Justice and Equality

The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.

Of all the tyrannies on human kind The worst is that which persecutes the mind.

Nor is the people’s judgment always true: The most may err as grossly as the few.

I shall temper so Justice with mercy.

God’s works are wide, and let in future times; His ancient justice overflows our crimes.

Heaven is above all yet; there sits a judge That no king can corrupt.

I’ the commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things; for no kind of traffic Would I admit; no name of magistrate; Letters should not be known; riches, poverty, And use of service, none; contract, succession, Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil; No occupation; all men idle, all; And women too, but innocent and pure. 58

The gods sent not Corn for the rich men only.

This even-handed justice.

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague us.

Through tatter’d clothes small vices do appear; Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; Arm it in rags, a pigmy’s straw does pierce it.

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Your loop’d and window’d raggedness, defend you From seasons such as these? O! I have ta’en Too little care of this. Take physic, pomp; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, That thou mayst shake the superflux to them, And show the heavens more just.

The bloody book of law You shall yourself read in the bitter letter After your own sense.

Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure, Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure.

The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.

No ceremony that to great ones ’longs, Not the king’s crown, nor the deputed sword, The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe, Become them with one half so good a grace As mercy does.

We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it Their perch and not their terror.

The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life, May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try.

And liberty plucks justice by the nose.

The play’s the thing Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept; Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

Let none presume To wear an undeserved dignity. O! that estates, degrees, and offices Were not deriv’d corruptly, and that clear honor Were purchas’d by the merit of the wearer.

What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted! Thrice is he arm’d that hath his quarrel just, And he but naked, though lock’d up in steel, Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

It is not righteousness to outrage A brave man dead, not even though you hate him.