Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare
Act 2 - Scene 3
A room in a prison.
Vincentio : Hail to you, provost! so I think you are.
Provost : I am the provost. What's your will, good friar?
Vincentio : Bound by my charity and my blest order,
[p]I come to visit the
afflicted spirits
[p]Here in the prison. Do me the common right
[p]To
let me see them and to make me know
[p]The nature of their crimes,
that I may minister
[p]To them accordingly.
Provost : I would do more than that, if more were needful.
[p][Enter
JULIET]
[p]Look, here comes one: a gentlewoman of mine,
[p]Who,
falling in the flaws of her own youth,
[p]Hath blister'd her report:
she is with child;
[p]And he that got it, sentenced; a young
man
[p]More fit to do another such offence
[p]Than die for this.
Vincentio : When must he die?
Provost : As I do think, to-morrow.
[p]I have provided for you: stay
awhile,
[p][To JULIET]
[p]And you shall be conducted.
Vincentio : Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?
Juliet : I do; and bear the shame most patiently.
Vincentio : I'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,
[p]And try your
penitence, if it be sound,
[p]Or hollowly put on.
Juliet : I'll gladly learn.
Vincentio : Love you the man that wrong'd you?
Juliet : Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him.
Vincentio : So then it seems your most offenceful act
[p]Was mutually committed?
Juliet : Mutually.
Vincentio : Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.
Juliet : I do confess it, and repent it, father.
Vincentio : 'Tis meet so, daughter: but lest you do repent,
[p]As that the sin
hath brought you to this shame,
[p]Which sorrow is always towards
ourselves, not heaven,
[p]Showing we would not spare heaven as we love
it,
[p]But as we stand in fear,--
Juliet : I do repent me, as it is an evil,
[p]And take the shame with joy.
Vincentio : There rest.
[p]Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,
[p]And I
am going with instruction to him.
[p]Grace go with you, Benedicite!
Juliet : Must die to-morrow! O injurious love,
[p]That respites me a life,
whose very comfort
[p]Is still a dying horror!
Provost : 'Tis pity of him.
Previous: Act 2 - Scene 2
Next: Act 2 - Scene 4
