William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

FRIAR.

Gladly, my lord.

DUKE.

We have strict statutes and most biting laws,—

The needful bits and curbs to headstrong steeds,—

Which for this fourteen years we have let sleep,

Even like an o’ergrown lion in a cave,

That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers,

Having bound up the threat’ning twigs of birch,

Only to stick it in their children’s sight

For terror, not to use, in time the rod

Becomes more mock’d than fear’d; 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 pleas’d;

And it in you more dreadful would have seem’d

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 impos’d the office;

Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home,

And yet my nature never in the fight

To do in slander. And to behold his sway,

I will, as ‘twere a brother of your order,

Visit both prince and people: therefore, I pr’ythee,

Supply me with the habit, and instruct me

How I may formally in person bear me

Like a true friar. Moe 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.]

SCENE V. A Nunnery.

[Enter ISABELLA and FRANCISCA.]

ISABELLA.

And have you nuns no further 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 FRANCISCA.]

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 censur’d 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.

[Exeunt.]

ACT II.

Scene I. A hall in ANGELO’S house.

[Enter ANGELO, ESCALUS, a JUSTICE, PROVOST, Officers, and other

Attendants.]

ANGELO.

We must not make a scarecrow of the law,

Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,

And let it keep one shape till custom make it

Their perch, and not their terror.

ESCALUS.

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 know,—

Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue,—

That, in the working of your own affections,

Had time coher’d 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.

ANGELO.

‘Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,

Another thing to fall. I not deny