“Our doubts are traitors”: who says it in Measure for Measure, and why

In plain words

Lucio says this to Isabella, who has just been asked to plead for her brother’s life and answers, “My power? Alas, I doubt.” His point: doubt does its damage quietly, by stopping you from trying, so you lose things you might have won without ever finding out whether you could.

Sit with this line → A few quiet exchanges about what it stirs in you.

Worth knowing

Lucio keeps going: “Go to Lord Angelo, / And let him learn to know, when maidens sue, / Men give like gods …”. Isabella answers, “I’ll see what I can do,” and he tells her, “But speedily.” She goes, and the play doesn’t simply reward her for it: Angelo offers to spare her brother only if she sleeps with him, and the rest of the play turns on that.

The story behind it

The advice comes from the least trustworthy man in the play. The cast list calls Lucio “a fantastic”, a showy talker; later he spreads lies about the Duke to the Duke’s face, not knowing who he’s talking to, and is punished for it at the end. Shakespeare wrote Measure for Measure around 1603–04, and it was first printed in the 1623 First Folio.