NovelGuide: Measure For Measure: Novel Summary: Act 1, Scene 2

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Act 1, Scene 2

Some men of Vienna are discussing local politics when a prostitute approaches them and tells them that a man named Claudio has been arrested because he got a woman pregnant.� He is supposed to be beheaded in three days.� The men are shocked, and exit.� The prostitute then talks to another man, Pompey, and he tells her that all of the whorehouses in the suburbs are going to be shut down by royal proclamation.� The woman, referred to as Bawd, is worried about the future of her business but the man reassured her by saying he will still come to her.� Claudio and Juliet enter with the Provost, and the Provost tells him that he is being arrested because of Lord Angelo's decree.� One of the men discussing politics, Lucio, enters again approaching Claudio who is his friend.� He asks why the man has been arrested, and Claudio tells him.� Though a law against fornication has been there for sometime, it had not been enforced for many years.� Claudio says that it is probably being enforced now because Angelo wants to make a name for himself.� Claudio then implores him to fetch his sister who is entering a convent and have her go to Angelo to argue her brother's case.� Lucio agrees and they exit.