For terror, not to use, in time the rod

More mocked becomes than feared: so our decrees,

Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead;

And Liberty plucks Justice by the nose,

The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart

Goes all decorum.

FRIAR

It rested in your grace

To unloose this tied-up Justice when you pleased,

And it in you more dreadful would have seemed

Than in Lord Angelo.

DUKE

I do fear, too dreadful.

Sith ‘twas my fault to give the people scope,

’Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall them

For what I bid them do—for we bid this be done

When evil deeds have their permissive pass,

And not the punishment. Therefore indeed, my father,

I have on Angelo imposed the office,

Who may in th‘ambush of my name strike home,

And yet my nature never in the fight

T’allow in slander. And to behold his sway,

I will as ’twere a brother of your order

Visit both prince and people. Therefore, I prithee,

Supply me with the habit, and instruct me

How I may formally in person bear

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 guard 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

1.4 Enter Isabella, and Francesca, a nun

ISABELLA

And have you nuns no farther privileges?

FRANCESCA 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 ⌈to Francesca⌉

Who’s that which calls?

FRANCESCA

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 vowed, 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.

Lucio calls within

He calls again. I pray you answer him.

⌈She stands asidel⌉

ISABELLA

Peace and prosperity! Who is’t that calls?

She opens the door.

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

‘Tis 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 enskied and sainted

By your renouncement, an immortal spirit,

And to be talked 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

Someone with child by him? My cousin Juliet?

LUCIO Is she your cousin?

ISABELLA

Adoptedly, as schoolmaids 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—mysetf being one—

In hand and hope of action; but we do learn,

By those that know the very nerves of state,

His giving 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 picked 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