No More Learning

DUKE. What is that Barnardine who is to be executed in th'
afternoon?
PROVOST. A Bohemian born; but here nurs'd up and bred.
One that is a prisoner nine years old.
DUKE. How came it that the absent Duke had not either deliver'd him
to his liberty or executed him? I have heard it was ever his
manner to do so.
PROVOST. His friends still wrought reprieves for him; and, indeed,
his fact, till now in the government of Lord Angelo, came not to
an undoubted proof.
DUKE. It is now apparent?
PROVOST. Most manifest, and not denied by himself.
DUKE.
Hath he borne himself penitently in prison? How seems he to
be touch'd?
PROVOST. A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but as a
drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless, of what's past,
present, or to come; insensible of mortality and desperately
mortal.
DUKE. He wants advice.
PROVOST. He will hear none. He hath evermore had the liberty of the
prison; give him leave to escape hence, he would not; drunk many
times a day, if not many days entirely drunk. We have very oft
awak'd him, as if to carry him to execution, and show'd him a
seeming warrant for it; it hath not moved him at all.
DUKE. More of him anon. There is written in your brow, Provost,
honesty and constancy. If I read it not truly, my ancient skill
beguiles me; but in the boldness of my cunning I will lay myself
in hazard. Claudio, whom here you have warrant to execute, is no
greater forfeit to the law than Angelo who hath sentenc'd him. To
make you understand this in a manifested effect, I crave but four
days' respite; for the which you are to do me both a present and
a dangerous courtesy.