The street before the prison. Enter, on one side, DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as before;on the other, ELBOW, and Officers with POMPEY ELBOW Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will needs buy and sell men and women like beasts, we shall have all the world drink brown and white bastard. DUKE VINCENTIO O heavens! what stuff is here POMPEY 'Twas never merry world since, of two usuries, the merriest was put down, and the worser allowed by order of law a furred gown to keep him warm; and furred with fox and lamb-skins too, to signify, that craft, being richer than innocency, stands for the facing. ELBOW Come your way, sir. 'Bless you, good father friar. DUKE VINCENTIO And you, good brother father. What offence hath this man made you, sir? ELBOW Marry, sir, he hath offended the law:
and, sir, we take him to be a thief too, sir; for we have found upon him, sir, a strange picklock, which we have sent to the deputy. DUKE VINCENTIO Fie, sirrah! a bawd, a wicked bawd!
The evil that thou causest to be done, That is thy means to live. Do thou but think What 'tis to cram a maw or clothe a back From such a filthy vice: say to thyself, From their abominable and beastly touches I drink, I eat, array myself, and live.
Canst thou believe thy living is a life, So stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend. POMPEY Indeed, it does stink in some sort, sir;but yet, sir, I would prove-- DUKE VINCENTIO Nay, if the devil have given thee proofs for sin, Thou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer:
Correction and instruction must both work Ere this rude beast will profit. ELBOW He must before the deputy, sir; he has given him warning: the deputy cannot abide a whoremaster:
if he be a whoremonger, and comes before him, he were as good go a mile on his errand. DUKE VINCENTIO That we were all, as some would seem to be, From our faults, as faults from seeming, free! ELBOW His neck will come to your waist,--a cord, sir. POMPEY I spy comfort; I cry bail. Here's a gentleman and a friend of mine.
Enter LUCIO LUCIO How now, noble Pompey! What, at the wheels of Caesar? art thou led in triumph? What, is there none of Pygmalion's images, newly made woman, to be had now, for putting the hand in the pocket and extracting it clutch'd? What reply, ha? What sayest thou to this tune, matter and method? Is't not drowned i' the last rain, ha? What sayest thou, Trot? Is the world as it was, man? Which is the way? Is it sad, and few words? or how? The trick of it? DUKE VINCENTIO Still thus, and thus; still worse! LUCIO How doth my dear morsel, thy mistress?
Procures she still, ha? POMPEY Troth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she is herself in the tub. LUCIO Why, 'tis good; it is the right of it;it must be so: ever your fresh whore and your powdered bawd:
an unshunned consequence; it must be so. Art going to prison, Pompey? POMPEY Yes, faith, sir. LUCIO Why, 'tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell:
go, say I sent thee thither. For debt, Pompey? or how? ELBOW For being a bawd, for being a bawd. LUCIO Well, then, imprison him: if imprisonment be the due of a bawd, why, 'tis his right: bawd is he doubtless, and of antiquity too; bawd-born.
Farewell, good Pompey. Commend me to the prison, Pompey: you will turn good husband now, Pompey;you will keep the house. POMPEY I hope, sir, your good worship will be my bail. LUCIO No, indeed, will I not, Pompey; it is not the wear.
I will pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage:
If you take it not patiently, why, your mettle is the more. Adieu, trusty Pompey. 'Bless you, friar. DUKE VINCENTIO And you. LUCIO Does Bridget paint still, Pompey, ha? ELBOW Come your ways, sir; come. POMPEY You will not bail me, then, sir? LUCIO Then, Pompey, nor now. What news abroad, friar?
what news? ELBOW Come your ways, sir; come. LUCIO Go to kennel, Pompey; go.
Exeunt ELBOW, POMPEY and Officers What news, friar, of the duke? DUKE VINCENTIO I know none. Can you tell me of any? LUCIO Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia;other some, he is in Rome: but where is he, think you? DUKE VINCENTIO I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well. LUCIO It was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from the state, and usurp the beggary he was never born to. Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence;he puts transgression to 't. DUKE VINCENTIO He does well in 't. LUCIO A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in him: something too crabbed that way, friar. DUKE VINCENTIO It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it. LUCIO Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred;it is well allied: but it is impossible to extirp it quite, friar, till eating and drinking be put down. They say this Angelo was not made by man and woman after this downright way of creation: is it true, think you? DUKE VINCENTIO How should he be made, then? LUCIO Some report a sea-maid spawned him; some, that he was begot between two stock-fishes. But it is certain that when he makes water his urine is congealed ice; that I know to be true: and he is a motion generative; that's infallible. DUKE VINCENTIO You are pleasant, sir, and speak apace. LUCIO Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the rebellion of a codpiece to take away the life of a man! Would the duke that is absent have done this?
Ere he would have hanged a man for the getting a hundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing a thousand: he had some feeling of the sport:
he knew the service, and that instructed him to mercy. DUKE VINCENTIO I never heard the absent duke much detected for women; he was not inclined that way. LUCIO O, sir, you are deceived. DUKE VINCENTIO 'Tis not possible. LUCIO Who, not the duke? yes, your beggar of fifty; and his use was to put a ducat in her clack-dish: