William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (390 page)
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Authors: William Shakespeare
Tags: #Drama, #Literary Criticism, #Shakespeare
BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
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4.2
Enter the Provost and Pompey
PROVOST
(reading the letter) ‘Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let Claudio be executed by four of the clock, and in the afternoon Barnardine. For my better satisfaction, let me have Claudio’s head sent me by five. Let this be duly performed, with a thought that more depends on it than we must yet deliver. Thus fail not to do your office, as you will answer it at your peril.’ What say you to this, sir?
Enter the Provost and Pompey
PROVOST Come hither, sirrah. Can you cut off a man’s head?
POMPEY If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can; but if he be a married man, he’s his wife’s head, and I can never cut off a woman’s head.
PROVOST Come, sir, leave me your snatches, and yield me a direct answer. Tomorrow morning are to die Claudio and Barnardine. Here is in our prison a common executioner, who in his office lacks a helper. If you will take it on you to assist him, it shall redeem you from your gyves; if not, you shall have your full time of imprisonment, and your deliverance with an unpitied whipping; for you have been a notorious bawd.
POMPEY Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd time out of mind, but yet I will be content to be a lawful hangman. I would be glad to receive some instruction from my fellow partner.
PROVOST What ho, Abhorson! Where’s Abhorson there? Enter Abhorson
ABHORSON Do you call, sir?
PROVOST Sirrah, here’s a fellow will help you tomorrow in your execution. If you think it meet, compound with him by the year, and let him abide here with you; if not, use him for the present, and dismiss him. He cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath been a bawd.
ABHORSON A bawd, sir? Fie upon him, he will discredit our mystery.
PROVOST Go to, sir, you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale. Exit
POMPEY Pray, sir, by your good favour—for surely, sir, a good favour you have, but that you have a hanging look—do you call, sir, your occupation a mystery?
ABHORSON Ay, sir, a mystery.
POMPEY Painting, sir, I have heard say is a mystery; and your whores, sir, being members of my occupation, using painting, do prove my occupation a mystery. But what mystery there should be in hanging, if I should be hanged I cannot imagine.
ABHORSON Sir, it is a mystery.
POMPEY Proof.
ABHORSON Every true man’s apparel fits your thief—
POMPEY If it be too little for your thief, your true man thinks it big enough. If it be too big for your thief, your thief thinks it little enough. So every true man’s apparel fits your thief.
Enter Provost
PROVOST Are you agreed?
POMPEY Sir, I will serve him, for I do find your hangman is a more penitent trade than your bawd—he doth oftener ask forgiveness.
PROVOST (to Abhorson) You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe tomorrow, four o’clock.
ABHORSON (to Pompey) Come on, bawd, I will instruct thee in my trade. Follow.
POMPEY I do desire to learn, sir, and I hope, if you have occasion to use me for your own turn, you shall find me yare. For truly, sir, for your kindness I owe you a good turn.
PROVOST
Call hither Barnardine and Claudio.
Exeunt Abhorson
and
Pompey
and
Pompey
Th’one has my pity; not a jot the other,
Being a murderer, though he were my brother.
Being a murderer, though he were my brother.
Enter Claudio
Look, here’s the warrant, Claudio, for thy death.
’Tis now dead midnight, and by eight tomorrow
Thou must be made immortal. Where’s Barnardine?
’Tis now dead midnight, and by eight tomorrow
Thou must be made immortal. Where’s Barnardine?
CLAUDIO
As fast locked up in sleep as guiltless labour
When it lies starkly in the travailer’s bones.
He will not wake.
When it lies starkly in the travailer’s bones.
He will not wake.
PROVOST Who can do good on him?
Well, go prepare yourself.
Knocking within
But hark, what noise?
Heaven give your spirits comfort! Exit Claudio
By and by!
I hope it is some pardon or reprieve
For the most gentle Claudio.
Enter the Duke, disguised as
a
friar
Welcome, father.
For the most gentle Claudio.
Enter the Duke, disguised as
a
friar
Welcome, father.
DUKE
The best and wholesom’st spirits of the night
Envelop you, good Provost! Who called here of late?
Envelop you, good Provost! Who called here of late?
PROVOST None since the curfew rung.
DUKE Not Isabel?
PROVOST No.
DUKE They will then, ere’t be long.
PROVOST What comfort is for Claudio?
DUKE There’s some in hope.
PROVOST It is a bitter deputy.
DUKE
Not so, not so; his life is paralleled
Even with the stroke and line of his great justice.
He doth with holy abstinence subdue
That in himself which he spurs on his power
To qualify in others. Were he mealed with that
Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous;
But this being so, he’s just.
