SCENE IV. A nunnery. Measure for Measure  Shakespeare homepage  |  Measure for Measure  | Act 1, Scene 4 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  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. 



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