MEASURE FOR MEASURE. William ShakespeareЧитать онлайн книгу.

ACT II.

       Table of Contents

      Scene I. A hall in ANGELO’S 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

       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 coher’d with place, or place with wishing,

       Or that the resolute acting of your blood

       Could have attain’d the effect of your own purpose,

       Whether you had not sometime in your life

       Err’d in this point which now you censure him,

       And pull’d the law upon you.

       ANGELO.

       ‘Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,

       Another thing to fall. I not deny

       The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life,

       May, in the sworn twelve, have a thief or two

       Guiltier than him they try. What’s open made to justice,

       That justice seizes. What knows the laws

       That thieves do pass on thieves? ‘Tis very pregnant,

       The jewel that we find, we stoop and take it,

       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,

       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 tomorrow morning:

       Bring him his confessor; let him be prepard;

       For that’s the utmost of his pilgrimage.

       [Exit PROVOST.]

       ESCALUS.

       Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all!

       Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall:

       Some run from brakes of vice, and answer none,

       And some condemned for a fault alone.

       [Enter ELBOW, FROTH, CLOWN, Officers, &c.]

       ELBOW. Come, bring them away: if these be good people in a commonweal that do nothing but use their abuses in common houses, I know no law; bring them away.

       ANGELO.

       How now, sir! What’s your name? and what’s the matter?

       ELBOW. If it please your honour, I am the poor duke’s constable, and my name is Elbow; I do lean upon justice, sir, and do bring in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors.

       ANGELO. Benefactors! Well; what benefactors are they? are they not malefactors?

       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; here’s a wise officer.

       ANGELO. Go to;—what quality are they of? Elbow is your name? Why dost thou not speak, Elbow?

       CLOWN.

       He cannot, sir; he’s out at elbow.

       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, plucked down in the suburbs; and now she professes a hot-house, which, I think, is a very ill house too.

       ESCALUS.

       How know you that?

       ELBOW.

       My wfe, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour,—

       ESCALUS.

       How! thy wife!

       ELBOW.

       Ay, sir; who, I thank heaven, is an honest woman,—

       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 bawd’s house, it is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house.

       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 accused in fornication, adultery, and all uncleanliness there.

       ESCALUS.

       By the woman’s means?

       ELBOW. Ay, sir, by Mistress Overdone’s means: but as she spit in his face, so she defied him.

       CLOWN.

       Sir, if it please your honour, this is not so.

       ELBOW. Prove it before these varlets here, thou honourable man, prove it.

       ESCALUS.

       [To ANGELO.] Do you hear how he misplaces?

       CLOWN. Sir, she came in great with child; and longing,—saving your honour’s reverence—for stew’d 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 threepence; your honours have seen such dishes; they are not China dishes, but very good dishes.

       ESCALUS.

       Go to, go to; no matter for the dish, sir.

       CLOWN. 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,