bench pulled back by Officer 1 and Provost

enter Isabella andMarianaveiled from down right

citizens from up left

Angelo Escalus, Lucio, Provost, officeer 1 from up right

Duke, Officer 2 from down left

Citizens cheer as Duke enters

both officers move in front of crowd to hold them

waves to citizens, call across distance

approach partly

A and E come down to him

takes both their hands and walks up right

she steps out and they step back, Escalus right, Duke middle, Angelo left

crowd makes noise of puzzlement

at his feet

interrupting and laughing

standing, walking down left, turning to address duke and crowd and audeince

crowd noise/ officers control

to Provost, who comes behind duke and stands to her left and remains

to others

brushing off Provost and approaching Duke, but standing down left from Angelo

Provost stays left

to crowd

crowd roars, Provost fades back to them to help control

officer 1 comes from crowd control

and lays hands on her; officer 2 stays back with Provost

comes down from up right

down right by officer 1, who returns and remains down right

gesture; bench brought by officer 2 and Pompey. Angelo sits to left of Duke, Escalus stands to

right

standing down right of Escalus

point to Angelo on "him" and stress word; to self and stress "my’

stress and point on him

to I , to him

Crowd loves it, so does Lucio

point to Isabella on she and self on me

to self on I

stress and point on "your"

stress on "thinks" and "my"

stress "knows", parentheses around "he thinks", pause before "Isabel’s"

Crowd is confused, so is Duke

still seated--uneasy

unveils herself

hold out hand slowly, looking at it

hand on heart

move down across breast, stomach

and lower, remembering

laughter from various quarters, Angelo stands and stares

pops in

pops back out

conceding

apologizing

sternly

vowing--stress on "never"

smiling big--"swear to god" tone

wry; finger point

Crowd reacts

steps to her; in her face; she steps back one step

turns to Duke

gesture down right

returns to his seat

falsely concerned

stands and steps down left of Angelo

down left--maybe grin, wink or wave to theatre audience

crowd expresses confusion;

sitting down and calling after him,

delay as Escalus and Angelo confer

Lucio is checking out the women in the crowd, Escalus still somewhat confused calls for him a couple of times before getting his attention.

Angelo, who keeps looking at Mariana

comes smugly behind and places hand on Escalus’s chair

to officer 1 down right, who exits and brings her back.

She stands down right of Mariana

officer 1 down right, leaving space

Escalus laughs with him, Angelo distracted or looking at Mariana

from down left, head down facing them, up facing audience, crowd responds with hostility

cozy wirth Escalus

turn to audience, quiet and confident

sarcastic

turn back to him

to audience while

crossing up right to the women, standing up right of them, loudly indignant

pointing to Angelo

standing up

crowd very supportive of this

Officer 1 grabs him from behind

Duke breaks free, moves down left points to officer then Escalus. Officer 1 fades down right

crowd indignant

calls Lucio over to his left behind bench

approaching Duke from up left, Provost moving up and watching

Duke left of center, Lucio to his right

in his face

crowd roars; officer and provost and officer quiet them

quietly

pushes him down on ground center

quietly

Standing up and enjoying it

Directs Provost to Duke, Provost

approaches Duke

Officer 1 roughly takes hold of Mariana and Isabella

from floor facing us, sounding afraid, hold out palm, but smiling

hysterical

Duke crouches under hood. Lucio beats on him. Crowd strains forward yelling; Officer 2 holding them with stick

Everybody silent. Crowd backs up He gets up slowly, walks counterclockwise

crowd responds "Duke, Duke"

walks around counter clockwise and returns to Lucio

Provost comes in from left to take off Duke’s robe; crowd expresses wonder and pleasure; Escalus and Angelo confer nervously. Isabel is abashed--hand to mouth; and then talks to Isabella

to Officer 2 who moves forward

from up left

from down left of Angelo

Escalus sits, staring

pulling Angelo left slowly, and sitting left of Escalus

moves Angelo out of the way; Angelo takes off robe and medal and gives to Provost

kneeling left of seat

crowd approves

she stands down right of Escalus

provost, up left on crowd duty, now crosses right up stage and escorts them out up right

she crosses to left of him

she kneels

raises her; she’s left of Duke

from up right; Mariana down right of Angelo, both to right of Escalus;

she flaunts her ring; Provost remaining up right

to Isabella

provost grabs Angelo roughly

crowd applauds; calls for death like at execution in Texas; quieted by officer

crowd laughs and cheers

crowd disappointed

crowd supports

where she is, to right of Angelo

crowd approves

who’s down left held by officer 2

interrupting, calling across to Isabel

crowd murmurs

crowd affirms

half crowd gets sympathetic--Isabella turns away

half protest, half approve

very long pause; then turn back to Duke; another pause before kneeling

Crowd is convinced--calls "spare him, mercy, etc."

