Duke. The land and people’s mine; the crimes being known,
I must redress; my subjects’ wrong’s mine own.
Call for the two suspected for the murder
Of Mendoza, our endeared kinsman,
These voluntary murderers that confess
The murder of him that is yet alive.
We’ll sport with serious justice for a while;
In show we’ll frown on them that make us smile.
2d Sen. Bring forth the prisoners, we may hear their answers.
Enter (brought in with Officers) Claridiana and Rogero.[264]
Duke. Stand forth, you vipers, [you] that have suck’d blood, 20
And lopp’d a branch sprung from a royal tree!
What can you answer to escape tortures?
Rog. We have confessed the fact,[265] my lord, to God and man,
Our ghostly father, and that worthy captain:
We beg not life, but favourable death.
Duke. On what ground sprung your hate to him we loved?
Cla. Upon that curse laid on Venetians, jealousy. We thought he, being a courtier, would have made us magnificoes of the right stamp, and have play’d at primero in the presence, with gold of the city brought from our Indies. 31
Rog. Nay, more, my lord, we feared that your kinsman, for a mess of sonnets, would have given the plot of us and our wives to some needy poet, and for sport and profit brought us in some Venetian comedy upon the stage.