MASC. The news may well surprise you.

ANS. To die in such a manner!

MASC. He was certainly much to blame. I can never forgive him for such a freak.

ANS. Not even to take time to be ill.

MASC. No, never was a man in such a hurry to die.

ANS. And how does Lelio behave?

MASC. He raves, and has lost all command over his temper; he has beaten himself till he is black and blue in several places, and wishes to follow his father into the grave. In short, to make an end of this, the excess of his grief has made me with the utmost speed wrap the corpse in a shroud, for fear the sight, which fed his melancholy, should tempt him to commit some rash act.

ANS. No matter, you ought to have waited until evening. Besides, I should have liked to see Pandolphus once more. He who puts a shroud on a man too hastily very often commits murder; for a man is frequently thought dead when he only seems to be so.

MASC. I warrant him as dead as dead can be. But now, to return to what we were talking about, Lelio has, resolved (and it will do him good) to give his father a fine funeral, and to comfort the deceased a little for his hard fate, by the pleasure of seeing that we pay him such honours after his death. My master inherits a goodly estate, but as he is only a novice in business, and does not see his way clearly in his affairs, since the greater part of his property lies in another part of the country, or what he has here consists in paper, he would beg of you, after having entreated you to excuse the too great violence which he has shewn of late, to lend him for this last duty at least….

ANS. You have told me so already, and I will go and see him.

MASC. (Alone). Hitherto, at least, everything goes on swimmingly; let us endeavour to make the rest answer as well; and lest we should be wrecked in the very harbour, let us steer the ship carefully and keep a sharp look out.