Enter Provost, ⌜Pompey, and Officer.⌝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 never5 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 a10 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 15Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd time out of mind, but yet I will be content to be a lawful
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hangman. I would be glad to receive some instruction from my fellow partner.PROVOST What ho, Abhorson!—Where’s Abhorson20 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 here25 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 30Go to, sir; you weigh equally. A feather will turn the scale.He exits.POMPEY Pray, sir, by your good favor—for surely, sir, a good favor you have, but that you have a hanging look—do you call, sir, your occupation a mystery?ABHORSON 35Ay, 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,40 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. If it be too little for your thief, your true man thinks it45 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?
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POMPEY Sir, I will serve him, for I do find your hangman50 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 instruct55 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.⌜Pompey and Abhorson⌝ exit.PROVOST, ⌜to Officer⌝ 60 Call hither Barnardine and Claudio.⌜Officer exits.⌝ Th’ one has my pity; not a jot the other, Being a murderer, though he were my brother.Enter Claudio, ⌜with Officer.⌝ Look, here’s the warrant, Claudio, for thy death. ’Tis now dead midnight, and by eight tomorrow65 Thou must be made immortal. Where’s Barnardine?CLAUDIO As fast locked up in sleep as guiltless labor When it lies starkly in the traveler’s bones. He will not wake.PROVOST Who can do good on him?70 Well, go, prepare yourself. ⌜Knock within.⌝ But hark, what noise?— Heaven give your spirits comfort. ⌜Claudio exits,
with Officer. Knock within.⌝ By and by!— I hope it is some pardon or reprieve75 For the most gentle Claudio.Enter Duke, ⌜as a Friar.⌝ Welcome, father.
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DUKE, ⌜as Friar⌝ The best and wholesom’st spirits of the night Envelop you, good provost. Who called here of late?PROVOST None since the curfew rung.DUKE, ⌜as Friar⌝ 80 Not Isabel?PROVOST No.DUKE, ⌜as Friar⌝ They will, then, ere ’t be long.PROVOST What comfort is for Claudio?DUKE, ⌜as Friar⌝ There’s some in hope.PROVOST 85 It is a bitter deputy.DUKE, ⌜as Friar⌝ 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 power90 To qualify in others. Were he mealed with that Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous, But this being so, he’s just. ⌜Knock within.⌝ Now are they come.⌜Provost exits.⌝ This is a gentle provost. Seldom when95 The steelèd jailer is the friend of men.⌜Enter Provost. Knocking continues.⌝ How now, what noise? That spirit’s possessed with haste That wounds th’ unsisting postern with these strokes.PROVOST There he must stay until the officer100 Arise to let him in. He is called up.DUKE, ⌜as Friar⌝ Have you no countermand for Claudio yet, But he must die tomorrow?PROVOST None, sir, none.
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DUKE, ⌜as Friar⌝ As near the dawning, provost, as it is,105 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 justice110 Lord Angelo hath to the public ear Professed the contrary.Enter a Messenger. This is his ⌜Lordship’s⌝ man.⌜DUKE, as Friar⌝ And here comes Claudio’s pardon.MESSENGER, ⌜giving Provost a paper⌝ My lord hath sent115 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.⌜Provost reads message.Messenger exits.⌝DUKE, ⌜aside⌝ 120 This is his pardon, purchased by such sin For which the pardoner himself is in. Hence hath offense his quick celerity When it is borne in high authority. When vice makes mercy, mercy’s so extended125 That for the fault’s love is th’ offender friended. ⌜As Friar.⌝ 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 hath130 not used it before.DUKE, ⌜as Friar⌝ Pray you let’s hear.⌜PROVOST, reads⌝ the letter. Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let Claudio
be executed by four of the clock, and in the afternoon
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Barnardine. For my better satisfaction, let me have
135 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, ⌜as Friar⌝ 140What 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, ⌜as Friar⌝ How came it that the absent duke had145 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, ⌜as Friar⌝ 150It is now apparent?PROVOST Most manifest, and not denied by himself.DUKE, ⌜as Friar⌝ Hath he borne himself penitently in prison? How seems he to be touched?PROVOST A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully155 but as a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless of what’s past, present, or to come; insensible of mortality and desperately mortal.DUKE, ⌜as Friar⌝ He wants advice.PROVOST He will hear none. He hath evermore had the160 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 him165 at all.DUKE, ⌜as Friar⌝ 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.
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170 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 a175 dangerous courtesy.PROVOST Pray, sir, in what?DUKE, ⌜as Friar⌝ In the delaying death.PROVOST Alack, how may I do it, having the hour limited, and an express command, under penalty,180 to deliver his head in the view of Angelo? I may make my case as Claudio’s, to cross this in the smallest.DUKE, ⌜as Friar⌝ By the vow of mine order I warrant you, if my instructions may be your guide. Let this185 Barnardine be this morning executed and his head borne to Angelo.PROVOST Angelo hath seen them both and will discover the favor.DUKE, ⌜as Friar⌝ O, death’s a great disguiser, and you190 may add to it. Shave the head and tie the beard, and say it was the desire of the penitent to be so bared before his death. You know the course is common. If anything fall to you upon this, more than thanks and good fortune, by the saint whom I profess, I195 will plead against it with my life.PROVOST Pardon me, good father, it is against my oath.DUKE, ⌜as Friar⌝ Were you sworn to the Duke or to the Deputy?PROVOST To him and to his substitutes.DUKE, ⌜as Friar⌝ 200You will think you have made no offense if the Duke avouch the justice of your dealing?PROVOST But what likelihood is in that?DUKE, ⌜as Friar⌝ Not a resemblance, but a certainty; yet205 since I see you fearful, that neither my coat, integrity,
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nor persuasion can with ease attempt you, I will go further than I meant, to pluck all fears out of you. Look you, sir, here is the hand and seal of the Duke. ⌜He shows the Provost a paper.⌝ You know the210 character, I doubt not, and the signet is not strange to you.PROVOST I know them both.DUKE, ⌜as Friar⌝ The contents of this is the return of the Duke; you shall anon overread it at your pleasure,215 where you shall find within these two days he will be here. This is a thing that Angelo knows not, for he this very day receives letters of strange tenor, perchance of the Duke’s death, perchance entering into some monastery, but by chance nothing of220 what is writ. Look, th’ unfolding star calls up the shepherd. Put not yourself into amazement how these things should be. All difficulties are but easy when they are known. Call your executioner, and off with Barnardine’s head. I will give him a present225 shrift, and advise him for a better place. Yet you are amazed, but this shall absolutely resolve you.⌜He gives the Provost the paper.⌝ Come away; it is almost clear dawn.⌜They⌝ exit.
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