Could great men thunder

You could break a jackhammer on her chastity belt.

You know how every so often a town in America prosecutes some old lady for some obscure colonial-era law that was still on the books even though no one's enforced it for decades? Yeah, well, this is the story of how Vienna's Duke was so distracted "studying" that he realizes his town has gone to pot. To save face, he puts Angelo--the total Tool--in charge while the Duke roams the city in disguise to see how Angelo does re-enforcing the rules. 

Claudio gets arrested and sentenced to death for knocking up his betrothed before marriage--a punishment that hasn't been carried out in a while--and his sister, the uber-virgin nun-in-training Isabella, pleads to Angelo to spare her brother's life. Upon seeing Isabella, the Tool can only think with his three-inch fool and offers to release Claudio if she surrenders her chaste treasure. 

Isabella is appalled, obviously, and much is poetically debated by Claudio as to whether her integrity is worth more than his life. She is horrified by Claudio's suggestion that she take Angelo's offer, but the undercover Duke, whose own bauble is doing all his cogitating for him, decides to conjure up a plan to help Isabella that will keep her intact... hopefully for his own deflowering ambitions. 

Throughout Shakespeare's work, especially in the Sonnets, much argument is made over the desired increase from fairest creatures. It's a constant theme involved with boys and men wooing their lady loves into a bed-pressing session, and here, it's thrown into sharp relief due to Isabella's ultra-devout convent life choices and the relative and literal lawlessness of the men in Vienna. 
It's the classic dichotomy of the male gaze--woman as virgin or whore. Either way, it's plain to see how men see their own chastity--as nothing to get in a twist over. At least it's not worth their lives, because if Claudio valued his chastity as much as Isabella valued hers (assuming he knew of the law on the books in Vienna), he wouldn't have tumbled with his fiancee in the first place.

So here's Isabella, raging at Angelo about his bluster and abuse of authority (which of course, turns him on something awful):


Measure for Measure, Act II, Sc. II
Isabella: Could great men thunder 
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,
For every pelting, petty officer
Would use his heaven for thunder;
Nothing but thunder! Merciful Heaven,
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
Than the soft myrtle: but man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.