Folio Comparision: Act II, Scene 3 Main Menu - HomePage - The Play - Folio Comparisons
Enter DUKE and PROVOST    DUKE.  Hail to you, Provost, so I think you are.      PROVOST.  I am the Provost: What's your will, good friar?      DUKE.  Bound by my charity, and my blest order, I come to visit the afflicted spirits Here in the prison: do me the common right To let me see them: and to make me know The nature of their crimes, that I may minister To them accordingly.      PROVOST.  I would do more than that, if more were needful   ENTER JULIET   Look here comes one: a gentlewoman of mine, Who falling in the flaws of her own youth, Hath blisterd her report: she is with child; And he that got it, sentenced: a young man, More fit to do another such offence, Than die for this.      DUKE.  When must he die?      PROVOST.  As I do think to morrow. I have provided for you, stay awhile And you shall be conducted.      DUKE.  Repent you (fair one) of the sin you carry?      JULIET.  I do; and bear the shame most patiently.
Yet again, the long delay between the entrance of Juliet and her first line. One of the major choices confronting a director of Measure for Measure is how to deal with the issue of the Duke as friar. This is the first scene in which the Duke is in disguise. How is this disguise to be staged? Does the Provost know the Duke? Have they met previously? If so, must the Duke play this entire scene with a cowl and fake beard? Does the Duke disguise his voice? Or do we assume that the Provost never actually met the Duke? Or do we accept the theatrical convention of disguise and not worry about it?
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