STEPMOTHER. Follow in her traces—here is one!

[She hands him a parchment covered with writing.

PRINCE. [Reading] And she wrote this?

STEPMOTHER. You know her hand—what has it written?

PRINCE. That she hates me, and loves another—that she has played with me; that she will throw my kisses to the wind, and to the swine my heart—To die is now my will! Now I am dead!

STEPMOTHER. A knight dies not because a wench has played with him. He shows himself a man and takes another.

PRINCE. Another? When there is only one?

STEPMOTHER. No, two, at least! My Magdalene possesses seven barrels full of gold.

PRINCE. Seven?

STEPMOTHER. And more. [Pause.