The essential writings of Machiavelli by Niccolò Machiavelli; Peter Constantine Page A

letters, you will be able to spout a few words of Latin at him.
CALLIMACO: Where will that get us?
LIGURIO: It will get him to the spa that we choose, and will help me put into effect another scheme I’ve thought up, one that will be quicker, more certain, and quite possibly more successful than the spa.
CALLIMACO: What do you mean?
LIGURIO: What I mean is that if you have courage and put your trust in me, by this time tomorrow I shall present you with a fait accompli. Then, even if Messer Nicia were a clever enough man—which he isn’t—to realize that you are not really a doctor, our fast action will ensure either that he will not have time to weigh the matter, or, if he does, that he won’t have time to interfere with our plan.
CALLIMACO: Your words fill me with life! This is too great a promise, and gives me too great a hope. How do you intend to do it?
LIGURIO: You will find out when the time is ripe. For now there is no need for me to tell you, for we barely have time to put things into action, let alone discuss them. Go back home and wait for me there. I shall go find Messer Nicia. If I bring him to you, I want you to follow my lead and play along with anything I say.
CALLIMACO: I will do it, even though you’re filling me with hopes that I fear might end up drifting away like smoke.

A CT II
    SCENE ONE
Ligurio, Messer Nicia, and Siro
LIGURIO: As I have told you, I believe God has sent us this doctor so you can fulfill your desire! He has had endless experience in Paris, and you mustn’t wonder at his not practicing here in Florence: First of all, he is rich, and second, he’s planning to return to Paris any day now.
NICIA: He’s planning to return to Paris? I don’t want him to get me all tied up in a tangle and leave me dangling!
LIGURIO: Don’t worry about that. What we need to worry about is whether he will agree to take you on. If he does, he will see you all the way through.
NICIA: As far as that goes, I shall place myself in your hands; but as for his medical knowledge, I’ll tell you after I’ve spoken to him whether he’s a man of learning or a charlatan quack.
LIGURIO: It is because I know you well that I’m taking you to him so you can talk to him. And if his presence, learning, and discourse do not strike you as those of a man in whose lap you could lay your head, then you may say that I am not I, but someone else entirely!
NICIA: So be it, by the Archangel in Heaven! Let’s go. But where are his lodgings?
LIGURIO: He lives on this square. That’s his door, the one right in front of us.
NICIA: I pray that all this comes to some good! You knock.
LIGURIO: Here I go.
SIRO: Who’s there?
LIGURIO: Is Callimaco home?
SIRO: Yes, he is.
NICIA: How is it that you don’t ask for Doctor Callimaco?
LIGURIO: He does not care for such trifles.
NICIA: Still, you must address him correctly, and if he doesn’t like it he can drop his pants and you know what.
    SCENE TWO
Callimaco, Messer Nicia, and Ligurio .
CALLIMACO: Who is asking for me?
NICIA: Bona dies, domine magister .
CALLIMACO: Et vobis bona, domine 2
LIGURIO [ aside to Nicia ]: What do you think?
NICIA [aside to Ligurio]: First-rate, by the Holy Gospels!
LIGURIO: But if you want me to stay, you’d better drop the Latin and speak so I can understand too, otherwise we’ll be stoking two fires to spit a single roast.
CALLIMACO: How may I be of service?
NICIA: It’s a long story. I suppose I’m looking for the two things from which another man might run as from a burning house. It’s trouble I’m looking for, both for myself and for others. In short, I have no brats but want some. So you could say I’ve come to trouble you to make some trouble for myself.
CALLIMACO: Being of service to you or any gentleman of quality and standing like yourself can hardly be considered trouble. The only reason I toiled away in Paris all those many years, studying so hard, was to be of service to gentlemen like yourself.
NICIA: I thank you most prodigiously. And