Upon the quay at noonday, as to see her
Gazed at again with such insulting homage.
DON TOMMASO.
You are too strict ; your baseless apprehensions
Wrong her far more than strangers jests.
ANNICCA.
Not so;
My timely fears prevent a greater ill
And work no harm, since they shall be imparted
Only to him who hath the power to quell them,
Dissolving them to air my father.
DOX TOMMASO.
How!
You surely will not rouse his fatal wrath ?
Annicca, listen : if your doubts were true,
He whose fierce love guards her with sleepless eyes,
More like the passion of some wild, dumb creature,
With prowling jealousy and deadly spring,
Forth leaping at the first approach of ill,
Than the calm tenderness of human fathers;
He surely had been keen to scent the danger.
I saw him at the ball—as is his wont,
He mingled not among the revellers,
But like her shadow played the spy on her.
