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 ACT II, SCENE I
LAELIAdressed as an attendant, under the name of Fabius, THE LOVER FLAMINIUS

FLA. I’m surprised, Fabius, that with no obsequiousness on my part or effort on yours, a gracious message can be extracted from that ungrateful woman. At least the fact that she treats you kindly is a sign that she doesn’t entirely hate me. But why have I deserved that I’m not deeply loved? What reason does she give, Fabius? What did she say?
FAB. Hey, you’ve heard it a thousand time.
FLA. You’ll not be wasting your effort, my boy, if I hear it again.
FAB But perhaps I’ll lay you waste, and this is dearer to me.
FLA. You won’t do it. So why not speak up boldly?
FAB. By Hercules, I’m not willingly a messenger of ill tidings, nor is it right for a servant to repeat what she haughtily said. I can’t induce my tongue to speak ill of you. And if you grow angry at me, what shall I do now?
FLA. What’s that? Me grow angry at you over a word? You whom I’ve always had in the same place as a full brother, as your constancy and loyalty have deserved? I wouldn’t wish to grow angry at even a bad servant, if he should as I command.
FAB. Since you wish it so, I’ll therefore do what you command. She prays that you don’t think upon her, she who has erased you from her mind.
FLA. Erased? Poor me! You continue, Fabius.
FAB. And that you direct your love elsewhere.
FLA. Me? May the gods not allow it!
FAB. For she has made up her mind —
FLA. Ah, made up her mind — what, Fabius?
FAB. Master, now you’ve heard more than enough. Don’t ask further.
FLA. Tell me what’s been decided, so that at one stroke I may learn it completely, and die at the same time.
FAB. Should I do this?
FLA. Why not. I have authority over you.
FAB. She may love anybody else at all —
FLA. Go on.
FAB. But she’ll never love Flaminius.
FLA. Oh gods, she’ll never love Flaminius! Has Flaminius deserved this? Flaminius, what crime have you committed against your Isabella, or, more likely, what god have you made angry at yourself? Do you think she spoke assuredly, from her heart?
FAB. Why not from her heart? Why would she pretend?
FLA. Then, by heavens, I’m ruined for sure, not just doubtfully. But why has she accepted my letters if she hates me? But let her do as she wishes, I’ve made up my mind, I may desert anybody else at all, but I’ll never desert my Isabella.
FAB. Really, Master? Heavens, it seems advantageous for you to hate her, if you will punish her by loving.
FLA. What do you want me to do. Should I desert myself?
FAB. Good heavens, Master, as I know you, I shouldn’t want you to abandon yourself.
FLA. How so? Am I perhaps better known to you than I am to myself?
FAB. Would that you weren’t!
FLA. Why “would that””?
FAB. That you, so comely of frame, and sprung from such a noble family, should become Isabella’s slave! Don’t know you anyone else her equal whom you deem worthy to love equally?
FLA. Indeed, there’s another woman in this city who has the name Laelia, to whom I’ve often thought to myself, my Fabius, you aren’t very dissimilar. Heavens, she’s a very pretty maid and very chaste. She and I once loved each other, and the poor girl still desperately in love me, but I shouldn’t be able to requite her very much. While she was away from me for a year, my first heat cooled, and meanwhile a new one was kindled from another quarter by the beams which Isabella’s divine eyes shoot forth, nor does this heat have any alleviation save from whence it was kindled.
FAB. Good heavens, Master, if by your good leave I can freely speak forth what I fell, if you ignore a woman who loves you so that you may be neglected by one you love, this is the gods’ fair impartiality, not your misfortune. For you to abandon the girl you previously enticed, undeserving and loving, is a most grave sin. Forgive me my boldness, as I wish to consult your reputation. These things are all said out of affection.
FLA. I accept and welcome these things in that spirit. But at your age you don’t know love’s powers, Fabius, you don’t know them, which change a man so suddenly that you don’t recognize him to be the same person. The condition of a lover’s mind is like that of wax: an old image perishes when a new one comes along. Now that Laelia’s name is erased from my mind, I only think of Isabella days and nights, I only enjoy with pleasure the recollection of her, I only prefer the shadow of her to the body of another, and I’ll pursue her only, even if she flees me. So again and again, Fabius, see that as quickly as possible you learn from her the reason why she has suddenly been transformed from kind to cruel.
FAB. You’ll waste your time.
FLA. But I like this wastage of time.
FAB. You won’t achieve anything.
FLA. This thing is therefore to be borne with a calm mind.
FAB. Rather bid her farewell, Master, as a brave man should.
FLA. There’s no boy whose affection and duty towards his master equals yours. I say to you, Fabius, that you must go off quickly, and return quicker than a fast four-horse team, to bring me her response as fast as possible. Meanwhile I’ll betake myself to the Cathedral.
FAB. I’m there and I’m here.
FLA. If you shall have done it — Listen —
FAB. What do you want?
FLA. May the gods damn me for calling you back. Wasn’t I just telling you “go”? [Exit.]
FAB. He’s gone away opportunely. Look, here’s Pacquetta. I know she’s come looking for me.

