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.
Who knew of Your intent and coming hither?
ISABELLA One that I would were here, Friar Lodowick.
DUKE VINCENTIO A ghostly father, belike. Who knows that Lodowick?
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 VINCENTIO Words against me? this is 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,
A very scurvy fellow.
FRIAR PETER Blessed be your royal grace!
I have stood by, my lord, and I have heard
Your royal ear abused. First, hath this woman
Most wrongfully accused your substitute,
Who is as free from touch or soil with her
As she from one ungot.
DUKE VINCENTIO We did believe no less.
Know you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of?
FRIAR 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 villanously; believe it.
FRIAR 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 complaint
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 woman.
To justify this worthy nobleman,
So vulgarly and personally accused,
Her shall you hear disproved to her eyes,
Till she herself confess it.
DUKE VINCENTIO 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.
MARIANA Pardon, my lord; I will not show my face
Until my husband bid me.
DUKE VINCENTIO What, are you married?
MARIANA No, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO Are you a maid?
MARIANA No, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO A widow, then?
MARIANA Neither, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO 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.
DUKE VINCENTIO Silence that fellow: I would he had some cause
To prattle for himself.
LUCIO Well, my lord.
MARIANA My lord; I do confess I ne’er was married;
And I confess besides I am no maid:
I have known my husband; yet my husband
Knows not that ever he knew me.
LUCIO He was drunk then, my lord: it can be no better.
DUKE VINCENTIO For the benefit of silence, would thou wert so too!
LUCIO Well, my lord.
DUKE VINCENTIO This is no witness for Lord Angelo.
MARIANA 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.
ANGELO Charges she more than me?
MARIANA Not that I know.
DUKE VINCENTIO No? you say your husband.
MARIANA 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.
ANGELO This is a strange abuse. Let’s see thy face.
MARIANA My husband bids me; now I will unmask.
Unveiling
This is that face, thou cruel Angelo,
Which once thou sworest 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 imagined person.
DUKE VINCENTIO Know you this woman?
LUCIO Carnally, she says.
DUKE VINCENTIO Sirrah, no more!
LUCIO Enough, my lord.
ANGELO My lord, I must confess I know this woman:
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
I never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her,
Upon my faith and honour.
MARIANA Noble prince,
As there comes light from heaven and words from breath,
As there is sense in truth and truth in virtue,
I am affianced 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!
ANGELO 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 practise out.
DUKE VINCENTIO 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,
Though they would swear down each particular saint,
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 ’tis derived.
There is another friar that set them on;
Let him be sent for.
FRIAR 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 VINCENTIO 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.
ESCALUS 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
villanous speeches of the duke.
ESCALUS 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.
ESCALUS 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.
LUCIO Not better than he, by her own report.
ESCALUS Say you?
LUCIO Marry, sir, I think, if you handled her privately,
she would sooner confess: perchance, publicly,
she’ll be ashamed.
ESCALUS I will go darkly to work with her.
LUCIO That’s the way; for women are light at midnight.
Re-enter Officers with ISABELLA; and Provost with the DUKE VINCENTIO in his friar’s habit
ESCALUS Come on, mistress: here’s a gentlewoman denies all
that you have said.
LUCIO My lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of; here with
the provost.
ESCALUS In very good time: speak not you to him till we
call upon you.
LUCIO Mum.
ESCALUS Come, sir: did you set these women on to slander
Lord Angelo? they have confessed you did.
DUKE VINCENTIO ‘Tis false.
ESCALUS How! know you where you are?
DUKE VINCENTIO Respect to your great place! and let the devil
Be sometime honour’d for his burning throne!
Where is the duke? ’tis he should hear me speak.
ESCALUS The duke’s in us; and we will hear you speak:
Look you speak justly.
DUKE VINCENTIO Boldly, at least. But, O, poor souls,
Come you to seek the lamb here of the fox?
Good night to your redress! Is the duke gone?
Then is your cause gone too. The duke’s unjust,