LORD JUSTICE: We find,
As your own Grace did rightly signify,
That any citizen, who by force or craft
Conspires against the person of the Liege,
Is ipso facto outlaw, void of rights
Such as pertain to other citizens,
Is traitor, and a public enemy,
Who may by any casual sword be slain
Without the slayer’s danger, nay if brought
Into the presence of the tribunal,
Must with dumb lips and silence reverent
Listen unto his well-deserved doom,
Nor has the privilege of open speech.

DUCHESS: I thank thee, my Lord Justice, heartily;
I like your law: and now I pray dispatch
This public outlaw to his righteous doom;
For I am weary, and the headsman weary,
What is there more?

LORD JUSTICE: Ay, there is more, your Grace.
This man being alien born, not Paduan,
Nor by allegiance bound unto the Duke,
Save such as common nature doth lay down,
Hath, though accused of treasons manifold,
Whose slightest penalty is certain death,
Yet still the right of public utterance
Before the people and the open Court,
Nay, shall be much entreated by the Court,
To make some formal pleading for his life,
Lest his own city, righteously incensed,
Should with an unjust trial tax our state,
And wars spring up against the commonwealth:
So merciful are the laws of Padua
Unto the stranger living in her gates.

DUCHESS: Being of my Lord’s household, is he stranger here?

LORD JUSTICE: Ay, until seven years of service spent
He cannot be a Paduan citizen.

GUIDO: I thank thee, my Lord Justice, heartily;
I like your law.

SECOND CITIZEN: I like no law at all:
Were there no law there’d be no law-breakers,
So all men would be virtuous.

FIRST CITIZEN: So they would;
’Tis a wise saying that, and brings you far.

TIPSTAFF: Ay! To the gallows, knave.

DUCHESS: Is this the law?

LORD JUSTICE: It is the law most certainly, my liege.

DUCHESS: Show me the book: ‘tis written in blood-red.

JEPPO: Look at the Duchess.

DUCHESS: Thou accursed law,
I would that I could tear thee from the state
As easy as I tear thee from this book.

Tears out the page.

Come here, Count Bardi: are you honourable?
Get a horse ready for me at my house,
For I must ride to Venice instantly.

BARDI: To Venice, Madam?

DUCHESS: Not a word of this.
Go, go at once.

Exit COUNT BARDI.

A moment, my Lord Justice.
If, as thou sayest it, this is the law –
Nay, nay, I doubt not that thou sayest right,
Though right be wrong in such a case as this –
May I not by virtue of mine office
Adjourn this Court until another day?

LORD JUSTICE: Madam, you cannot stay a trial for blood.

DUCHESS: I will not tarry then to hear this man
Rail with rude tongue against our sacred person.
I have some business also in my house
Which I must do: Come, gentlemen.