Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death,
whipping, and hanging.

I beseech your highness, do not marry me to a whore.
Your highness said even now, I made you a duke:
good my lord, do not recompense me in making me a cuckold.

'Faith, my lord. I spoke it but according to the
trick. If you will hang me for it, you may; but I
had rather it would please you I might be whipt.

This may prove worse than hanging.

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?

O thou damnable fellow! Did not I pluck thee by the
nose for thy speeches?

Do you so, sir? And was the duke a fleshmonger, a
fool, and a coward, as you then reported him to be?

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

'Tis he, my lord. Come hither, goodman baldpate:
do you know me?

This is the rascal; this is he I spoke of.

Mum.

My lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of; here with
the provost.

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

Marry, sir, I think, if you handled her privately,
she would sooner confess: perchance, publicly,
she'll be ashamed.

Not better than he, by her own report.

As any in Vienna, on my word.

'Cucullus non facit monachum:' honest in nothing
but in his clothes; and one that hath spoke most
villanous speeches of the duke.

Enough, my lord.

Carnally, she says.

Well, my lord.

He was drunk then, my lord: it can be no better.

Well, my lord.

My lord, she may be a punk; for many of them are
neither maid, widow, nor wife.

My lord, most villanously; believe it.

But yesternight, my lord, she and that friar,
I saw them at the prison: a saucy friar,
A very scurvy fellow.

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 your grace
In your retirement, I had swinged him soundly.

Right.

I warrant your honour.

No, my good lord;
Nor wish'd to hold my peace.

That's I, an't like your grace:
I came to her from Claudio, and desired her
To try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo
For her poor brother's pardon.

By my troth, I'll go with thee to the lane's end:
if bawdy talk offend you, we'll have very little of
it. Nay, friar, I am a kind of burr; I shall stick.

Yes, marry, did I but I was fain to forswear it;
they would else have married me to the rotten medlar.

I was once before him for getting a wench with child.

Nay, tarry; I'll go along with thee
I can tell thee pretty tales of the duke.

Friar, thou knowest not the duke so well as I do:
he's a better woodman than thou takest him for.

O pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart to see
thine eyes so red: thou must be patient. I am fain
to dine and sup with water and bran; I dare not for
my head fill my belly; one fruitful meal would set
me to 't. But they say ...

Good even. Friar, where's the provost?

Why? For filling a bottle with a tundish. I would
the duke we talk of were returned again: the
ungenitured agent will unpeople the province with
continency; sparrows must not build in his
house-eaves, because they are lecherous. The duke
yet would have dark deeds darkly answered; he would
never ...

I'll be hanged first: thou art deceived in me,
friar. But no more of this. Canst thou tell if
Claudio die to-morrow or no?

I fear you not.

Sir, my name is Lucio; well known to the duke.

Come, sir, I know what I know.

Sir, I know him, and I love him.

A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.

No, pardon; 'tis a secret must be locked within the
teeth and the lips: but this I can let you
understand, the greater file of the subject held the
duke to be wise.

Sir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the
duke: and I believe I know the cause of his
withdrawing.

Who, not the duke? yes, your beggar of fifty; and
his use was to put a ducat in her clack-dish: the
duke had crotchets in him. He would be drunk too;
that let me inform you.

O, sir, you are deceived.

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 ...

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.