ACT II, SCENE ii
PACQUETTA AND THE FALSE FABIUS

PACQ. I believe that Love was the first to commit murder among mankind. I make this conjecture about my mistress at home, no need to look outside the house. Never have I seen a woman more restless, from the time she began to love. Is this what it is to be moony? Rather, I’d call them loony. When she was her right self, she used to sit with me in the women’s quarters and share my tasks. Now either she goes up to the solarium or pokes her head out a window, or paces back and forth from dawn to dusk. If I didn’t know the reason, I’d imagine she had quicksilver in her shoes. But, good God, what’s this folly? I too was in love once with a man of my own rank and station, but at least I seemed to myself to love him and at the same time to be pretty much myself. But I didn’t feel any of those things which upset Mistress. I didn’t eat or drink any the less, I never spun any more wool than in those days, nor slept any sounder than those nights. But I had a lover of another kind than Mistress has, if I say so myself. This one is more like a midget or a monkey than a man, but mine had a beard like a billy-goat, tumbling down into my fingers and as twistable as wool in a distaff. But I never saw him or sought him out save only on holidays. But Mistress has difficulties with him if she doesn’t see him on workdays too. Nor do I have any daily chores except to run about hither and yon searching for him. [Enter Fabius.] But see the fellow. How opportunely he’s come! Greetings, most elegant Fabius, I was just going to look for you.
FAB. You too, Pacquetta. How fares your mistress?
PACQ. Never worse. She weeps, she laments, she was plunged in grief because she didn’t see you coming by this morning.
FAB. Why? Did she want me to come by before daybreak?
PACQ. Indeed, the sight of you at first light wouldn’t be unwelcome. Nor indeed in the dead of night, I daresay.
FAB. I have other concerns. Don’t I have a master who must be served at all times?
PACQ. Do you sleep with him too?
FAB. Were I in such favor with him that I did!
PACQ. Or you’d prefer with Isabella?
FAB. Me? Hercules, not at all.
PACQ. But, Hercules, I should not believe you. But I hasten to do my mistress’ bidding. Pray listen. She ordered me to ask you most earnestly and with the greatest extravagance that you come to her at home while her father’s away. I think she has some scheme she wants to communicate to you in secret.
FAB. If she aspires to do something welcome to me, she’ll immediately swear off Flaminius.
PACQ. I implore you, Fabius, come yourself and say this.
FAB. I’ll do so when I have the leisure. Now other affairs press me.
PACQ. No, Fabius, now. Come back immediately.
FAB. You’re annoying me. Go away.
PACQ. Fabius, Fabius, listen. Once a clever dictum issued from some fool’s mouth, “strike while the iron’s hot.” How many noble young youths our city has who would grasp at even the least portion of her favor, which you, sated, value at a fig!
FAB. So let her admit them and dismiss me, if she should wish.
PACQ. [Aside.] Jupiter, how true is that old proverb, “If youth would and old age could!” How arrogantly he despises what’s offered, which he’d enviously crave if he lost it!. Except for the fact that his absence would create work for me, as far as I’m concerned he could go hang. [Aloud.] Pray let me implore you, Fabius. My mistress will send me to look for you anew, if I don’t bring you with me. So tell me in a word, will you come with me?
FAB. Come, go ahead of me, Pacquetta, since you’re importunate.
PACQ. How my little heart sweats with fear that he won’t come! Thus Mistress will rail at me, I know. Don’t deceive me, Fabius. You have such a snake-like nature that I can hardly trust you.
FAB. I won’t do that, I say.
PACQ. Now I’m going back to Mistress, I’ll be waiting for you at the gate immediately.
FAB. Go away, silly. [Exeunt.]

