Isab.
And have you Nuns no farther privileges?

Nun.
Are not these large enough?

Isab.
Yes truly; I speak not as desiring more,
But rather wishing a more strict restraint
Upon the sister votarists of saint Clare. Lucio within.

Lucio.
Hoa! peace be in this place.

Isab.
Who's that which calls?

Nun.
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 shew your face,
Or if you shew your face, you must not speak.
He calls again, I pray you answer him. [Exit Franc.

Isab.
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?

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;
Not to be weary with you, he's in prison.

Isab.
Wo me, for what?

Lucio.
For that, which if my self might be his judge,
He should receive his punishment in thanks;
He hath got his friend with child.

Isab.
Sir, make me not your story.

Lucio.
I would not (tho' '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 en-sky'd and sainted,
By your renouncement an immortal spirit,
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;
Your brother and his lover having embrac'd,
As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time
That from the seedness the bare fallow brings
To teeming † ^notefoyson; so her plenteous womb
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,
By vain, tho' apt, affection.

Lucio.
She it is.

Isab.
Let him then marry her.

Lucio.
This is the point.
The Duke is very strangely gone from hence;
Bore many gentlemen, my self being one,
In hand and hope of action; but we 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 long time run by the hideous law,
As mice by lyons; hath pickt out an act,
Under whose heavy sense your brother's life
Falls into forfeit; he arrests him on it,
And follows close the rigor of the statute,
To make him an example; all hope's gone,
Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer
To soften Angelo; and that's my business
'Twixt you and your poor brother.

Isab.
Doth he so
Seek his life?

Lucio.
Has censur'd him already,
And, as I hear, the Provost hath a warrant
For's execution.

Isab.
Alas! what poor
Ability's in me, to do him good?

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,
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 truly theirs,
As they themselves would owe them.

Isab.
I'll see what I can do.

Lucio.
But speedily.

Isab.
I will about it strait;
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.

Isab.
Good Sir, adieu. [Exeunt.

Previous section