LANCIOTTO.  Triumphant art!

  PEPE. [Sings.]

   My father combed his blue-black head,
     My uncle combed his red head—­maybe,
   My mother combed my head, and said,
     Sing high ho! my red-haired baby.

  LANCIOTTO.  Fie, fie! go comb your hair in private.

PEPE.                                                What! 
Will you not hear?  Now comes the tragedy.                        [Sings.]

   My father tore my red, red head,
     My uncle tore my father’s—­maybe,
   My mother tore both till they bled—­
     Sing high ho! your brother’s baby!

  LANCIOTTO.  Why, what a hair-rending!

PEPE.  Thence wigs arose;
A striking epoch in man’s history. 
But did you notice the concluding line,
Sung by the victim’s mother?  There’s a hit!

     “Sing high ho! your brother’s baby!”

Which brother’s, pray you?  That’s the mystery,
The adumbration of poetic art,
And there I leave it to perplex mankind. 
It has a moral, fathers should regard,—­
A black-haired dog breeds not a red-haired cur. 
Treasure this knowledge:  you’re about to wive;
And no one knows what accident—­

LANCIOTTO.  Peace, fool! 
So all this cunning thing was wound about,
To cast a jibe at my deformity? [Tears off PEPE’S cap.]
There lies your cap, the emblem that protects
Your head from chastisement.  Now, Pepe, hark! 
Of late you’ve taken to reviling me;
Under your motley, you have dared to jest
At God’s inflictions.  Let me tell you, fool,
No man e’er lived, to make a second jest
At me, before your time!

PEPE.  Boo! bloody-bones! 
If you’re a coward—­which I hardly think—­
You’ll have me flogged, or put into a cell,
Or fed to wolves.  If you are bold of heart,
You’ll let me run.  Do not; I’ll work you harm! 
I, Beppo Pepe, standing as a man,
Without my motley, tell you, in plain terms,
I’ll work you harm—­I’ll do you mischief, man!

LANCIOTTO.  I, Lanciotto, Count of Rimini,
Will hang you, then.  Put on your jingling cap;
You please my father.  But remember, fool,
No jests at me!

  PEPE.  I will try earnest next.

  LANCIOTTO.  And I the gallows.

PEPE.  Well, cry quits, cry quits! 
I’ll stretch your heart, and you my neck—­quits, quits!

  LANCIOTTO.  Go, fool!  Your weakness bounds your malice.

PEPE.  Yes: 
So you all think, you savage gentlemen,
Until you feel my sting.  Hang, hang away! 
It is an airy, wholesome sort of death,
Much to my liking.  When I hang, my friend,
You’ll be chief mourner, I can promise you. 
Hang me!  I’ve quite a notion to be hung: 
I’ll do my utmost to deserve it.  Hang! [Exit.