gesturing privately his satisfaction and love of her--perhaps clenching fist and twisting it;

signalling to Provost up right to leave down right; provost exits

changing back to harsh tone

they stand

To Escalus

bows head

Crowd points toward down right and says "look, look."

crowd cheers wildly, Angelo delighted, and embraces Mariana,

Escalus stands and smiles. Duke stands

She ignores his hand and crosses down right to Claudio

Angelo has arm around Mariana

Angelo and Mariana smile to each other

sharply to Lucio down left

to Provost, who’s faded up right

Provost signals agreement

women in the crowd raise their hands

dragged out by officer 2 up left

calling after him

Claudio embraces Juliet

She pauses, looks at Claudio, looks at Angelo and Marianna, looks at audience, slowly turns and walks to his side. Crowd cheers.

The city gate.

MARIANA veiled, ISABELLA, Enter DUKE

VINCENTIO, Lords, ANGELO, ESCALUS, LUCIO, Provost, Officers,

and Citizens, at several doors

DUKE VINCENTIO

My very worthy cousin, fairly met!

Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you.

ANGELO and ESCALUS

Happy return be to your royal grace!

DUKE VINCENTIO

Many and hearty thankings to you both.

ANGELO

You make my bonds still greater.

DUKE VINCENTIO

Give me your hand,

Come, Escalus,

You must walk by us on our other hand;

And good supporters are you.

ISABELLA

Justice, O royal duke! Vail your regard

Upon a wrong'd, I would fain have said, a maid!

O worthy prince,

Do give me justice, justice, justice, justice!

DUKE VINCENTIO

Relate your wrongs; in what? by whom? be brief.

Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice:

Reveal yourself to him.

ISABELLA

O worthy duke,

You bid me seek redemption of the devil:

Hear me yourself;

Hear me, O hear me, here!

ANGELO

My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm:

She hath been a suitor to me for her brother

Cut off by course of justice,--

ISABELLA

By course of justice!

ANGELO

And she will speak most bitterly and strange.

ISABELLA

Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak:

That Angelo's forsworn; is it not strange?

That Angelo's a murderer; is 't not strange?

That Angelo is an adulterous thief,

An hypocrite, a virgin-violator;

Is it not strange and strange?

DUKE VINCENTIO

Nay, it is ten times strange.

Away with her!

Poor soul,

She speaks this in the infirmity of sense.

ISABELLA

O prince, I conjure thee, as thou believest

There is another comfort than this world,

That thou neglect me not, with that opinion

That I am touch'd with madness!

I am the sister of one Claudio,

Condemn'd upon the act of fornication

To lose his head; condemn'd by Angelo:

I, in probation of a sisterhood,

Was sent to by my brother...

I went

To this pernicious caitiff deputy,

He would not, but by gift of my chaste body

To his concupiscible intemperate lust,

Release my brother; and, after much debatement,

My sisterly remorse confutes mine honour,

And I did yield to him: but the next morn betimes,

His purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant

For my poor brother's head.

DUKE VINCENTIO

This is most likely! An officer!

To prison with her! Shall we thus permit

A blasting and a scandalous breath to fall

On him so near us? This needs must be a practise.

Who knew of your intent and coming hither?

ISABELLA

One that I would were here, Friar Lodowick.

DUKE VINCENTIO

Who knows that Lodowick?

LUCIO

My lord, I know him; 'tis a meddling friar;

I do not like the man; had he been lay, my lord,

For certain words he spake against you grace

In your retirement I had winged him soundly.

DUKE VINCENTIO

Words against me? This is a good friar belike

And to set on this wretched woman here

Against our substitute. Let this friar be found.

ISABELLA is carried off

Do you not smile at this, Lord Angelo?

Give us some seats.

In this I'll be impartial; be you judge

Of your own cause.

MARIANA comes forward [veiled]

MARIANA

She that accuses him of fornication,

In self-same manner doth accuse my husband,

And charges him my lord, with such a time

When I'll depose I had him in mine arms

With all the effect of love.

ANGELO

Charges she more than me?

MARIANA

Not that I know.

DUKE VINCENTIO

No? you say your husband.

MARIANA

Why, just, my lord, and that is Angelo,

Who thinks he knows that he ne'er knew my body,

But knows he thinks that he knows Isabel's.

ANGELO

This is a strange abuse.

Let's see thy face.

MARIANA

My husband bids me now.

