1605 MEASURE FOR MEASURE
Page: 12

commonweal that do nothing but use their abuses in common
houses,
I know no law; bring them away.
ANGELO. How now, sir! What's your name, and what's the matter?
ELBOW. If it please your honour, I am the poor Duke's
constable,
and my name is Elbow; I do lean upon justice, sir, and do
bring
in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors.
ANGELO. Benefactors! Well- what benefactors are they? Are they
not
malefactors?
ELBOW. If it please your honour, I know not well what they are;
but
precise villains they are, that I am sure of, and void of all
profanation in the world that good Christians ought to have.
ESCALUS. This comes off well; here's a wise officer.
ANGELO. Go to; what quality are they of? Elbow is your name?
Why
dost thou not speak, Elbow?
POMPEY. He cannot, sir; he's out at elbow.
ANGELO. What are you, sir?
ELBOW. He, sir? A tapster, sir; parcel-bawd; one that serves a
bad
woman; whose house, sir, was, as they say, pluck'd down in
the
suburbs; and now she professes a hot-house, which, I think,
is a
very ill house too.
ESCALUS. How know you that?
ELBOW. My wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your
honour-
ESCALUS. How! thy wife!
ELBOW. Ay, sir; whom I thank heaven, is an honest woman-
ESCALUS. Dost thou detest her therefore?
ELBOW. I say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as she,
that
this house, if it be not a bawd's house, it is pity of her
life,
for it is a naughty house.
ESCALUS. How dost thou know that, constable?
ELBOW. Marry, sir, by my wife; who, if she had been a woman
cardinally given, might have been accus'd in fornication,
adultery, and all uncleanliness there.
ESCALUS. By the woman's means?
ELBOW. Ay, sir, by Mistress Overdone's means; but as she spit
in
his face, so she defied him.
POMPEY. Sir, if it please your honour, this is not so.
ELBOW. Prove it before these varlets here, thou honourable man,
prove it.
ESCALUS. Do you hear how he misplaces?
POMPEY. Sir, she came in great with child; and longing, saving