Measure For Measure

1 Enter Isabella and Francisca, a Nun.
2 ISABELLA.
3 And have you nuns no farther privileges?
4 FRANCISCA.
5 Are not these large enough?
6 ISABELLA.
7 Yes, truly; I speak not as desiring more,
8 But rather wishing a more strict restraint
9 Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.
10 LUCIO.
11 [_Within_.] Ho! Peace be in this place!
12 ISABELLA.
13 Who’s that which calls?
14 FRANCISCA.
15 It is a man’s voice. Gentle Isabella,
16 Turn you the key, and know his business of him;
17 You may, I may not; you are yet unsworn.
18 When you have vowed, you must not speak with men
19 But in the presence of the prioress;
20 Then, if you speak, you must not show your face;
21 Or if you show your face, you must not speak.
22 He calls again. I pray you answer him.
23 [_Exit Francisca._]
24 ISABELLA.
25 Peace and prosperity! Who is’t that calls?
26 Enter Lucio.
27 LUCIO.
28 Hail, virgin, if you be, as those cheek-roses
29 Proclaim you are no less. Can you so stead me
30 As bring me to the sight of Isabella,
31 A novice of this place, and the fair sister
32 To her unhappy brother Claudio?
33 ISABELLA.
34 Why “her unhappy brother”? let me ask,
35 The rather for I now must make you know
36 I am that Isabella, and his sister.
37 LUCIO.
38 Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you.
39 Not to be weary with you, he’s in prison.
40 ISABELLA.
41 Woe me! For what?
42 LUCIO.
43 For that which, if myself might be his judge,
44 He should receive his punishment in thanks:
45 He hath got his friend with child.
46 ISABELLA.
47 Sir, make me not your story.
48 LUCIO.
49 ’Tis true.
50 I would not, though ’tis my familiar sin
51 With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest,
52 Tongue far from heart, play with all virgins so.
53 I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted
54 By your renouncement an immortal spirit,
55 And to be talked with in sincerity,
56 As with a saint.
57 ISABELLA.
58 You do blaspheme the good in mocking me.
59 LUCIO.
60 Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, ’tis thus:
61 Your brother and his lover have embraced;
62 As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time
63 That from the seedness the bare fallow brings
64 To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb
65 Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.
66 ISABELLA.
67 Someone with child by him? My cousin Juliet?
68 LUCIO.
69 Is she your cousin?
70 ISABELLA.
71 Adoptedly, as school-maids change their names
72 By vain though apt affection.
73 LUCIO.
74 She it is.
75 ISABELLA.
76 O, let him marry her!
77 LUCIO.
78 This is the point.
79 The Duke is very strangely gone from hence;
80 Bore many gentlemen, myself being one,
81 In hand, and hope of action; but we do learn,
82 By those that know the very nerves of state,
83 His givings-out were of an infinite distance
84 From his true-meant design. Upon his place,
85 And with full line of his authority,
86 Governs Lord Angelo; a man whose blood
87 Is very snow-broth; one who never feels
88 The wanton stings and motions of the sense;
89 But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
90 With profits of the mind, study and fast.
91 He, to give fear to use and liberty,
92 Which have for long run by the hideous law
93 As mice by lions, hath picked out an act,
94 Under whose heavy sense your brother’s life
95 Falls into forfeit. He arrests him on it,
96 And follows close the rigour of the statute
97 To make him an example. All hope is gone,
98 Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer
99 To soften Angelo. And that’s my pith of business
100 ’Twixt you and your poor brother.
101 ISABELLA.
102 Doth he so
103 Seek his life?
104 LUCIO.
105 Has censured him already;
106 And, as I hear, the Provost hath a warrant
107 For’s execution.
108 ISABELLA.
109 Alas, what poor ability’s in me
110 To do him good?
111 LUCIO.
112 Assay the power you have.
113 ISABELLA.
114 My power? Alas, I doubt.
115 LUCIO.
116 Our doubts are traitors,
117 And make us lose the good we oft might win
118 By fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo,
119 And let him learn to know, when maidens sue,
120 Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,
121 All their petitions are as freely theirs
122 As they themselves would owe them.
123 ISABELLA.
124 I’ll see what I can do.
125 LUCIO.
126 But speedily.
127 ISABELLA.
128 I will about it straight;
129 No longer staying but to give the Mother
130 Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you.
131 Commend me to my brother. Soon at night
132 I’ll send him certain word of my success.
133 LUCIO.
134 I take my leave of you.
135 ISABELLA.
136 Good sir, adieu.
137 [_Exeunt._]