This is that face, thou cruel Angelo,

Which once thou sworest was worth the looking on;

This is the hand which, with a vow'd contract,

Was fast belock'd in thine; this is the body

That took away the match from Isabel,

And did supply thee at thy garden-house

In her imagined person.

DUKE VINCENTIO

Know you this woman?

LUCIO

Carnally, she says.

DUKE

Sirrah, no more

LUCIO

Enough my lord.

ANGELO

My lord, I must confess I know this woman:

And five years since there was some speech of marriage

Betwixt myself and her; which was broke off,

Partly for that her promised proportions

Came short of composition, but in chief

For that her reputation was disvalued

In levity: since which time of five years

I never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her,

Upon my faith and honour.

MARIANA

Noble prince,

But Tuesday night last gone in's garden-house

He knew me as a wife.

ANGELO

I did but smile till now:

Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice

My patience here is touch'd. I do perceive

These poor informal women are no more

But instruments of some more mightier member

That sets them on:

let me have way, my lord,

To find this practise out.

DUKE VINCENTIO

Ay, with my heart

And punish them to your height of pleasure.

You Lord Escalus sit with my cousin

There is a friar that set them on

Let him be sent for.

I for a while will leave you.

Exit DUKE

ESCALUS

My lord we’ll do it thoroughly.

Signor Lucio,

did not you say you knew that Friar Ludowick to be a dishonest person?

LUCIO

Honest in nothing but his clothes, and one that spoke most villainous of the Duke.

ESCALUS

Call that same Isabel

I will go darkly to work with her.

ISABEL brought in

LUCIO

That's the way; for women are light at midnight.

Re-enter DUKE VINCENTIO in his friar's habit

LUCIO

My lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of.

ESCALUS

Come, sir: did you set these women on to slander

Lord Angelo? they have confessed you did.

DUKE VINCENTIO

'Tis false.

ESCALUS

How! know you where you are?

DUKE VINCENTIO

Respect to your great place! and let the devil

Be sometime honour'd for his burning throne!

Where is the duke? 'tis he should hear me speak.

ESCALUS

The duke's in us; and we will hear you speak:

Look you speak justly.

DUKE VINCENTIO

Boldly, at least.

But O poor souls

Come you to seek the lamb here of the fox?

Good night to your redress! Is the Duke gone?

Then is your cause gone too

The duke's unjust,

Thus to retort your manifest appeal,

And put your trial in the villain's mouth

Which here you come to accuse.

ESCALUS

Why, thou unreverend and unhallow'd friar,

Is't not enough thou hast suborn'd these women

To accuse this worthy man, but, in foul mouth

And in the witness of his proper ear,

To call him villain? and then to glance from him

To the duke himself, to tax him with injustice?

Take him hence; to the rack with him! We'll touse you

Joint by joint, but we will know his purpose.

What 'unjust'!

DUKE VINCENTIO

Be not so hot; the duke

Dare no more stretch this finger of mine than he

Dare rack his own: his subject am I not,

ESCALUS

Slander to the state! Away with him to prison!

ANGELO

What can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio?

Is this the man that you did tell us of?

LUCIO

'Tis he, my lord.

Come hither, goodman baldpate:

do you know me?

DUKE VINCENTIO

I remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice: I

met you at the prison, in the absence of the duke.

LUCIO

O, did you so? And do you remember what you said of the duke?

DUKE VINCENTIO

Most notedly, sir.

LUCIO

Do you so, sir? And was the duke a fleshmonger, a

fool, and a coward, as you then reported him to be?

DUKE VINCENTIO

You must, sir, change persons with me, ere you make

that my report: you, indeed, spoke so of him; and

much more, much worse.

LUCIO

O thou damnable fellow! Did not I pluck thee by the

nose for thy speeches?

DUKE VINCENTIO

I protest I love the duke as I love myself.

ANGELO

Hark, how the villain would close now, after his

treasonable abuses!

ESCALUS

Such a fellow is not to be talked withal.

Away with him to prison! .. lay bolts enough upon him: let him speak no more.

Away with those giglots too

DUKE VINCENTIO

[To Provost] Stay, sir; stay awhile.

ANGELO

What, resists he? Help him, Lucio.

LUCIO

Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you

bald-pated, lying rascal, you must be hooded, must

you? Show your knave's visage, with a pox to you!

show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour!

Will't not off?

Pulls off the friar's hood, and discovers DUKE

DUKE VINCENTIO

Thou art the first knave that e'er madest a duke.

.

To LUCIO

Sneak not away, sir; for the friar and you

Must have a word anon.

Lay hold on him.

