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Enter Provost and Clown,

Prov. Come hither, sirrah: Can you cut off a man's head?

Clo. If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can: but if he be a married man, he is his wife's head, and I can never cut off a woman's head.

Prov. Come, sir, leave me your snatches, and yield me a direct answer. To-morrow 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.

Clo. 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. Prov. What ho, Abhorson! Where's Abhorson, there?

Enter ABHORSON,

Abhor. Do you call, sir?

Prov. 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.

Abhor. A bawd, sir? Fy upon him, he will discredit our mystery.

Prov. Go to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale. [Exit.

Clo. 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?

Abhor. Ay, sir, a mystery.

Clo. 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.

Abhor. Sir, it is a mystery.
Clo. Proof.

Abhor. 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.

Re-enter Provost.

Prov. Are you agreed?

Clo. Sir, I will serve him; for I do find your hangman is a more penitent trade than your bawd; he doth oftener ask forgiveness.

Prov. You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe to-morrow, four o'clock.

Abhor. Come on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow.

Clo. 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.

Prov. Call hither Barnardine and Claudio: [Exeunt Clown and ABHORSON. One has my pity; not a jot the other, Being a murderer, though he were my brother.

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Enter DUKE.

Duke. The best and wholesomest spirits of the night

Envelop you, good Provost! Who called here of late?

Prov. None since the curfew rung.

Duke. Not Isabel?

Prov. No.

Duke. They will, then, ere 't be long.

Prov. What comfort is for Claudio?
Duke. There's some in hope.
Prov. 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 tyran

nous;

But this being so, he's just.-Now are they come. [Knocking within.-Provost goes out. This is a gentle Provost: seldom when The steeléd gaoler is the friend of men.How now? what noise? That spirit's possessed with haste

That wounds the unsisting postern with these strokes.

Provost returns, speaking to one at the door. Prov. There must he stay, until the officer Arise to let him in; he is called up.

Duke. Have you no countermand for Claudio yet,

But he must die to-morrow?

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Duke. This is his lordship's man. Prov. And here comes Claudio's pardon. Mess. 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. Prov. I shall obey him. [Exit Messenger. Duke. This is his pardon; purchased by such sin [Aside.

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 the offender friended.Now, sir, what news?

Prov. 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 reads.

"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 the afternoon?

Prov. 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.

Prov. 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. Is it now apparent?

Prov. Most manifest, and not denied by himself. Duke. Hath he borne himself penitently in prison? how seems he to be touched?

Prov. 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.

Prov. 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 often awaked him as if to carry him to execution, and shewed 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 a 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. Prov. Pray, sir, in what?

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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, I will plead against it with my life. Prov. Pardon me, good father; it is against my oath.

Duke. Were you sworn to the Duke, or to the deputy?

Prov. To him and to his substitutes.

Duke. You will think you have made no offence, if the Duke avouch the justice of your dealing?

Prov. But what likelihood is in that?

Duke. Not a resemblance, but a certainty. Yet, since I see you fearful that neither my coat, integrity, nor my 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.

Prov. I know them both.

Duke. 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, the 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 amazed; but this shall absolutely resolve you. Come away; it is almost clear dawn.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.-Another Room in the same.

Enter Clown.

Clo. I am as well acquainted here as I was in our house of profession: one would think it were

Mistress Overdone's own house, for here be many of her old customers. First, here's young Master Rash; he's in for a commodity of brown paper and old ginger, ninescore and seventeen pounds; of which he made five marks, ready money: marry, then, ginger was not much in request, for the old women were all dead. Then is there here one Master Caper, at the suit of Master Threepile the mercer, for some four suits of peach-coloured satin, which now peaches him a beggar. Then have we here young Dizy, and young Master Deepvow, and Master Copperspur, and Master Starvelackey the rapier-and-dagger man, and young Dropheir that killed lusty Pudding, and Master Forthright the tilter, and brave Master Shoetie the great traveller, and wild Halfcan that stabbed Pots, and I think forty more; all great doers in our trade, and are now in for the Lord's sake.

Enter ABHORSON.

Abhor. Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither.

Clo. Master Barnardine! you must rise and be hanged, Master Barnardine.

Abhor. What, ho, Barnardine!

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Barnar. [within.] A pox o' your throats! Who makes that noise there? what are you?

Clo. Your friends, sir; the hangman: You must be so good, sir, to rise, and be put to death. Barnar. [within.] Away, you rogue, away; I am sleepy.

Abhor. Tell him he must awake, and that quickly, too.

Clo. Pray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are executed, and sleep afterwards.

Abhor. Go in to him, and fetch him out. Clo. He is coming, sir, he is coming; I hear his straw rustle.

Abhor. Is the axe upon the block, sirrah?
Clo. Very ready, sir.

Enter BARNARDINE.

Barnar. How now, Abhorson? what's the news with you?

Abhor. Truly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your prayers; for, look you, the warrant's come. Barnar. You rogue, I have been drinking all night; I am not fitted for 't.

Clo. O, the better, sir; for he that drinks all night, and is hanged betimes in the morning, may sleep the sounder all the next day.

Enter DUKE.

Abhor. Look you, sir, here comes your ghostly father. Do we jest now, think you?

Duke. Sir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily you are to depart, I am come to advise you, comfort you, and pray with you.

Barnar. Friar, not I; I have been drinking hard all night, and I will have more time to prepare me, or they shall beat out my brains with billets. I will not consent to die this day, that's certain.

Duke. O, sir, you must: and therefore, I beseech you,

Look forward on the journey yen shall go. Barnar. I swear I will not die to-day for any man's persuasion.

Duke. But hear you

Barnar. Not a word: if you have anything to say to me, come to my ward; for thence will not I to-day. [Exit.

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There died this morning, of a cruel fever,
One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate,
A man of Claudio's years; his beard and head
Just of his colour. What if we do omit
This reprobate till he were well inclined;
And satisfy the deputy with the visage
Of Ragozine, more like to Claudio?

Duke. O, 'tis an accident that heaven provides!
Despatch it presently; the hour draws on
Prefixed by Angelo. See this be done,
And sent according to command; whiles I
Persuade this rude wretch willingly to die.

Prov. This shall be done, good father, presently. But Barnardine must die this afternoon: And how shall we continue Claudio,

To save me from the danger that might come If he were known alive?

Duke. Let this be done :-Put them In secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio: Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting To the under generation, you shall find Your safety manifested.

Prov. I am your free dependent.

Duke. Quick, despatch, and send the head to Angelo. [Exit Provost. Now will I write letters to Angelo The Provost he shall bear them-whose contents Shall witness to him I am near at home; And that, by great injunctions, I am bound To enter publicly him I'll desire

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