Measure for Measure

ACT II
Scene III.

A prison

Enter, severally, DUKE, disguised as a FRIAR, and PROVOST

DUKE
Hail to you, Provost! so I think you are.

PROVOST
I am the Provost. What's your will, good friar?

DUKE
Bound by my charity and my blest order,
I come to visit the afflicted spirits
Here in the prison. Do me the common right
To let me see them, and to make me know
The nature of their crimes, that I may minister
To them accordingly.

PROVOST
I would do more than that, if more were needful.

Enter JULIET

Look, here comes one; a gentlewoman of mine,
Who, falling in the flaws of her own youth,
Hath blister'd her report. She is with child;
And he that got it, sentenc'd- a young man
More fit to do another such offence
Than die for this.

DUKE
When must he die?

PROVOST
As I do think, to-morrow.
[To JULIET] I have provided for you; stay awhile
And you shall be conducted.

DUKE
Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?

JULIET
I do; and bear the shame most patiently.

DUKE
I'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,
And try your penitence, if it be sound
Or hollowly put on.

JULIET
I'll gladly learn.

DUKE
Love you the man that wrong'd you?

JULIET
Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him.

DUKE
So then, it seems, your most offenceful act
Was mutually committed.

JULIET
Mutually.

DUKE
Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.

JULIET
I do confess it, and repent it, father.

DUKE
'Tis meet so, daughter; but lest you do repent
As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,
Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not heaven,
Showing we would not spare heaven as we love it,
But as we stand in fear-

JULIET
I do repent me as it is an evil,
And take the shame with joy.

DUKE
There rest.
Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,
And I am going with instruction to him.
Grace go with you! Benedicite!

Exit

JULIET
Must die to-morrow! O, injurious law,
That respites me a life whose very comfort
Is still a dying horror!

PROVOST
'Tis pity of him.

Exeunt