Page 1096 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart [30]
Goes all decorum.

FRIAR
It rested in your Grace
To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleas’d;
And it in you more dreadful would have seem’d

Than in Lord Angelo.

DUKE
I do fear, too dreadful.
Sith ’twas my fault to give the people scope, [35]
’Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall them

For what I bid them do: for we bid this be done,
When evil deeds have their permissive pass,
And not the punishment. Therefore indeed, my father,
I have on Angelo impos’d the office; [40]

Who may in th’ambush of my name strike home,
And yet my nature never in the fight
To do in slander. And to behold his sway,
I will, as ’twere a brother of your order,

Visit both prince and people. Therefore, I prithee, [45]
Supply me with the habit, and instruct me
How I may formally in person bear
Like a true friar. Moe reasons for this action

At our more leisure shall I render you;
Only this one: Lord Angelo is precise; [50]
Stands at a guard with Envy; scarce confesses
That his blood flows; or that his appetite

Is more to bread than stone. Hence shall we see
If power change purpose, what our seemers be.
Exeunt.

Scene IV IT

[A Nunnery.]