It were putting wine Young as the young Astyanax into goblets As old as Priam.
NARDI.
Oh, your Eminence Knows best what you should wear.
IPPOLITO.
Dear Messer Nardi, You are no stranger to me.

I have read Your excellent translation of the books Of Titus Livius, the historian Of Rome, and model of all historians That shall come after him.

It does you honor; But greater honor still the love you bear To Florence, our dear country, and whose annals I hope your hand will write, in happier days Than we now see.
NARDI.
Your Eminence will pardon The lateness of the hour.
IPPOLITO.
The hours I count not As a sun-dial; but am like a clock, That tells the time as well by night as day.
So no excuse.

I know what brings you here.
You come to speak of Florence.
NARDI.
And her woes.
IPPOLITO.
The Duke, my cousin, the black Alessandro, Whose mother was a Moorish slave, that fed The sheep upon Lorenzo's farm, still lives And reigns.
NARDI.
Alas, that such a scourge Should fall on such a city! IPPOLITO.
When he dies, The Wild Boar in the gardens of Lorenzo, The beast obscene, should be the monument Of this bad man.
NARDI.
He walks the streets at night With revellers, insulting honest men.
No house is sacred from his lusts.

The convents Are turned by him to brothels, and the honor Of women and all ancient pious customs Are quite forgotten now.