ACT II, SCENE iii
FLAMINIUS, CRIVELUS HIS SERVANT, VIRGINIUS’ SERVANT SCATISSA

FLA. I’m looking to see if perhaps I can catch sight of Fabius anywhere. Heavens, this delay greatly displeases me. He always used to run a race, now he seems to surpass the snail at slowness. But this is the fault of lovers, they weigh everything less carefully. Crivelus, why haven’t you gone to meet him?
CRI. I was going and you called me back.
FLA. So go now, and if he happens not to have left Isabella’s house wait for him at the door.
CRI. But how am I to know if he’s inside or not? So I want to knock on the door to ask somebody.
FLA. Look at this donkey, if you wish. How honorable this would be! In this household I haven’t a servant worth anything at all, except Fabius alone. Only Fabius is good, only Fabius heeds what he’s told, only Fabius is faithful. What is this stupid hog grunting?
CRI. [To himself.] You’ve no servant of any worth save Fabius. Indeed he’s a fine gem.
FLA. What are you saying about gems, gallows-bait?
CRI. I’m saying that it’s unsafe to entrust your gems to a stranger, lest he run off.
FLA. You rascally fellow, you consider everyone to be like yourself. Would that the faithfulness of each of you were as well known to me as his is! [Enter Scatissa.] But I see Scatissa coming. You ask him if perchance he’s seen Fabius. Meanwhile I’m going to the money-changer. [Exit.]
CRI. Greetings, Scatissa.
SCA. Why so?
CRI. I’m alive.
SCA. Sufficiently to your liking?
CRI. If the things I’ve been hoping turn out, sufficiently, Jupiter damn you. But have you seen Fabius?
SCA. Who? That son of a white hen? Your master’s darling?
CRI. That’s the very one.
SCA. Indeed I haven’t.
CRI. But where are you going?
SCA. Looking for my old man.
CRI. That inflated paunch? He just passed by.
SCA. In which direction was he headed?
CRI. Rightwards, lefwards, up, down, about to take a trip around the world.
SCA. You’re worthless. But I must go.
CRI. Let’s go together. See here, I have a very amusing story about me and my Catharine —

ACT II, SCENE iv
SPELA alone

What miserable service it is to serve a fatuous old man! There’s no folly you can compare with senile folly. He has a reputation as a pillar of the Senate and a bulwark of the people, and yet the sun has never shone on anybody more crazy or witless. For now, at length, he is thinking about unguent, kisses and smooches, as if he had been oblivious of them up to now, he for whom it would be reasonable to camp out in this nearby church, anointed with extreme unction, before the year’s through. But I’m returning here from the merchants of myrrh. There, if any kind of unguent was particularly choice for its smell, I asked them to show it to me. They, I believe in the expectation of a mina or a great talent, vied with each other in producing enticing little vials. I deliberately selected the most odiferous, which would smell more flagrantly than my master stinks. They named their price and I plopped down a denarius. They all stared at me as if I were a rogue of a man. One of them, who imagined he was wittier than the rest, said “Hey you, you’re mistaken, your master didn’t want that unguent but one which works against scabies, for that’s the price he sent.” Then I, outraged, said, “You imagine, you shitty salve-seller, you asshole-invading clyster, that my master has the mange, my ever-so-elegant master who surpasses Niceness in his nicenesses and has now been up to his ears in love for a whole year.” Then all present died of laughter. I calmly took away my denarius, as if murdered by their ridicule, and I’m going to return to the old man so that he might learn to anoint himself more expensively, if he wishes to get annointed. He thinks he can get unguent for nothing, just as he has me for a servant, but may the gods obliterate him!

