Act 1, Scene 4: A nunnery

SCENE IV. 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

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?

LUCIO

    Has censured 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 power 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