Measure for Measure 4

⁵IsabellaYes, truly: I speak not as desiring more;
But rather wishing a more strict restraint
Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.

⁹IsabellaPeace and prosperity! Who is’t that calls

¹³LucioGentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you:
Not to be weary with you, he’s in prison.

¹⁷LucioIt 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.

²¹LucioIs she your cousin?

²⁵LucioThis 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.

²⁹LucioAssay the power you have.

³³LucioBut speedily.