ACT II, SCENE v
CRIVELUS, SCATISSA, FABIUS (LAELIA), ISABELLA

CRI. Do you hear? Take this hand of mine and, I’ll find you a girl somewhere, I solemnly swear. Are you nobody? Don’t you recognize me?
SCA. My Crivelus, if you find one, how elegantly we’ll pass our time! I always keep on myself the keys to the woodshed, the meat-room, and the pantry. I’ll make it so we eat and drink at my master’s expense, since nothing else can be hoped for from the geezer.
CRI. Tell me, friend, if we’ll pass this Lent pleasurably.
SCA. What else? While our masters are at Mass and pulpit-sermons, our business will be with vintage wine and tasty food.
CRI. But Gerardus’ door is creaking. What is it, Scatissa? [Enter Fabius and Isabella.] There’s the man I’m seeking, together with Isabella. From here we should overhear what they’re doing, I very much think.
SCA. Why?
CRI. Quiet, I say. Later you’ll hear.
FAB. Remember, Isabella, what you have promised me. Furthermore —
CRI. If I were that little clown, how I’d cheat my master!
SCA. You’d act as his substitute?
CRI. Do you doubt it?
FAB. Do you wish anything else of me?
IS. Just listen a moment.
FAB. Here I am. What do you want?
IS. Is anybody near the door?
FAB. I don’t see anybody.
CRI. The evil thing, why does he visit her so often?
SCA. Heavens, this is great familiarity!
CRI. Soon you’ll see. Stay still.
IS. Will you hear one word?
CRI. How close their hands are coming to each other!
SCA. Hercules, I’d dare to make her my bride.
IS. I would gladly — come a little closer.
CRI. Approach her, you evil-intentioned fellow, approach her.
IS. Look about, I pray, see if you catch sight of anybody before the door.
CRI. I tell you, nobody’s here.
IS. I would gladly have you come back soon after dinner. Father’s going into town.
FAB. I’ll do it, on the condition that, if you see my master passing by, you quickly close your window so he can’t see in. After that I’ll be with you constantly.
IS. Unless I do this for you, in the future don’t indulge me the least little bit.
SCA. Good goods, where has she moved her hand to him?
CRI. Oh my poor master, where are you? Good heavens, I thought I had prophesied truly.
FAB. Farewell, Isabella.
IS. Wait, why are you in such a hurry?
SCA. Kiss her, stupid. This good woman is afraid lest anybody see.
FAB. Come, my mistress, it’s time for you to go indoors.
IS. If you grant me one thing.
FAB. What? Tell me.
IS. That I may have you inside once.
CRI. There’s the thing, it’s done.
IS. Good, how he’s embarrassed!
FAB. But what if someone sees us?
CRI. Hey, friend, just as much for me!
SCA. Didn’t I predict this?
CRI. Heavens, boy, I’ll turn this kiss you’ve been given to my own advantage. SCA will Master do when he finds these things out?
SCA. Don’t denounce him, Crivelus. You’d be wicked.
IS. Pray don’t think these this have been done with naughty intent. Where love’s indomitable necessity drew me, there I was compelled to follow, poor me.
FAB. There’s no reason you have to make excuses to me, my delight.
CRI. I’ve caught you at last, you most bold fellow. I’d not be surprised if by crafty urging you’ve bamboozled him so he won’t love her — that is, so he’ll leave her to you.
SCA. Truly every chicken scratches for itself, seeks food for itself, and all women are made from the same mold.
FAB. My master’s been expecting me for some time. I must leave at a run. Farewell, my Isabella, and please shut the door.
IS. Stay a little while.
FAB. I can’t.
IS. I pray you be no more faithless to me than I am to you. I am yours.
FAB. You won’t be so more than I am yours. Farewell.
IS. And you. [Exit.]
FAB. Now I’m at a crossroads, I don’t know route to take to bring what has been begun well enough to a conclusion. As matters stand I can’t do this without her, nor with her. I am ashamed of what was accomplished with the kissing. Something must be done soon. I’ll go to the nurse and ask her advice. [Exit.]
CRI. Scatissa, my master’s waiting for me at the moneylender’s. I am tolerating no delay, my mind is so eager to announce this news about his elegant servant. You must be present as my witness, lest I be considered an uncorroborated liar.
SCA I’ll be present if there’s need, but I’d urge you rather, if you’re smart, to manage things so he’s in your power and never dares offend you. Thus you will handle him as you wish.
CRI. But, I tell you, I hate this calamity of mine so greatly (for since he’s come here Master pays no more heed to me than as if I’d been dead several days) that I can’t bear even the least delay.
SCA. So do what you want.

