DUKE. You have told me too many of him already, sir, if they be true; if not true, none were enough. LUCIO. I was once before him for getting a wench with child. DUKE. Did you such a thing? LUCIO. Yes, marry, did I; but I was fain to forswear it. They would else have married me to the rotten medlar. DUKE. Sir, your company is fairer than honest. Rest you well. 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. [_Exeunt._] SCENE IV. A room in Angelo’s house. Enter Angelo and Escalus. ESCALUS. Every letter he hath writ hath disvouched other. ANGELO. In most uneven and distracted manner. His actions show much like to madness; pray heaven his wisdom be not tainted. And why meet him at the gates and redeliver our authorities there? ESCALUS. I guess not. ANGELO. And why should we proclaim it in an hour before his entering, that if any crave redress of injustice, they should exhibit their petitions in the street? ESCALUS. He shows his reason for that: to have a dispatch of complaints, and to deliver us from devices hereafter, which shall then have no power to stand against us. ANGELO. Well, I beseech you, let it be proclaimed. Betimes i’ th’ morn I’ll call you at your house. Give notice to such men of sort and suit As are to meet him. ESCALUS. I shall, sir. Fare you well. [_Exit._] ANGELO. Good night. This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant And dull to all proceedings. A deflowered maid; And by an eminent body that enforced The law against it! But that her tender shame Will not proclaim against her maiden loss, How might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her no, For my authority bears so credent bulk That no particular scandal once can touch But it confounds the breather. He should have lived, Save that his riotous youth, with dangerous sense, Might in the times to come have ta’en revenge By so receiving a dishonoured life With ransom of such shame. Would yet he had lived. Alack, when once our grace we have forgot, Nothing goes right; we would, and we would not. [_Exit._] SCENE V. Fields without the town. Enter Duke, in his own habit, and Friar Peter. DUKE. These letters at fit time deliver me. The Provost knows our purpose and our plot. The matter being afoot, keep your instruction And hold you ever to our special drift, Though sometimes you do blench from this to that As cause doth minister. Go call at Flavius’ house, And tell him where I stay. Give the like notice To Valencius, Rowland, and to Crassus, And bid them bring the trumpets to the gate. But send me Flavius first. FRIAR PETER. It shall be speeded well. [_Exit Friar Peter._] Enter Varrius. DUKE. I thank thee, Varrius, thou hast made good haste. Come, we will walk. There’s other of our friends Will greet us here anon. My gentle Varrius. [_Exeunt._] SCENE VI. Street near the city gate. Enter Isabella and Mariana.