SCENE I.-A public Place near the City Gate. MARIANA (veiled), ISABELLA, and PETER, at a distance. Enter at opposite doors, DUKE, VARRIUS, Lords; ANGELO, ESCALUS, LUCIO, Provost, Officers, and Citizens.

Duke. My very worthy cousin, fairly met :Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you. Ang. Escal.

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 loud; and I should

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. Nay, ten times strange.
Isab. 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.

Isab. 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 touched with madness: make not impossible

That which but seems unlike. 'Tis not impossible
But one, the wickedest 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.

Isab. In brief-to set the needless process by How I persuaded, how I prayed and kneeled, How he refelled 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.

This is most likely!

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. Words against me? This' 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.

F. Peter. Blesséd 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. We did believe no less.

Know you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of?
F. 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. F. 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 com-
plaint

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
Whenever he's convented. First, for this woman
(To justify this worthy nobleman,
So vulgarly and personally accused),
Her shall you hear disprovéd to her eyes,
Till she herself confess it.

Duke.

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 shew her face; and after, speak.
Mari. Pardon, my lord; I will not shew my face

Until my husband bid me.

Duke. What. are you married?

Mari. No, my lord.

Duke. Are you a maid?

Mari. No, my lord.

Duke. A widow, then?

Mari. Neither, my lord.

Duke. 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. Silence that fellow: I would he had

some cause

To prattle for himself.

Lucio. Well, my lord.

Mari. 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.

Duke. This is no witness for Lord Angelo.
Mari. Now come I 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.

Ang. Charges she more than me?
Mari. Not that I know.

Duke. No? you say, your husband.

Mari. 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.

Ang. This is a strange abuse. Let's see thy

face.

Mari. My husband bids me; now I will un-
mask.
[Unveiling.

This is that face, thou cruel Angelo,
Which once thou swor'st was worth the looking on:
This is the hand which, with a vowed contract,
Was fast belocked 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. Know you this woman?

Lucio. Carnally, she says.

Duke. Sirrah, no more.

Lucio. Enough, my lord.

Ang. My lord, I must confess I know that

And punish them unto 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 sealed in approbation?-You, Lord Es calus,

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.

F. 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. 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.

Escal. My lord, we'll do it thoroughly.— [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.

Escal. We shall entreat you to abide here till he come, and enforce them against him: shall find this friar a notable fellow.

we

Lucio. As any in Vienna, on my word. Escal. Call that same Isabel here once again [to an Attendant]; I would speak with her. 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. Escal. Say you?

Lucio. Marry, sir, I think if you handled her privately, she would sooner confess: perchance publicly she'll be ashamed.

Re-enter Officers with ISABELLA; the DUKE, in the Friar's habit, and Provost.

Escal. I will go darkly to work with her.

Escal. Come, sir, did you set these women on to slander Lord Angelo? They have confessed you did.

Duke. 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, Thus to retort your manifest appeal, And put your trial in the villain's mouth Which here you come to accuse.

Lucio. This is the rascal; this is he I spoke of. Escal. Why, thou unreverend and unhallowed friar!

Is't not enough thou hast suborned these women To accuse this worthy man; but in foul mouth, And in the witness of his proper ear,

To call him villain?

And then to glance from him to the Duke himself; To tax him with injustice! Take him hence; To the rack with him :-we'll touze you joint by joint,

But we will know this purpose. What! unjust?
Duke. Be not so hot: the Duke

Dare no more stretch this finger of mine, than he
Dare rack his own; his subject am I not,
Nor here provincial. My business in this state
Made me a looker-on here in Vienna,
Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble
Till it o'errun the stew laws for all faults;
But faults so countenanced, that the strong

statutes

Stand like the forfeits in a barber's shop,
As much in mock as mark.

Escal. Slander to the state! Away with him

to prison.

Ang. What can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio?

Is this the man that you did tell us of?

Duke. I protest I love the Duke as I love myself.

Ang. Hark how the villain would close now, after his treasonable abuses!

Escal. Such a fellow is not to be talked withal: away with him to prison. Where is the Provost? Away with him to prison: lay bolts enough upon him: let him speak no more. Away with those giglots too, and with the other confederate companion. [The Provost lays hands on the DUKE. Duke. Stay, sir; stay awhile.

Ang. What! resists he? Help him, Lucio. Lucio. Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh,