at Angelo. How will you do to content this substitute, and to save your brother?

Isab. I am now going to resolve him. I had rather my brother die by the law, than my son should be unlawfully born. But O, how much is the good duke deceived in Angelo ! If ever he return, and I can speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or discover his government.

Duke. That shall not be much amiss; yet, as the matter now stands, he will avoid your accusation: he made trial of you only.-Therefore, fasten your ear on my advisings: to the love I have in doing good a remedy presents itself. I do make myself believe, that you may most uprighteously do a poor wronged lady a merited benefit, redeem your brother from the angry law, do no stain to your own gracious person, and much please the absent duke, if, peradventure, he shall ever return to have hearing of this business.

Isab. Let me hear you speak farther. I have spirit to do any thing that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.

Duke. Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have you not heard speak of Mariana, the sister of Frederick, the great soldier who miscarried at sea?

Isab. I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.

Duke. Her should this Angelo have married; he was affianced to her by oath, and the nuptial appointed : between which time of the contract, and limit of the solemnity, her brother Frederick was wrecked at sea, having in that perish'd vessel the dowry of his sister. But mark how heavily this befel to the poor gentlewoman there she lost a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward her ever most kind and natural; with him the portion and sinew of her fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her combinate1 husband, this well-seeming Angelo.

Isab. Can this be so ? Did Angelo so leave her?

Duke. Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them with his comfort; swallowed his vows whole, pretending in her discoveries of dishonour in few, bestowed her on her own lamentation, which she yet wears for his

1 Contracted.

sake, and he, as marble to her tears, is washed with them, but relents not.

Isab. What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid from the world! What corruption in this life, that it will let this man live !-But how out of this can she avail?

Duke. It is a rupture that you may easily heal; and the cure of it not only saves your brother, but keeps you from dishonour in doing it.

Isab. Show me how, good father.

Duke. This fore-named maid hath yet in her the continuance of her first affection: his unjust unkindness, that in all reason should have quenched her love, hath, like an impediment in the current, made it more violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo answer his requiring with a plausible obedience: agree with his demands to the point; only refer yourself to this advantage, first, that your stay with him may not be long, that the time may have all shadow and silence in it, and the place answer to convenience. This being granted in course, and now follows all: we shall advise this wronged maid to stead up your appointment, go in your place; if the encounter acknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him to her recompense; and here by this is your brother saved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid will I frame, and make fit for his attempt. If you think well to carry this, as you may, the doubleness of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof. What think you of it?

Isab. The image of it gives me content already, and, I trust, it will grow to a most prosperous perfection.

Duke. It lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily to Angelo: if for this night he entreat you to his bed, give him promise of satisfaction. I will presently to St. Luke's; there, at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana: at that place call upon me, and despatch with Angelo, that it may be quickly.

Isab. I thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.-The Street before the Prison. Enter DUKE, as a Friar; to him ELBOW, Clown, and Officers.

Elb. Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will needs buy and sell men and women like beasts, we shall have all the world drink brown and white bastard.1

Duke. O, heavens! what stuff is here?

Clo. 'T was never merry world, since, of two usances,* the merriest was put down, and the worser allow'd by order of law a furr'd gown to keep him warm; and furr'd with fox and lamb-skins too, to signify that craft, being richer than innocency, stands for the facing.

Elb. Come your way, sir.-Bless you, good father friar.

Duke, And you, good brother father. What offence hath this man made you, sir?

Elb. Marry, sir, he hath offended the law: and, sir, we take him to be a thief too, sir; for we have found upon him, sir, a strange pick-lock, which we have sent to the deputy.

Duke. Fie, sirrah: a bawd, a wicked bawd!
The evil that thou causest to be done,

That is thy means to live. Do thou but think
What 't is to cram a maw, or clothe a back,
From such a filthy vice: say to thyself,
From their abominable and beastly touches
I drink, I eat, array myself, and live.
Canst thou believe thy living is a life,

So stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend.

Clo. Indeed, it does stink in some sort, sir; but yet, sir, I would prove

Duke. Nay, if the devil have given thee proofs for sin, Thou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer: Correction and instruction must both work,

Ere this rude beast will profit.

Elb. He must before the deputy, sir; he has given him warning. The deputy cannot abide a whoremaster if he be a whoremonger, and comes before him, he were as good go a mile on his errand.

Duke. That we were all, as some would seem to be, From our faults, as faults from seeming, free!

1 Ital. bastardo, a sweet wine made of raisins. 2 usuries: in f. e.

Enter LUCIO.

Elb. His neck will come to your waist, a cord, sir. Clo. I spy comfort: I cry, bail. Here's a gentleman,

and a friend of mine.

Lucio. How now, noble Pompey! What, at the wheels of Cæsar? Art thou led in triumph? What, is there none of Pygmalion's images, newly made woman, to be had now, for putting the hand in the pocket and extracting it clutch'd? What reply? Ha! What say'st thou to this tune, matter, and method? Is 't not drown'd i' the last rain? Ha! What say'st thou, troth? Is the world as it was, man? Which is the way? Is it sad, and few words, or how? The trick of it?

Duke. Still thus, and thus: still worse!

Lucio. How doth my dear morsel, thy mistress? Procures she still? Ha!

Clo. Troth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she is herself in the tub.

Lucio. Why, 't is good; it is the right of it; it must be so ever your fresh whore, and your powder'd bawd: an unshunn'd consequence; it must be so. Art going

to prison, Pompey?

Clo. Yes, faith, sir.

Lucio. Why, 't is not amiss, Pompey. Farewell. Go; say, I sent thee thither. For debt, Pompey, or how? Elb. For being a bawd, for being a bawd.

Lucio. Well, then imprison him. If imprisonment be the due of a bawd, why, 't is his right: bawd is he, doubtless, and of antiquity too; bawd-born. Farewell, good Pompey: commend me to the prison, Pompey. You will turn good husband now, Pompey; you will keep the house.

Clo. I hope, sir, your good worship will be my bail.

Lucio. No, indeed, will I not, Pompey; it is not the wear. I will pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage: if you take it not patiently, why, your mettle is the more. Adieu, trusty Pompey.—Bless you, friar.

Duke. And you.

Lucio. Does Bridget paint still, Pompey? Ha!
Elb. Come your ways, sir; come.

Clo. You will not bail me, then, sir?

1 trot in f. e.

Lucio. Then, Pompey, nor now. friar? What news?

-What news abroad,

Elb. Come your ways, sir; come.
Lucio. Go; to kennel, Pompey, go.

[Exeunt ELBOW, Clown, and Officers.

What news, friar, of the duke?

Duke. I know none. Can you tell me of any?

Lucio. Some say, he is with the emperor of Russia; other some, he is in Rome: but where is he, think you?

Duke. I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well.

Lucio. It was a mad fantastical trick of him, to steal from the state, and usurp the beggary he was never born to. Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence: he puts transgression to 't.

Duke. He does well in 't.

Lucio. A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in him something too crabbed that way, friar. Duke. It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it.

Lucio. Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred it is well allied; but it is impossible to extirp it quite, friar, till eating and drinking be put down. They say, this Angelo was not made by man and woman, after the downright way of creation is it true, think you?

Duke. How should he be made then?

Lucio. Some report, a sea-maid spawn'd him; some, that he was begot between two stock-fishes; but it is certain, that when he makes water, his urine is congeal'd ice that I know to be true; and he is a motion ingenerative, that 's infallible.

Duke. You are pleasant, sir, and speak apace.

Lucio. Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the rebellion of a cod-piece to take away the life of a man? Would the duke that is absent have done this? Ere he would have hang'd a man for the getting a hundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing a thousand. He had some feeling of the sport he knew the service, and that instructed him to mercy.

Duke. I never heard the absent duke much detected1 for women: he was not inclined that way.

1 Suspected.