Lucio's lines in Measure for Measure

Lucio. If the duke with the other dukes come not to composition with the King of Hungary, why then all the dukes fall upon the king.

Lucio. Thou concludest like the sanctimonious pirate, that went to sea with the Ten Commandments, but scraped one out of the table.

Lucio. Ay, that he razed.

Lucio. I believe thee; for I think thou never wast where grace was said.

Lucio. In any proportion or in any language.

Lucio. Ay, why not? Grace is grace, despite of all controversy: as, for example, thou thyself art a wicked villain, despite of all grace.

Lucio. I grant; as there may between the lists and the velvet. Thou art the list.

Lucio. I think thou dost; and, indeed, with most painful feeling of thy speech: I will, out of thine own confession, learn to begin thy health; but, whilst I live, forget to drink after thee.

Lucio. Behold, behold. where Madam Mitigation comes! I have purchased as many diseases under her roof as come to--

Lucio. Judge.

Lucio. A French crown more.

Lucio. Nay, not as one would say, healthy; but so sound as things that are hollow: thy bones are hollow; impiety has made a feast of thee.

Lucio. But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so. Art thou sure of this?

Lucio. ...elieve me, this may be: he promised to meet me two ...ours since, and he was ever precise in promise-keeping.

Lucio. Away! let's go learn the truth of it.

Lucio. Why, how now, Claudio! whence comes this restraint?

Lucio. If could speak so wisely under an arrest, I would send for certain of my creditors: and yet, to say the truth, I had as lief have the foppery of freedom as the morality of imprisonment. What's thy offence, Claudio?

Lucio. What, is't murder?

Lucio. Lechery?

Lucio. A hundred, if they'll do you any good. Is lechery so look'd after?

Lucio. With child, perhaps?

Lucio. I warrant it is: and thy head stands so tickle on thy shoulders that a milkmaid, if she be in love, may sigh it off. Send after the duke and appeal to him.

I have done so, but he's not to be found.

I prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service: This day my sister should the cloister enter And there receive her approbation: Acquaint her with the danger of my state: Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him: I have great hope in that; for in her youth There is a prone and speechless dialect, Such as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art When she will play with reason and discourse, And well she can persuade.

I pray she may; as well for the encouragement of the like, which else would stand under grievous imposition, as for the enjoying of thy life, who I would be sorry should be thus foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack. I'll to her.

Lucio. Within two hours.

Lucio. ([Within]) Ho! Peace be in this place!

Lucio. Fail, virgin, if you be, as those cheek-roses Proclaim you are no less! Can you so stead me As bring me to the sight of Isabella, A novice of this place and the fair sister To her unhappy brother Claudio?

Lucio. Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you: Not to be weary with you, he's in prison.

Lucio. For that which, if myself might be his judge, He should receive his punishment in thanks: He hath got his friend with child.

Lucio. It is true. I would not--though 'tis my familiar sin With maids to seem the lapwing and to jest, Tongue far from heart--play with all virgins so: I hold you as a thing ensky'd and sainted. By your renouncement an immortal spirit, And to be talk'd with in sincerity, As with a saint.

Lucio. Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, 'tis thus: Your brother and his lover have embraced: As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time That from the seedness the bare fallow brings To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.

Lucio. Is she your cousin?

Lucio. She it is.

Lucio. This is the point. The duke is very strangely gone from hence; Bore many gentlemen, myself being one, In hand and hope of action: but we do learn By those that know the very nerves of state, His givings-out were of an infinite distance From his true-meant design.

Upon his place, And with full line of his authority, Governs Lord Angelo; a man whose blood Is very snow-broth; one who never feels The wanton stings and motions of the sense, But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge With profits of the mind, study and fast.

He--to give fear to use and liberty, Which have for long run by the hideous law, As mice by lions--hath pick'd out an act, Under whose heavy sense your brother's life Falls into forfeit: he arrests him on it; And follows close the rigour of the statute, To make him an example.

All hope is gone, Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer To soften Angelo: and that's my pith of business 'Twixt you and your poor brother.

Lucio. Has censured him Already; and, as I hear, the provost hath A warrant for his execution.

Lucio. Assay the power you have.

