Again the foreshadowing surfaces. Isabella asks Angelo to consider whether he has not some guilt similar to her brother's. Here begins Angelo's temptation in a series of remarks by Isabella that are subject to dual interpretation. Urged to consider his own lusts, Angelo first considers Isabella as a woman. In an aside, he confesses that his senses are stirred. Immediately, she suggests that she will bribe him, and he no doubt leaps to the conclusion that she is offering him her body, although she goes on to say that her prayers for him will serve as bribery. She offers him predawn "prayers . . . / From fasting maids whose minds are dedicate / To nothing temporal" (153-55), presenting the image of pure, maidenly bodies striking pleading attitudes in the darkness. At this point, he abruptly dismisses her, telling her to wait upon him tomorrow.
In the soliloquy that closes Scene 2, Angelo is amazed at the stirring of his own lust, admitting that it is Isabella's very purity that tempts him from virtue: "What is't I dream on? / O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint, / With saints dost bait thy hook!" (179-81).
Scene 2 juxtaposes mercy with strict interpretation of the law. On the side of mercy stand the provost, Isabella, and, in the background, Lucio, while Angelo stands for the letter of the law. The scene is one of major importance to the play since the passages of eloquent tragic poetry spoken by Isabella rank with those found in the great tragedies of this period. Mercy here comes to the fore as the play's major theme. Isabella achieves the nobility of character that has been attributed to her by her brother and Lucio. Angelo stands firm for the law, and the coming triumph of mercy is seen in the dramatic foreshadowing of his fall.
The very brief Scene 3 provides the duke with entrance to the prison and an opportunity to see Claudio, which he needs in order to intervene in the affair.
