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). As why should I? 
    I’ll question not, nor answer.  ’Neath your brow
    My sentence hunches, crawls, like cat to spring. 
    Pah! there’s no prude will match your virtuous wife
    You’d banish me?

Regent. I do.  Cesario,
    See to it the City gate shuts not to-night. 
    And she this side.

Fulvia (laughs recklessly). To-night?  To-night’s your own. 
    Most modest woman!  Duchess, there’s a well
    By the road, some seven miles beyond the town. 
    There, ’neath the stars, I’ll dip a hand and drink
    To the good Duke’s disport.  But have a care! 
    That cup’s not yet to lip.

Regent. Captain, remove her. 
    Lucio, remain.

[Exeunt the Countess Fulvia, Cesario following]

Lucio. I’ll not remain—­When ice
    Sits judge of fire, what justice shall be done? 
    Sister, there be your books—­peruse them.  There
    The sea-line—­bide you so with back to it. 
    While the cold inward heat of cruelty
    Warms what was once your heart, now crusted o’er
    With duty and slimed with poisonous drip of tongues. 
    God help the Duke, if what he left he’d find!

[Exit Lucio]

Regent. Is’t so, I wonder?  Go, Lucetta, fetch
    My glass, if haply I may tell.

[Exit Lucetta.]

Is’t so? 
And have these years enforced, encrusted me
To something monstrous, neither woman nor man? 
My lord, my lord! too heavy was the load
You laid!  Yet I’ll not blame you:  for myself
Ruled the straight path the long account correct
As in these books, my ledgers....

[While she turns the pages, Gamba the Fool creeps
in and hoists himself on the balustrade.  He
tries his viol, and sings.

SONG:  Gamba.

    Bird of the South, my Rondinello—­

Regent.  Hey?  That Song!