Dennys: Ay, but that is but the prelude. In one of these convents (Don Manuel drops his hands from his face and sits up straight in his chair) I fell into an ambush laid by Don Cupid himself.
Trotaconventos (bitterly): To be sure! And so you come to old Trotaconventos. To be a procuress is to be the cow at the wedding, for ever sacrificed to the junketings of others. ’Tis other folks’ burdens killed the ass. Well, the time is short, the time is short, if you want Trotaconventos’s aid.
Dennys: Why, despite her habit, ’twas the fairest maid I have seen this side the Pyrenees, and I swear ’tis a sin she should live a nun. I fell to talking and laughing with her; but though she is a ripe plum, I warrant, ’tis for another hand to shake the branch. Now you, mother, I know, go in and out of every convent in Seville.... So will you be my most cunning and subtle ambassador?
Trotaconventos: Ay, but ambassadors are given services of gold, and sumpter-mules laden with crimson cloths, and retinues of servants, and apes and tumblers and dancers, and purses of gold. How will you equip your ambassador?
Dennys: A trovar’s fortune is his tongue and lips; so with my lips I pay. (He gives her three smacking kisses.)
Trotaconventos: Oh, you French jackanapes! Oh, you saucy ballad-monger! So you hold your kisses weigh like maravedis, do you? Well, well, I have ever said that the lips of a fine lad hold the sweetest wine in Spain. Now you must acquaint me more fully with your business, if you would have me speed it.
Dennys: Why! You know it all. I love a nun of the Convent of San Miguel, and....
Don Manuel de Lara springs from his bench and seizes him by the shoulders.
Don Manuel de Lara: You scurvy, whoreson, lily-livered, shameless son of France! France! The teeming dam of whores and ballad-mongers, whose king flies from his foes shaking a banner broidered with the lilies of a frail woman’s garden-close. You are in Castille, where lions guard our virgins in strong towers, and e’er you tamper with the virtue of a professed virgin of Spain, I will hew you into little pieces to feed my hounds. (He shakes him violently.)