 Martia is unrepentant, and gloats over the deaths of Virolet and Juliana.A disgusted Sesse is about to kill her when his Boatswain intervenes and stabs Martia to death—to save Sesse from the shame of killing his own child.The Neapolitans hail Sesse as their new king—but Sesse, never motivated by a taste for personal power, refuses, and instead nominates Ascanio, "warn'd by the example" of his uncle's fate to be a better ruler.