Ant. Alberto, see you straight rumour me dead.
Leave me, good mother; leave me, Lucio;
Forsake me, all.
[Exeunt omnes, saving Antonio.
Now patience hoop my sides
With steelèd ribs, lest I do burst my breast
With struggling passions. Now disguise, stand bold:
Poor scornèd habits oft choice souls enfold.
[The cornets sound a senet.
Enter Castilio, Forobosco, Balurdo, and Alberto, with pole-axes, Lucio bare; followed by Piero and Maria talking together; two Senators, Galeatzo, Matzagente, and Nutriche.
Pier. Entreat me not: there’s not a beauty lives 70
Hath that imperial predominance
O’er my affects[289] as your enchanting graces:
Yet give me leave to be myself—
Ant. [Aside.] A villain.
Pier. Just—
Ant. [Aside.] Most just.
Pier. Most just and upright in our judgment seat.
Were Mellida mine eye, with such a blemish
Of most loath’d looseness, I would scratch it out.
Produce the strumpet in her bridal robes,
That she may blush t’appear so white in show, 80
And black in inward substance. Bring her in.