LUCIO.
O, sir, you are deceived.
DUKE.
’Tis not possible.
LUCIO.
Who, not the Duke? Yes, your beggar of fifty; and his use was to put a ducat in her clack-dish. The Duke had crotchets in him. He would be drunk too, that let me inform you.
DUKE.
You do him wrong, surely.
LUCIO.
Sir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the Duke; and I believe I know the cause of his withdrawing.
DUKE.
What, I prithee, might be the cause?
LUCIO.
No, pardon. ’Tis a secret must be locked within the teeth and the lips. But this I can let you understand: the greater file of the subject held the Duke to be wise.
DUKE.
Wise? Why, no question but he was.
LUCIO.
A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.
DUKE.
Either this is envy in you, folly, or mistaking. The very stream of his life, and the business he hath helmed, must upon a warranted need give him a better proclamation. Let him be but testimonied in his own bringings-forth, and he shall appear to the envious a scholar, a statesman, and a soldier. Therefore you speak unskilfully. Or, if your knowledge be more, it is much darkened in your malice.