Lucio. Our doubts are traitors And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo, And let him learn to know, when maidens sue, Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel, All their petitions are as freely theirs As they themselves would owe them.

Lucio. But speedily.

Lucio. I take my leave of you.

Lucio. ([Aside to ISABELLA]) Give't not o'er so: to him again, entreat him; Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown: You are too cold; if you should need a pin, You could not with more tame a tongue desire it: To him, I say!

Lucio. ([Aside to ISABELLA]) You are too cold.

Lucio. ([Aside to ISABELLA]) Ay, touch him; there's the vein.

Lucio. ([Aside to ISABELLA]) Ay, well said.

Lucio. ([Aside to ISABELLA]) Art avised o' that? more on 't.

Lucio. ([Aside to ISABELLA]) You had marr'd all else.

Lucio. ([Aside to ISABELLA]) Go to; 'tis well; away!

Lucio. Now now, noble Pompey! What, at the wheels of Caesar? art thou led in triumph? What, is there none of Pygmalion's images, newly made woman, to be had now, for putting the hand in the pocket and extracting it clutch'd?

What reply, ha? What sayest thou to this tune, matter and method? Is't not drowned i' the last rain, ha? What sayest thou, Trot? Is the world as it was, man? Which is the way? Is it sad, and few words? or how? The trick of it?

Lucio. How doth my dear morsel, thy mistress? Procures she still, ha?

Lucio. Why, 'tis good; it is the right of it; it must be so: ever your fresh whore and your powdered bawd: an unshunned consequence; it must be so. Art going to prison, Pompey?

Lucio. Why, 'tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell: go, say I sent thee thither. For debt, Pompey? or how?

Lucio. Well, then, imprison him: if imprisonment be the due of a bawd, why, 'tis his right: bawd is he doubtless, and of antiquity too; bawd-born. Farewell, good Pompey. Commend me to the prison, Pompey: you will turn good husband now, Pompey; you will keep the house.

Lucio. No, indeed, will I not, Pompey; it is not the wear. I will pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage: If you take it not patiently, why, your mettle is the more. Adieu, trusty Pompey. 'Bless you, friar.

Lucio. Does Bridget paint still, Pompey, ha?

Lucio. Then, Pompey, nor now. What news abroad, friar? what news?

Lucio. Go to kennel, Pompey; go.

What news, friar, of the duke?

Lucio. Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other some, he is in Rome: but where is he, think you?

Lucio. t was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from the state, and usurp the beggary he was never born to. Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence; he puts transgression to 't.

Lucio. A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in him: something too crabbed that way, friar.

Lucio. Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred; it is well allied: but it is impossible to extirp it quite, friar, till eating and drinking be put down. They say this Angelo was not made by man and woman after this downright way of creation: is it true, think you?

Lucio. 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.

Lucio. 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 the nursing a thousand: he had some feeling of the sport: he knew the service, and that instructed him to mercy.

Lucio. O, sir, you are deceived.

Lucio. 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.

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

Lucio. 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.

Lucio. A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.

Lucio. Sir, I know him, and I love him.

Lucio. Come, sir, I know what I know.

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

Lucio. I fear you not.

Lucio. 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?

Lucio. 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 bring them to light: would he were returned!

Marry, this Claudio is condemned for untrussing. Farewell, good friar: I prithee, pray for me. The duke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on Fridays. He's not past it yet, and I say to thee, he would mouth with a beggar, though she smelt brown bread and garlic: say that I said so. Farewell

Lucio. Good even. Friar, where's the provost?

Lucio. 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 ...ie to 't. But they say the duke will be here to-morrow. By my troth, Isabel, I loved thy brother: if the old fantastical duke of dark corners had been at home, he had lived.

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

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

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

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

Lucio. 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.

Lucio. 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.

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

Lucio. I warrant your honour.

Lucio. Right.

Lucio. 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.

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

Lucio. My lord, most villanously; believe it.

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

Lucio. Well, my lord.

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

Lucio. Well, my lord.

Lucio. Carnally, she says.

Lucio. Enough, my lord.

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

Lucio. As any in Vienna, on my word.

Lucio. Not better than he, by her own report.

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

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

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

Lucio. Mum.

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

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

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

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

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

Lucio. 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?

Lucio. This may prove worse than hanging.

Lucio. 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.

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