# Result number

Work The work is either a play, poem, or sonnet. The sonnets are treated as single work with 154 parts.

Character Indicates who said the line. If it's a play or sonnet, the character name is "Poet."

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.

Text The line's full text, with keywords highlighted within it, unless highlighting has been disabled by the user.

1

Measure for Measure
[I, 4]

Lucio

403

This is the point.
The duke is very strangely gone from hence;
Bore many gentlemen, myself being one,
In hand and hope of action: but we do learn
By those that know the very nerves of state,
His givings-out were of an infinite distance
From his true-meant design. Upon his place,
And with full line of his authority,
Governs Lord Angelo; a man whose blood
Is very snow-broth; one who never feels
The wanton stings and motions of the sense,
But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
With profits of the mind, study and fast.
He—to give fear to use and liberty,
Which have for long run by the hideous law,
As mice by lions—hath pick'd out an act,
Under whose heavy sense your brother's life
Falls into forfeit: he arrests him on it;
And follows close the rigour of the statute,
To make him an example. All hope is gone,
Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer
To soften Angelo: and that's my pith of business
'Twixt you and your poor brother.

2

Measure for Measure
[II, 1]

Angelo

470

'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
Another thing to fall. I not deny,
The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,
May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two
Guiltier than him they try. What's open made to justice,
That justice seizes: what know the laws
That thieves do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant,
The jewel that we find, we stoop and take't
Because we see it; but what we do not see
We tread upon, and never think of it.
You may not so extenuate his offence
For I have had such faults; but rather tell me,
When I, that censure him, do so offend,
Let mine own judgment pattern out my death,
And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.

3

Measure for Measure
[II, 1]

Elbow

517

He, sir! a tapster, sir; parcel-bawd; one that
serves a bad woman; whose house, sir, was, as they
say, plucked down in the suburbs; and now she
professes a hot-house, which, I think, is a very ill house too.

4

Measure for Measure
[II, 1]

Pompey

540

Sir, she came in great with child; and longing,
saving your honour's reverence, for stewed prunes;
sir, we had but two in the house, which at that very
distant time stood, as it were, in a fruit-dish, a
dish of some three-pence; your honours have seen
such dishes; they are not China dishes, but very
good dishes,—

5

Measure for Measure
[II, 1]

Pompey

548

No, indeed, sir, not of a pin; you are therein in
the right: but to the point. As I say, this
Mistress Elbow, being, as I say, with child, and
being great-bellied, and longing, as I said, for
prunes; and having but two in the dish, as I said,
Master Froth here, this very man, having eaten the
rest, as I said, and, as I say, paying for them very
honestly; for, as you know, Master Froth, I could
not give you three-pence again.

6

Measure for Measure
[II, 1]

Pompey

558

Very well: you being then, if you be remembered,
cracking the stones of the foresaid prunes,—

7

Measure for Measure
[II, 1]

Pompey

561

Why, very well; I telling you then, if you be
remembered, that such a one and such a one were past
cure of the thing you wot of, unless they kept very
good diet, as I told you,—

8

Measure for Measure
[II, 1]

Pompey

566

Why, very well, then,—

9

Measure for Measure
[II, 1]

Pompey

578

Why, very well; I hope here be truths. He, sir,
sitting, as I say, in a lower chair, sir; 'twas in
the Bunch of Grapes, where indeed you have a delight
to sit, have you not?

10

Measure for Measure
[II, 1]

Pompey

583

Why, very well, then; I hope here be truths.

11

Measure for Measure
[II, 1]

Escalus

598

Ay, sir, very well.

12

Measure for Measure
[II, 2]

Provost

754

I crave your honour's pardon.
What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet?
She's very near her hour.

13

Measure for Measure
[II, 2]

Provost

763

Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid,
And to be shortly of a sisterhood,
If not already.

14

Measure for Measure
[II, 2]

Angelo

789

Condemn the fault and not the actor of it?
Why, every fault's condemn'd ere it be done:
Mine were the very cipher of a function,
To fine the faults whose fine stands in record,
And let go by the actor.

15

Measure for Measure
[II, 3]

Juliet

1011

Must die to-morrow! O injurious love,
That respites me a life, whose very comfort
Is still a dying horror!

16

Measure for Measure
[III, 1]

Provost

1273

And very welcome. Look, signior, here's your sister.

17

Measure for Measure
[III, 2]

Lucio

1649

A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.

18

Measure for Measure
[III, 2]

Vincentio

1650

Either this is the envy in you, folly, or mistaking:
the very stream of his life and the business he hath
helmed must upon a warranted need give him a better
proclamation. Let him be but testimonied in his own
bringings-forth, and he shall appear to the
envious a scholar, a statesman and a soldier.
Therefore you speak unskilfully: or if your
knowledge be more it is much darkened in your malice.

19

Measure for Measure
[III, 2]

Escalus

1758

You have paid the heavens your function, and the
prisoner the very debt of your calling. I have
laboured for the poor gentleman to the extremest
shore of my modesty: but my brother justice have I
found so severe, that he hath forced me to tell him
he is indeed Justice.

20

Measure for Measure
[IV, 1]

Vincentio

1823

Very well met, and well come.
What is the news from this good deputy?