“Now,” I would sometimes say, “is Panfilo, sole surviving son of an aged father, welcomed with every species of jocund festivity by him who has not beheld him for many years. Haply, he may have not only banished me from his memory, but may even curse the months during which love retained him at my side. Now, being greatly honored by this friend, now by that friend, perchance he blames me for not having even known how to love him befittingly when he was here. Festive minds that keep high holiday are apt to be easily persuaded to sever their connection with one place and bind themselves to another.
Woe is me! What would become of me, if in such a manner I should lose him? But I will not believe that such a calamity can be possible.” Often was my soul, as if prescient of its future woes, held prisoner by such a dreadful terror that it trembled to its very center, and this terror gave rise to such thoughts as these: Panfilo is now in his native city, a city enriched with many most sumptuous temples, and made gorgeous by its stately and magnificent festivals and pageants, at the which he is frequently present, and there no doubt he has become acquainted with a great number of ladies, who, as I have often heard, are beyond expression beautiful, and in grace and refinement surpass all others, so that there be none in the world so bounteously supplied with the snares and wiles wherewith hearts are caught.
Alas! who is there that can so warily guard himself as not to be forcibly captured some time or other, no matter how strong be his resistance? Do I not know how I myself was captured as it were by main force? And over and above this withal, new things are wont to please more than the old: therefore, it would be no strange matter that he should please them, being new, and that they should please him for the like reason.” How grievously did such imaginings depress me! And, albeit I believed that no such awful disaster would befall me, yet could I not drive these ideas from my mind, though often saying to myself:
“How could Panfilo, who loves thee more than himself, harbor in a heart, which thou dost entirely fill, another love? Knowest thou not that a certain lady in this city in every way worthy of him, used her utmost efforts to gain his affection, and yet could not succeed? Most assuredly, there are many ladies whom he might well have wooed before he became thine, as he has been now for a long time, and if he passed by those, who were regarded as goddesses because of their beauty and their many charms, certainly, he cannot be so soon enamored now of others as thou sayest.
Furthermore, dost thou for a moment believe that he would break the faith so often pledged thee for another? Never would he do so; and, therefore, in his loyalty and prudence thou mayest have full confidence. If thou art reasonable thou must consider that he is not so unwise as not to know that he acts like a madman who forsakes that which he has in order to gain that which he has not, unless, indeed, that which he had was of exceedingly little account, and, by forsaking it, he gained something of infinitely greater value. Now, if thou reflectest deeply on the matter, thou must conclude infallibly that such a thing could not happen in the present circumstance.
For, in truth, if what thou hast heard men say be sooth, thou must be the loveliest among lovely ones, and among the wealthy one of the wealthiest, and among the nobly born, one of the noblest. And, in addition to this, whom could he ever find who would love him as thou dost love him? He, as having had great experience thereof, knows how exceeding hard it be to prevail on a lady, who may haply have become dear to a new lover, to allow herself to be loved; for ladies, even when they do love, are very coy, and will for a long time feign the opposite to that which is in their hearts. Nay, even if he did not love thee, he is at the present moment too much occupied with other weighty matters that are of the greatest moment to his interests to have leisure for forming intimacies with other ladies. Therefore, do thou cease troubling thyself about this, but rather esteem it as certain that thou art as deeply loved as thou lovest.”
Few mornings passed that I did not, immediately after I had risen, ascend to the loftiest part of my palace, and thence, just as sailors, after climbing to the main topmast, cast their eyes round intently to learn whether there be a high rock, or land, or any other impediment to their course, did I carefully scan the entire heavens.
Then, fixing my gaze steadily on the east, when the sun had risen above the horizon, I calculated how much of the new day had elapsed; and, the higher I saw him in the sky, “The nearer,” I said, “does the term appointed for the return of my Panfilo approach.” Sometimes as I eagerly watched his course, I told myself that he was going more leisurely than was his wont, and that he spent more days in Capricornus than he was used to do in Cancer; and so, in the same wise, when he had attained the middle point of his circuit, I fancied that he, of his own accord, stood still for the purpose of taking a view of the earth, and, how swiftly soever he sank in the west, meseemed that he progressed but slowly.
When he had taken away his light from the world, and when he permitted the stars to show forth their radiance, I, somewhat reconciled thereto, often numbering within myself the days that were passed, marked that one with a little stone, being minded thereunto by the custom of the ancients, who were in the habit of dividing their pleasant days from their irksome days by white and black pebbles.
Making a supreme effort to dispel these workings of my mind, I sometimes opened one of my chests, and took up the numerous letters he had sent me, and having read them all, I felt not a little comforted, for I could almost fancy that I was holding discourse with him.
When the day had guided the hours to their appointed end, fresh anxieties disquieted me. I, who since ever I was a child, could not remain alone in the dark unterrified, had felt safe and bold therein when love kept me company. And, just as I was wont to ascend to the highest part of my palace, long before the slumbers of my people were broken, and when the morning had first beheld the advent of the sun, so did I, like unto Arunte, when watching the celestial bodies and their motions amid the marble quarries of the Lucanian hills, so did I, I repeat, from that spot observe the heavens during the tedious and fear-inspiring hours of the night, because the various cares whereby I was pursued were most unfriendly to my yearning for repose; and I regarded the motions of the orbs I observed, however quick they might be, as exceeding tardy.
And, night after night, turning my eyes on the horned moon, I deemed, not that she was approaching her fulness, but rather that her horns grew thinner one night after the other.
And the more eager my anxiety, the more did I wish that she would sweep on apace and round out her four quarters. And oh, how often, even though chilled by her frosted beams, did I gaze long and steadily on her face, imagining that haply the eyes of Panfilo, were, like mine, riveted at that very moment on her pale disk! But now I doubt not, that, having banished every thought of me from his mind, he was so far from fixing his eyes on the moon, that he was, on the contrary, resting on his couch, his eyes closed in untroubled slumber.
And I also remember that, being exasperated by the slowness of her course, I tried to hasten it by many supplications, being thereunto instigated by my trust in various errors of ancient times, hoping that so she might attain her perfect roundness. When she had attained it, methought that she seemed not to care to return to her crescent form as rapidly as it behooved her, but rather, as if content with the fulness of her brightness, to wish to abide in that fulness; and yet for this I sometimes almost held her excused, deeming it must be pleasanter for her to stay with her mother than return to the dark realms of her spouse. Notwithstanding this, I remember that often my wasted prayers to her to hasten her course would turn into threats, and I would say:
“O Phˇbe! ill dost thou reward the services thou receivest! I, with most piteous beseechings, am taking what pains I may to curtail thy labors, yet thou, by thy slothful delaying, carest not if thou increasest mine. If haply, however, thou needest more help
