No More Learning

I told you: Lord Angelo, belike thinking me remiss in mine
office, awakens me with this unwonted putting-on; methinks
strangely, for he hath not us'd it before.
DUKE. Pray you, let's hear.
PROVOST. [Reads] 'Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let
Claudio be executed by four of the clock, and, in the afternoon,
Barnardine. For my better satisfaction, let me have Claudio's
head sent me by five. Let this be duly performed, with a thought
that more depends on it than we must yet deliver. Thus fail not
to do your office, as you will answer it at your peril. '
What say you to this, sir?
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.