Tasso resented the insult, and gave the traitor a box on the ears in the courtyard of the castle.
Maddalo and his brothers, after this, attacked Tasso on the piazza, but ran away before they reached him with their swords.

They were outlawed for the outrage, and the duke of Ferrara, still benignant to his poet, sent him a kind message by one of his servants.

This incident weighed on Tasso's memory.

The terror of the Inquisition blended now with two new terrors.

He conceived that his exiled foes were plotting to poison him.
He wondered whether Maddalo's revelations had reached the duke's ears, and if so, whether Alfonso would not inflict sudden vengeance.