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YOUNG PEASANT.
Aye, aye: that’s sense. I love him: still, you see–

REGENT.
An if my judgment suit you not, go home,
The pair.(As they are going she calls the woman back.)

Costanza! hath your husband erred
With other woman?

YOUNG PEASANT.
Never!

WIFE.
I’ll not charge him
With that.

REGENT.
But, yes, you may. This man hath held
Another woman to his breast.

WIFE.
Her name?
That I may tear her eyes!

REGENT.
Her name’s Costanza.
The same Costanza that, with body washed,
With ribbon in her hair, light in her eyes,
Arrayed a cottage to allure his heart.
Go home, poor fools, and find her!…
Heigh! No others?
[Heaves a sigh.]

Captain, dismiss the Guard. The watch, aloft–
Set him elsewhere. We would not be o’erlooked.
You only, Lucio–you, Lucetta–stay;
You for a while, Cesario.

[Exeunt Courtiers, Guard, Crowd, etc.]

Heigh! that’s over–
The last Court of the Regent; and the books
Accounts of stewardship, my seven years all,
Closed here for audit.
Nay, there’s one thing more–
Brother, erewhile I spoke you sisterly,
You turned away, and still you bite your lip:
Signs that may short my preface. It concerns
The Countess Fulvia.

LUCIO.
Ha!

REGENT.
Go, bring her, Captain.

[Exit Cesario.]

List to me, Lucio: listen, brother dear,
First playmate-child, tending whose innocence
Myself learned motherhood. Shall I deny
Youth to be loved and follow after love?
There is a love breaks like a morning beam
On the husht novice kneeling by his arms;
And worse there is, whose kisses strangle love,
Whose feet take hold of hell. My Lucio,
Follow not that!

LUCIO.
Why, who–who hath maligned
The Countess?

REGENT.
Not maligned. Lucetta, here–

LUCIO.
Lucetta! Curse Lucetta and her tongue!
Am I a child, to be nagged by waiting-maids?

REGENT.
No, but a man, and shall weigh evidence.

LUCIO.
But I’ll not hear it! If her viper tongue
Can kill, why kill it must. But send me a man,
And I will smite his mouth–ay, slit his tongue–
That dares defame the Countess!

REGENT.
Stay: she comes.

[Enter the Countess Fulvia, Cesario attending.]

Madam, the reason wherefore you are summoned
No doubt you guess, from a rude earlier call
Our Captain paid you. Certain practices,
Which you may force me name, are charged upon you
On testimony you may force me call
And may with freedom question.

FULVIA.
I’ll not question:
No, nor I will not answer.

LUCIO.
Then I’ll answer!’
For me, for all, she is innocent!

REGENT.
For you?
We’ll hope it: but ‘for all’ ‘s more wide an oath
Than you can swear, sir. I’ll not bandy you
Words nor debate. Myself the ladder saw;
Lucetta, here, the ladder and the man.
What man she will not say. Cesario
Has tracked his footprint on her garden plots.
Must we say more?

FULVIA.
No need. Her fingering mind
Is a close cupboard turning all things rancid.

LUCIO.
Yea, for such wry-necks all the world’s a lawn
To peek and peer and pounce a sinful worm;
The fatter, the more luscious.

REGENT.
Lucio,
This woman nought gainsays.

FULVIA

(fiercely).