ACT II, SCENE vi
FLAMINIUS, FABIUS

FLA. Why am I wretchedly tormented by love when she opposes me, as though on purpose? By waiting I’m completely consumed and tortured. She denies me the ability to see her. [Enter Fabius.] What low spirits I’m in! But Fabius comes. Why should I accuse her, the case unheard? Has anything happened?
FAB. Nothing at all.
FLA. Hm, nothing? I’m nobody. So what kept you so long?
FAB. She didn’t allow me entrance.
FLA. So what should I do?
FAB. What, except to ransom yourself as a captive? The woman is the victrix, she’s gloating over you, nor will she put a limit on her insults, since she doesn’t love you.
FLA. Venus our night-watchwoman, your faith! Whose misfortune can be compared with mine, that I reap hatred instead of love without reason, without end? Just now, when she saw me passing by her window, she shut it immediately, as if she had seen a ghost or a some monster, a patricide or a traitor to his family. Should I serve her, who disdains me, any more or be humble, stupid and out of my mind? Who is Isabella? Is she not Gerardus’ daughter? But who is Gerardus? Has he a better father than Flaminius? Bah, Flaminius, it is the sign of a degenerate spirit to bow your neck to an equal. Farewell to Isabella, that ingrate. Let she do as she deserves. So great a dignity should not be tolerated by Flaminius.
FAB. I congratulate you, now you’re a man. I can’t help exclaiming “Hooray, hooray, Master, you’ve won! You’ve finally left Isabella.”
FLA. Why do you say “finally.”
FAB. I say you’ve finally left Isabella and I praise this deed.
FLA. I’ve left Isabella? Isabella? How long ago?
FAB. Just now.
FLA. How did you learn this?
FAB. From your very own mouth.
FLA. My mouth? I wasn’t sane.
FAB. Are you insane sometimes? [Aside.] I hadn’t foreseen this.
FLA. I said I had left Isabella?
FAB. It was done.
FLA. Then is was done with my tongue, not my mind. For I meant to say “Laelia.”
FAB. Laelia? How does she come into your mind now? Did you recently receive some insult from Lelia.
FLA. How much trouble, indeed, do I have from her, Fabius? My sweet Isabella, gentler than a dove, who is most agreeable from her little toenail right up to her head, hasn’t suddenly become so cruel to me without reason. She fancies that my other love for Laelia is not yet extinguished, she is still afraid that Laelia has first place with me. Hence she has become uncharacteristically overbearing, this is a lovers’ fault, not her own. However, I’ll make sure that she doesn’t cling to this delusion for many more days. I’ll go to Isabella, I’ll solemnly foreswear Laelia, I’ll swear by all the gods at once, the gods on high, the gods below, the gods in the middle, that I’ll never plant my foot were I see Lelia’s footprint.
FAB. Jupiter!
FLA. What’s the matter with you? Why has your color changed?
FAB. Jupiter!
FLA. Does something pain you?
FAB. My heart, my heart.
FLA. Why is this happening to you? A tummy-ache, perhaps?
FAB. Not at all, not at all.
FLA. Lean yourself on me. Don’t be downcast in spirit.
FAB. I have no spirit to cast down.
FLA. Whence this heartache? You’re going home. How cold he is! I’ll fetch a doctor at once. Meanwhile be sure to put on a warm covering. Order Crivelus to rub your shoulders. Go away, hurry, my boy, I’ll be there soon. What a great loss I’d suffer, if I happened to lose this boy! How loyal he is to me, how loving of me, as if he were a woman! [Exit.]
FAB. Now, most unhappy and despised woman, with your very own ears you’ve heard Flaminius’ assured hatred, and your sentence of death. Hateful day which first dawned for me! Unhappy star under which I was brought into the world!. I was born for greater sufferings than the sufferings of Medea, who is produced in ancient tragedies as an example of unhappiness. She pursued her fleeing husband with reproaches for his flight, I pursue my fleeing man to my own disgrace. No fear of her father threatened her, I have as many enemies as I have kinsmen. She fled in such a way that she did not lack a place she wanted to live, but I have no refuge except in flight. Whatever happens to me, I’m determined to abandon this costume, but since I’m unsure about the rest, I’ll consult the nurse. [Exit.]

