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Result number
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Work
The work is either a play, poem, or sonnet. The sonnets
are treated as single work with 154 parts.
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Character
Indicates who said the line. If it's a play or sonnet,
the character name is "Poet."
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Line
Shows where the line falls within the work.
The numbering is not keyed to any copyrighted numbering system found in a volume of
collected works (Arden, Oxford, etc.) The numbering starts at the beginning of the work, and does not
restart for each scene.
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Text
The line's full text, with keywords highlighted
within it, unless highlighting has been disabled by the user.
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1 |
Measure for Measure
[II, 2] |
Isabella |
901 |
Because authority, though it err like others,
Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,
That skins the vice o' the top. Go to your bosom;
Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know
That's like my brother's fault: if it confess
A natural guiltiness such as is his,
Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother's life.
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2 |
Measure for Measure
[II, 4] |
Angelo |
1083 |
Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak
Against the thing I say. Answer to this:
I, now the voice of the recorded law,
Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life:
Might there not be a charity in sin
To save this brother's life?
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3 |
Measure for Measure
[II, 4] |
Angelo |
1185 |
Who will believe thee, Isabel?
My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life,
My vouch against you, and my place i' the state,
Will so your accusation overweigh,
That you shall stifle in your own report
And smell of calumny. I have begun,
And now I give my sensual race the rein:
Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;
Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes,
That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother
By yielding up thy body to my will;
Or else he must not only die the death,
But thy unkindness shall his death draw out
To lingering sufferance. Answer me to-morrow,
Or, by the affection that now guides me most,
I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,
Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true.
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4 |
Measure for Measure
[III, 2] |
Mistress Overdone |
1707 |
My lord, this is one Lucio's information against me.
Mistress Kate Keepdown was with child by him in the
duke's time; he promised her marriage: his child
is a year and a quarter old, come Philip and Jacob:
I have kept it myself; and see how he goes about to abuse me!
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5 |
Measure for Measure
[III, 2] |
Vincentio |
1768 |
Peace be with you!
[Exeunt ESCALUS and Provost]
He who the sword of heaven will bear
Should be as holy as severe;
Pattern in himself to know,
Grace to stand, and virtue go;
More nor less to others paying
Than by self-offences weighing.
Shame to him whose cruel striking
Kills for faults of his own liking!
Twice treble shame on Angelo,
To weed my vice and let his grow!
O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!
How may likeness made in crimes,
Making practise on the times,
To draw with idle spiders' strings
Most ponderous and substantial things!
Craft against vice I must apply:
With Angelo to-night shall lie
His old betrothed but despised;
So disguise shall, by the disguised,
Pay with falsehood false exacting,
And perform an old contracting.
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6 |
Measure for Measure
[IV, 2] |
Vincentio |
2079 |
O, death's a great disguiser; and you may add to it.
Shave the head, and tie the beard; and say it was
the desire of the penitent to be so bared before his
death: you know the course is common. If any thing
fall to you upon this, more than thanks and good
fortune, by the saint whom I profess, I will plead
against it with my life.
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7 |
Measure for Measure
[IV, 2] |
Provost |
2086 |
Pardon me, good father; it is against my oath.
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8 |
Measure for Measure
[IV, 4] |
Escalus |
2317 |
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.
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9 |
Measure for Measure
[IV, 4] |
Angelo |
2326 |
Good night.
[Exit ESCALUS]
This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant
And dull to all proceedings. A deflower'd 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 of a credent bulk,
That no particular scandal once can touch
But it confounds the breather. He should have lived,
Save that riotous youth, with dangerous sense,
Might in the times to come have ta'en revenge,
By so receiving a dishonour'd life
With ransom of such shame. Would yet he had lived!
A lack, when once our grace we have forgot,
Nothing goes right: we would, and we would not.
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10 |
Measure for Measure
[IV, 6] |
Isabella |
2369 |
Besides, he tells me that, if peradventure
He speak against me on the adverse side,
I should not think it strange; for 'tis a physic
That's bitter to sweet end.
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11 |
Measure for Measure
[V, 1] |
Vincentio |
2508 |
By heaven, fond wretch, thou knowist not what thou speak'st,
Or else thou art suborn'd against his honour
In hateful practise. First, his integrity
Stands without blemish. Next, it imports no reason
That with such vehemency he should pursue
Faults proper to himself: if he had so offended,
He would have weigh'd thy brother by himself
And not have cut him off. Some one hath set you on:
Confess the truth, and say by whose advice
Thou camest here to complain.
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12 |
Measure for Measure
[V, 1] |
Lucio |
2531 |
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.
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13 |
Measure for Measure
[V, 1] |
Vincentio |
2535 |
Words against me? this is a good friar, belike!
And to set on this wretched woman here
Against our substitute! Let this friar be found.
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14 |
Measure for Measure
[V, 1] |
Vincentio |
2650 |
Ay, with my heart
And punish them to your height of pleasure.
Thou foolish friar, and thou pernicious woman,
Compact with her that's gone, think'st thou thy oaths,
Though they would swear down each particular saint,
Were testimonies against his worth and credit
That's seal'd in approbation? You, Lord Escalus,
Sit with my cousin; lend him your kind pains
To find out this abuse, whence 'tis derived.
There is another friar that set them on;
Let him be sent for.
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15 |
Measure for Measure
[V, 1] |
Escalus |
2680 |
We shall entreat you to abide here till he come and
enforce them against him: we shall find this friar a
notable fellow.
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16 |
Measure for Measure
[V, 1] |
Angelo |
2741 |
What can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio?
Is this the man that you did tell us of?
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17 |
Measure for Measure
[V, 1] |
Vincentio |
2865 |
Against all sense you do importune her:
Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact,
Her brother's ghost his paved bed would break,
And take her hence in horror.
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