"If I listen to the reports which reached me even in Rome, indeed my reputation is lost without remedy; my house is full of shame: henceforth I cannot hear the name of my wife spoken without suspecting that it is done through insult or mockery. Virginio will not be able to hear his mother's name without bowing his face for shame. We heard shameful things, cousin, and such at which nature itself would be horrified ... such that no man could possibly bear, and which I neither can, nor know, nor wish, by any means to suffer."
"My Lord!" ... replied Troilo with faltering voice; "could a knight like you, gifted with the best discernment, as all know ... experienced in the world ... give credit to such false accusations ... to the words of idle and malicious men? The people generally repute us happy, and those whom envy gnaws love to hurl poisoned arrows at us. Let us make them weep, they say; thus they will be our equals in tears at last."
"You speak truly; but the shameful report was confirmed by such a person that now I can no longer doubt it."
"And do you believe it worthy of faith?"
"I leave you to judge. Isabella herself confessed it to me."
"What! Isabella?"
"Isabella."
"Your wife?"
"She herself ... my wife. Now tell me, Troilo, ... is not your name Orsini? Is not the blood which runs in your veins of the same race as mine?—Answer!"
"Why reply to what you know yourself?"