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justice when you pleas’d;
And it in you more dreadful would have seem’d
Than in Lord Angelo.
DUKE.
I do fear, too dreadful:
Sith ‘twas my fault to give the people scope,
‘Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall them
For what I bid them do: for we bid this be done
When evil deeds have their permissive pass
And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my father,
I have on Angelo impos’d the office;
Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home,
And yet my nature never in the fight
To do in slander. And to behold his sway,
I will, as ‘twere a brother of your order,
Visit both prince and people: therefore, I pr’ythee,
Supply me with the habit, and instruct me
How I may formally in person bear me
Like a true friar. Moe reasons for this action
At our more leisure shall I render you;
Only, this one:—Lord Angelo is precise;
Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses
That his blood flows, or that his appetite
Is more to bread than stone: hence shall we see,
If power change purpose, what our seemers be.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE V. A Nunnery.
[Enter ISABELLA and FRANCISCA.]
ISABELLA.
And have you nuns no further 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 ensky’d 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 embraced:
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?