RIBERA (starts up and snatches the paper she offers him, reads
it rapidly, then to ANNICCA wildly).
Look, look there—
'T is writ in blood: "My duty to my lord
Forbids my telling you our present port."
I would track her down with sleuth-hounds, did I not
Abhor to see her face. Ah, press thy hands
Against my head—my brain is like to burst—
My throat is choked. Help! help!
[He swoons.]
SCENE IV.
A street. Enter LORENZO and a GENTLEMAN, meeting. They salute,
and LORENZO is about to pass on.
LORENZO.
Good-morning, sir.
GENTLEMAN.
Hail and farewell so soon,
Friend dreamer? I will lay a goodly sum
The news that flies like fire from tongue to tongue
Hath not yet warmed thine ear.
LORENZO.
What's that? I lay
A sum as fair thy news is some dry tale
Of courtly gossip, touching me as nigh
As the dissensions of the antipodes.
GENTLEMAN.
Done for a hundred florins! In the night,
'Midst the wild storm whose roar must have invaded
Even thy leaden sleep, Prince John left Naples.
We should have had a pageant here to-day,
A royal exit, floral arches thrown
From house to house in all the streets he passed,
Music and guard of honor, homage fitting
The son of Philip—but the bird has flown.
LORENZO.
So! I regret our busy citizens,
Who sun themselves day-long upon the quays,
Should be deprived of such a festival.
Your wager's lost—how am I moved by this?
GENTLEMAN.
Hark to the end. 'T would move all men whose veins
Flow not clear water. He hath carried off
The Rose of Naples.
LORENZO.
What wouldst thou say? Speak out!
In God's name, who hath followed him?
GENTLEMAN.
Ah, thou'rt roused.
Thy master hath been robbed—the Spagnoletto—
Maria of the Golden Locks—his daughter.
LORENZO.
How is this known? 'T is a foul slander forged
By desperate malice. What! in the night, you say?—
She whose bright name was clean as gold, whose heart
Shone a fixed star of loyal love and duty
Beside her father's glory! This coarse lie
Denies itself. I will go seek the master,
And if this very noon she walk not forth,
Led by the Spagnoletto, through the streets,
To blind the dazed eyes of her slanderers,—
I am your debtor for a hundred florins.