How I may formally in person bear me
Like a true friar. More reasons for this action,
At our more leisure shall I render you;
Only, this one:-Lord Angelo is precise;
Stands at a guard1 with envy; scarce confesses
That his blood flows, or that his appetite
Is more to bread than stone: hence shall we see,
If power change purpose, what our seemers be.
[Exeunt.

SCENE V-A nunnery. Enter Isabella and
Francisca.

Isab. And have you nuns no further privileges? Fran. Are not these large enough?

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. Ho! peace be in this place! [Within. 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: 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 Francisca.

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?

(1) On his defence.

P2

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 myself 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. 1
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.

Isab. You do blaspheme the good, in mocking

me.

Lucio. Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, 2 'tis thus:

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
Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.

İsab. Some one with child by him?-My cousin

Juliet?

Lucio. Is she your cousin?

Isab. Adoptedly; as school-maids change their

(1) Do not make a jest of me.

She it is.

(2) In few and true words. (3) Breeding plenty. (4) Tilling.

Isab. 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 linel 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.
Isab. Doth he so seek his life?

Lucio.

Has censur'd3 him

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?

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,

(1) Extent.
(3) Sentenced.

(2) Power of gaining favour.

All their petitions are as freely theirs
As they themselves would owel them.
Isab. I'll see what I can do.
Lucio.

But speedily.

Isab. I will about it straight;
No longer staying but to give the mother2
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.

ACT II.

SCENE I.-A hall in Angelo's house. Enter Angelo, Escalus, a Justice, Provost, Officers, and attendants.

Ang. We must not make a scare-crow of the law, Setting it up to fear3 the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it

Their perch, and not their terror.

Escal.

Ay, but yet

Let us be keen, and rather cut a little,
Than fall, and bruise to death: alas! this gentleman,
Whom I would save, had a most noble father.
Let but your honour know4

(Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue,)
That, in the working of your own affections,
Had time coher'ds with place, or place with wishing,

Or that the resolute acting of your blood

Could have attain'd the effect of your own purpose, Whether you had not sometime in your life

Err'd in this point which now you censure him,

And pull'd the law upon you.

(1) Have.

(2) Abbess.

(3) Scare.

(4) Examine.

(5) Suited.

Ang. 'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,

Another thing to fall. I not deny,
The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,
May, in the sworn twelve, have a thief or two
Guiltier than him they try: what's open made to

justice,

That justice seizes. What know the laws,

That thieves do pass1 on thieves? 'Tis very preg

nant,2

The jewel that we find, we stoop and take it,
Because we see it; but what we do not see,
We tread upon, and never think of it.

You may not so extenuate his offence,
For I have had such faults; but rather tell me,
When I, that censure4 him, do so offend,

Let mine own judgment pattern out my death,
And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.
Escal. Be it as your wisdom will.

Ang.

Where is the provost?

Prov. Here, if it like your honour.
Ang.

See that Claudio

Be executed by nine to-morrow morning :
Bring him his confessor, let him be prepar'd;
For that's the utmost of his pilgrimage. [Ex. Prov.

Escal. Well, heaven forgive him; and forgive

us all!

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall:
Some run from brakess of vice, and answer none;
And some condemned for a fault alone.

Enter Elbow, Froth, Clown, Officers, &c.

Elb. Come, bring them away: if these be good people in a common weal,6 that do nothing but use their abuses in common houses, I know no law; bring them away.

(1) Pass judgment. (2) Plain. (3) Because.
(4) Sentence. (5) Thickest, thorny paths of vice.
(6) Wealth.