Even with the stroke and line of his great justice.
He doth with holy abstinence subdue
That in himself which he spurs on his power
To qualify in others. Were he mealed with that
Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous;
But this being so, he’s just.
Knocking within
Now are they come.
⌈The Provost goes to a door
⌉
This is a gentle Provost. Seldom when
The steeled jailer is the friend of men.
The steeled jailer is the friend of men.
Knocking within
(To Provost) How now, what noise? That spirit’s
possessed with haste
That wounds th’unlisting postern with these strokes.
possessed with haste
That wounds th’unlisting postern with these strokes.
PROVOST
There he must stay until the officer
Arise to let him in. He is called up.
Arise to let him in. He is called up.
DUKE
Have you no countermand for Claudio yet,
But he must die tomorrow?
But he must die tomorrow?
PROVOST None, sir, none.
DUKE
As near the dawning, Provost, as it is,
You shall hear more ere morning.
You shall hear more ere morning.
PROVOST Happily
You something know, yet I believe there comes
No countermand. No such example have we;
Besides, upon the very siege of justice
Lord Angelo hath to the public ear
Professed the contrary.
Enter a Messenger
This is his lordship’s man.
No countermand. No such example have we;
Besides, upon the very siege of justice
Lord Angelo hath to the public ear
Professed the contrary.
Enter a Messenger
This is his lordship’s man.
⌈DUKE⌉ And here comes Claudio’s pardon.
MESSENGER (giving
a
paper to Provost) My lord hath sent you this note, and by me this further charge: that you swerve not from the smallest article of it, neither in time, matter, or other circumstance. Good morrow; for, as I take it, it is almost day.
a
paper to Provost) My lord hath sent you this note, and by me this further charge: that you swerve not from the smallest article of it, neither in time, matter, or other circumstance. Good morrow; for, as I take it, it is almost day.
PROVOST I shall obey him.
Exit Messenger
DUKE (aside)
This is his pardon, purchased by such sin
For which the pardoner himself is in.
Hence hath offence his quick celerity,
When it is borne in high authority.
When vice makes mercy, mercy’s so extended
That for the fault’s love is th’offender friended.—
Now sir, what news?
For which the pardoner himself is in.
Hence hath offence his quick celerity,
When it is borne in high authority.
When vice makes mercy, mercy’s so extended
That for the fault’s love is th’offender friended.—
Now sir, what news?
PROVOST I told you: Lord Angelo, belike thinking me remiss in mine office, awakens me with this unwonted putting-on; methinks strangely, for he hath not used it before.
DUKE Pray you let’s hear.
PROVOST(reading the letter) ‘Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let Claudio be executed by four of the clock, and in the afternoon Barnardine. For my better satisfaction, let me have Claudio’s head sent me by five. Let this be duly performed, with a thought that more depends on it than we must yet deliver. Thus fail not to do your office, as you will answer it at your peril.’ What say you to this, sir?DUKE What is that Barnardine, who is to be executed in th’afternoon?
PROVOST A Bohemian born, but here nursed up and bred; one that is a prisoner nine years old.
DUKE How came it that the absent Duke had not either delivered him to his liberty or executed him? I have heard it was ever his manner to do so.
PROVOST His friends still wrought reprieves for him; and indeed his fact, till now in the government of Lord Angelo, came not to an undoubtful proof.
DUKE It is now apparent?
PROVOST Most manifest, and not denied by himself.
DUKE Hath he borne himself penitently in prison? How seems he to be touched?
PROVOST A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but as a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless of what’s past, present, or to come; insensible of mortality, and desperately mortal.
DUKE He wants advice.
PROVOST He will hear none. He hath evermore had the liberty of the prison. Give him leave to escape hence, he would not. Drunk many times a day, if not many days entirely drunk. We have very oft awaked him as if to carry him to execution, and showed him a seeming warrant for it; it hath not moved him at all.
DUKE More of him anon. There is written in your brow, Provost, honesty and constancy. If I read it not truly, my ancient skill beguiles me. But in the boldness of my cunning, I will lay myself in hazard. Claudio, whom here you have warrant to execute, is no greater forfeit to the law than Angelo who hath sentenced him. To make you understand this in a manifested effect, I crave but four days’ respite, for the which you are to do me both a present and a dangerous courtesy.
PROVOST Pray sir, in what?
DUKE In the delaying death.
PROVOST Alack, how may I do it, having the hour limited, and an express command under penalty to deliver his head in the view of Angelo? I may make my case as Claudio’s to cross this in the smallest.
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