Immoderate Reactions

1. Fresh from a war where he has behaved conspicuously, our young gentleman becomes smitten by the governor of Messina’s daughter and pledges to marry her; this will be a society wedding, war-hero to demure upper-crust bride. But when all convene at the altar, brattishly our champion jilts his girl, “this rotten orange”, because report is abroad that she has lived unchastely. The girl herself, decent as we know her to be, is astonished at the charge, protests her innocence, then swoons from shock at this infamy levelled at her. Where on earth does it spring from? How, if he loves, can this well-recommended Florentine lack simple trust to see the aspersion trounced? Our gentleman and his party withdraw from the church, while daddy, standing over his inert and only child, fervently hopes her swoon betokens her death because, if not, he’ll kill the slut himself, guilty as she must be until proven innocent in a community where female shame may be relied on as a touchpaper to…