Speeches (Lines) for Provost in "Measure for Measure"

Claudio. Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to the world?
Bear me to prison, where I am committed.

Provost. I do it not in evil disposition,
But from Lord Angelo by special charge.

Claudio. Call it so.

Provost. Away, sir! you must go.

Angelo. Where is the provost?

Provost. Here, if it like your honour.

Servant to Angelo. He's hearing of a cause; he will come straight
I'll tell him of you.

Provost. Pray you, do.
[Exit Servant]
I'll know
His pleasure; may be he will relent. Alas,
He hath but as offended in a dream!
All sects, all ages smack of this vice; and he
To die for't!

Angelo. Now, what's the matter. Provost?

Provost. Is it your will Claudio shall die tomorrow?

Angelo. Did not I tell thee yea? hadst thou not order?
Why dost thou ask again?

Provost. Lest I might be too rash:
Under your good correction, I have seen,
When, after execution, judgment hath
Repented o'er his doom.

Angelo. Go to; let that be mine:
Do you your office, or give up your place,
And you shall well be spared.

Provost. I crave your honour's pardon.
What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet?
She's very near her hour.

Angelo. Hath he a sister?

Provost. Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid,
And to be shortly of a sisterhood,
If not already.

Angelo. Well, let her be admitted.
[Exit Servant]
See you the fornicatress be removed:
Let have needful, but not lavish, means;
There shall be order for't.

Provost. God save your honour!

Isabella. I have a brother is condemn'd to die:
I do beseech you, let it be his fault,
And not my brother.

Provost. [Aside] Heaven give thee moving graces!

Lucio. [Aside to ISABELLA] O, to him, to him, wench! he
will relent;
He's coming; I perceive 't.

Provost. [Aside] Pray heaven she win him!

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,
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, sentenced; a young man
More fit to do another such offence
Than die for this.

Vincentio. When must he die?

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

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

Provost. 'Tis pity of him.

Isabella. [Within] What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company!

Provost. Who's there? come in: the wish deserves a welcome.

Isabella. My business is a word or two with Claudio.

Provost. And very welcome. Look, signior, here's your sister.

Vincentio. Provost, a word with you.

Provost. As many as you please.

Vincentio. Hold you there: farewell.
[Exit CLAUDIO]
Provost, a word with you!

Provost. What's your will, father

Vincentio. That now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me
awhile with the maid: my mind promises with my
habit no loss shall touch her by my company.

Provost. In good time.

Escalus. Double and treble admonition, and still forfeit in
the same kind! This would make mercy swear and play
the tyrant.

Provost. A bawd of eleven years' continuance, may it please
your honour.

Escalus. That fellow is a fellow of much licence: let him be
called before us. Away with her to prison! Go to;
no more words.
[Exeunt Officers with MISTRESS OVERDONE]
Provost, my brother Angelo will not be altered;
Claudio must die to-morrow: let him be furnished
with divines, and have all charitable preparation.
if my brother wrought by my pity, it should not be
so with him.

Provost. So please you, this friar hath been with him, and
advised him for the entertainment of death.

Vincentio. Nor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all.
He is your husband on a pre-contract:
To bring you thus together, 'tis no sin,
Sith that the justice of your title to him
Doth flourish the deceit. Come, let us go:
Our corn's to reap, for yet our tithe's to sow.

Provost. Come hither, sirrah. Can you cut off a man's head?

Pompey. If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can; but if he be a
married man, he's his wife's head, and I can never
cut off a woman's head.

Provost. Come, sir, leave me your snatches, and yield me a
direct answer. To-morrow morning are to die Claudio
and Barnardine. Here is in our prison a common
executioner, who in his office lacks a helper: if
you will take it on you to assist him, it shall
redeem you from your gyves; if not, you shall have
your full time of imprisonment and your deliverance
with an unpitied whipping, for you have been a
notorious bawd.

Pompey. Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd time out of mind;
but yet I will be content to be a lawful hangman. I
would be glad to receive some instruction from my
fellow partner.

Provost. What, ho! Abhorson! Where's Abhorson, there?

Abhorson. Do you call, sir?

Provost. Sirrah, here's a fellow will help you to-morrow in
your execution. If you think it meet, compound with
him by the year, and let him abide here with you; if
not, use him for the present and dismiss him. He
cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath been a bawd.

Abhorson. A bawd, sir? fie upon him! he will discredit our mystery.

Provost. Go to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn
the scale.

Abhorson. Every true man's apparel fits your thief: if it be
too little for your thief, your true man thinks it
big enough; if it be too big for your thief, your
thief thinks it little enough: so every true man's
apparel fits your thief.