LUCIO

This may prove worse than hanging.

DUKE VINCENTIO

[To ESCALUS] What you have spoke I pardon: sit you down:

We'll borrow place of him.

To ANGELO

Sir, by your leave.

Hast thou or word, or wit, or impudence,

That yet can do thee office? .

ANGELO

O my dread lord ...

I perceive your grace, like power divine,

Hath look'd upon my passes. Then, good prince,

No longer session hold upon my shame,

But let my trial be mine own confession:

Immediate sentence then and sequent death

Is all the grace I beg.

DUKE VINCENTIO

Come hither, Mariana.

Say, wast thou e'er contracted to this woman?

ANGELO

I was, my lord.

DUKE VINCENTIO

Go take her hence, and marry her instantly.

Go with him, provost.

Exeunt ANGELO, MARIANA, Provost

ESCALUS

My lord, I am more amazed at his dishonour

Than at the strangeness of it.

DUKE VINCENTIO

Come hither, Isabel.

Your friar is now your prince: ...I am still

Attorney'd at your service.

ISABELLA

O, give me pardon,

That I, your vassal, have employ'd and pain'd

Your unknown sovereignty!

DUKE VINCENTIO

You are pardon'd, Isabel:

And now, dear maid, be you as free to us.

Your brother's death, I know, sits at your heart;

ISABELLA

It does, my lord.

Re-enter ANGELO, MARIANA, and Provost

DUKE VINCENTIO

For this new-married man approaching here,

...The very mercy of the law cries out

Most audible, even from his proper tongue,

'An Angelo for Claudio, death for death!'

Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;

Like doth quit like, and measure still for measure.

...Away with him!

MARIANA

O my most gracious lord,

I hope you will not mock me with a husband.

DUKE VINCENTIO

It is your husband mock'd you with a husband.

...his possessions,

Although by confiscation they are ours,

We do instate and widow you withal,

To buy you a better husband.

MARIANA

O my dear lord,

I crave no other, nor no better man.

DUKE VINCENTIO

Never crave him; we are definitive.

MARIANA

Gentle my liege,--

Kneeling

DUKE VINCENTIO

You do but lose your labour.

Away with him to death!

To LUCIO

Now, sir, to you.

MARIANA

O my good lord! Sweet Isabel, take my part;

Lend me your knees, and all my life to come

I'll lend you all my life to do you service.

DUKE VINCENTIO

Against all sense you do importune her:

Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact,

Her brother's ghost his paved bed would break,

And take her hence in horror.

MARIANA

Isabel,

Sweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me;

Hold up your hands, say nothing; I'll speak all.

They say, best men are moulded out of faults;

And, for the most, become much more the better

For being a little bad: so may my husband.

O Isabel, will you not lend a knee?

DUKE VINCENTIO

He dies for Claudio's death.

ISABELLA

Most bounteous sir,

Kneeling

Look, if it please you, on this man condemn'd,

As if my brother lived: I partly think

DUKE VINCENTIO

Your suit's unprofitable; stand up, I say.

ESCALUS

I am sorry, one so learned and so wise

As you, Lord Angelo, have still appear'd,

Should slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood.

And lack of temper'd judgment afterward.

ANGELO

I am sorry that such sorrow I procure:

And so deep sticks it in my penitent heart

That I crave death more willingly than mercy;

'Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it.

Re-enter Provost, with CLAUDIO muffled, and JULIET

Provost

Unmuffles CLAUDIO

DUKE VINCENTIO

[To ISABELLA] If he be your brother, for his sake

Is he pardon'd;

and, for your lovely sake,

Give me your hand and say you will be mine.

He is my brother too:

By this Lord Angelo perceives he's safe;

Well, Angelo, your evil quits you well:

Look that you love your wife; her worth worth yours.

To LUCIO

You, sirrah...

Proclaim it, provost, round about the city.

Is any woman wrong'd by this lewd fellow,

Whom he begot with child, let her appear,

And he shall marry her: the nuptial finish'd,

Let him be whipt and hang'd.

LUCIO

I beseech your highness, do not marry me to a whore.

DUKE VINCENTIO

Upon mine honour, thou shalt marry her.

Thy slanders I forgive; and therewithal

Remit thy other forfeits.

LUCIO

Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death,

whipping, and hanging.

DUKE VINCENTIO

Slandering a prince deserves it.

Exit Officer with LUCIO

She, Claudio, that you wrong'd, look you restore.

Joy to you, Mariana!

Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness:

Thanks, provost, for thy care and secrecy:

Dear Isabel,

I have a motion much imports your good;

Whereto if you'll a willing ear incline,

What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine.