Antonio: What of her? Are you horrified to stone!
Her maid?—There are than risen dead worse things
And worse to dread!—her maid?
Cecco: Sir——
Antonio: Forth with it!
She direness of her mistress brings? some tale
That earth elsewhere abyssless gaped her up?
That butterfly or bud turn asp to bite her?
Cecco: Sir—she—the maid craves audience with the duke.
Antonio: Fetch her, and quickly.
(Cecco goes.
Fulvia: Reason, Antonio.
She will but whimper, tell what overmuch
Of grief her mistress makes for you: of tears
Your sunny coming will dry in her.
Antonio (putting her aside): These
Hours come not of any good, but are
Infected with resolved adversity.
This dread!——
Fulvia: They ever dread who have but quit
The shadow of some doom and the dismay.
Re-enter Cecco, with Paula weeping.
Antonio: Girl! girl! Thy mistress?