s c e n e   3

SCENE ~ IX-D classroom.



Enter MS. LOUIS and UMARPAL, meeting

        Ms. Louis [angrily]: Thou villain! Thou hast come late again!

Enter FRIEND and MR. JOSEPH

        Friend [coming forward]: Sweet teacher and friend, be patient: for God's remembrance, be at accord.

        Umarpal: Let me go, I say.

        Ms. Louis: I will not, till I please: you shall hear me out. Oh! Thou villain, thou villain…

        Umarpal: I do beseech your grace,
Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me:
If with myself I hold intelligence,
Or have acquaintance with mine own desires;
If that I do not dream or be not frantic,
As I do trust I am not, then, dear teacher,
Never so much as in a thought unborn
Did I offend your grace.

        Ms. Louis: Thou villain! Thou very well know what I talketh about: thou hast come too late.

        Umarpal: The quality of mercy is not strain'd
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: It is twice bless'd;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Ms. Louis,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea,
Which if thou follow, the strict co-ordinator of this foyer
Must needs give sentence 'gainst me.

Enter MR. JOSEPH

        Mr. Joseph: Alas! I thought him a nice lad at first.
But all that glisters is not gold;
Often have I heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold
But outsides to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms infold.
Had I been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgement old.

        Umarpal: I beseech you, punish me not with your hard words, wherein I confess me much guilty, to deny so fair and excellent teachers the pleasure to see me punctual.

        Ms. Louis: Student, dispatch you with your safest haste,
And get you from my class.
Open not thy lips:
Firm and irrevocable is my doom
Which I have pass'd upon thee; thou art banish'd.

Exeunt.

< Scene 2   Scene 4 >



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