A nunnery
Enter ISABELLA and FRANCISCA ISABELLA And have you nuns no farther privileges?
FRANCISCA Are not these large enough?
ISABELLA Yes, truly; I speak not as desiring more,
But rather wishing a more strict restraint
Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.
LUCIO [ Within] Ho! Peace be in this place!
ISABELLA Who's that which calls?
FRANCISCA It is a man's voice. Gentle Isabella,
Turn you the key, and know his business of him:
You may, I may not; you are yet unsworn;
When you have vow'd, you must not speak with men
But in the presence of the prioress;
Then, if you speak, you must not show your face,
Or, if you show your face, you must not speak.
He calls again; I pray you answer him.
Exit FRANCISCA ISABELLA Peace and prosperity! Who is't that calls?
Enter LUCIO LUCIO Hail, virgin, if you be, as those cheek-roses
Proclaim you are no less. Can you so stead me
As bring me to the sight of Isabella,
A novice of this place, and the fair sister
To her unhappy brother Claudio?
ISABELLA Why her 'unhappy brother'? Let me ask
The rather, for I now must make you know
I am that Isabella, and his sister.
LUCIO Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you.
Not to be weary with you, he's in prison.
ISABELLA Woe me! For what?
LUCIO For that which, if myself might be his judge,
He should receive his punishment in thanks:
He hath got his friend with child.
ISABELLA Sir, make me not your story.
LUCIO It is true.
I would not- though 'tis my familiar sin
With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest,
Tongue far from heart- play with all virgins so:
I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted,
By your renouncement an immortal spirit,
And to be talk'd with in sincerity,
As with a saint.
ISABELLA You do blaspheme the good in mocking me.
LUCIO Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, 'tis thus:
Your brother and his lover have embrac'd.
As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time
That from the seedness the bare fallow brings
To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb
Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.
ISABELLA Some one with child by him? My cousin Juliet?
LUCIO Is she your cousin?
ISABELLA Adoptedly, as school-maids change their names
By vain though apt affection.
LUCIO She it is.
ISABELLA O, let him marry her!
LUCIO This is the point.
The Duke is very strangely gone from hence;
Bore many gentlemen, myself being one,
In hand, and hope of action; but we do learn,
By those that know the very nerves of state,
His givings-out were of an infinite distance
From his true-meant design. Upon his place,
And with full line of his authority,
Governs Lord Angelo, a man whose blood
Is very snow-broth, one who never feels
The wanton stings and motions of the sense,
But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
With profits of the mind, study and fast.
He- to give fear to use and liberty,
Which have for long run by the hideous law,
As mice by lions- hath pick'd out an act
Under whose heavy sense your brother's life
Falls into forfeit; he arrests him on it,
And follows close the rigour of the statute
To make him an example. All hope is gone,
Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer
To soften Angelo. And that's my pith of business
'Twixt you and your poor brother.
ISABELLA Doth he so seek his life?
LUCIO Has censur'd him
Already, and, as I hear, the Provost hath
A warrant for his execution.
ISABELLA Alas! what poor ability's in me
To do him good?
LUCIO Assay the pow'r you have.
ISABELLA My power, alas, I doubt!
LUCIO Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo,
And let him learn to know, when maidens sue,
Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,
All their petitions are as freely theirs
As they themselves would owe them.
ISABELLA I'll see what I can do.
LUCIO But speedily.
ISABELLA I will about it straight;
No longer staying but to give the Mother
Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you.
Commend me to my brother; soon at night
I'll send him certain word of my success.
LUCIO I take my leave of you.
ISABELLA Good sir, adieu.
Exeunt