Nay, nay, I trust thee not: your hot young blood,
Undisciplined nature, and too violent rage
Will never tarry for this great revenge,
But wreck itself on passion.

GUIDO: Thou knowest me not.
Tell me the man, and I in everything
Will do thy bidding.

MORANZONE: Well, when the time is ripe,
The victim trusting and the occasion sure,
I will by sudden secret messenger
Send thee a sign.

GUIDO: How shall I kill him, tell me?

MORANZONE: That night thou shalt creep into his private chamber; That night remember.

GUIDO: I shall not forget.

MORANZONE: I do not know if guilty people sleep,
But if he sleeps see that you wake him first,
And hold your hand upon his throat, ay! That way,
Then having told him of what blood you are,
Sprung from what father, and for what revenge,
Bid him to pray for mercy; when he prays,
Bid him to set a price upon his life,
And when he strips himself of all his gold
Tell him thou needest not gold, and hast not mercy,
And do thy business straight away. Swear to me
You will not kill him till I bid you do it,
Or else I go to mine own house, and leave
You ignorant, and your father unavenged.

GUIDO: Now by my father’s sword –

MORANZONE: The common hangman
Brake that in sunder in the public square.

GUIDO: Then by my father’s grave –

MORANZONE: What grave! What grave?
Your noble father lieth in no grave,
I saw his dust strewn on the air, his ashes
Whirled through the windy streets like common straws
To plague a beggar’s eyesight, and his head,
That gentle head, set on the prison spike,
Girt with the mockery of a paper crown
For the vile rabble in their insolence
To shoot their tongues at.

GUIDO: Was it so indeed?
Then by my father’s spotless memory,
And by the shameful manner of his death,
And by the base betrayal by his friend,
For these at least remain, by these I swear
I will not lay my hand upon his life
Until you bid me, then – God help his soul,
For he shall die as never dog died yet,
And now, the sign, what is it?

MORANZONE: This dagger, boy;
It was your father’s.

GUIDO: O, let me look at it!
I do remember now my reputed uncle,
That good old husbandman I left at home,
Told me a cloak wrapped round me when a babe
Bare too much yellow leopards wrought in gold;
I like them best in steel, as they are here,
They suit my purpose better. Tell me, sir,
Have you no message from my father to me?

MORANZONE: Poor boy, you never saw that noble father,
For when by his false friend he had been sold,
Alone of all his gentlemen I escaped
To bear the news to Parma to the Duchess.

GUIDO: Speak to me of my mother.