Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare
Act 1 - Scene 4
A nunnery.
Isabella : And have you nuns no farther privileges?
Francisca : Are not these large enough?
Isabella : Yes, truly; I speak not as desiring more;
[p]But rather wishing a more
strict restraint
[p]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,
[p]Turn you the key, and know
his business of him;
[p]You may, I may not; you are yet
unsworn.
[p]When you have vow'd, you must not speak with men
[p]But in
the presence of the prioress:
[p]Then, if you speak, you must not show
your face,
[p]Or, if you show your face, you must not speak.
[p]He
calls again; I pray you, answer him.
Isabella : Peace and prosperity! Who is't that calls
Lucio : Hail, virgin, if you be, as those cheek-roses
[p]Proclaim you are no
less! Can you so stead me
[p]As bring me to the sight of
Isabella,
[p]A novice of this place and the fair sister
[p]To her
unhappy brother Claudio?
Isabella : Why 'her unhappy brother'? let me ask,
[p]The rather for I now must
make you know
[p]I am that Isabella and his sister.
Lucio : Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you:
[p]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,
[p]He should receive his
punishment in thanks:
[p]He hath got his friend with child.
Isabella : Sir, make me not your story.
Lucio : It is true.
[p]I would not--though 'tis my familiar sin
[p]With maids
to seem the lapwing and to jest,
[p]Tongue far from heart--play with
all virgins so:
[p]I hold you as a thing ensky'd and sainted.
[p]By
your renouncement an immortal spirit,
[p]And to be talk'd with in
sincerity,
[p]As with a saint.
Isabella : You do blaspheme the good in mocking me.
Lucio : Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, 'tis thus:
[p]Your brother and
his lover have embraced:
[p]As those that feed grow full, as
blossoming time
[p]That from the seedness the bare fallow brings
[p]To
teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb
[p]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
[p]By vain though apt
affection.
Lucio : She it is.
Isabella : O, let him marry her.
Lucio : This is the point.
[p]The duke is very strangely gone from
hence;
[p]Bore many gentlemen, myself being one,
[p]In hand and hope
of action: but we do learn
[p]By those that know the very nerves of
state,
[p]His givings-out were of an infinite distance
[p]From his
true-meant design. Upon his place,
[p]And with full line of his
authority,
[p]Governs Lord Angelo; a man whose blood
[p]Is very
snow-broth; one who never feels
[p]The wanton stings and motions of
the sense,
[p]But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
[p]With
profits of the mind, study and fast.
[p]He--to give fear to use and
liberty,
[p]Which have for long run by the hideous law,
[p]As mice by
lions--hath pick'd out an act,
[p]Under whose heavy sense your
brother's life
[p]Falls into forfeit: he arrests him on it;
[p]And
follows close the rigour of the statute,
[p]To make him an example.
All hope is gone,
[p]Unless you have the grace by your fair
prayer
[p]To soften Angelo: and that's my pith of business
[p]'Twixt
you and your poor brother.
Isabella : Doth he so seek his life?
Lucio : Has censured him
[p]Already; and, as I hear, the provost hath
[p]A
warrant for his execution.
Isabella : Alas! what poor ability's in me
[p]To do him good?
Lucio : Assay the power you have.
Isabella : My power? Alas, I doubt--
Lucio : Our doubts are traitors
[p]And make us lose the good we oft might
win
[p]By fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo,
[p]And let him learn
to know, when maidens sue,
[p]Men give like gods; but when they weep
and kneel,
[p]All their petitions are as freely theirs
[p]As they
themselves would owe them.
Isabella : I'll see what I can do.
Lucio : But speedily.
Isabella : I will about it straight;
[p]No longer staying but to give the
mother
[p]Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you:
[p]Commend me to my
brother: soon at night
[p]I'll send him certain word of my success.
Lucio : I take my leave of you.
Isabella : Good sir, adieu.
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Next: Act 2 - Scene 1
