sent; the time is come which I looked not
for yet, to wit, my father is dead and it behoveth me return to Rome;
wherefore, meaning to carry Sophronia with me, I have discovered to
you that which I should otherwise belike have yet kept hidden from you
and with which, an you be wise, you will cheerfully put up, for that,
had I wished to cheat or outrage you, I might have left her to you,
scorned and dishonored; but God forfend that such a baseness should
ever avail to harbour in a Roman breast! She, then, namely Sophronia,
by the consent of the Gods and the operation of the laws of mankind,
no less than by the admirable contrivance of my Gisippus and mine own
amorous astuteness, is become mine, and this it seemeth that you,
holding yourselves belike wiser than the Gods and than the rest of
mankind, brutishly condemn, showing your disapproval in two ways both
exceedingly noyous to myself, first by detaining Sophronia, over whom
you have no right, save in so far as it pleaseth me to allow it, and
secondly, by entreating Gisippus, to whom you are justly beholden, as
an enemy. How foolishly you do in both which things I purpose not at
this present to make farther manifest to you, but will only counsel
you, as a friend, to lay by your despites and altogether leaving your
resentments and the rancours that you have conceived, to restore
Sophronia to me, so I may joyfully depart your kinsman and live your
friend; for of this, whether that which is done please you or please
you not, you may be assured that, if you offer to do otherwise, I will
take Gisippus from you and if I win to Rome, I will without fail,
however ill you may take it, have her again who is justly mine and
ever after showing myself your enemy, will cause you know by
experience that whereof the despite of Roman souls is capable.'

Titus, having thus spoken, rose to his feet, with a countenance all
disordered for anger, and taking Gisippus by the hand, went forth of
the temple, shaking his head threateningly and showing that he recked
little of as many as were there. The latter, in part reconciled by his
reasonings to the alliance and desirous of his friendship and in part
terrified by his last words, of one accord determined that it was
better to have him for a kinsman, since Gisippus had not willed it,
than to have lost the latter to kinsman and gotten the former for an
enemy. Accordingly, going in quest of Titus, they told him that they
were willing that Sophron