhat madly spoken. ISABELLA Pardon it;The phrase is to the matter. DUKE VINCENTIO Mended again. The matter; proceed. ISABELLA In brief, to set the needless process by, 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 VINCENTIO This is most likely! ISABELLA O, that it were as like as it is true! DUKE VINCENTIO By heaven, fond wretch, thou knowist not what thou speak'st, Or else thou art suborn'd against his honour In hateful practise. 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 camest here to complain. ISABELLA 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 woe, As I, thus wrong'd, hence unbelieved go! DUKE VINCENTIO I know you'ld 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 practise.