Provost. Are you agreed?

Pompey. Sir, I will serve him; for I do find your hangman is
a more penitent trade than your bawd; he doth
oftener ask forgiveness.

Provost. You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe
to-morrow four o'clock.

Pompey. I do desire to learn, sir: and I hope, if you have
occasion to use me for your own turn, you shall find
me yare; for truly, sir, for your kindness I owe you
a good turn.

Provost. Call hither Barnardine and Claudio:
[Exeunt POMPEY and ABHORSON]
The one has my pity; not a jot the other,
Being a murderer, though he were my brother.
[Enter CLAUDIO]
Look, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death:
'Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow
Thou must be made immortal. Where's Barnardine?

Claudio. As fast lock'd up in sleep as guiltless labour
When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones:
He will not wake.

Provost. Who can do good on him?
Well, go, prepare yourself.
[Knocking within]
But, hark, what noise?
Heaven give your spirits comfort!
[Exit CLAUDIO]
By and by.
I hope it is some pardon or reprieve
For the most gentle Claudio.
[Enter DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as before]
Welcome father.

Vincentio. The best and wholesomest spirts of the night
Envelope you, good Provost! Who call'd here of late?

Provost. None, since the curfew rung.

Vincentio. Not Isabel?

Provost. No.

Vincentio. They will, then, ere't be long.

Provost. What comfort is for Claudio?

Vincentio. There's some in hope.

Provost. It is a bitter deputy.

Vincentio. Not so, not so; his life is parallel'd
Even with the stroke and line of his great justice:
He doth with holy abstinence subdue
That in himself which he spurs on his power
To qualify in others: were he meal'd with that
Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous;
But this being so, he's just.
[Knocking within]
Now are they come.
[Exit Provost]
This is a gentle provost: seldom when
The steeled gaoler is the friend of men.
[Knocking within]
How now! what noise? That spirit's possessed with haste
That wounds the unsisting postern with these strokes.

Provost. There he must stay until the officer
Arise to let him in: he is call'd up.

Vincentio. Have you no countermand for Claudio yet,
But he must die to-morrow?

Provost. None, sir, none.

Vincentio. As near the dawning, provost, as it is,
You shall hear more ere morning.

Provost. Happily
You something know; yet I believe there comes
No countermand; no such example have we:
Besides, upon the very siege of justice
Lord Angelo hath to the public ear
Profess'd the contrary.
[Enter a Messenger]
This is his lordship's man.

Messenger from Angelo. [Giving a paper]
My lord hath sent you this note; and by me this
further charge, that you swerve not from the
smallest article of it, neither in time, matter, or
other circumstance. Good morrow; for, as I take it,
it is almost day.

Provost. I shall obey him.

Vincentio. [Aside] This is his pardon, purchased by such sin
For which the pardoner himself is in.
Hence hath offence his quick celerity,
When it is born in high authority:
When vice makes mercy, mercy's so extended,
That for the fault's love is the offender friended.
Now, sir, what news?

Provost. I told you. Lord Angelo, belike thinking me remiss
in mine office, awakens me with this unwonted
putting-on; methinks strangely, for he hath not used it before.

Vincentio. Pray you, let's hear.

Provost. [Reads]
'Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let
Claudio be executed by four of the clock; and in the
afternoon Barnardine: for my better satisfaction,
let me have Claudio's head sent me by five. Let
this be duly performed; with a thought that more
depends on it than we must yet deliver. Thus fail
not to do your office, as you will answer it at your peril.'
What say you to this, sir?

Vincentio. What is that Barnardine who is to be executed in the
afternoon?

Provost. A Bohemian born, but here nursed un and bred; one
that is a prisoner nine years old.

Vincentio. How came it that the absent duke had not either
delivered him to his liberty or executed him? I
have heard it was ever his manner to do so.

Provost. His friends still wrought reprieves for him: and,
indeed, his fact, till now in the government of Lord
Angelo, came not to an undoubtful proof.

Vincentio. It is now apparent?

Provost. Most manifest, and not denied by himself.

Vincentio. Hath he born himself penitently in prison? how
seems he to be touched?

Provost. A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but
as a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless
of what's past, present, or to come; insensible of
mortality, and desperately mortal.

Vincentio. He wants advice.

Provost. He will hear none: he hath evermore had the liberty
of the prison; give him leave to escape hence, he
would not: drunk many times a day, if not many days
entirely drunk. We have very oft awaked him, as if
to carry him to execution, and showed him a seeming
warrant for it: it hath not moved him at all.

