Cozimo listened with admiration, and raising her tenderly put her suit off with courteous compliments, telling her that if she would cheer her drooping spirits, bring back the bloom of health to her pale cheek, and let him see the diamond of her beauty in its perfect lustre, there could be no crime that he would not look with eyes of mercy upon if she advocated it.
Already in his mind had he thought of a fitting punishment for his nephew. He resolved to make them all believe that he intended himself to wed the fair Lidia, and acted accordingly.
Poor Sanazarro, in the solitude of his prison, awakened too late to a sense of his wicked, disloyal treachery. He remembered the duke’s kindness and love, in making him almost his second self. The influence of Lidia’s charms faded away, and he recalled the loving favors he had received so carelessly from the beautiful Duchess Fiorinda. Now, he stood without friends, and no one dared or even cared to make intercession to the duke for him. As he thought of the Duchess Fiorinda’s love and past kindness, he resolved to appeal to her, and sent a message to her, begging her mediation in his favor, although he acknowledged himself most unworthy.
But true love forgetteth and forgiveth all injuries, and so soon as the lovely Fiorinda heard his sad plight, she repaired to the duke and entreated of him to be merciful and gracious to his poor servant, Sanazarro. Cozimo reminded her of his infidelity to him, his kind master; and then, to move her still more to anger, he recalled how coldly Sanazarro had always received her courtesies, and how easily he had yielded to the charms of another, and that other beneath her in rank.
The poor lady for a moment struggled with her pride, which whispered to her that, to endure a rival, and one also who was an inferior, betokened poverty of spirit, but her noble heart obtained the mastery, and she replied,
“True love must not know degrees or distances. Lidia may be as far above me in her form as she is in her birth beneath me; and what I liked in Sanazarro he may have loved in her. Vouchsafe to hear his defense.”
The duke consented, and said that both Sanazarro and the young prince should have a speedy trial, in which he would not only be judge, but accuser; and then expressed himself in such courteous, gallant words about the fair Lidia, that Charomonte and the courtiers stared in amazement. They could scarcely credit what he wished to make them believe—that he, the faithful, mourning widower, who had remained constant so many years, purposed a second marriage with this young maiden, so unfit for him in station and age.
The trial commenced, and the prisoners, almost hopeless of mercy, presented themselves, with their lovely advocates, the duchess and Lidia, before the duke. Cozimo, at the sight of Lidia, professed to forget every thing in the rapture her beauty caused him; and after exhausting love’s sweet language in describing her charms, he turned, with looks of rage, to the prince and Sanazarro, and told them they knelt too late for mercy. But Lidia and the duchess reminded him he had promised a gracious hearing to his prisoners, before passing sentence.
Duke Cozimo descended from the chair of state, and placing the two ladies in his seat, told them they should be his deputies; but they must listen to his accusation which would justify the sentence he was about to pronounce on these traitorous heads. First, he reminded Sanazarro of his cold indifference to Fiorinda’s condescending love, and his unfaithfulness to her; but the duchess interrupted him, and told him that charge was naught; she had already heard the count’s confession, and had freely pardoned him.
The duke courteously bowed, but continued and upbraided Sanazarro with his treachery to him, his indulgent master. Then he turned to Giovanni and reminded him of how careful of his interests he had always been; how he had remained unwedded, to secure to a thankless nephew a throne. “We made you both,” continued the duke, “the keys that opened our heart’s secrets, and what you spoke we believed as oracles. But you, in recompense of this, to us, who gave you all, to whom you owed your being, with treacherous lies endeavored to conceal this peerless jewel from our knowledge. Look on her,” he said, pointing to the blushing Lidia, “is that a beauty fit for any subject? Can any tire become that forehead but a diadem? Even should we grant pardon for your falsehood to us, your treachery to her, in seeking to deprive her of that greatness she was born to, can ne’er find pardon.”