Measure for Measure | Page 8

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 to-morrow 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, as you know, Master Froth, I could not give you
threepence again,--
FROTH. No, indeed.
CLOWN. Very well; you being then, if you be remember'd, cracking
the stones of the foresaid prunes,--
FROTH. Ay, so I did indeed.
CLOWN. Why, very well: I telling you then, if you be remember'd, that
such a one and such a one were past cure of the thing you wot of,
unless they kept very good diet, as I told you,--
FROTH. All this is true.
CLOWN. Why, very well then.
ESCALUS. Come, you are a tedious fool: to the purpose. What was
done to Elbow's wife that he hath cause to complain of? Come me to
what was done to