Vincentio. More of him anon. There is written in your brow,
provost, honesty and constancy: if I read it not
truly, my ancient skill beguiles me; but, in the
boldness of my cunning, I will lay myself in hazard.
Claudio, whom here you have warrant to execute, is
no greater forfeit to the law than Angelo who hath
sentenced him. To make you understand this in a
manifested effect, I crave but four days' respite;
for the which you are to do me both a present and a
dangerous courtesy.

Provost. Pray, sir, in what?

Vincentio. In the delaying death.

Provost. A lack, how may I do it, having the hour limited,
and an express command, under penalty, to deliver
his head in the view of Angelo? I may make my case
as Claudio's, to cross this in the smallest.

Vincentio. By the vow of mine order I warrant you, if my
instructions may be your guide. Let this Barnardine
be this morning executed, and his head born to Angelo.

Provost. Angelo hath seen them both, and will discover the favour.

Vincentio. O, death's a great disguiser; and you may add to it.
Shave the head, and tie the beard; and say it was
the desire of the penitent to be so bared before his
death: you know the course is common. If any thing
fall to you upon this, more than thanks and good
fortune, by the saint whom I profess, I will plead
against it with my life.

Provost. Pardon me, good father; it is against my oath.

Vincentio. Were you sworn to the duke, or to the deputy?

Provost. To him, and to his substitutes.

Vincentio. You will think you have made no offence, if the duke
avouch the justice of your dealing?

Provost. But what likelihood is in that?

Vincentio. Not a resemblance, but a certainty. Yet since I see
you fearful, that neither my coat, integrity, nor
persuasion can with ease attempt you, I will go
further than I meant, to pluck all fears out of you.
Look you, sir, here is the hand and seal of the
duke: you know the character, I doubt not; and the
signet is not strange to you.

Provost. I know them both.

Vincentio. Unfit to live or die: O gravel heart!
After him, fellows; bring him to the block.

Provost. Now, sir, how do you find the prisoner?

Vincentio. A creature unprepared, unmeet for death;
And to transport him in the mind he is
Were damnable.

Provost. Here in the prison, father,
There died this morning of a cruel fever
One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate,
A man of Claudio's years; his beard and head
Just of his colour. What if we do omit
This reprobate till he were well inclined;
And satisfy the deputy with the visage
Of Ragozine, more like to Claudio?

Vincentio. O, 'tis an accident that heaven provides!
Dispatch it presently; the hour draws on
Prefix'd by Angelo: see this be done,
And sent according to command; whiles I
Persuade this rude wretch willingly to die.

Provost. This shall be done, good father, presently.
But Barnardine must die this afternoon:
And how shall we continue Claudio,
To save me from the danger that might come
If he were known alive?

Vincentio. Let this be done.
Put them in secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio:
Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting
To the under generation, you shall find
Your safety manifested.

Provost. I am your free dependant.

Vincentio. Quick, dispatch, and send the head to Angelo.
[Exit Provost]
Now will I write letters to Angelo,--
The provost, he shall bear them, whose contents
Shall witness to him I am near at home,
And that, by great injunctions, I am bound
To enter publicly: him I'll desire
To meet me at the consecrated fount
A league below the city; and from thence,
By cold gradation and well-balanced form,
We shall proceed with Angelo.

Provost. Here is the head; I'll carry it myself.

Vincentio. Convenient is it. Make a swift return;
For I would commune with you of such things
That want no ear but yours.

Provost. I'll make all speed.

Vincentio. Your suit's unprofitable; stand up, I say.
I have bethought me of another fault.
Provost, how came it Claudio was beheaded
At an unusual hour?

Provost. It was commanded so.

Vincentio. Had you a special warrant for the deed?

Provost. No, my good lord; it was by private message.

Vincentio. For which I do discharge you of your office:
Give up your keys.

Provost. Pardon me, noble lord:
I thought it was a fault, but knew it not;
Yet did repent me, after more advice;
For testimony whereof, one in the prison,
That should by private order else have died,
I have reserved alive.

Vincentio. What's he?

Provost. His name is Barnardine.

Vincentio. Which is that Barnardine?

Provost. This, my lord.

Vincentio. There was a friar told me of this man.
Sirrah, thou art said to have a stubborn soul.
That apprehends no further than this world,
And squarest thy life according. Thou'rt condemn'd:
But, for those earthly faults, I quit them all;
And pray thee take this mercy to provide
For better times to come. Friar, advise him;
I leave him to your hand. What muffled fellow's that?

Provost. This is another prisoner that I saved.
Who should have died when Claudio lost his head;
As like almost to Claudio as himself.