94/147 But if indeed I did so, it would be easy enough.' The duke, in fact, had no sufficient reason and no inclination to tread upon this insect. 139.] In June 1577, the crisis came. On the seventeenth evening of the month Tasso was in the apartments of the Duchess of Urbino. He had just been declaiming on the subject of his imaginary difficulties with the Inquisition, when something in the manner of a servant who passed by aroused his suspicion. He drew a knife upon the man--like Hamlet in his mother's bedchamber. |