Act IIScene III
A room in a prison
Enter Duke disguised as a Friar, and Provost.
Duke
Hail to you, Provost, so I think you are.
Provost
I am the Provost. What’s your will, good friar?
Duke
Bound by my charity and my blessed order,I come to visit the afflicted spiritsHere in the prison. Do me the common rightTo let me see them, and to make me knowThe nature of their crimes, that I may ministerTo 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 blistered her report. She is with child,And he that got it, sentenced: a young manMore fit to do another such offenceThan die for this.
Duke
When must he die?
Provost
As I do think, tomorrow.
To Juliet.
I have provided for you; stay a whileAnd 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 soundOr hollowly put on.
Juliet
I’ll gladly learn.
Duke
Love you the man that wronged you?
Juliet
Yes, as I love the woman that wronged him.
Duke
So then it seems your most offenceful actWas 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 repentAs 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 tomorrow,And I am going with instruction to him.Grace go with you! Benedicite!
Exit.
Juliet
Must die tomorrow? O, injurious loveThat respites me a life, whose very comfortIs still a dying horror!
Provost
’Tis pity of him.
Exeunt.