ACT II, SCENE vii
CRIVELUS, FLAMINIUS

FLA. I’ll gouge out your eye, worst of men, if you add a word.
CRI. Heavens, but I’ll speak, even if people call me a one-eye.
FLA. I don’t know what plan to adopt, thus I hang doubtful of mind. Do you persist in lying to me, stubborn one?
CRI. Unless it’s as I say, Master, don’t just cut out my tongue, but hang me too.
FLA. When was this? How long ago?
CRI. How often have I told you? You don’t care if I wear out my tongue.
FLA. But I do care that your head be crushed, accursed man, if you don’t answer me immediately. Make sure you don’t tell me anything but what I ask you, what I inquire. How was the thing done?
CRI. In the way it was done.
FLA. You mock me, you rogue?
CRI. How do I know whether it was done with lips or with teeth? Am I in the habit of kissing?
FLA. Immortal gods, what a ridiculous thing is a boorish, ignorant servant! Did you see them kissing?
CRI. It was done, or hang me.
FLA. Did they immediately fall to kissing without any preface, in front of everybody’s eyes?
CRI. I don’t say that, master.
FLA. What? You’re denying again?
CRI. I’m not denying about the kiss, but the thing was not accomplished without slyness, that’s what I’m saying. For first that scoundrel looked around frequently lest somebody in hiding might discover what they were doing.
FLA. Oh Jupiter, what am I hearing? It’s all over for me, if this fellow’s telling the truth. How did neither of them discover you were present?
CRI. I hid behind the columns which stand in front of her house.
FLA. So how did you see them?
CRI. With both my eyes. Do you fancy I see with my elbows?
FLA. He kissed her?
CRI. I can’t rightly say whether he kissed her, or she him. This I know, that one kissed the other.
FLA. I’m thoroughly ruined.
CRI. Hang me if this isn’t true, Master.
FLA. Did they move their faces together so they touched?
CRI. I don’t know about faces, I know about kips.
FLA. You threepenny fellow, are you able to join your lips if you remove your face?
CRI. Why not, if I had my lips alongside my ears, or on the top of my head? Where they’re located, I don’t imagine this is easily done.
FLA. Do you really want to be witty in a serious matter, you whipping-boy? Act if you have something to act, convene a advisory senate in your mind while you still have time, so that afterwards you won’t say “I thought.”
CRI. Master, how often must tell you? Then hang me.
FLA. But in what way did you see them.
CRI. Standing up, wide awake, with open eyes, busy with looking, having no other job but that I looked. Furthermore, indeed, I was wearing the same tunic I have on now, this selfsame hat, these shoes.
FLA. Then I, wide awake, with eyes wide open, am seeing that Salvation herself couldn’t save me if she wished. But if I find you’re a liar —
CRI. Then hang me, I say. What can be said more aptly? She called him back, he came back, then they embraced each other, and next they joined lips a hundred times. Now “only Fabius is good, only Fabius heeds what he’s told, only Fabius is faithful.”
FLA. [Aside.] A hundred times. Gods, I pray you, your faith! I’m ruined a thousand times over being bamboozled! Has this impudent boy urged me to desert her so he may impudently enjoy her? Unless I make many examples of him — But what if this fellow, since he’s a good-for-nothing, should come to me with his made-up lies and deceits to as to betray his fellow servant (whom he hates, I know) and do what his mind may please? It should come about very slowly that I repent a trust I have previously bestowed. [To Crivelus.] Can I carve the truth out of you?
CRI. Or hang me.
FLA. Do you hear? Thus may Jupiter avert all the evil that impends, I’ll kill you if I hear anything false or untrue.
CRI. And do you hear me? Thus may Jupiter give me a better tunic than the one I use and a kinder master, these things I’ve told you are true.
FLA. Tell me again, you saw them?
CRI. I saw them.
FLA. He kissed her.
CRI. They kissed each other.
FLA. How often?
CRI. Twice.
FLA. I’ve caught you red-handed. I’m hanging you, no? You gallows-bait, didn’t you just tell me a hundred times.
CRI. Forgive me, master. The number didn’t come to mind.
FLA. I’ll test you some more. In what place?
CRI. In the portico.
FLA. Hm, in the portico? You’re dead. You just said by the door.
CRI. I meant to say near the door. My memory is infirm.
FLA. But I’ll find that your hide is firm.
CRI. Hey, hey, hey!
FLA. Can you tell the truth?
CRI. Indeed I told the truth, when now it came to mind. I have a witness.
FLA. A witness? Who’s he?
CRI. Scatissa, Virginius’ servant, who saw everything just as I did.
FLA. What if he denies it?
CRI. I’ve nothing more to say. Hang me.
FLA. Hercules, I’ll do it.
CRI. But what if he admits it?
FLA. By heavens, I’ll kill the both of you.
CRI. Woe to me, why’s that, Master?
FLA. I don’t mean you, but Isabella and Fabius.
CRI. Hercules, I wish it, Master, and happily so, and that you burn down her house, and Pacquetta, and whatever is in her household.
FLA. Go. Be sure that Scatissa comes to me immediately. Do this job for me at the speed of a skiff, not a scow. [Exit Crivelus.] Me let a boy mock me? Better for me to die any death at all. But I’ll defer my anger until I have the opportunity for revenge.

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