detained by Volpino, who comes
to bribe him by an offer from the Sultan to go into Turkey as
apothecary at court, war having broken out in that country. The wily
young man insinuates, that Sempronio will soon grow stone-rich, and
offers to give him 10,000 ducats at once, if he will give him Grilletta
for his wife. Sempronio is quite willing to accept the Sultan's
proposal, but not to cede Grilletta. So he sends Mengino away, to
fetch a notary, who is to marry him to his ward without delay. The
maiden is quite sad, and vainly tortures her brain, how to rouse her
timid lover into action. Sempronio, hearing her sing so sadly,
suggests that she wants a husband and offers her his own worthy person.
Grilletta accepts him, hoping to awaken Mengino's jealousy and to rouse
him to action. {353} The notary comes, in whom Grilletta at once
recognizes Volpino in disguise. He has hardly sat down, when a second
notary enters, saying that he has been sent by Mengino and claiming his
due. The latter is Mengino himself, and Sempronio, not recognizing the
two, bids them sit down. He dictates the marriage contract, in which
Grilletta is said to marry Sempronio by her own free will besides
making over her whole fortune to him. This scene, in which the two
false notaries distort every word of old Sempronio's, and put each his
own name instead of the guardian's, is overwhelmingly comical. When
the contract is written, Sempronio takes one copy, Grilletta the other
and the whole fraud is discovered.--Volpino vanishes, but Mengone
promises Grilletta to do his best in order to win her.

In the last scene Sempronio receives a letter from Volpino, telling
him, that the Pasha is to come with a suite of Turks to buy all his
medicines at a high price, and to appoint him solemnly as the Sultan's
apothecary. Volpino indeed arrives, with his attendants, all disguised
as Turks, but he is again recognized by Grilletta. He offers his gold,
and seizes Grilletta's hand, to carry her off, but Sempronio
interferes. Then the Turks begin to destroy all the pots and glasses
and costly medicines, and when Sempronio resents this, the false Pasha
draws his dagger, but Mengino interferes and at last induces the
frightened old man, to promise Grilletta to him, if he succeeds in
{354} saving him from the Turks. No sooner is the promise written and
signed, than Grilletta tears off the Pasha's false beard and reveals
Volpino, who retires baffled, while the