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 climbed it, nor entered the labyrinth; and so it is not known at all how the lovers lie, or whether they met their doom together or apart. But I must tell you that when Duke Guido's brother who came after him had been seised of the Lordship of San Giuliano for a year or so, the malicious rout of certain cities sub-adjacent began again their old villainous seditions, clamouring that the bodies of the lovers should be buried with rites of Holy Church, and the monstrous wall thrown to the ground; and thence fell once more to their rubbish about the Romans, talking of the Tarquins, Gracchi, tyrants, tribunes, and the devil knows what infernal nonsense besides. And in their blustering speeches they confounded dates so scandalously, and got Roman History into such a woeful muddle that Duke Antony (who like his brother was something of a scholar and precisian) became annoyed, and was obliged to take a leaf out of Duke Mark's book, and to remind his subjects, by means of fire, sword, and halter, that all their pagan Pompeys and Brutuses had been put under the sod a long time ago. And as to the wall I have seen it with mine eyes, and it is indeed a very special wall.

No sooner had Piero brought his story to an end than Messer Mosca drew out from his wallet a bottle, round bellied and thin necked, and gave it to me bidding me to drink and pass it round. And when we had emptied it of its fragrant, oily juice Giacomo Corelli began to chide Piero for his lack of art in telling the tale, "since," said