University of Virginia Library

Scene I.

—The Palace at Palermo.—Ubaldo and the Chief Justiciary.
Ubaldo.

This passion, Sir, for this doctor's daughter
which is lost, is, to speak privately, a kind of madness
in the King; and it is a madness which many moons
have shined upon; it is now nigh upon six since the
maiden was seen last, being, I think, the night of my
daughter's marriage, when Gerbetto, her father,
followed in Count Ugo's wake to Jerusalem. As for these
charges against the Count of Arona touching matters of
accompt and malversations, they are but colourable; the
true ground of the proceedings is a species of jealousy
and amorous rage against the Count, who, it is certain,
for fault of some employment that should better
commend his virtue and discretion, did very strangely carry
off this doctor's daughter and holds her somewhere in
concealment.

The Chief Justiciary.

The King, as you say, my Lord,
speaking privately, must be clean lunatic to make this
ado about a doctor's daughter; seeing that he might
disport himself at his pleasure with a hundred doctors'
daughters, not to say a hundred ladies of greater
estimation and nobility. Nevertheless, the lunacy of a King

must be respected, and I do continually what in me lies
to discover where the wench is concealed, and to take the
person of the Count.

Ubaldo.

Truly the Count shall be no loss at the
Council Board; for his words went for more than they
were worth with the King, and in matters of statecraft
he was but a pedant. I have my own conceit of this
matter, which squares not with the King's; and
notwithstanding the Count's exorbitancy in the carrying
off of a wench, I deem that he is more likely to be found
in an old track than in a new one. I would have you
set a watch upon the Lady Fiordeliza; and where the
hen-bird hath her nest you may look for the cock to
come.

The Chief Justiciary.

I will take your Lordship's
guidance. Know you where the Lady Fiordeliza may be
met with?

Ubaldo.

She has lately gone to sojourn for a season
with my daughter, who lives like a Nun since her
marriage, choosing for her nunnery the Castle of
Malespina, which fell to Count Ugo in satisfaction of the debt
due to him from the former Lord of it, that castaway,
Silisco. There, I think, she will be found, and he
there-abouts.

The Chief Justiciary.

There shall he be sought. If your
good Lordship will bring me to the King, I will crave his
signature to these warrants.