DUKE.
They will then, ere’t be long.
PROVOST.
What comfort is for Claudio?
DUKE.
There’s some in hope.
PROVOST.
It is a bitter deputy.
DUKE.
Not so, not so. His life is paralleled
Even with the stroke and line of his great justice.
He doth with holy abstinence subdue
That in himself which he spurs on his power
To qualify in others. Were he mealed with that
Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous;
But this being so, he’s just.
[Knocking within. Provost goes to the door.]
Now are they come.
This is a gentle provost. Seldom when
The steeled gaoler is the friend of men.
[Knocking within.]
How now? What noise? That spirit’s possessed with haste
That wounds th’ unsisting postern with these strokes.
Provost returns.