At the moment I imagined I had thee all to myself, I was but sharing thee with many others! And who knows (if this news has reached her already) but that some one of these, more worthy of the favor of the gods than I, has prevailed on them by dint of her prayers to render my lot as woful as hers, because of the wrongs inflicted on her? But whoever she may be, if, indeed, she exist at all, she should pardon me, for, if I sinned against her, I sinned from ignorance, and, because of my ignorance, merit pardon.
“But as for thee, pray answer this: What were the artifices whereby thou madest it appear that those things were which were not? Of what nature was that conscience of thine by whose promptings thou acted? By what sort of tenderness or love wert thou led on to do such things? I have often heard that it was not possible to love two persons at the same time; but, certainly, this rule does not apply to thee. No such idea has ever found a place in thy mind. In thy mind, indeed! Why, thou hast loved dozens, or at least pretended to love them!
Come now! hast thou shared that pledged faith, those inviolable (O villain!) promises, those tears which thou didst shed so abundantly, with every lady of thy acquaintance or with this one only, who has been so unsuccessful in concealing that which thou hast concealed so well? If thou hast done so, thou mayest regard thyself as safe, being bound to no single lady, seeing that what has been given to everyone without distinction, cannot, apparently, be considered the possession of anyone in particular. Yet beware! How can it be that he who has seized on the hearts of so many can avoid having his own appropriated sometime or other?
Narcissus, loved by many of the nymphs, and rejecting them all with scorn, was himself captured by his own image in the fountain. Atalanta, swifter than the wind, and a stern foe to love, vanquished all her lovers, until Hippomenes, by a masterly stratagem, outstripped her in the race and conquered her, she not unwilling. But what need of examples from the olden time? I, yea, I myself, whom none had ever before been able to lead captive, was enslaved by thee.
How can it be, therefore, that among the many thou lightly wooest there shall not be some one who will enslave thee also? Nay, I believe, or rather I am sure, that thou wert already captured long before thou knewest me; and if such be the case, why shouldst thou not return to her who once had such power over thee as to effect thy capture? And if thou carest not to return to me, return to her who has not been able to hide the fact that thou hast loved her.
And though thou mayest wish that fortune should continue hostile to me (a fate which, at least in thy opinion, I have perhaps deserved), let not my sins do harm to others. Therefore, return also to all the other ladies, and keep inviolate the faith which no doubt thou didst pledge to them before thou didst pledge the same to me. Do not, for the sake of not hurting my feelings, make up thy mind to offend those whom thou hast left here in a condition of anxious expectancy.
Surely, the one lady in the place where thou art should not have a greater hold on thee than the many ladies here who long for a sight of thee. She is now thine beyond cavil, and could not leave thee, though she wished it never so much. But thou canst safely leave her. Therefore, do thou come hither, to, the end that thy presence may keep those, who can never be thine in the sense in which she is, thine still in affection and devotion.”
After many such strange and useless questions and reproaches, useless, because neither did they move the ears of the gods, nor of the ungrateful youth to whom they were specially addressed, it betided that I sometimes changed the manner of my expostulations, saying:
“O hapless creature! dost thou really desire that Panfilo should return hither? Dost thou, in good sooth, believe that his near neighborhood would render thee less unhappy than his absence in a foreign land, by which thou art so exceedingly aggrieved now? If thou dost, thou art plotting thine own ruin.
As the matter is at present, thou mayest have some faint doubt as to whether he loves thee or not. But, should he return, thou mightest then become certain that he returned, not for thy sake, but for that of another. Let the knowledge that thou art not alone in thy misery also bring thee some relief. The wretched are sometimes wont to be a little comforted by feeling that they have companions in their wretchedness.”
It would be hard indeed, O ladies, to make plain to you the uncontrollable fury, the multitude of heartrending tears and groans and sobs which accompanied every one of these arguments and reflections. But, just as every other affliction reaches its highest degree of intensity, and then, in course of time, gradually becomes somewhat allayed, so it befell that when I had led this kind of life for very many days, and when it was evident that I could not attain to a higher pitch of anguish than that from which I then suffered, my despondency grew less excessive, and, after some time, if it did not wholly cease, it changed to a gentle melancholy that was endurable. Even this afterward lost its hold on my spirits, which were again warmed by the ardors of love and by some faint hopes withal; and they, having thrust sorrow from her seat, brought about an entire alteration in my purposes; so that now I was as eager to have my Panfilo back again as when he first left me.
And the frailer my hopes that he would return, the more uncontrollable became my desire that he should return; and just as the flames, when worked upon by the winds coming from contrary directions, burst into ungovernable conflagration, so my love, awakened by opposing thoughts, became fiercer than ever, and I repented deeply of everything I had said before. Regarding all the things that I had been driven in my anger to speak as utterances that had actually, as it were, been heard by him, I was ashamed, and could find no expressions strong enough for my censure of that anger, which, when it first assails the soul, kindles therein such a fury that no truth has the slightest chance of making its presence felt. Yet the more vehement its rage, the more quickly does it become cold in course of time, and the more clearly does it show forth the evil it has caused. So, having recovered my former frame of mind, I began to hold the following discourse with myself:
“O silliest of all women! wherefore art thou so irritated? Why art thou so causelessly fired with resentment? Supposing even that what the merchant said be true (and thou hast no occasion to believe that it is) namely, that he has espoused another lady, is that so momentous or so novel an event that thou shouldst at once give over hoping? In such matters young men are helpless, and cannot escape doing the pleasure of their parents. If his father insisted on his doing this, upon what ground could he refuse his consent? What reason hast thou for believing that everyone who takes a wife and lives with her, loves her as well as he may love some other women?
The excessive coyness which such young wives show in granting any favors to their husbands is the source of speedy dissatisfaction, no matter how much they have pleased them in the beginning. Then, haply, Panfilo has taken her on compulsion, and, still far fonder of thee than he is of her, is disgusted at being compelled to live with her. Nay, even though she be pleasing to him at present, yet mayest thou hope that he will soon cease to take any delight in her.
And surely, should he return to thee, thou canst have no fault to find either with his fidelity or with his oaths, seeing that by such return he has proved his loyalty to both. Pray, then, to God that Love, who is infinitely more puissant than faith promised or oaths sworn, may force him to return to thee. And, furthermore, what so foolish as to hold him in suspicion, because of the agitation of that other lady? Wittest thou not how many young gentlemen love thee in vain, and how fearfully agitated they must be, should they ever learn that thou hast given thy love to Panfilo?
Thus thou oughtest to believe it to be possible that he has been loved by many, to each of whom it will be most distressing to hear of him that which has so much distressed thee, although each may grieve in a different manner and for different reasons.”
In such wise, giving the lie to what I had
