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• Dramatis PersonÆ.
• Act I.
• Scene I.—: An Apartment In Theduke’spalace.
• Scene II.—: A Street.
• Scene III.—: A Monastery.
• Scene IV.—: A Nunnery.
• Act II.
• Scene I.—: A Hall Inangelo’shouse.
• Scene II.—: Another Room In the Same.
• Scene III.—: A Room In a Prison.
• Scene IV.—: A Room Inangelo’shouse.
• Act III.
• Scene I.—: A Room In the Prison.
• Scene II.—: The Street Before the Prison.
• Act IV.
• Scene I.—: The Moated Grange At St. Luke’s.
• Scene II.—: A Room In the Prison.
• Scene III.—: Another Room In the Same.
• Scene IV.—: A Room Inangelo’shouse.
• Scene V.—: Fields Without the Town.
• Scene VI.—: Street Near the City Gate.
• Act V.
• Scene I.—: A Public Place Near the City Gate.

Scene III.—

A Room in a Prison.

EnterDuke,disguised as a friar, andProvost.

Duke.

Hail to you, provost! so I think you are.

Prov.

I am the provost. What’s your will, good friar?

Duke.

Bound by my charity and my bless’d 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.

Prov.

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

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.

EnterJuliet.

Duke.

When must he die?

Prov.

As I do think, to-morrow.

[ToJuliet.] I have provided for you: stay a while,

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.

God’s grace go with you! Benedicite!

[Exit.

Juliet.

Must die to-morrow! O injurious love,

That respites me a life, whose very comfort

Is still a dying horror!

Prov.

’Tis pity of him.

[Exeunt.