Fra Lippo Lippi

How does Lippi talk himself out of this rather sticky situation?

Lippo is caught out on the streets where it’s thought he shouldn’t actually be. I’m assuming it might have something to do with it being past midnight and his location, “And here you catch me at an alley’s end//Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar?” “Sportive ladies” sounds like a nice way of suggesting they were prostitutes. I’m not sure the legality of these things at the time as the only indication of Lippo being in the wrong is that he’s caught by the men on rounds. He explains that he is a monk from Carmine, which doesn’t seem to quite do the job of getting him free. We see he is still being held when he continues on into his high friendships, “Aha, you know your betters! Then you’ll take//your hand away that’s fiddling on my throat,//And please to know me likewise.” Mentioning his acquaintance seemed to be the trick of it though, “Who am I?//Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend//Three streets off-he’s a certain…how d’ye call?//Master-a…Cosimo of the Medici” Saying precisely where the man lives to further the truth of it. This seemed to get the men to ease off of him so he in turn mocked them, “Remember and tell me, the day that you’re hanged,//How you affected such a gullet’s gripe!” “Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streets//And count fair prize what comes into this net?” “He’s Judas to a tittle, that man is!” Though he then says he’s not angry and regales them with his stories of life. I think the story telling also took them far off the subject of his unknown doings about in that hour and place, but really he was fine before it.”