Bardas: Ah, what!—"He burns with flaming heart!"—have we
No flesh to understand this passion then?
Bound to the wings of wide ambition he
Will choose undowered worth?—To the ordeal
Of mere suspicion's flaming I'd not trust
The fairness of his name; but doubts in me
Are sunk with proofs.
Hæmon: No, no!
Bardas: Unyielding.
Hæmon: Proof?
He could not. No! he dare not!
Bardas: Yet the rogue
Cecco, the duke's half-seneschal, half-spy,
I passed upon the streets o'ermuch in wine,
Leaning upon a tipsier jade and spouting
With drunken mockery,
"'Sweet Helena! Fair Helena!' Pluck me, wench, but the lord Antonio knows sound nuts! And sly! Why hear you now! he gets the duke to seize on the maid! The fox! The rat! Have I not heard him in his chamber these thirty nights puff her name out his window with as many honeyed drawls of passion as—as—as—June has buds? 'Sweet Helena!'—la! 'Fair Helena!'—O! 'Dear Helena! my rose! my queen! my sun and moon and stars! Thy kiss is still at my lips, thy breast beats still on mine! my Helena!'—Um! Oh, 'tmust be a rare damsel. I'll make a sluice between her purse and mine, wench; do you hear?"
Hæmon: Well—well?
Bardas: No more. When I had struck him down,
He swore it was unswerving all and truth.
Hasting to warn I found Helena ta'en
And sought you here.
Hæmon (grasping his brows): Ah!
Bardas: Helena who is
All purity!