(Balthazar paces a while, in medieval clothes, clutching a dim lantern, until his brother approaches from the other direction.)

Balthazar: Halt! Who goes there?

Jedediah: Your brother, and your mortal enemy.

Balthazar: That you are my brother, I doubt not. And that we are mortal, I regret, since perforce, one must stand at the other’s grave, unless, by chance, we end our days as we began, in the same hour. And as for enemies, despite our masters’ enmity, surely not, unless it is as rivals for our mother’s love, who overflows with that…

Jedediah: As she does with everything.

Balthazar: Welcome back, brother.

Jedediah: Bah.

Balthazar: What news of Venice?

Jedediah: Shylock is dead.

Balthazar: Oh worthy man, how so? And such a doting father.

Jedediah: Or it’s as if he were, his daughter