GIO. Ah--ah--but even so,
No matter who is there, I tell you, lovers
Are always alone!

GUI. Why do you say these things,
Giovanni?

GIO. Because I love you, you lean wolf,
And love to watch you snuff the air. My friend,
There was a time I thought it all ambition
With you, a secret itching to be king--
And not so secret, either--an open plot
To marry a girl who will be Queen some morning.
But now at times I wonder. You have a look
As of a man that's nightly gnawed by rats,
The very visage of a man in love.
Is it not so?

GUI. I do not know, Giovanni.
I know I have a passion in my stomach
So bitter I can taste it on my tongue.
She hates me. And her hatred draws me to her
As the moon draws the tide.

GIO. You are like a cat--
There never was a woman yet that feared you
And shunned you, but you leapt upon her shoulder!
Well, I'll be off. The prettiest girl in Fiori,--
Unless it be Her Highness, waits for me
By a fountain. All day long she sells blue plums,