A Nunnery. | |
| |
Enter ISABELLA and FRANCISCA. | |
| Isab. And have you nuns no further privileges? | |
| Fran. Are not these large enough? | 4 |
| Isab. 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! | 8 |
| Isab. Who’s that which calls? | |
| Fran. 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. | 12 |
| 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. | 16 |
| He calls again; I pray you, answer him. [Exit. | |
| Isab. Peace and Prosperity! Who is’t that calls? | |
| |
Enter LUCIO. | |
| Lucio. Hail, virgin, if you be, as those cheekroses | 20 |
| 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? | 24 |
| Isab. 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: | 28 |
| Not to be weary with you, he’s in prison. | |
| Isab. Woe me! for what? | |
| Lucio. For that which, if myself might be his judge, | |
| He should receive his punishment in thanks: | 32 |
| He hath got his friend with child. | |
| Isab. Sir, make me not your story. | |
| Lucio. It is true. | |
| I would not, though ’tis my familiar sin | 36 |
| 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, | 40 |
| And to be talk’d with in sincerity, | |
| As with a saint. | |
| Isab. You do blaspheme the good in mocking me. | |
| Lucio. Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, ’tis thus: | 44 |
| 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 | 48 |
| Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry. | |
| Isab. Some one with child by him? My cousin Juliet? | |
| Lucio. Is she your cousin? | |
| Isab. Adoptedly; as school-maids change their names | 52 |
| By vain, though apt affection. | |
| Lucio. She it is. | |
| Isab. O! let him marry her. | |
| Lucio. This is the point. | 56 |
| 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, | 60 |
| 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 | 64 |
| 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. | 68 |
| 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 | 72 |
| 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 | 76 |
| To soften Angelo; and that’s my pith of business | |
| Twixt you and your poor brother. | |
| Isab. Doth he so seek his life? | |
| Lucio. He’s censur’d him | 80 |
| Already; and, as I hear, the provost hath | |
| A warrant for his execution. | |
| Isab. Alas! what poor ability’s in me | |
| To do him good? | 84 |
| Lucio. Assay the power you have. | |
| Isab. My power? alas! I doubt— | |
| Lucio. Our doubts are traitors, | |
| And make us lose the good we oft might win, | 88 |
| 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 | 92 |
| As they themselves would owe them. | |
| Isab. I’ll see what I can do. | |
| Lucio. But speedily. | |
| Isab. I will about it straight; | 96 |
| 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. | 100 |
| Lucio. I take my leave of you. | |
| Isab. Good sir, adieu. [Exeunt. | |
