Measure for Measure
Act IV, Scene 2
A room in the prison.
John Liston as Pompey
Samuel De Wilde, 1812
- Enter Provost and Clown Pompey.
Provost
1- Come hither, sirrah; can you cut off a man’s head?
Pompey
2 - 4- If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can; but if he be a married
- man, he’s his wive’s head, and I can never cut off a woman’s
- head.
Provost
5 - 12- 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
13 - 15- 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
16- What ho, Abhorson! Where’s Abhorson there?
- Enter Abhorson.
Abhorson
17- Do you call, sir?
Provost
18 - 22- 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; for he hath been a bawd.
Abhorson
23- A bawd, sir? Fie upon him, he will discredit our mystery.
Provost
24 - 25- Go to, sir, you weigh equally; a feather will turn the
- scale.
- Exit.
Pompey
26 - 28- 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
29- Ay, sir, a mystery.
Pompey
30 - 34- 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 hang’d, I cannot
- imagine.
Abhorson
35- Sir, it is a mystery.
Pompey
36- Proof.
Abhorson
37 - 40- Every true man’s apparel fits your thief. 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
41- Are you agreed?
Pompey
42 - 44- Sir, I will serve him; for I do find your hangman is a more
- penitent trade than your bawd: he doth oft’ner ask
- forgiveness.
Provost
45 - 46- You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe tomorrow, four
- a’ clock.
Abhorson
47- Come on, bawd, I will instruct thee in my trade; follow.
Pompey
48 - 50- 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
51 - 56- Call hither Barnardine and Claudio.
- Exeunt Abhorson and Pompey.
- Th’ one has my pity; not a jot the other,
- 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?
Claudio
57 - 59- As fast lock’d up in sleep as guiltless labor
- When it lies starkly in the traveler’s bones.
- He will not wake.
Provost
60 - 67- 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 Duke disguised as a friar.
- Welcome, father.
Duke
68 - 69- The best and wholesom’st spirits of the night
- Envelop you, good Provost! Who call’d here of late?
Provost
70- None since the curfew rung.
Duke
71- Not Isabel?
Provost
72- No.
Duke
73- They will then ere’t be long.
Provost
74- What comfort is for Claudio?
Duke
75- There’s some in hope.
Provost
76- It is a bitter deputy.
Duke
77 - 88- Not so, not so; his life is parallel’d
- Even with the stroke and line of his great justice.
- He doth with holy abstinence subdue
- That in himself which he spurs on his pow’r
- To qualify in others. Were he meal’d with that
- Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous,
- But this being so, he’s just.
- Knocking within.
- Now are they come.
- Exit Provost.
- This is a gentle Provost: seldom when
- The steeled jailer is the friend of men.
- Knocking within.
- How now? What noise? That spirit’s possess’d with haste
- That wounds th’ unsisting postern with these strokes.
- Enter Provost.
Provost
89 - 90- There he must stay until the officer
- Arise to let him in; he is call’d up.
Duke
91 - 92- Have you no countermand for Claudio yet,
- But he must die tomorrow?
Provost
93- None, sir, none.
Duke
94 - 95- As near the dawning, Provost, as it is,
- You shall hear more ere morning.
Provost
96 - 102- 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
- Profess’d the contrary.
- Enter a Messenger.
- This is his Lordship’s man.
Duke
103- And here comes Claudio’s pardon.
Messenger
104 - 107- 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
108- I shall obey him.
- Exit Messenger.
Duke
109 - 115- Aside.
- This is his pardon, purchas’d 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 extended,
- That for the fault’s love is th’ offender friended.
- Now, sir, what news?
Look, th’ unfolding star calls up the shepherd
Charles Knight, 1851
Provost
116 - 118- 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 us’d it before.
Duke
119- Pray you let’s hear.
Provost
120 - 126- Reads 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 perform’d,
- 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
127 - 128- What is that Barnardine who is to be executed in th’
- afternoon?
Provost
129 - 130- A Bohemian born; but here nurs’d up and bred, one that is a
- prisoner nine years old.
Duke
131 - 133- How came it that the absent Duke had not either deliver’d
- him to his liberty or executed him? I have heard it was ever
- his manner to do so.
Provost
134 - 136- 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
137- It is now apparent?
Provost
138- Most manifest, and not denied by himself.
Duke
139 - 140- Hath he borne himself penitently in prison? How seems he to
- be touch’d?
Provost
141 - 144- 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
145- He wants advice.
Provost
146 - 151- 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 awak’d him, as if to carry him to execution, and
- show’d him a seeming warrant for it; it hath not mov’d him
- at all.
Duke
152 - 160- 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 sentenc’d 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
161- Pray, sir, in what?
Duke
162- In the delaying death.
Provost
163 - 166- 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.
Duke
167 - 169- By the vow of mine order I warrant you, if my instructions
- may be your guide. Let this Barnardine be this morning
- executed, and his head borne to Angelo.
Provost
170- Angelo hath seen them both, and will discover the favor.
Duke
171 - 176- O, death’s a great disguiser, and you may add to it. Shave
- the head, and tie the beard, and say it was the desire of
- the penitent to be so bar’d before his death. You know the
- course is common. If any thing fall to you upon this, more
- than thanks and good fortune, by the saint whom I profess, I
- will plead against it with my life.
Provost
177- Pardon me, good father, it is against my oath.
Duke
178- Were you sworn to the Duke, or to the deputy?
Provost
179- To him, and to his substitutes.
Duke
180 - 181- You will think you have made no offense, if the Duke avouch
- the justice of your dealing?
Provost
182- But what likelihood is in that?
Duke
183 - 188- Not a resemblance, but a certainty; yet since I see you
- fearful, that neither my coat, integrity, 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; you know the character, I doubt not,
- and the signet is not strange to you.
Provost
189- I know them both.
Duke
190 - 202- The contents of this is the return of the Duke. You shall
- anon over-read it at your pleasure; 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 of 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 present shrift, and advise him for a better place. Yet you
- are amaz’d, but this shall absolutely resolve you. Come
- away, it is almost clear dawn.
- Exeunt.