are bare-headed, others affect a
kind of Phrygian cap. Cobblers predominate.

Enter LORENZO DE MEDICI and COSIMO DE MEDICI. They wear cloaks of scarlet
brocade, and, to avoid notice, hold masks to their faces.

COS.
What purpose doth the foul and greasy plebs
Ensue to-day here?

LOR.
I nor know nor care.

COS.
How thrall'd thou art to the philosophy
Of Epicurus! Naught that's human I
Deem alien from myself. [To a COBBLER.] Make answer, fellow!
What empty hope hath drawn thee by a thread
Forth from the OBscene hovel where thou starvest?

COB.
No empty hope, your Honour, but the full
Assurance that to-day, as yesterday,
Savonarola will let loose his thunder
Against the vices of the idle rich
And from the brimming cornucopia
Of his immense vocabulary pour
Scorn on the lamentable heresies
Of the New Learning and on all the art
Later than Giotto.

COS.
Mark how absolute
The knave is!

LOR.
Then are parrots rational
When they regurgitate the thing they hear!
This fool is but an unit of the crowd,
And crowds are senseless as the vasty deep
That sinks or surges as the moon dictates.
I know these crowds, and know that any man
That hath a glib tongue and a rolling eye
Can as he willeth with them.
[Removes his mask and mounts steps of Loggia.]
Citizens!
[Prolonged yells and groans from the crowd.]
Yes, I am he, I am that same Lorenzo
Whom you have nicknamed the Magnificent.
[Further terrific yells, shakings of fists, brandishings of bill-
hooks, insistent cries of 'Death to Lorenzo!' 'Down with the
Magnificent!' Cobblers on fringe of crowd, down c., exhibit especially
all the symptoms of epilepsy, whooping-cough, and other ailments.]
You love not me.
[The crowd makes an ugly rush. LOR. appears likely to be dragged down
and torn limb from limb, but raises one hand in nick of time, and
continues:]
Yet I deserve your love.
[The yells are now variegated with dubious murmurs. A cobbler down c.
thrusts his face feverishly in the face of another and repeats, in a
hoarse interrogative whisper, 'Deserves our love?']
Not for the sundry boons I have bestow'd
And benefactions I have lavished
Upon Firenze, City of the Flowers,
But for the love that in this rugged breast
I bear you.
[The yells