Act 2, Scene 3: A room in a prison

SCENE III. A room in a prison.

    Enter, severally, DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as a friar, and Provost

DUKE VINCENTIO

    Hail to you, provost! so I think you are.

Provost

    I am the provost. What's your will, good friar?

DUKE 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.

DUKE 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.

DUKE VINCENTIO

    Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?

JULIET

    I do; and bear the shame most patiently.

DUKE VINCENTIO

    I'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,
    And try your penitence, if it be sound,
    Or hollowly put on.

JULIET

    I'll gladly learn.

DUKE VINCENTIO

    Love you the man that wrong'd you?

JULIET

    Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him.

DUKE VINCENTIO

    So then it seems your most offenceful act
    Was mutually committed?

JULIET

    Mutually.

DUKE VINCENTIO

    Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.

JULIET

    I do confess it, and repent it, father.

DUKE VINCENTIO

    'Tis meet so, daughter: but lest you do repent,
    As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,
    Which sorrow is always towards 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 VINCENTIO

    There rest.
    Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,
    And I am going with instruction to him.
    Grace go with you, Benedicite!

    Exit

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.

    Exeunt